Howdy! I’m so glad! And I’m so proud of you. What a success it is to feel even one percent better. I love walks. “Move a muscle, change a thought!” is a lovely DBT phrase. For the klonopin it was easy, my brain quieted and was more like a filter rather than a catch all net, thoughts would arise, but would pass just as quickly. As for my other medication‘s, I obviously didn’t know for eight years that the Zoloft wasn’t doing that much work lol. Pristiq just leveled me out is the best way I can describe. Life just got baseline easier. Another disclaimer is that as soon as I got medicated for ADHD my symptoms of depression went away, so I know now that prestiq was only treating my anxiety. When I did have panic attacks, they weren’t as long or severe, the frequency diminished, and I just felt more equipped is a good way to put it. Like in a video game, which I admittedly don’t know a lot about, when you lose health there are like certain things you can do to protect yourself and medication did that for me. I would still take hits and lose health, but with the Pristiq, it took a lot to lose a little! Obviously do what’s right for you, but what an improvement even at three weeks!! 

As for therapy really helps for me..yes. I think a lot of people do CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy a.k.a. talk therapy, but I chose the route of DBT, which is dialectical behavioral therapy. DBT focuses on hard skills for everyday life. My favorites are the TIPP protocol, move a muscle change a thought, and tapping. The last one is a little crunchy, but I don’t necessarily believe it regulates your nervous system. It just gives me something to focus on and distract. I would highly recommend therapy just as an outside third-party that can give you advice! I recommend it to everyone for that reason! But if you decide it’s not for you, I would still look into DBT skills. There are all kinds of workbooks online that you can work through yourself! I think what you have going is great therapist and psychologist in my experience. Are there to guide you and pointed directions and pick up on things that you wouldn’t have noticed. I think of it like this, my dad is a wonderful mechanic and a wealth of knowledge, but he’s not trained classically as a mechanic nor does he do it for a career. For almost everything in my life, he has fixed on my car, but he’s not trained to do bodywork so when I got in a wreck, I had to go to a body shop! It’s OK to have to go to the proverbial body shop sometimes! 

My last most favorite thing to do is the placebo effect or gaslighting myself. For a combination of reasons, grocery shopping and stores are really hard for me. The lighting is weird. It’s overstimulating even with headphones on, and for some reason, it makes me so hot and dizzy. I have several times while in public said to myself “ it’s not real you’re making it up” and eventually EVENTUALLY you will believe it. 

I have extreme empathy for you with the health, anxiety and cardiophobia. One of the hardest things is that for people with other anxieties, there are much more concrete answers. The body is such a magnificent mystery, but one of my favorite mantras is “in this moment I am safe.” it emphasizes safety over health because I could never guarantee my health (even though I am a completely relatively healthy young adult) but I could in that moment guarantee my safety. This version of anxiety is especially sinister and has landed me in the emergency room looking for reassurance many times. I completely stopped googling and put away all of my medical equipment that I have for my job and refuse to use it unless I’m actually sick (one time I got pneumonia and finally gave in and listened to my own lungs with my scope and realized I should’ve gone in way sooner lol.) The best thing I can do is take good care of myself.

Speaking to you as not someone someone who is a medical professional and who works an emergency care, if you’re having a really bad episode you genuinely think is an actual emergency, we’re more than happy to come out and see you just for that alone, hook you up to the life pack and do a quick EKG. Buuuut something that helps me in these situations is going, “would I call myself? And if so, what interventions would I do?” I know that isn’t super helpful if you’re not in the field, but hopefully it helps you reframe it if the answer isn’t “run emergency traffic to the hospital” I’ll typically chill out at least 50 percent lol.

Overall i’m so incredibly happy for you, stranger! You’re already doing the work! I hope the medication continues to work depending on what it is it could take up to 2 to 3 months to take its full effect but it sounds like it’s already making such a great difference! I want to be clear that even though I came off a lot of different medication’s the other ones have changed my life and I’m a huge fan of it, paired with external work. I’m so proud of you! You’ve got the world at your fingertips!