I have never seen a psychologist before, at least not one outside of my family. My grandpa was a psychologist for the state as I grew up and he always "counseled" my sister and I.
He passed a few years ago, ever since then my anxiety and panic attacks have increased. I began having weird feelings of "not being real" or feeling "apart" from my body when I was 16, but I never did anything about it. I'm 24 now and with recent events all over the news about what is going on in our world my mind is falling apart. I've scrubbed my hands raw from washing, I pour hydrogen peroxide inside my fingernails before I eat, etc. I'm turning in to a loon.
Alongside of that, I fear death more than anything and black out from panic attacks. I don't have a doctor, so I went to the local medical clinic run by UW. the doctor prescribed me zoloft and hydroxyzine. Obviously zoloft is not kicking in, but the other is not working well. I still feel panicked and it doesn't help when I go in to full panic attack. I told her about this via email, hoping she'd see me again. She wants me to see a temporary counselor to see if I have a real problem or if it's just the recent events on the news that are causing this panic. So she prescribed me buspirone. I have not picked up prescription yet but I have heard it doesn't work...what do I do?