[wills11]

I figured I'd put this in the anxiety section since this is mostly geared around my anxiety disorder which has reared it's head majorly the past 2 months.

I'm looking for tips and ideas for how to:
1) Wake up relaxed in the morning, feeling confident and ready to go
2) End the day feeling accomplished, content, satisfied, etc.

I got into a major depression a few months ago and this is the hardest one to pull out of yet. I've been having about 5 panic attacks in a week, but with CBT it's getting a little more tolerable and better each day.

I force myself out of bed (even when I feel worthless) and start to do things. I'm always trying to keep moving. But minutes after waking up I dread the day and get a wave of nauseating anxiety about the day. "Will you actually be able to conquer your to do list? Why couldn't you finish it yesterday?" Blah blah with negative thinking. But it panics me. -- Someone told me to start the day off for like 30 mins doing something you like or that relaxes me. So far I've found that watching funny videos on youtube kind of lightens the mood, but the anxiety quickly sets in after.

After dinner and before bed I get terribly anxious and panicy again. The thoughts are full force REGARDLESS of how much I accomplish during the day. "You could've done more. Was that really so hard? You can't go to bed yet, you haven't really done that much. You're not going to change your life this way." So it's hard to go to bed satisfied with the day and especially myself.

[Arha]

Hi wills11,
this sounds like the place I was in a couple of years ago. I really needed help to break that cycle of negative thoughts. It took a combination of medication - to reduce the depression and give me a chance to have positive thoughts, and therapy - that explored the long term reasons for my anxious and depressed state, and CBT exercises - that created another pattern and trained me to recognize what I was thinking.

It is a huge change to make, so get all the help you can before you get in really deep. Depression is serious.
Whether any of those approaches will be right for you I cannot say, but try whatever works for you, and do get help with it. We don't try to tackle cancer alone, and depression can be just as much of a battle, and just as lethal.