Hello, I'm a 34 year old male, who has been struggling with anxiety and depression since childhood. I grew up in a family that was very dysfunctional (I won't get into all that) and avoided any kind of help, medical, psychological etc. I was a very energetic kid and instead of my mother trying to focus my attention in a positive way they put me on ridlin, I hated it. it made me sick, felt really dull, and gained weight. I eventually quit taking it, and just tried to deal with my attention issues. In some ways they helped me, I was able to hyper focus on task, find flaws and differences in thing, but I didn't learn how these were valuable until later in life. I really struggled in highschool because I just wasn't interested. I would jump at the chance to do anything else, in fact "jumping at the chance" or being "impulsive" is probably the best way to describe me. Even to this day, i'm very impulsive, which is not good with a wife and two kids. I struggled in my 20's with not knowing what to do, and then after countless failed careers I made my way to IT, the only thing I've ever been good at. I thought if I made good money, could go on vacations, have nice things I'd one day be happy. I have all those things. I'm not rich but I make good money, and we go on 3+ vacations a year, I have a nice house etc. I'm not happy though. It scares me, I lay in bed at night and can't sleep. I've shared this with my wife to an extent (she's a genuinely great person) but she doesn't struggle with mental illness. It's like a quadriplegic explaining their routine to me, I can empathize but have 0 advice or insight. Sorry for the long diatribe. Simply put how do I get better? I'm scared because of past experiences I've had with medication, and I'm scared of past experiences with psychiatrist when I was a young child. I felt they were very judgy, quickly wanted me to be medicated, and were cold.