The seesaw of depression and health anxiety and feeling that I do not deserve to be happy.

[twiddletwaddle]

That is it really. I have had depression on and off all of my adult life having had a less than optimal childhood (father with severe temper, threatening, 2 siblings with schizophrenia, not contact with family for last 10yrs). Having had two children I now have health anxiety and have now found that whenever I feel bettre mentally and feel the depression is lifting - the health anxiety comes back almost straight away. I have come to the conclusion that through my childhood when there was not really any happiness - that I believe that I do not deserve to be happy - if I start being happy - it will all be taken away by me being diagnosed with a serious illness.

Has anyone come to the same conclusions and if so what has helped you to overcome this?

Hiya

Sorry to hear you are feeling like this, your post sounds like me a while ago.

It's hard to explain but I didn't feel I deserve to be happy, was having counselling for PND and stumbled upon this. My counsellor asked why and I couldn't answer, I'm not a bad person, I haven't done anything to be punished for, being happy doesn't mean disaster, that I was not chosen by someone at birth to be perpetually unhappy and I shall not enjoy life. But I had a huge issue in my life at 11 when my dad killed himself (DV, cheating etc so should have been happy really) and so I didn't want to get happy again because of the huge crash when it goes wrong or something changes.

But everyone deserves to be happy, we only have one life and I want to live it and not be a bystander, god it was so hard to not look for the pitfalls and worrying about stuff for example when I had organised a childfree day with DH i kept thinking it would fail, I don't deserve to have a nice time but it was great and I had to constantly tell myself to have a good time, to tell myself it was fine to be happy.

And yet another evening my DH and I had planned my DD was taken to hopsital but had to see it was a coincidence, and that's all it was.

Still have good and bad days but the thought that I cannot answer the question why don't I deserve to be happy gets me though.

The feeling when you are happy is amazing, you just need to take a leap of faith and see the setbacks for what they are, a small setback but you are still pushing forward!