Rah-

I had to reply to your message because I know exactly what you are going through. Please know - it does get better! I had the terrible nervousness, INTENSE anxiety, uncontrollable crying, and surreal feeling, racing thoughts. Then I started getting suicidal thoughts. It took a while, but this has all gone away. You do have to take it one day at a time and never give up. I didn't, and it has made me a better person today. It will get better, but it takes time.

I took citalapram too, but not sure if it really did anything. I think it may have helped some with the anxiety. I took ativan to help me through some of the really terrible periods of anxiety. You will not get addicted to it unless you take several doses of it a day for several days in a row. It is not the best for a healing brain, but if you are really suffering, you may need to take it once in a while.

What are you doing besides meds to help with this? What are your days like? Are you sleeping? How were you hit? What are your other symptoms? Sleep is very important. So is balancing low-stress activity with rest.

The things that helped me the most in the beginning were:
- My spouse there to support me through the crying spells, terrible anxiety and really low emotional times. If you don't have someone at home, get a friend or a therapist. Tell them you really need help.
- Gentle massages to my upper body muscles. All of my head, jaw, neck, shoulder and upper back muscles were so tight and traumatized by the blow to my head. When I got massages, I could sometimes feel the anxiety lift out of my body for a period. Do you have any muscle tension?
- Talking to someone about all of my thoughts and anxiety. - this helps get the trauma out of you.
- Warm baths to calm me down when the painc got real bad.
- Guided mindful meditations like body scans, breathing, etc... There are a ton of good free sites for this like UCLA meditation center (try the singing bowls - very relaxing) - or the Insight Timer app.
- Acupuncture
- Gentle activities like coloring, walking, things using my hands.
- neck physical therapy - make sure it is a good PT
- if you have dizziness or vision problems - find a very good vestibular therapist - (the vestibular and anxiety centers of our brains are very connected) - there is also vision therapy by a special optometrist if your symptoms are more vision than dizziness (I found that a lot of the surreal feeling was related to my vision being so dysfunctional)

Please keep hope - you will get better over time. I know it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you will eventually. Try not to read too much on the internet - I made that mistake and it made things worse. Try to focus on positive, stress-free activities.