When your own mind feels like the hard part
Anxiety and depression are two of the most common reasons people seek therapy, and yet when you are inside them they can feel intensely isolating, as though everyone else has figured out how to move through the day while you are quietly struggling to keep up. Anxiety can feel like a mind that will not stop, a body braced for a threat it cannot name, and a constant low hum of dread that colors even good moments. Depression can feel like a heavy fog, a flatness where joy used to live, exhaustion that sleep does not touch, and a harsh inner voice that narrates everything you are failing to do.
I am Wendy Haggerty, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Sarasota. I want to say clearly at the outset that these struggles are common and they are workable. You are not weak, you are not broken, and you are not doomed to feel this way forever. Anxiety and depression respond to care, and a great deal of that care is simply having a skilled, compassionate person help you understand what is happening and find your way back toward steadiness.
How anxiety and depression actually show up
These conditions rarely announce themselves neatly. Anxiety might look like overpreparing, replaying conversations, avoiding certain situations, snapping at the people closest to you, or feeling exhausted from the effort of holding it all together. It can show up as physical symptoms: a tight chest, a restless stomach, trouble sleeping, or a heart that races for no clear reason. Depression might look like withdrawing from friends, losing interest in things that used to matter, struggling to make simple decisions, or moving through life on autopilot while feeling strangely far away from it.
Often the two travel together. A tired, depleted mind is more prone to worry, and relentless worry wears a person down into exhaustion and hopelessness. If you recognize yourself in this back and forth, you are not imagining it and you are not alone. Naming these patterns clearly is often the first step toward loosening their grip.
What is often underneath
Anxiety and depression do not usually appear out of nowhere. They tend to grow from a mix of factors: life stress and loss, old wounds and unmet needs, patterns of self-criticism learned long ago, and sometimes physical and biological contributors as well. Frequently they are a signal that something in your life or your inner world needs attention, even when the signal has grown so loud that it drowns out the message.
Because I am a relational therapist, I pay close attention to how these struggles live inside your connections with others. Anxiety and depression rarely stay contained within one person. They shape how you show up with a partner, how safe you feel reaching for closeness, how you interpret a loved one's tone, and how much of yourself you feel able to share. Many people notice that their symptoms strain their most important relationships, or that difficulty in those relationships feeds their symptoms. Understanding this loop is a powerful part of the work.
How I work with anxiety and depression
My approach is warm, collaborative, and tailored to you rather than to a diagnosis. I draw on Internal Family Systems, which offers a compassionate way of understanding the inner critic, the anxious part that scans for danger, and the heavy part that wants to withdraw. Rather than fighting these parts, we get curious about what they are trying to do for you. The anxious part is often trying to keep you safe. The critical part is often trying, clumsily, to protect you from failure or rejection. When these parts feel understood rather than silenced, they tend to relax, and you gain access to a calmer, steadier core.
I also draw on Solution-Focused approaches, which help us notice what is already working, however small, and build on it. When you are depressed, the future can feel impossibly large, so we focus on manageable, concrete steps that restore a sense of momentum and agency. Narrative Therapy helps us separate you from the problem, so that anxiety and depression become things you are experiencing rather than the whole truth of who you are. Naming the problem as something outside yourself often creates enough room to begin working on it.
Because so much of anxiety and depression plays out in relationships, I frequently bring in Emotionally Focused Therapy and evidence-based couples work when a partner is involved. When your closest relationship becomes a source of security rather than another source of stress, it can become one of the most powerful supports for your mental health. Sometimes the most healing work is helping the people who love you understand what you are carrying and how to be present with you in it.
When intimacy is affected
As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I am especially attuned to the ways anxiety and depression can affect desire, connection, and intimacy. When you feel anxious or low, closeness can feel like one more demand, and the resulting distance can add a layer of guilt or worry on top of what you were already carrying. This is common and it is nothing to be ashamed of. I hold these conversations with the same warmth and lack of judgment I bring to everything else, and I help couples understand these shifts as symptoms to be met with compassion rather than as failures or rejections.
What working together looks like
People often wonder what therapy for anxiety and depression actually involves day to day. In our early sessions, I focus on understanding your story, your symptoms, and what you most want to be different. There is no pressure to have it all figured out or to present your struggles in any particular way. You can arrive exactly as you are, on your hardest days as well as your steadier ones.
From there, our work is collaborative and paced to you. We might spend time understanding the anxious or self-critical parts of you and helping them settle. We might identify small, concrete steps that rebuild momentum when depression has made everything feel immovable. We might practice new ways of relating to worried thoughts so they carry less power. We might look closely at the relationships and circumstances feeding your symptoms and find ways to shift them. Throughout, I am tracking what is helping and adjusting as we go, because therapy should be responsive to you rather than a one-size-fits-all formula. Progress is often gradual, with good weeks and harder ones, and that uneven path is normal. What matters is the overall direction, and my role is to keep us oriented toward it with patience and encouragement.
Self-compassion as part of the work
One of the quiet engines of both anxiety and depression is a harsh relationship with yourself. Many people who struggle in these ways hold themselves to punishing standards, blame themselves for their symptoms, and speak to themselves in ways they would never speak to someone they love. Part of our work is gently shifting that inner tone. This is not about forced positivity or pretending things are fine. It is about learning to meet your own experience with the same understanding you would offer a good friend, because self-compassion is not a luxury in this work. It is one of the conditions that makes healing possible.
Care that connects, not isolates
One of the cruelest features of anxiety and depression is how they push us into isolation at exactly the moment we most need connection. A central aim of our work is to reverse that pull, to help you move back toward the relationships, activities, and sense of self that these struggles have crowded out. Healing rarely happens in a vacuum. It happens in connection, and part of my job is to be a steady, safe presence as you find your footing again.
Confidential, judgment-free, and grounded
Everything we discuss is confidential. Our work together is talk therapy, and there is never any physical exam, any undressing, or any touch. There is also nothing you could bring me that would make me judge you. The inner critic that comes with anxiety and depression is often certain that your struggles are shameful or that you should be handling things better. I offer a different voice, one grounded in understanding and respect.
Anxiety and depression sometimes have medical and biological contributors, and some people benefit from coordinating therapy with medical care, including evaluation for medication. I work collaboratively with medical providers when that is appropriate, and I am clear that therapy with me supports the emotional and relational dimension of your wellbeing and is not a substitute for medical care. If your symptoms are severe or you are having thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out to a medical professional or emergency services right away, because you deserve immediate support.
Let's talk
If anxiety or depression has been weighing on you, you do not have to carry it alone, and you do not have to wait until things get worse to ask for help. I invite you to reach out for a free, confidential consultation. There is no pressure and no obligation. It is simply a chance to share a little about what you are experiencing, to ask your questions, and to see whether working together feels right. In Sarasota we can meet in person at MindSpa Integrative Wellness Center, or we can work together virtually from anywhere in Florida. Relief is possible, and you deserve to feel like yourself again. Live your greatest love story, beginning with the relationship you have with yourself.
Related support
If this resonates, you might also explore Individual Therapy, Compulsive Sexual Behavior, or Grief & Loss. You can browse all of my services, read more about how I work, find answers on the common questions page, or book a free consultation whenever you feel ready.