do you think having depression/anxiety stops people from knowing you?

Absolutely

Yeah

Yes, I can only speak on anxiety but it makes me avoid getting to know people because I feel like I can't keep up with having anymore people in my life. That would be anyone aside from my partner, so my world is incredibly small. It's kind of like a circle because the smaller my world became, the more difficult it felt to widen it even a little because I got used to how it was. Like every time I lost a friend, that became the new baseline for what I feel like I can handle, and it's a shame because I do sometimes meet people that I'd like to know better, but acting on it has become this huge dark cloud of fears in my mind. /=

Short answer… yes.

I think depression and anxiety prevents you from fully knowing yourself and realising your true potential and that might prevent people from knowing you.

It’s the opposite.

For me, it's far more complex than that. I feel like that would be a very simplified statement. Anxiety and depression are probably the symptoms and consequences of the real cause that makes me avoid people. But someone could argue that it's actually my anxious nature that is triggering worries about certain things in the first place.

It doesn't help.

Yes

Yes