Alpha Male take two

[mat422]

Mat, be very very careful with Xanax. Doctors don't know much about these benzos as they call them. If you take it daily for a week or 2, you get addicted, then it's nearly hell trying to get off them. So use them sparingly as needed. You begin having interdose withdrawals when you need a pill. They can last up to months later. It took me 3 months to get off a drug similar to Xanax but a longer half-life (Xanax is the worse to be on). I only need it for a week or 2. Because of it I had to go on anti-depressants in order to wean off the Ativan, I still had horrible withdrawals for a week after each drop-down followed by a 3 month period of having very weird symptoms randomly pop-up.

If you need something regularly ask the doctor to try some anti-depressants, if they have horrible effects on you, ask to try another. Another good one I liked was Buspar which is similar to Xanax, but longer lasting and it has absolutely no withdrawals. It's a much lighter pill but for anxiety. Some doctors are so eager to just throw pills at you without any knowledge about them. But, mine were always wrong, I had to go through it mostly on my own.

Ryan

Yeah the xanax is for extreme anxiety provoking situations, definitely not an every week thing. The prescription is only for .25 mg so it's a fairly light dose as well. But I've heard of the addictive nature of xanax so I'm definitely only using it sparingly. Thanks for the heads up.

I'm still not sure about taking anti-depressants only because I want to see if these issues are all from negative beliefs and thinking. It's hard to tell you know? It's mostly social anxiety, but I still have anxiety when there are deadlines or when I have a lot of work to do. I'm not against medication, but I want to make sure that the underlying issues are addressed.

I just have a question for you Ryan. I'm sure you have heard of cognitive behavioral therapy. It makes sense that thoughts would influence a person's emotional state, but sometimes I feel like the social anxiety doesn't have thoughts attached to it. Did you ever feel like that? Either the thoughts are subconscious and I can't identify them or this thing is purely chemical imbalance.

That's all my social anxiety really is now a days...more of a light physical thing that more mental. I believe, it's because Alpha cleared out a lot of that thinking? And I associate my anxiety lately with resistance...some days it's a little more, other days it's nothing. It's weird. Sometimes it comes up for an hour and then goes away completely.

But...it could be a chemical imbalance too. I know the drugs removed my anxiety nearly completely for months until I dropped down at a lower dose, I started feeling it a little more, but not too bad. Anti-depressants can be rough, esp. starting but they work. Yes, I'd avoid them if I absolutely could mostly because I gained a lot of weight, had absolutely no care in the world and lots of sexual side effects. Not that it was a bad thing...lol I loved them, but I hated those side effects so I'm trying to stay clear of them if I can. But the Buspar thing is a good one, if you absolutely need anxiety help, but IDK how it is with social anxiety? It had no side effects for me, worked quickly and wasn't addictive...I came right off of it. Takes the edge off.

Ryan

Thanks for the input. I'll keep Buspar in mind. I think anything to take the edge off would be good for social anxiety. Being on edge is no good for having conversations or being in a crowded public area like college.

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Today I kind of had a relapse of some kind. I was carrying this really good attitude for a couple of days and now I feel like I crashed and burned again. I was addressing the negative thoughts and just trying to think positive and have internal dialogue with myself, it worked for a while but days like this where I don't have the energy to keep up kind of suck. I can tell when my mind starts chattering on and on about things that don't help and pull me down into a worse state, so I've gotten good at controlling that. Still I can only do so much, it takes a lot of energy out of me.

But tomorrow's another day and I'm not going to assume how I'm going to feel tomorrow. I'll just live in the moment and see what happens. I know I've said it before, but the alpha set makes me very mentally strong. Even though I may relapse, I'm usually able to bounce right back or push through and do what I have to do.