After acknowledging the history and realness of your depressive-anxious experience, you need to understand the impact of these experiences on your life. Unless we understand the impact, we will be forced to “just try to feel better;” which leads us to the trapping question, “How can I change my emotions when they do not respond to my will like my hands and feet do?” Merely trying to feel better reinforces a disposition of helplessness and despair.

But the other rebuttal is, “Looking at the impact will only make me feel worse.” This is partially true, and why it is highly recommended you go through this study with a friend, pastor, or counselor. But it is also largely false. Consider the parallel example of debt. Many people in debt fail to itemize and total their debt for fear it will be overwhelming. But that leaves them powerless and with a “haunting ambiguous” sense of how big it must be.

In this chapter we will seek to understand the impact of your depressive-anxious experience in three key areas.

1. Factors that Contribute to Impact
2. Changes in Lifestyle that Add to Impact
3. Impact on Family and Relationships

While difficult, this examination will do several things. First, it will show you where and how you can begin to engage your depressive-anxious experience without trying to artificially “make yourself feel better.” The information gathered will be even more important in step seven.

Second, it will de-mystify the experience of anxiety-depression. Often the question, “How did things get this bad?” paralyzes and shames us with bewilderment. No piece of the depressive-anxious experience seems to account for the whole. Looking at the pieces can give you the hope and strength to continue the journey.

Third, it will begin to reveal the unhealthy ways you have made sense of your anxious-depressive experience. This will be the primary focus of step four, but understanding impact is a great way to make the unhealthy “story” we build around our depressive-anxious experience more obvious and, therefore, possible to change.

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