For years, I did not have a name for what I was going through. I only knew that it was real, that it was relentless, and that I needed to find a way through it.
Around the year 2005, when I was about thirty-eight years old, my health began to deteriorate in ways I did not understand and could not explain. It was not one symptom, it was many, arriving together and refusing to leave. Acute stomach problems, persistent bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, and what would later be identified as GERD, though every medical examination returned normal results. Constant migraines. Blurred vision. Nausea and frequent vomiting. An inability to rest, a pervasive sense that my body and mind were both permanently braced for something, though I could not say what.
There was also a fear I could not shake: an obsessive conviction that death was closing in. My limbs felt weak. My heart raced unprovoked. I could not sleep and could not eat. These episodes were not occasional, they repeated, and badly. I found myself in the emergency room many times, certain each time that something was catastrophically wrong, only to be sent home with results that showed nothing.
I consulted doctors across multiple specialties. No one could identify a cause or offer a lasting solution. I eventually sought the help of a psychiatrist, an act that required acknowledging that something was wrong not just in my body, but in my mind. A mild antipsychotic was prescribed, but the effects were overwhelming, and I stopped taking it. For three years, I lived inside this condition without fully understanding it. Over time, not through any single cure but through gradual accumulation, I learned to manage it.
My professional life suffered as well. My absences became frequent enough that I considered resigning before my position was taken from me. Fortunately, my supervisor and manager were understanding in ways I did not take for granted. That understanding gave me the time I needed and possibly saved a decision I would have deeply regretted.
Looking back now, I can see two powerful forces that may have shaped what I was going through, one spiritual, the other physiological. I cannot say with certainty where one ended and the other began, yet both felt undeniably real, and together they quietly steered the course of those turbulent years.
In the years between 2000 and 2005, before my mental health eventually collapsed, I began experiencing what I can only describe as deeply unusual occurrences at my workplace. The atmosphere often felt heavy and unsettled. Some colleagues claimed they had seen shadowy figures, while one co-worker, who believed to have possessed heightened spiritual sensitivity, spoke of dark presences lingering in the office. The growing unease became so intense that we eventually invited priests to celebrate Mass, offer prayers of deliverance, and bless the premises with holy water.
One incident, in particular, has never left me. Arriving at work one Monday morning, I checked my mobile phone, a basic device capable only of calls and text messages which I inadvertently left in the office during the weekend. Then I found what appeared to be a group conversation displayed on the screen. At the time, such a feature was technologically impossible on that phone. What disturbed me even more were the names listed in the conversation: Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan, Asmodeus, Dark Angel, White Lady, and those names from the dark side. One message asked why I had been so quiet and why I was not participating. I remember staring at the screen in disbelief, a bit confused and unable to explain what I was seeing. Not long afterward, the phone vanished without a trace.
Not long after these events, both my physical and mental health began to deteriorate rapidly. Desperate for answers, I sought help wherever I could find it, moving from clinic to clinic, from one spiritual healer to another spiritual healer. Eventually, I joined charismatic prayer groups and attended deliverance sessions in the hope that something, somewhere, might finally bring relief.
During one particular session, a healing minister prayed over me for an extended period. As she continued, she appeared increasingly distressed, sweating heavily, restless, visibly shaken. Afterward, she told me she had seen what looked like plumes of smoke rising from my body. I personally felt nothing unusual, yet her reaction was difficult for me to ignore.
I was later advised to dispose of anything believed to serve as a possible spiritual portal, including my collection of horror DVD films and even my book on yoga. Looking back, it may seem excessive, perhaps even irrational, but at that point in my life, I was willing to try anything that offered even the faintest possibility of a cure.
There was one final incident I have never been able to explain satisfactorily. One Saturday, I attended a charismatic prayer gathering with my mother and children. During the session, I discovered a long message saved in my phone’s drafts folder. Written in formal English, it described me as a hypocrite, someone who appeared good on the surface but was inwardly corrupt, whose actions carried no real worth. What disturbed me most was the timestamp: the message had supposedly been written between noon and one o’clock that afternoon, while the prayer session was taking place. My phone had remained in my pocket the entire time, and my children were far too young to have written something like it. I deleted the message immediately, but the unease lingered long afterward.
In the months that followed, things began, slowly and almost imperceptibly, to improve. To this day, I cannot fully explain what changed, nor can I confidently separate the spiritual from the psychological. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the two. But whatever the cause, I cannot deny that something shifted, and with it, the long darkness gradually began to loosen its grip.
The physical symptoms I had been experiencing, shortness of breath, a racing heart, sudden weakness, and overwhelming waves of fear, matched almost exactly what is clinically recognized as mental panic disorder. During each episode, the terrifying sensation of not being able to breathe would unleash an avalanche of catastrophic thoughts: I am going to faint. I am dying. Those thoughts intensified the physical symptoms, and the worsening symptoms intensified the fear. It became a self-sustaining cycle, tightening like a noose with every passing second.
As I later came to understand, a panic attack often begins with a physical trigger, an elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, chest tightness, that the mind mistakenly interprets as a sign of imminent danger. The moment breathing feels restricted, the body shifts into alarm mode. The mind then races to explain the sensation, often arriving at the worst possible outcome. The frightening thoughts are not necessarily the origin of the attack; they are the fuel that causes it to spiral further out of control. Realizing this distinction brought me a small but important sense of clarity.
The technique that helped me most was deliberate breath regulation. Whenever an attack began, I would force myself to inhale as deeply as possible, hold the breath for several seconds, then exhale slowly while counting to ten. I repeated the process again and again until the intensity began to fade. At first, it felt almost impossible, like trying to remain calm in the middle of a storm, but over time, the practice gave me something I had lost for years: a measure of control.
Gradually, I learned that slowing the breath could interrupt the cycle before it became overwhelming. The emergency room visits became less frequent, then eventually stopped altogether. For the first time in years, I felt that the fear no longer had complete command over me.
The underlying principle is surprisingly simple: slow, intentional breathing helps regulate oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the body, calming the nervous system and reducing the brain’s sense of threat. As the body begins to settle, the mind follows. It is not a miracle cure, nor does it erase anxiety entirely, but it can become a dependable lifeline during moments when panic feels unbearable.
My experience with depression began much earlier, during my teenage years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while I was living in a seminary. At the time, I had no language for what I was experiencing. I only knew that a strange heaviness had settled over me, something far deeper than ordinary sadness or the emotional turbulence common to adolescence. It was a quiet, consuming weight that followed me through every hour of the day. There were real reasons for my distress, real circumstances that contributed to it, yet what I felt seemed far greater than the circumstances themselves.
During the darkest periods, my thoughts became frightening. I found myself wishing for catastrophe, such as war, disaster, even the end of the world, believing that if everything finally collapsed, perhaps the pain inside me would disappear with it. I remember one particular moment alone in my room when I attempted to harm myself. The only thing that stopped me was an intense fear of blood and open wounds. Looking back now with the perspective of many years, I understand how dangerously close that moment truly was. Had that fear not existed, I might not be here today to tell this story.
Even after leaving the seminary in October 1991, the darkness did not simply vanish. Long periods of idleness only deepened it. My body felt exhausted, my mind disconnected, as though something invisible had drained all energy and meaning from ordinary life. Simple tasks often felt unbearably heavy. Yet somewhere beneath that exhaustion, a fragile part of me continued to resist surrender. What kept me from completely falling apart, I think, was a decision, weak at times, uncertain at times, but real nonetheless, that is, not to abandon hope entirely. It was only a thin thread, but I held onto it with everything I had.
In the early 1990s, there were no search engines, no easily accessible mental health hotlines, no online communities where people openly discussed depression and anxiety. Information was difficult to find, and understanding was even harder. What I had were books, whatever self-help materials I could afford to buy or borrow. I read them repeatedly, searching for explanations, reassurance, or even the smallest indication that other people had survived what I was experiencing. The books were imperfect, but they gave me something essential: the realization that I was not completely alone.
I also found an unexpected lifeline through correspondence with a priest I deeply respected. Over time, we exchanged long and honest letters in which I tried, often clumsily, to describe what I was feeling. He responded with patience, insight, and compassion. Those conversations gave me two things I desperately needed: language for my suffering and the reassuring sense that another human being genuinely understood. That combination of being heard while also being guided, became one of the foundations of my gradual recovery.
Little by little, I began rebuilding myself from the inside. I learned to offer myself the same compassion I would naturally extend to someone else in pain. I also began the difficult process of forgiving people whose actions had contributed to my suffering, not because they necessarily deserved forgiveness, but because carrying bitterness was slowly destroying me from within. Forgiveness did not arrive all at once. It unfolded quietly over years, in small acts of letting go. But with each step, the emotional weight became slightly easier to carry.
Over time, I came to believe that depression is shaped, at least in part, by repetition and habit. The thoughts and emotions we return to continuously begin to carve deep pathways in the mind. Sadness sustained for a day or two is normal, but over a period of months and years, is not. Even when external circumstances improve, the emotional pull toward that familiar sadness remains strong.
Prolonged grief often works in much the same way. When pain is revisited endlessly without movement toward healing, sorrow can harden into something more deeply rooted and pervasive. This is not weakness, nor a moral failure. It is part of how the human mind adapts to repeated emotional experience. Understanding that truth eventually allowed me to look at my own struggles with less shame and far greater compassion.
Today, I believe professional support is invaluable, and I would encourage anyone struggling with depression to seek it without hesitation. But beyond professional help, recovery also requires a deliberate and sustained effort to change what continually occupies the mind. Not artificial positivity, not denial of pain, but the gradual cultivation of thoughts that make room for hope, gratitude, meaning, and purpose.
Over time, I began to see the mind almost like an operating system shaped by repetition. What we feed it consistently, fear or hope, bitterness or forgiveness, despair or meaning, slowly influences its emotional patterns. Change does not happen overnight. It comes unevenly, with setbacks and relapses along the way. But little by little, new patterns can emerge. The darkness may not disappear completely, yet its grip can weaken enough for light to enter again.
Living with anxiety and depression is like being followed by a voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It gets to the point where it's the loudest voice in the room, the only one you can hear."
Anxiety and depression are not abstract psychological ideas or passing emotional states. They are serious and medically recognized conditions with measurable effects on the mind, body, relationships, and quality of life. Their impact reaches far beyond the individual sufferer, touching families, friendships, workplaces, and entire communities. Recent tragedies, including the loss of a priest to suicide and the death of a public figure’s child to despair, serve as painful reminders that mental suffering does not spare anyone because of faith, success, intelligence, or public image. These conditions cannot be overcome through silence, denial, or simple willpower alone.
Although anxiety and depression often overlap, they do not feel the same from the inside. Anxiety is dominated by fear, the sense that something terrible is about to happen. Depression, by contrast, is marked less by fear than by emptiness, the feeling that nothing meaningful remains. One floods the mind with alarm; the other drains it of hope. Yet the two frequently feed one another, creating a cycle that can become emotionally and physically exhausting.
Anxiety Disorders - Clinical Overview
Anxiety disorders involve persistent and excessive fear, worry, or dread that is disproportionate to actual circumstances and difficult to control. They are among the most common mental health conditions worldwide and can significantly interfere with daily functioning, relationships, and physical well-being.
Symptoms often include relentless overthinking, catastrophic thinking patterns, restlessness, irritability, muscle tension, heart palpitations, chest tightness, shortness of breath, dizziness, and difficulty relaxing. Many individuals also develop avoidance behaviors, steering away from situations or environments associated with fear or discomfort. In severe cases, anxiety can become so overwhelming that ordinary activities begin to feel dangerous.
Depression - Clinical Overview
Depression is clinically referred to as major depressive disorder among other forms and extends far beyond ordinary sadness. It is a persistent disturbance of mood that affects emotional, cognitive, physical, and behavioral functioning. What makes depression particularly devastating is not only the presence of pain, but often the absence of pleasure, motivation, and emotional connection.
Common symptoms include prolonged sadness or emotional numbness, hopelessness, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, chronic fatigue, difficulty concentrating, loss of interest in previously meaningful activities, changes in sleep and appetite, and social withdrawal. In more severe cases, depression can lead to thoughts of self-harm, suicide, or the belief that one’s existence no longer matters.
Overlap and Co-Occurrence
Anxiety and depression frequently occur together. Research suggests that a large percentage of individuals experiencing one condition will also develop significant symptoms of the other. This overlap is not accidental; both conditions share common psychological and biological mechanisms related to stress regulation, emotional processing, and patterns of thought.
One influential framework, known as the Tripartite Model, proposes that anxiety and depression share a core element called negative affect, a persistent state of emotional distress characterized by fear, sadness, irritability, and mental suffering. What distinguishes them is the dominant emotional tone: depression is more strongly associated with low positive affect, the diminished ability to experience joy, motivation, or pleasure, while anxiety is more closely linked to physiological hyperarousal, the body’s persistent state of alarm and heightened threat detection.
In lived experience, this distinction often feels painfully clear: anxiety convinces a person that disaster is coming, while depression convinces them that nothing worth hoping for remains. When both occur together, the result can feel like being trapped between relentless fear and overwhelming emptiness.
If you are experiencing something similar to what I have described, please do not dismiss it or suffer through it in silence. The pain is real. The exhaustion is real. The fear, confusion, and hopelessness can feel overwhelming, but they are not proof that you are beyond help. Even in the darkest periods of life, support and recovery remain possible.
You may need medical care, psychological support, spiritual guidance, or some combination of all three. You may need to try different approaches before discovering what truly helps you. Healing is rarely quick, clean, or linear. There may be setbacks, moments of discouragement, and periods when progress feels invisible. But setbacks are not failure. Recovery often happens quietly, one small step at a time, long before we fully recognize it ourselves.
For many years, I believed I would never escape the fear, heaviness, and inner chaos that had taken hold of my life. Yet slowly, through understanding, support, persistence, prayer, reflection, and the refusal to surrender completely, things began to change. Not perfectly, not instantly, but genuinely. That possibility of change is what I now offer to anyone standing where I once stood.
If thoughts of ending your life are present, please reach out immediately to someone you trust, a mental health professional, a family member, a friend, or a crisis hotline. You do not have to carry that burden alone, no matter how convincing the loneliness may feel in the moment.
In the Philippines, the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) Crisis Hotline is available twenty-four hours a day at 1553. Reaching out for help is not weakness. Sometimes, it is the first quiet act of survival.
Anxiety and depression are powerful and deeply disruptive forces. They can make life feel unbearable even for people who appear, from the outside, composed and functional. Behind ordinary routines and familiar smiles, there can exist a private battle invisible to almost everyone else. My own journey, the panic attacks, the years of unexplained physical symptoms, the suffocating sadness of adolescence, the nights filled with fear and uncertainty, revealed not only how fragile the human mind can become, but also how remarkably resilient it can be.
What ultimately carried me through was not the denial of pain, but the willingness to confront it little by little. I learned to breathe through the fear, pray through the confusion, read through the darkness, and write through the silence. I accepted help wherever it appeared, through medicine, faith, conversation, reflection, and the quiet support of people who refused to let me disappear into myself completely.
The memories of those years remain with me. Some of them probably always will. But they no longer define the boundaries of my life or determine what is possible for my future. If anything, they remind me of something I once could not see while I was suffering: the human spirit is capable of carrying extraordinary weight and still continuing forward. Sometimes healing arrives dramatically; more often, it happens so quietly that we notice it only in retrospect, one calmer breath, one lighter morning, one less fearful day at a time.
And so, if you are struggling now, hold on. Even if hope feels fragile, even if the future appears impossibly distant, hold on. The thread, however thin, however frayed, is still worth keeping. One day, you may look back and realize that it was enough to lead you through the darkness.