I literally can't remember a time that I didn't have some kind of anxiety going as far back as grade school.   I was a good student so I think that helped, but then I started with drugs and alcohol, and so that was that for awhile. 

I'm never relaxed. Ever.   I feel like I'm running from tigers all the time.  I've been in therapy for a little while now, 6 years, and I feel like somehow I present calmly in therapy sessions, and I try to tell them what it's like for me, that at times, it's so bad it's painful, I can feel it like, some kind of amphetamines', coursing through my veins, only it's just me. 

I contracted a strange physical malady, that I won't go into, that made the anxiety, 3 times as bad, and so had to start taking something for that, but ended up feeling better overall, still anxious but better.  A tricyclic anti-depressant, to treat the nerve related symptoms, of what I have which is tied into the limbic brain, and therefore, emotions, anxiety, and it just has this cascading domino affect, and making living impossible.  Zero quality of life.   I literally had to do something, because the anxiety, at that point, was escalating into full blown panic attacks.    That's when my PCP prescribed the TRic-anti-depressant.   Actually it was a benzo, at first, and that was way too much, I had all kinds of side-effects, it wasn't good.   Since I've been taking this, I have wondered, this seems to be working well, I wonder with a correct clinical assessment, if I would be taking something, that really fit, my overall condition.  So far, what I;m taking seems to be working.   Plus, I don't want to lose my hair, which I've read is a common side effect of ssri, or gain weight.  

I have been afraid of taking anything also because  I am petrified of how it affects my brain, and my natural sensitivity-I'm an artist-being sensitive, and attuned to your senses is really important, it's everything, but i literally have no mechanism for any self-soothing methodology.     I wouldn't be doing anything with my art anyway, when I'm feeling like that, just miserable, and crazy, and stressed, like a horse in a burning barn.  I don't want to be like the walking dead, but I can't live like, I have been all this time.  HIding out, and scared, and a mess.  

Last year, I think was the year, of coming home to myself or something, because the first time, I realized, I wasn't fooling anyone, was when my chiropractor, said, "you have had depression and anxiety for as long as I have known you",  that's a long story, but I was shocked, embarrassed, felt shame, but then, relief and freedom.   Like what difference does it make who I'm fooling, pretending to be "okay".   Like people can't tell.    

How come my therapist doesn't see it, even though, I'm telling her how debilitating it is.?   I also, feel a little bit, like I'm cheating myself, by taking medication, I thought, and I really don't' know, but I thought, If I could just work through all my trauma, I wouldn't feel like this, I would feel normal, because I wouldn't be running from phantom ghosts, I'd be "healed".  With this extremely low dose medication, I  Now feel , a little better, like before,  my body, was just getting hammered by all the stress hormones, whatever chemicals are being constantly dumped into your system from the anxiety.   This is all so new to me.  I often don't' take the full dosage of the medication, because I want to be "myself", but it's no life to feel completely wired, and scared, and stressed, all the time.  Essentially  I feel victimized by my anxiety, which in spite of somatic exercises, from my therapist, is just not backing off.      I've had this for a very long time.   I don't feel anxious when I'm asleep, or listening to classical music, or reading, which is about 10% of my day.   The bottom line.   The medication is making me feel better.    Who is qualified to diagnose you with an anxiety disorder?    Does anyone else, "seem " calm, even though, you feel like a wreck ,inside?