Sharing how I usually explain the relationship between anxiety and depression to patients.

• Anxiety is good if you can manage it well.......Most high achiever have anxious traits.
• If one cannot manage anxiety, one tends to alternate between avoid and blame.
• Over time, with avoidance and blame, it leads to powerless, hopelessness and then....
• This can then lead to depressed mood.
• When one is very depressed, anxiety tends to lessen due to lack of care factor.
• However, if one has lost care factor, one also lose meaning and purpose leading to more depressed mood.
• One can argue that depression is "end stage" anxiety.