I started having anxiety at the meetings and assemblies in 2001. It increased over the years, particularly in 2007, and peaking in 2010 after I was prescribed prozac. On prozac, I suddenly wanted to be dead and I wanted my youngest brother dead. No rhyme or reason to it, he and I were best friends.
So I asked to go to the local crisis unit. I was freaked out by these feelings and overwhelmed. I stayed a week, was incorrectly dx'd as bipolar (I'm not - I am autistic and I was having a meltdown and a reaction to the prozac), and put in the 5 hour/day group therapy for the next 5 months.
While there, I realized that I needed to remove from my life the things that set off my anxiety. The first thing to go was the meetings. Going to the memorial was horribly unsettling because, by that point, I was finished. But we had to keep up appearances for a little while longer. Shortly after, we moved out of state and it's no longer an issue.
Now, my anxiety comes from life threatening situations, like the emergency surgery I underwent the 2nd weekend of June. THAT triggered anxiety for me. But that's been the only issue in over a year since we left.
I'm unmedicated and feel normal again. I didn't need the meds - I needed to GTFO of that crazy ass cult. I neded to get away from the abusive 'boyfriend' that kept telling me I wasn't good enough, I'll never be good enough, I'm a bad person, I don't deserve salvation, I have to earn it, I need to do more, it's never enough, I'm tired/sick/anxious and it's all my fault because I suck.
F*ck that shit, man, I'm done. I'm over it. And I'm not depressed, suicidal, or homicidal anymore.
But we're definitely better.