Hi Bet, how about the idea that your anxiety is causing your depression because it is so overwhelming? I have recovered from anxiety and it can be beat with therapy. I think that people are anxious because they didn't have the luxury of growing up secure. When we are born we know nothing. We have our personality traits but we learn how to act in our environment. We can learn new behaviors and reprogram to be relaxed instead of anxious, but to do so we need to understand ourselves very well first and then problem solve from there. Some questions which might help you to understand yourself: Who are you? What do you need? What has made you who you are today? What affects you? How are you responding to your environment?

About your daughter, with my anxiety, one thing that I learned is how our children react to us. Whenever my children react in any way I stop and say "What did I just do to trigger this behavior?" Some examples of what I have uncovered with myself is that when my daughter gets an attitude I actually started with the attitude first. I learned from this that I must respect my children as little people at all times and never treat them worse than I would the neighbor. What also worked for me was to spend some quality quiet time with my children. They really love this positive attention and it is amazing how far it will go for them in improving the relationship. Finally, I learned that my children were affected by my anxiety. Our children read and respond to us better than anyone in the world. They learn good behaviors by watching us model them. Isn't anxiety just a different form of drama queen and impatience? Children whine when they are in distress. Watching an anxious parent is distressing. What I found is that some communication went a long way with them. I frequently told them that I was sorry for how I behaved and then I talked with them on how it affected them. Children can endure anything if there is open communication about the problem so that they can understand.