I started my medication a little over two weeks ago on July 20th. From then to about the 3rd of August I felt great, like I was better, like I could handle things again, and I was sleeping through the night. I was taking buspar 10mg a night before bed. Then I had some panic episodes earlier this week and now it feels nonstop. I started taking buspar 5mg in the late afternoon and still taking 10mg at night before bed. I don’t understand what’s going on with me or what is wrong with me. I’m having anxiety every day almost. I feel like I’m getting worse with each day that passes. I’m waking up almost nightly now in a panic now. The sensations in my body are getting overwhelming. I’m getting so tired and exhausted from dealing with it every day and I just want to feel normal. I keep trying to sit with it. Be okay with it. Talk to it. I get up and go for walks at 3am. But my head feels like it’s in a clamp. There’s so much pressure squeezing my head I could scream or cry. I feel like I’m breaking down, losing my mind, and I don’t want to. I want this to be over, the sensations. The shivering. The pins and needles. The heart and thoughts racing. I just don’t know what to do or where to go anymore. I’m not suicidal but I’m afraid of suicide or getting to the point of just being so fed up I would do something like that. But that’s my biggest fear. Dying. I’m just exhausted and over feeling like this. Buspar worked for my panic/agoraphobia/anxiety back in 2011, shouldn’t it work again for me? That’s the only reason I went back to it cause it saved my life before. I had the same feelings and it handled them all then. Should I give it more time? 3 weeks is august 10th. Maybe it hasn’t gotten into my system well enough and all this anxiety and panic is just me. But part of me wants to blame the medicine for making it worse. But I know I felt this before the medicine. I don’t know I’m scaring myself and I think I’m scaring my fiancé and I just feel so utterly alone and that no one understands.

i am nearly constantly extremely anxious and i don't want to live like this. my family and friends are so done dealing with me to the point that i feel that i'd be better off completely alone. every small twinge or pain in my body sends me into a panic, and if it's not that it's something else i manage to be worrying over. i'm fairly certain my stress has caused an ulcer to form. i try to sit with myself and not seek reassurance/check myself for issues but it is genuinely agonizing at times. most days i sleep 12-14 hours a day because it gets to a point that i cannot deal with it anymore and i take something to sleep. sometimes i do feel that i would be better off just not around so i wouldn't have to feel this any longer. i do a lot of unhealthy things to cope (drinking, smoking, and otc sleeping pills being the main culprits) and those habits end up hurting me in the long run and making me more anxious. i do have a counselor and she is great but i'm having a really hard time finding a medication provider under my insurance. i really really do want to get better because this is the most miserable i have ever been and i hate being like this and exhausting myself and the people around me. i've been told a big part of the healing process is to make yourself sit with your thoughts and deal with the uncertainty and fear as it comes, but it feels torturous to do that. sometimes reading through these posts does make me feel better knowing that i'm not alone but lately i have been unable to pull myself out of this frantic state. what are some healthier ways to cope/distract yourself that you guys find to be at least semi-effective? i am genuinely willing to try anything to make this terrible feeling go away

So I just started Zoloft 25mg almost a month ago and I’m still experiencing extreme panic and intrusive thoughts. It’s not fun, I genuinely just always think there’s no way I’ll “make it through life” living like this. And I’ve felt like this for four years straight I feel like recently it’s gotten a lot worse. Even when I feel like my brain is alittle quieter I was so obsessed w ocd that I just go right back to thinking abt it and scaring myself. Also I did ERP hated it I just started ICBT and I kinda like it. But when anyone else gets thought spirals and freaks out and has extreme panic do they have thoughts like they need to be admitted to a mental hospital and smth is seriously wrong with them? Bc the panic that comes with the ocd makes it feel soooo real and debilitating

I had my first serious anxiety related episode back in April and then once in May. My husband had lost his job due to health reasons and spent six weeks looking for work before he finally found something. It was up to me delivering for spark to make the bills. The stress built up and in May I had a panic attack that put me in the hospital. I started Sertraline, had some rough side effects but still noticed a positive change in the anxiety. I still felt crappy every day, but less and less crappy, if that makes sense. (Nausea, heart palpitations, weak, anxious). The month of June was great, no huge panic moments, no racing heart, etc. In one day I went out of town by myself, drove on the interstate, (that’s always scared me), went to the dentist and took my son out to lunch and dined in. It was great. The next day, I argued with my teen all day, it exhausted me and I was dreading spending an hour that evening talking to my therapist. I was just too tired, you know? About twenty minutes before the appointment my anxiety ramped up. Racing heart, trembling, feelings of dread. Normally I can get it under control with breathing techniques but I didn’t have time to before my appointment. Luckily my therapist had overbooked and called me to cancel, so I just rested for the rest of the night, but that’s been six days ago and I’ve struggled ever since. The day after that I was weak and shaky and could feel my heart beat, the day after that I was tired and really beating myself up for what felt like a failure to me, and the last couple days it’s been on and off heart palpitations (my heart rate isn’t going up high, I’m just super aware of my heart beat) and it’s very uncomfortable. My family keeps telling me it’s because I’m stuck in my head and I know that’s true because I spent hours outside in the heat doing garden work yesterday and instead of feeling even worse I felt amazing for the rest of the night and I’ve felt pretty good for most of today. So I know in my head that anxiety recovery isn’t linear and that anxiety hangovers are a real thing and that i just have to be patient for a few days after an attack, but sometimes it’s so hard to think like that when I’m in the middle of feeling so crappy and shaky and weak. Does anyone else feel discouraged like this sometimes? Is what I just described similar to anything anyone else has experienced? If so, what were some coping techniques you used?