Usually, anxiety precedes depression, typically by several years. Currently, the average age of onset of any anxiety disorder is late childhood/early adolescence. Psychologist Michael Yapko, Ph.D., contends that presents a huge opportunity for the prevention of depression, as the average age of first onset is now mid-20s. "A young person is not likely to outgrow anxiety unless treated and taught cognitive skills," he says. "But aggressive treatment of the anxiety when it appears can prevent the subsequent development of depression."
"The shared cornerstone of anxiety and depression is the perceptual process of overestimating the risk in a situation and underestimating personal resources for coping." Those vulnerable see lots of risk in everyday things-applying for a job, asking for a favor, asking for a date.
Further, anxiety and depression share an avoidant coping style. Sufferers avoid what they fear instead of developing the skills to handle the kinds of situations that make them uncomfortable. Often enough a lack of social skills is at the root.
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In fact, says Jerilyn Ross, LICSW, president of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, the link between social phobia and depression is "dramatic. It often affects young people who can't go out, can't date, don't have friends. They're very isolated, all alone, and feel cut off."
Sometimes anxiety is dispositional, and sometimes it's transmitted to children by parental overconcern. "The largest group of depression/anxiety sufferers is Baby Boomers," says Yapko. "The fastest growing group is their children. They can't teach kids what they don't know. Plus their desire to raise perfect children puts tremendous pressures on the kids. They're creating a bumper crop of anxious/depressed children."