Introduction

[jettdg]

Greetings. My wife of 25 years has been suffering from debilitating anxiety and depression, which has gotten progressively worse over the last three months - to the point where she is intensely fearful of being alone. She is seeing a pastoral counselor, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist. She has not responded well to drug treatment, so she has recently started cognitive-based /ERP therapy. I'm writing to ask the community members, particularly those who have experienced drug-resistant anxiety and depression, what they have found to be most helpful in managing these conditions. Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Windy101]

This lady has written books about treatment resistant depression and has online videos and support groups for it. Might be a helpful resource!

youtube.com/watch?v=SqnJwaE...(Not working as expected?)

youtube.com/watch?v=vImWrPl...(Not working as expected?)

youtube.com/watch?v=vImWrPl...(Not working as expected?)

[Windy101 in reply to Windy101]

Oops. sorry, meant to post this one: youtube.com/watch?v=HIUmHKi...(Not working as expected?)

[lhortiz]

I have the same diagnosis and struggle with being alone. I tell my story on my profile introduction about having to leave my abusive husband and am now alone. Though I have family who comes to visit I still have problems with being alone.

From personal experience I can tell you that it is the intense physical and emotional symptoms that keep people like us stuck as well as not addressing the underlying factors that caused the anxiety.

What has worked for me and others like your wife and I is being able to tolerate the symptoms and do those things we fear that help us to overcome to disprove our fears.

The symptoms in and of themselves are not harmful but only the effects of a hyper stimulated nervous system. If your wife becomes alarmed about her symptoms she only perpetuates the cycle. She has to learn to see the symptoms as the nervous system doing only what it has been taught to do and passively accept them as she addresses the issues that caused them.

anxietycentre.com is an excellent resource and counselors who have suffered the same problems are available to help her. The site has information on a much more comprehensive level than I could ever explain on this post.

I hope this helps.

[jettdg]

Thank you for sharing.

[gemfire]

She's very fortunate to have you in her life!