Helping gf with extreme anxiety - looking for video where Gabe discusses his medication

Grizzled

My girlfriend has pretty bad social anxiety and panic attacks. Since I started dating her, she has gone from total refusal to discuss it, to deciding that she doesn't want to feel this way anymore and that she wants to do something about it. She has gone to a therapist for a few sessions and it seemed to help, especially in identifying underlying issues that might be causing the problem. However, she still gets reduced to tears a couple of times a week or more when something sets her off.

More recently she has started to hint that she really wants to investigate other possible approaches to dealing with this. Unfortunately she comes from the kind of family where medical issues and mental health issues in particular are seen as signs of weakness that you deal with on your own and don't talk about. Therefore I can't just say "oh, you should try going on anti-anxiety meds, I hear that can totally work". I remember that at one point there was a video (a PATV episode?) where Mike and Jerry discussed their experience dealing with anxiety and treating it with medication; I think she might respond more positively to the whole idea if I had her watch the video with me. But I am having a hard time tracking it down.

Edit: We are adults with good health insurance, so there are lots of options open, the trick is getting her to feel comfortable with looking into them.

TLDR: Which episode of PATV was it where Mike and Jerry discuss taking anti-anxiety medication?

Other input or advice welcome as well.

Aioua

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/drugs

schuss

Regardless, she needs to go to her doctor. There are a lot of variants to this, as some people just need the "emergency" pill for especially stressful situations, and others need daily medications. Her family doesn't have to know, but you can't just ask for a drug, as people respond differently to different meds, and there's definitely no magic bullet. In addition, confronting some of your own demons around situational anxiety should be part of the process, as the mental component is a huge part of feeling better about things.
Also - perhaps some therapy sessions too?

badger2d

I'm surprised her therapist hasn't suggested some kind of meds, at least as a temporary aid. Or maybe the therapist has, and she has just rejected it?

I would understand if so, I used to be that way myself - distrustful of therapy and outrighting refusing meds, that is. When I got over that fear it was for the better, though. I went to therapy for a few months and I took meds for a couple years to control panic attacks and was able to get my head and my life in a better place. In my case specifically, being on the meds was necessary in order to give me the ability to work through the after-college unstable employment phase. When I was finally able to really stabilize my employment situation, that in turn took enough stress off my back to enable me to no longer need daily meds. Win/win situation in the long run!

Tycho also made a great post just recently about the effects of mood stabilizer drugs that tallied with how I feel. Before I took them I was afraid they would make me not be me. But in fact, all they did was control the extreme ends of my emotional spectrum. I still had all the same feelings, good and bad, but they were just capped so they couldn't snowball away in either direction to the point where I couldn't if necessary grab control of myself rationally.

Now that I'm clean off the meds, I do very much appreciate having the high end of the emotional spectrum back, where I can temporarily lose control of myself in the best of ways! But the tradeoff was well worth it when life was more difficult and I needed strong control of myself to get through it.