Opening Up

Hello to whoever may be reading!

I'd like to introduce myself here to the community, it's been a long while since even engaged with others online but now I'm open to share my story so far.

I'm 28 and have been diagnosed with major depression, generalised anxiety and ADHD. My mind has not been on my side for 15 years now and it's completely ruined my quality of life.

So basically, my long term partner and I live in literal poverty. A dirty, old farm house in the middle of rural Queensland, we both work full time jobs but with the cost of commuting and being behind on bills leaves us barely affording to get to work let alone have any kind of a life, live to work essentially or we are on the street within a fortnight. Don't have any savings, assets or really much personal possessions, we both started from living at home and left with just the clothes on our backs and have been clawing our way up trying to get our lives in some kind of order. It's chaos.

My day begins at 5am in anxiety and a stomach full of dread, it's made me quit all other jobs I've had. It really doesn't seem to have a trigger, it never has, but it takes a mountain of energy just getting to work and trying to put on some kind of upbeat mask just to get through it. Every fibre of my body is screaming, hands shake, sweating like crazy, just ready to fight or flight and all I can really do is put on some classic 80's music or something on the drive and just hope it leaves.

I wish that's where the anxiety stopped. For the past 3 years consistently now, just seemingly being perceived or being in close proximity to other people is literally physically and mentally exhausting. I can't even stand catching up with the one friend I do have or my own family for longer than 30 minutes before it all becomes too much. I cannot stress enough, I'm trying to think positively and control my breathing, making sure I'm not hungry or thirsty, basically anything I can think of to stop it from flaring up but it is numerous times daily and it hasn't been this bad in years. It's like my mind sees every other person as a threat, whether it be a customer at work, my colleagues, people driving past, people on the phone, it's gotten so bad.

It's gotten to the point where I no longer even crave affection, attention, companionship or anything from anyone other than the 4 people in my life. When everyone is seen as a danger, even though you know it's not right, I swear it's enough to drive you half mad over time. There's plenty of times during the day that I think about either hurting myself or others and the anxiety turns into an extreme paranoia, it's a vicious back and forwards but I really really hate it all.

I just want to be able to stand even being with my own thoughts and function like a normal person.