First off, welcome grace! You've came to the right place. Everyone here are helpful and us experienced anxiety sufferers help by using our past and present to inform and help anyone we can with this damn issue.
What is your main issue with the anxiety...breathing, panic, disassociation, fear?
I found that its easier to address the main problem issue first, to get some kind of relief as soon as u can. That allows your brain to understand it CAN be dealt with...no matter what.

Tried drinking and weed for a long time and found that it only makes your world smaller and leaving me with fewer options. The effect is only good so long as you are buzzed and you wake up to the same options. Have not solved all of my depression/loneliness problems but have become active in finding alternatives in my life; volunteering, resuming church membership and attending meals at a local senior center. Wish there were more opportunities to engage in small talk with strangers but that is somehow not in the cards with current society.

All of it. I go into fight or flight. It's crazy.

I didn't want to be dependent on pills for the rest of my life.

I've tried.All I wanted was a normal life.

I have tried to deal with the underlying issues.

I've had a therapist tell me "you better take care of this or you're going to end up alone"

What?

Well guess what, I am alone. I'd rather be alone than listen to people criticizing me for something I have no control of.

It's embarrassing.

Thank you djchurn. I need to be reminded that there are others going through this

A couple of thigns.

Firstly, I was raised by, well, a nutcase. Whenever she had a sore neck she was looking for someone to have upset her to cause the sore neck and would hunt till she found one of her children guilty and then harangue for days and days to 'emotionally resolve' the issues so that her neck pain would go (just one example of my delightful upbringing).

So I grew up really very clear that emotional states caused physical consequences. What I didn't ever figure out till my mid forties was that physical states caused emotional consequences.

you've got a hormone overdrive. There's a switch in your body for fight or flight, and it's stuck. It's stuck in the on position. I have had this. It took me a number of years and I'm finally normal but oh boy the journey.

The first thing is: go get a mild antidepressant. Dont' let them give you benzos. You're not there to be numbed out of it all; you need the edge taken off. You need some amplitude modulation. When you spike it has to just not spike so bad that you fling into a feedback loop of adrenaline caused by thoughts caused by adrenaline caused by thoughts caused by....

So it doesn't take it all away. It just takes the top off. You yourself then, with this crutch, have to confront the issues that make you anxious. Each one. Separately, singly has to be painstakingly unravelled like a messed up ball of wool. There is no short-cut.

Have you been tested for the MTHFR gene mutation yet? It's just starting to be discovered that there is a gene mutation that can cause you to fail to absorb vitamin B in its usual forms. this leads to anxiety. So get tested. It's apparently cheap to test but your GP may not have heard of it before.

and in closing: lots of sleep. Lots of alone time. Lots of healthy fruit and vegetables, try to avoid sugar, drink lots of water. Do what you can for your brain.

xx. That's about everything I've got. I was dependent on antidepressants for a couple of years and then when I healed enough I started to wean off. I'm now totally drug free having used them and appreciated them for a reasonable length of time. But don't go near those bennies. They're addictive.

Six months ago I came across a deep breathing technique as part of the Wim Hof Method. Wim Hof is a fascinating person who came up with techniques to help people with all sorts of ailments - both physical and mental. I'm not exaggerating when I say I tried this for 4 days and felt better than I have in 20 years. It helped me curb a very bad alcohol habit, gave me a sense of calm like I've not felt since I was a child, and enabled me to get rid of a long list of meds including BP medicine and prozac. There are thousands of people employing this method and reporting similar, and even more astonishing, benefits. Give this a legitimate chance and I swear it will change your life. It saved mine.
See the first part of this fascinating interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woxjutWVuj4
His method can be found at http://www.wimhofmethod.com

Keep a journal to help sort through the different patterns and cycles of thought and behavior. Sometimes, people who are helping us with therapy treatment plans are only able to share from their personal perspective and it does not come close to matching our situation. When this happens, take what is shared as a possibility in the future.
When you're overwhelmed and stuck in "full power on" mode, it becomes a real issue to find a single way to fix it. One piece at a time, and move on to the next piece, and when you find the puzzle starting to fit together, you'll find other ways that you can make your anxiety work for you.
Stay hydrated. Sleep (rest), even for a few moments, can often give you the strength to stay with it long enough to push through.
Best wishes. Welcome to this wonderful group!