Drugs for Anxiety
Only Make Things Worse, Not Better.
Please, please, don't go for the drugs for anxiety solution until you have exhausted all your other options. It's really not the answer. Messing with your blood chemistry will not solve your stress problems.Lots of doctors out there, and I mean lots, will tell you that a prescription to stop panic attacks will help. Sometimes they will be right, but often, it will only mask the real problems. Sometimes this will be true. There is no doubt that when we get ourselves all worked up and we're working our stress response system over time that all those hormones flying around your body can get all messed up and then drugs for anxiety can probably help to sort out the mess -- at least in the short term. But we all know that, long-term, drugs for anxiety will do more harm than good and the truth is that you have so many other alternatives. You have the choice! I used to know a woman who had started having regular panic attacks. One day, when she and I were just talking in her kitchen, she had a panic attack right in front of me and it seemed to come on for no apparent reason. Being the busybody that I am, I asked her about it and she told me some of her life story. It turns out there was an event that she attended once per week that caused her a great amount of stress. She felt very obligated to go, as it was family-related. We all know what that's like, don't we? Anyway, each week, she would start to get stressed out about two days before the event and it would take her three days to recover from it. So, six out of seven days every week were spent obsessing about this event. She felt so trapped that she had begun having panic attacks.
It Was So Crazy! So, So, So CRAZY!!!
As soon as there was a physical symptom, she had gone to her doctor for help and his immediate response was to prescribe drugs for anxiety. She chose not to take them.She and I talked, for awhile, about how this event was controlling her life. I asked the obvious question, "Why do you go so often?" I told her she was crazy to torture herself like that and I strongly suggested that she not go so often. She said she would think about it, but that she really didn't feel like she had a choice. Her husband wanted her to go to this event because it was a weekly family dinner and she didn't want to make him or anyone else upset so instead she chose to suffer. She liked her husband's family, for the most part, she just hated the pressure of the weekly dinner. I felt bad for her, but what could I do? It was her choice. About six months later I ran into her again and after some small chit chat she told me she had cut back on the event. Now she only went to the dinner once per month. As expected, there had been an initial uproar and she was called rude and ungrateful, but she had decided that being sick all the time wasn't worth it and in the end everyone settled down and just accepted the new reality. Her panic attacks had stopped and now she was pregnant with her fourth child. Obviously, the whole thing didn't bother her husband that much. She was happy and seemed very peaceful. This is a classic example of a woman who chose self empowerment over drugs for anxiety and stress. I believe that the choice she made to get rid of a major stressor in her life or at least reduce its impact had a dramatic effect on her entire state of being. Now, it's your turn. What's stressing you out and what will you do?
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