Need support, really struggling

[indysteel]

To answer your question, Indy, there are a couple of reasons I recommend yoga to treat both anxiety and depression. The first reason is that yoga works on calming the physical manifestations of anxiety by decreasing neurotransmitters that raise your anxiety. Recent research done here at BU shows that yoga actually can do the same thing as some of the medications that are prescribed. The other reason is that yoga is actually a system of psychology in the Eastern tradition. Here, we see it more as exercise; we hold feelings and memories in the physical body and yoga can release these feelings. This is why you might cry in a yoga session or why you feel better. It's also why there is a lot of work being done with vets to treat trauma, using yoga. One of my goals is to become a certified yoga therapist.

Thank you for that explanation; it certainly mirrors what I've experienced in yoga, especially during the first year or so of my practice.

When I first started my practice in 2006, I was going through a difficult relationship/breakup and I admittedly cried during a lot of my classes because many of my emotions were pretty close to the surface. At the time, I had a teacher who offered a reading at the end of class. It might be a passage from Rumi, for instance; I wasn't always sure of the source material. A lot of what she shared had to do with self acceptance and self love. The passages often resonated in a way that prompted tears on my end. There was also a lot of things we did during class that offered a very tangible sense of release and that, too, often prompted an emotional reaction in me.

With or without tears, I often left class feeling less burdened and more joyful. I also started to feel a growing sense of gratitude for the various experiences--both in the present and in the past--that I'd had in my life and a growing trust that I could cope with whatever came my way. Yoga helped me tie together a lot of the things that I'd been working on in CBT for a long time.I've never spent much time trying to understand why it did what it did. I just know that I loved it and still do. On it's more superficial level, it offers a weekly dose of stress relief, but I truly believe there wa more to it than that.

[Triskeliongirl]

I have been married for 28 years, and I can tell you in all that time that I have learned that *its not always about you*. You are interpreting your boyfriends withdrawing from you emotionally to mean there is a problem with you and your relationship with him, but the most likely thing is that he is just dealing with his own grief in the best way he can. I think you are doing all the right things, getting counseling, seeing that he gets counseling and medication, but beyond that, I think you just need to disengage a bit from this emotionally yourself, give him the space he needs to heal right now, and don't stress yourself out by assuming the worst. Whenever I have had to go through stressful events in my life, I have always gotten a lot of relief from physical activity, so even simple things like riding your bike can help to keep your brain chemistry in check. I am sorry that you are going through this, but just try be calm, and only worry about your boyfriend leaving you if he says that is his intention.

[goldfinch]

My whole life I also have tended towards being an anxious person so I empathize. For a period of time I took an antidepressant which helps for generalized anxiety disorder. It helped. Keep in mind most of them take a few weeks to start working. After I retired and had less stresses in my life I gradually stopped taking them. I still once in a while take a Xanax (immediate acting tranquilizer). I don't tend towards addictive use of drugs so the Xanax works for me. I figure my brain chemistry is a bit out of whack so if chemicals can help me I am willing to try. Just like my blood pressure is high and I need drugs to help with that. It seems like the best medicine has to offer right now is trying both the drugs and the cognitive therapy. Use of meditation and yoga may make sense too. For me, meditation never worked as I have an odd problem of relaxation induced anxiety. Movement like yoga, or dance or even biking is more helpful to me.