@askingquestions thank you for the response. I have found meditation to be a calming experience and I’ll have to check out your suggested book. Great response and I appreciate it. The acceptance of myself for myself, for my child and for my wife was probably the hardest part of getting out of the initial depression after hitting my emotional rock bottom earlier this year. But boy was that step important.

@anita thank you for your response. I thought about your response and basically what it comes down to is I grew up in a perfectionists home. Specifically, I don’t recall my dad being… affectionate. During my childhood, he was the dad that would come home, complain about work, and sit in his recliner and watch tv. There was always something to complain about. My parents were active in supporting my sister and I at sporting events and what not, I just picture my dad being a bit… emotionally colder than I would like. My least favorite time spent with him was working on vehicles in which he became very angry and upset if things weren’t going correctly and/or if I grabbed the wrong tools, or when i couldn’t help out enough because i was too weak or whatever the case may be. I remember walking away from helping out of frustration as I got older because I just hated all the ridicule. I learned to not listen.

In a sense, our relationship isn’t the strongest probably because I’m not the man he thought I would grow up to be, in a sense. And the strangest thing of it all, is my parents thought I looked down on them, they thought I believed they were too redneck or not good enough because my wife and I were not going over to their house as often as we would go over to my wife’s parents house. We’re grown adults in our early 30’s with our first child….. so it was…. very interesting to see how they worked up this story that they weren’t good enough for us, and they told me about it, after my mom broke down crying at our house, in which we invited them over to hang out with us. My parents are perfectionists. My mom can’t be seen without make up and doing her hair. My dad is having health issues for the first time in which it is effecting his ability to function at the level he is use to. He seems bitter about it and it’s hard to be around him because you can just sense the tension and stress.

If you asked me when I was 20, I would say i grew up in a “PERFECT (yes i would have said perfect)” home. In my 30’s, I now realize no home is perfect.

The strangest thing is when i went over to my parents place about two months after my panic attack when I was dealing with anxiety AND depression, you know, the cry for no reason at all type of depression, no self acceptance. I told my dad that I was trying so hard to be perfect that once things were not going my way, out of my control, i had my panic attack and didn’t know how to deal with it all. My dad told me he believes that being a perfectionist is fine. Saw nothing wrong with it. I agreed to disagree with his thoughts that being a perfectionist is a good thing. It was just an odd response that I remembered.

In the end, I still have room to grow and accept that, and that’s what keeps me happy. Initially I was determined, in 30 days I will not have Anxiety OR depression. I was use to setting goals and achieving them. Know what happened at day 30 when I was still having anxiety and depression? I got depressed! hah. I set myself up for that.

I’m thankful to be where I am now emotionally and will continue to strive. Not for perfection, but for happiness and inner peace. There is more to life than money, work and what others think, and I am so glad that my panic attack episode has awaken me to a better life. I’m just in the rocky road portion of figuring out how to live without an ego, and just be happy.

I’m all for gaining any more insight you all may have, thank you.