Non benzo meds for anxiety

[bry686]

Ive been taking effexor for the last year and a half. At low doses in works for generalized anxiety at high doses it works for depression. I take low doses and I can tell you its significantly changed my life for the better. Anyone with severe anxiety knows how hard it is to cope day in and day out. I slowly was starting to retreat into myself and would avoid many situations such as going out with friends, job interviews, meeting new people. I never even realized I was living in such a prison until I began taking this medication. BUT it was my last resort, I tried everything, from meditation, to work outs, to healthy eating. I seen counsellors and read the entire anxiety work book cover to cover. I bought uv lights for my house in the winter and tried natural herbs such as kava kava and st johns wort.

Nothing really seemed to work so i eventually turned to medication. Sometimes its just warranted for the right person. Effexor is really mild stuff though. It helped with my general anxiety but not my acute attacks. Thats where apls and diaz came in. I study everything before I take it and also know that you can become extremely addicted to it and the withdraws are worse than herion. So what works for myself is taking the effexor on a day to day basis, but I have alps around at all time in case I feel bad anxiety coming up. I only try to take it around once or twice a week and only .5 to 1mg each time.

I do think alot of people over use meds or use it as a first step easy fix. But for some including myself, it has truly changed my life and given me enough confidence to become the person i want to be. Hopefully people wont need that like I did. But the main advice I could give for anxiety without using medication is to see someone qualified for it. Whether that be a counselor, therapist, psychologist or just a close friend, reaching out to someone is probably the best thing you could do