Hello. My name is Dr. Jinx and I have an anxiety problem. Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as far as I can tell, not that I’ve ever had anyone other than a general practitioner take a crack at it. It’s one of those things I have to figure out how to live with and deal with.

About a week and a half ago, I went on a different medication. It was one I had used successfully before, but there was a good reason to go off it. My then-significant other and I hoped that, despite my advanced age, we might get pregnant, and this medication is not recommended with pregnancy. So I weaned my way off of it, doing sometimes okay, and sometimes worse, while we tried and hoped. I had another medication I could take for immediate crisis. It was okay, but not great.

That part of my life ended rather suddenly, but I never returned to the old medication that had worked relatively well for me. I toughed some things out I shouldn’t have, and finally began relying on my back-up medication more. And more and more. It was time for a change.

It is working like a charm. I feel normal most of the time, which means, I’m not feeling on edge all the time, waiting for the axe to fall or the other shoe to drop. I know that it is a matter of days or weeks before “normal” stops feeling like the wonder it is right now. I better write about it, so that I can remember it later.

In my handwritten journal, I’ve written over and over again, “Please make the anxiety go away. Please find a solution to my anxiety problem. Please make it better, this is so hard.” For a little while I am here, and it is better. I wish I could give this to everyone who is suffering; a respite.

When I’m suffering, on edge, I think I should be strong, hold off taking anything, breathe through it. It’s a personal failing, is it not, to have this condition in the first place. So many bad situations that I stayed in far too long, thinking quitters never win and winners never quit. But there are problems that you just have to run away from. In this case, in my case, medication that I just need to take.

A wise friend has said to me, there is something about emotions that just needs to be witnessed. Yes. I need the pain to be seen, and the relief to be seen. Maybe in someone seeing, we can begin, between us, to make sense of it.