Hi Icy,

Just read your conversation and I am sorry to hear about all of your problems, the one you presented and the ones in the past that lead you to medication. As someone who had a brief history with anxiety and medications, I would also suggest to look out for long term solutions without them, cause as anita said, withdrawals are much worse than the anxiety itself. Take them as short as you can till you gain your perspective on how to deal with your issue. There are so many resources online that can help, so many success stories, books, online courses. A good psychotherapist that is experienced with this issue also can be crucial.
Since the whole ‘anxiety’ thing is still fresh for me, I can tell you what helped me…. what really helped me, and what made things worse…
-Most beneficial of all is exercise, exercise and more exercise…. After a very long walk, long shower and mint tea, I feel much better than even after taking medication. This was my hidden weapon to fight withdrawal.
-Cognitive behavioral therapy, and any research that tells you how the ‘happy’ chemicals in your brain work. Yes, happiness is chemicals.. stress also.
-Yoga, meditation and learning how to ‘ground’ yourself. Breathing exercises. You have to teach your body how to relax, how to balance. It can take time, but if you are persistent results will come for less than two months. Sometimes the cause of our problems is stuck in our ‘reptilian’ brain, that freaks out and finds danger in places we can’t understand, and we have to teach it again to relax, to accept new ways. I am not an expert, but as you said you have a terrible fight or flight response… This might mean you have to balance this part of your brain, the most primitive one.

By any means, I don’t think it’s good to take any online test you find, to present your problem to random people who don’t understand it well and might even say something hurtful as advice, to read forums and testimonials of people who had your problem and wrote discouraging things while they were very distressed. While you are in your sensitive state, you are not ready to deal with just anything you come up with. This is why I asked for a therapist, and he totally agreed with me. i told him I want to deal with this at the right place with the right person.I found very disturbing to bomb my mind with random internet facts, I just got tired and more frightened. And also, even though you attend therapy, you have to do the ‘heavy lifting’ yourself.. There are many ways to deal with this and you can find yours. So the ‘therapy’ doesn’t end in the doctor’s office… And no one, even here, can work things out for you, but you can always get very good guidelines and starting points..

And when it comes to your husband, as i understood he works two jobs, but he prefers the second one? Maybe he should just stick to that one… just a suggestion. I know the money will be tight again, but i can also relate to this. I’ve been with my partner for 8 years, 3 of them we both had terrible jobs that took the best of us, but were well paid. Money didn’t make us happier. We’d go on vacation on a beautiful beach in Greece, but we barely talked, he was stressed and panicked, I was desperate and bit depressive. It took a toll on our relationship and health. We knew it would be just a matter of time till we ‘break’ and maybe loose each other. So we decided I should leave my job, and he got another one, less paid. We only had 50 % of what we used to earn, but it was the best decision we made. No more exotic vacations, expensive restaurants, weekends in spas, shopping the next few years. But sometimes in life you can’t have both and you have to choose over your career or relationship, and only hope you’ve made the right choice. As long as you support each other and you are on the same page about those decisions,and it isn’t brought in later conversations as a sacrifice someone made.

Sorry about the long post and maybe giving too much of my story, but I feel deep in my heart that you can work this out, as many other have in your place. I sincerely wish you all the best!