Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
I went to the doctor a few days ago as an urgent visit. I was having terrible anxiety (over analyzation is my worst enemy) and depression. Prior to the visit I was on 20mg of Prozac and 100mg of Seroquel. I take both at night as they both make me drowsy and I have trouble sleeping when the anxiety gets bad, so it works. I explained to the doctor that I had just seen the psychiatrist and called the nurse where I go explaining the issue and that I had been on Vistaril before for anxiety and it just made me sleep my life away and I couldn't work on it as I have had to go home from work early into my shift while on it. What did they do? They told me I had two options: up my Prozac or take Vistaril. This is probably due to the fact that years ago when my anxiety was REALLY bad, like not sleeping for weeks and unable to even hold conversations with people, I had been on Klonopin and ended up taking more than I should have to get rid of the anxiety because I was young and had never dealt with it before or been on psyche meds. I go to the doctor and he ups my Prozac and puts me on Vistaril. I get anxious during the day, and if the Vistaril didn't make me sleep until 1 in the afternoon or make me sleep every time I take one, I'd gladly use it for the anxiety symptoms, but it doesn't work like that. He said that he couldn't prescribe me the usual anti anxiety medications because they'd interfere with my current meds but all I could find about the interactions is increased drowsiness and trouble breathing in the elderly, but I know what ant anxiety medication does to me mixed with my other meds because I've been on it before and it hasn't hurt anything and I wouldn't need it all the time, just for spikes. Should I call him and ask him if there's anything else he can prescribe or should I wait it out? I don't know what to do.
If I had not realised that these were episodes rather than the real me, I probably would have gone for the pills and considered myself irretrievably nuts without them. I would have considered them necessary for me, for life.
But they would have been wrong. They offered me all sorts of drugs and luckily I said no.
What I'm trying to say here is don't be too quick to take more meds. Meds become ineffective over time and you need bigger, brighter, better! But then what? What happens when the biggest, the brightest, the best no longer work?
I have used a reasonable dose of a respectable antidepressant to take the edge off the anxiety/depression, and gone to talk therapy to get through stuff with a counsellor. And that has been better than going the 'higher dose' route for me.
You say you overthink. I overthink, and I found talk therapy incredibly grounding and soothing. Just having sensible feedback to all of my scary ideas without judgement or censure has made amazing inroads on my problems.
I've gone off them recently and had some ups and some horrible downs. When I'm in the middle of a down I want to rush off and get meds again. Afterwards, I realise that this rollercoaster was part of becoming normal. Part of my own growth, becoming sane. Somehow. So I don't go back on the meds. And I'm getting through it.
A lot of anxiety and depression is a kind of growing thing. Growing up, becoming wiser. It's not something that we should block.
So if I were to give advice, I'd say to see if you can stick back to the normal/medium level of meds you had to start with, and find yourself a talk counsellor for the overflow. I think you need to release the ideas and free yourself from them.