Antidepressants have been recently discontinued, as they cause me certain digestive upsets in and of themselves, and I do have chronic medical conditions involving my intestines. Trying not to draw too graphic of a picture here, so I won't say what the conditions are or what they do to me, but antidepressants do make it worse. Since I've been doing well enough with the DBT that the problems of the medication outweigh the benefits, they've been stopped. An occasional hydroxyzine if the anxiety is absolutely unbearable is probably a good idea, but I can't drive if I take one, so I'd have to be careful about that. And it too can cause digestive disturbances, if I take it too often.

The catch-22 is that for me, driving can be a very anxiety-producing activity, but then if I take anything for the anxiety, I can't drive. I'm still pretty new at it. That's the reason for the anxiety, I think. Because I can't drive at night, and because my daughter had borrowed my car for quite a while until she could have her own fixed, I didn't get much driving in during the winter. Since I've only been licensed for a year, after that long with no practice, it's almost like I'm learning all over again. I had errands to run today, it was raining, and boy, was my anxiety level all the way up in outer space. But I'm never going to solve that problem if I don't drive anyway, even though I feel that way.