I’ve had depression and anxiety since I was young, but was never diagnosed. I was raised a very conservative son of a christian pastor.
Short version I wasn’t raised to understand emotional regulation. “Be happy or you’re not right with the big man and that makes me angry.” After multiple deaths, including my mother at 16, a divorce, job issues, cancer and a miscarriage, I had learned to bottle things up pretty well.
I was never one for conflict and lived my life according to others standards leading to never knowing who I truly was. 20+ years of anger issues and not understanding why I felt the way I did, I had a breakdown.
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