Now that you have read the symptoms and diagnostic criteria for these three very similar conditions, let’s talk about treatment options.
If you weren’t scared before, you should be scared by what I will tell you next.
Over my 36 years as a clinician, I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve witnessed that go something like the following.
A patient experiences anxiety, panic or intrusive PTSD symptoms such as fear, nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia, etc.
That patient visits his/her primary care physician or goes to the ER.
Mainstream docs tell that person that we don’t really understand what causes these conditions, there is no cure, and the rest of his/her life will be spent “managing” the condition.
Mainstream medicine’s way of “managing” these conditions is to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs, such as SSRIs and SNRIs in combination with anti-anxiety medication. (I frankly never understood why Western medicine takes such pains to establish differential diagnoses in order to assign the “right” label for a patient’s psychiatric condition when the same class of drugs are used all the same!)
After beginning the medication, the patient may feel some relief, but drugs become less effective over time as the body adapts to them; and the patient’s doctor will keep raising the dose. Eventually, the original symptoms bleed through all the same.
Sooner or later, the patient tries to discontinue the drugs.
Here’s where true hell begins.
In attempting to get off these pharmaceutical drugs, the patient experiences worse symptoms than before starting the drug!
Western medicine has all kinds of names for drug withdrawal reactions: Discontinuation Syndrome, Withdrawal Phenomenon, or Rebound Phenomenon.
No matter what you call it, it’s still hell.
There are actually rehab programs designed to address this problem!
And there are many published articles on this topic. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6637660/
I’ll never forget a young psychotherapist who came to me for treatment to address her profound anxiety as a result of trying to get off her anti-anxiety medication. She was disabled with worse anxiety than before she began the drug.
As you can surely tell by now, I’m no fan of pharmaceutical drugs, which only treat symptoms and cause side effects that actually worsen the underlying cause of what ails us.
Until you uncover the underlying cause of your symptoms, it will be nearly impossible to overcome your anxiety, panic and PTSD.
What is the underlying cause of these three conditions?
Mainstream medicine will tell you that one or more of the following is to blame:
*Brain chemistry imbalances
*Hormone imbalance
*Genetic predisposition
*Low self-esteem
*Borderline personality disorder
*Physical or sexual abuse
*Chronic diseases like diabetes, multiple sclerosis and cancer
*Abuse of alcohol or drugs
*Certain prescription medications
*Family history of depression
*Age, gender, race and geography