Hi all,

&amp;#x200B;

I hope this is relevant to post here - I've suffered with anxiety on and off my whole life, but in the past 1.5/2 years it has steadily got worse and worse. I went through a highly traumatic situation about 2 years ago and despite going to counselling to try and overcome it, there was obviously deeper rooted issues that were festering in the background. 

Around 2 months ago it had gotten so bad that I was physically ill &amp; couldn't keep any food down, resulting in unhealthy weight loss and having no energy. Because I was throwing up multiple times a day, I couldn't go to work/leave my house/do anything except lie in bed, starving. This then progressed to being completely unable to sleep, which presumably played on my brain because I started having horrific night terrors every night to the extent that I was then \*afraid\* to try and sleep. I'm a 26 year old woman and I repeatedly had to go into my mom in the middle of the night in floods of tears, to ask if I could sleep in her bed. The lack of sleep eventually resulted in me actually believing there was something in my room that was watching me &amp; waiting for me to sleep and I couldn't so much as close my eyes without feeling a panic attack coming on. If I did manage to sleep I'd either wake up screaming or \*feeling\* like I was screaming, from trying to wake myself up to get out of the dream.

Eventually I really felt I was on the verge of some sort of mental breakdown - my brain wasn't functioning at all, I was having awful intrusive thoughts all day everyday, and the anxiety was the only thing that I could focus on. Thankfully I had the sense to finally go to the doctor and I just sat in this lovely doctor's office for an hour crying and spilling out a mess of what was wrong with me. Fair play to her for being able to make sense of any of it because I think it was just a jumble of feelings and tears.

After a few tests/health checks &amp; a lot of discussion on what the best course of action would be, she prescribed anti-depressants that are also meant to help combat anxiety, to try and stabilize me and at the very least fix the sleeping pattern so everything else isn't so impossible to deal with. Feeling a  little more stable in that sense now, I'm due to start cognitive behavioral therapy with a psychiatrist she referred me to and honestly I am so hopeful. I've done a lot of research online and I feel like it could really be helpful, as I just have gone so long now without being able to cope with anything in my life at all. I just bury my head in the sand and hope it will go away and I presume this is what has brought me to the situation I'm in now. 

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has gone down the medication teamed with CBT route here and how did you find it helped? I know they say you get out what you put in; I just have a good feeling because for the first time in years I feel like I'm doing something that will let me live my life and stop hiding in fear. I feel like I've wasted so much time and missed out on so much, and this could be the first step to ending the cycle. 

Thanks all &lt;3