Hello, Mimi girl 63,
For years, I woke up with deep despair and with little if any desire to live. I had traumatic childhood abuse. In the last six months, that has all changed. I no longer wake up in despair. I do have anxiety related to medical appointments because fake medical environments were used by my abusers, but the anxiety is not nearly as bad as it used to be. I have never taken meds.

Right now, Breath Work, Wall-sitting, mindfulness, and binaural listening are very helpful. All of these techniques are described in the Smart Patients conversation, Resources for Anxiety. On Smart Patients I am ClaireATX. You can read more of my story there.

Please keep me posted on what you try, what works and what doesn’t.

In the Breath Work article, there is a breathing exercise developed for panic attacks.

Binaural music is great because all I have to do is listen. Each earphone of the headphones play two tones that are within 40 Hertz of each other. This helps the brain to calm down.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy really helps when I have panic attacks or just a flood of emotion and I don’t know what’s going on.

The Action for Happiness calendars helped me to move forward. One of my favorite calendar reminders are: See life for what it is but look for the good.

All these resources are described in this conversation:
https://www.smartpatients.com/conversations/resources-for-anxiety#top
This work is not easy. Keep trying different strategies until you find the ones that work for you. Things will get better. I will help in whatever way I can.

Claire