people who have taken xanax/benzos/etc help!! maybe, just maybe for now, i’ll be getting a little while’s worth of anxiety medication (something that calms me down immediately) to get me started in school without a shit ton of panic attacks. now, the base of a lot of my fears and anxiety in this case is vomiting. im afraid of doinh it, feeling nauseated, and im also afraid that it’ll happen somewhere inconvenient (which is about anywhwre away from home at this point) now, i started erp exercises for this yesterday, and i wondered if erp exercises help and has lasting effects if you did it WHILE on anti anxiety medication like xanax, or if it just comes back to slap you in the face when you wean off the pills. anybody tried it? pls tell me how it worked out for you!

youre right!! i keep being mad at myself for trying day after day to face my fears which just sends me spiraling into a panic attack and makes me run away. thank you! and im done with these benzos. ive been against meds for a long time, as well. if thwy arent helping me, im stopping (and yes i know i have to minimize the dose a little over time so i dont have withdrawal symptoms)

During ERP you actually WANT to get anxious and then deal with the anxiety. If you take fast acting meds before ERP I imagine that could sort of make the practice pointless. You can still take the meds, I just don’t think taking them for your ERP specifically makes sense.

i see! thanks for the advice! the meds are mostly to get me through some weeks of school (i started last week) and being there for the first weeks matter a lot. but im doing erp now, but if the meds make it completely impossible then thats a shame! what ive been reading up on tho neurons/pathways, pavlovian conditioning and such. what i was told by my doctor at least is that although im not feeling the anxiety i normally would, the general experience of not dying in that feared situation is still “remembered” by my brain, and a new and more neutral limbic response (a new automatic feeling) starts replacing the old, anxious response. its like painting over an old painting with something new.

I’d listen to your doctor then! That makes sense to me. I know feeling the anxiety is important in ERP, but it sounds like if the thing stopping the anxiety is meds then the situation is a bit more complicated and won’t necessarily degrade the effectiveness. I was thinking in terms of when patients choose an exposure that does not sufficiently make them anxious. If not pushed far enough in these cases, ERP has been shown to be ineffective. But I suppose if the exposure is in fact adequately triggering but meds are simply dampening the response, it must be different. Who knew!

i actually got the pills and tried them yesterday. i took 2mg and was relaxed, but when faced with what i feared i still had a full blown panic attack, maybe just 5% weaker. im gonna take 4 mg today and try that out

In my experience meds never fully remove the anxiety. They just dampen it a bit. Don’t make the goal to feel zero anxiety, because that’s probably impossible. Also, I’d take whatever dose your doctor recommended. If he said it’s okay to try 4mg, go ahead and try it. But if you’re just experimenting on your own I’d think carefully about that first. Benzos in particular are addictive. Also: if whatever you’re facing causes a full blown panic attack right now, you’re not ready for that trigger! Meds or not. You probably need a trigger that is similar but not quite as challenging. In ERP we want to be anxious, but we don’t want to be completely debilitated. Finding that balance is key.