I’ve been anxious my entire life but It didn’t start ramping up to the point I didn’t want to exist until a few months before the pandemic happened. I have panic attacks almost daily and anxiety spells of fear and paranoia that last for hours and hours every day of my life. A year ago my doctor put me on .5mg clonazepam twice daily to try and calm these spells, then we started down the rabbit hole of ssris/snris that are supposed to magically make my anxiety easier to deal with. I do yoga, I journal, I go to therapy, I have creative outlets, I do EVERYTHING i’m supposed to do and nothing helps. I am paralyzed in my own fear and worry all the time. 

I found moderate success with a ssri called viibryd for about a year but recently had to go off of it because it was making my autoimmune issues (I have dysautonomia) worst and i gained 50lbs in said year with no changes to diet or lifestyle (Im in my early 20s). So now i’m off Viibryd onto Trintellex (not going well already) and my doctor upped my clonazepam dose to 1mg to help with the change because I am drowning in fear of change plus I also developed a fear of falling asleep.

I feel guilty and anxious about being on the clonazepam for so long because everyone says its going to ruin my life and ill die going off of it, but I take it exactly as prescribed and i makes my days livable. Is that a bad thing? I feel like a failure because this anxiety i feel is conquering me and the medication I use to help is apparently (according to the internet) ruining my life. 

Someone please help ease my fear.