Petunia:

I was taking medication for an outright nervous breakdown that came 2 years after my initial trauma, so I guess you could say "anxiety", as that's what most doctors deemed it. I'm not a big fan of most doctors now, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I was on lexapro and a low dosage of xanax, and while they were somewhat effective in getting me to stop actively exploding, they didn't make me feel good in the slightest (I don't construe "less horrific" as being "good"). After a while, I saw these drugs as being an impediment to my exorcising this demon of my past, as their purpose in my system was to stifle some of the pain in my body before it reached the surface, and that's why I went off of them. Honestly, I didn't feel any better or worse emotionally when I dropped the drugs, I just felt less like my brain was stuck inside a ziploc bag, which was a positive change in my mind.

Regardless, thanks for the information on beta blockers. I actually saw that 60 minutes report when it aired, and it definitely made me furious as hell (not that this research was being done, but that the government was shutting it down). These "ethical concerns" seem absolutely preposterous in my mind, I mean, it's not like the drug is intended to suck your memories out of your brain, it's just intended to take away the memory's kick. So it's docile, like a photograph.

I think I'm going to try EMDR before I try anything else, as my body doesn't respond well to chemicals (the physical trail of my trauma primarily resides in my brain and liver, so most anything other than water and oatmeal get my system up at arms), but if that doesn't work I'll probably try to get some beta blocker stuff going. Just by nature of my trauma, what triggers me, and what the fallout after I'm triggered acts like, I really have no choice but to seek out eradication of my PTSD, instead of learning to compromise it and live around it, so whatever could possibly provide that is exactly what I'm interested in.