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It's helpful to hear that I'm not the only one having a bit of trouble with Walker's book.

It is clearly immensely helpful, but lately in working on it, I've had EFs or moments of incapacitating social anxiety hit me out of nowhere.

I guess it's like a bad chest cold, though. It's hard to find yourself hacking all the time, but this crap has to come out so it can stop festering and infecting us.

Lamictal. currently at 200mg/day.
May up the dose over time.
Prazepam for freak out moments.

Hi All.
Found my way here from Out of The FOG.

Currently my self-medicating is smoking.
From one day to the next it could be half a cigarette to 5.

Depends on the degree of recent triggers/EFs.

Could be the self-harm. Could be the shame.
I absolutely hate the smell & I've developed a whole routine of "what I must do" along with it: Wear gloves. Wear same coat. Make sure my kids don't see me do it. Cover-self in Febreeze after coming inside. Wear specific coat, hat & scarf. (it's cold where I am at the moment). Come inside. Put away hat & gloves. Brush teeth. Wash face. Gargle with Listerine.

The thing is, it stops the EF or the trigger in it's tracks. My T has me on prazepam for my anxiety moments, but it takes a bit for that to work & with the smoking, I only need a drag or two to calm down and realize that I'm ok.

But I don't like it. For the moment I'm doing it so I don't go completely nutso on my family. (kids are small, but man or man do I NOT want them associating that smell with their mama)
Plan to get help to stop as my T becomes more effective and the other meds reach the level I need not to have the freak out moments where the stress builds.
For the moment, here we are though.
Maybe it's the self-harm. There's definitely a degree of shame involved.
Tried e-cigs, but that had zero impact.