Being an adult navigating the complexities of life is already difficult enough. Adding anxiety into the mix of those complexities can make you feel you are in danger, like you are going crazy, or on the edge of lashing out. It can bring your day to a complete halt when you are already feeling like you don’t even have the time or capability to breathe. Experiencing anxiety can bring on intrusive and irrational thoughts about yourself or make simple tasks feel like you are taking on a mountain of responsibilities instead.

Depression is exhausting. You’ll feel as if you don’t care about what happens anymore. In its wake, it brings feelings of emptiness and a complete inability to just exist sometimes. You may feel as if you are in a void of nothingness and only falling in deeper as time passes by. Lacking motivation to be an active participant in your own life brings on additional challenges with your relationships, productivity, and engaging in the hobbies you enjoy.

Trauma is complex and manifests in unique ways for each individual. Something that may not have felt disturbing or distressing for you may have completely impacted another individual in a way that you could not imagine for yourself. Your experiences that have troubled you can also illustrate false narratives about the present in your relationships and within yourself. It can make you ask yourself questions about your worth and if you were to blame for what happened. Your responses to your experiences can even make you confuse the past with the present from time to time.