I wish I could say that the events of the last couple years caused my anxiety and that once all is resolved I'd get better but no, I've bounced between therapists and psychiatrists since I was 23 and I'm turning 36 next month. Still, it's never been this bad before. Starting in January I just went off the deep end and it's been that way ever since.

One source of hope I have is that I am back on Zoloft now. I had taken it for years but one small part of the big life stressors was that we lost health insurance, I couldn't afford my meds, so I tappered off around July of last year. I really felt the change but I thought I was managing it, ya know? I was getting by. Apparently I should have found a way to pay for the pills because deep down I believe I wouldn't have had this recent crash if I'd just stayed medicated.

The Zoloft isn't doing much yet but I'm only on half of my previous dose. I guess they have to tapper up the same way you tapper down which is too bad because I was doing a lot better at 200mg. I've been on 100 for about two weeks now (up from a couple weeks at 50) and I still don't feel any benefit. I know it takes time but when you're a wreck it's hard to be patient.

As for practical support for the stressors, that's a hard one. The biggest issue right now is that we're in the middle of bankruptcy and unless I can get the mortgage company to lower our monthly payments we're going to lose our house (there's some small chance this could happen and I'm working that process as best I can). If we lose it that means moving a family of six and there's not much for rentals in our town so it may also mean our kids have to change schools and so on and so on.

But there are other big stressors too. The company I work for has done numerous layoffs, put in pay and hiring freezes (which they've finally started thawing), and quadrupled my work load. Add to that the fact that my wife had an affair three years ago that still haunts me in our relationship and yeah, you get a sense of what I mean by stressors.

But I'm not all woe is me, I swear! Seriously, I try to just deal with things but try as I may, it all makes my anxiety worse.

As for the neurotic about your health thing, that's been a problem for me for years now. I'm always dying of something. I smoke (I know, I shouldn't) so cancer is my biggest fear and what makes cancer so hard is that it's so hard to prove you DON'T have it. Then there's heart attacks and of course, the fear that my mental illness will get worse and I'll no longer be able to function.

It's all just a big mess, ya know?

Cyran0