In retrospect I think I have suffered from anxiety my whole life but I've never wanted to admit it. Chronic depression was my biggest worry. My mother was a very timid woman with social anxiety. I suffered mental and physical trauma living with an alcoholic as a teenager but had a successful healthcare career. I'm now 59 and retired due to work-related illness. I find that many things cause me stress and now that I'm not working I can't channel it into productivity. I feel my heart pounding and feel stressed about many things, including social interactions.

I'm excited about a number of things in my life but that excitement mixed with stress means I don't get to sleep until 3 a.m. I take 1 or 2mg of ativan/lorazapam in the evenings but need to supplement with other meds like benadryl, sublinox, or imovane in order to get to sleep. An on-line test result = G.A.D. I don't have a regular doctor anymore and the walk-in clinic doc wants to put my on Paxil as I do not have tolerance for Cexlexa. I've always been a problem solver and hate this sense of spinning out of control, but Paxil has a bad reputation, and I recall having trouble getting off it in the past. sorry for the rant. any thoughts?