Are there any non addictive medications you can suggest?

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I would possibly like to take medication again..as it seems I am falling apart the longer I do not take them. (All though my drawings have improved....not sure if I want to lose that)

Problem I have with medications is that they are so addictive...and to withdrawl from them or miss a dose means hell...

Have any of you found decent solutions without hellish withdrawl or misdose side effects?

That depends on what symptoms you need them for. You REALLY need to see a doctor to find a med that works for you. Internet commandos can only tell you what works for them, and what works for them could be useless or even life threatening for you to try.

Well I've been on a lot of medications prescribed by psychs..

3 SSRI"s
bupropion (welbutrin)
Lorazepam
Clonidine
Adderall
Dexedrine
Strattera
Trazodone
Resperidone
Buspirone
Zolpidem
Temazepam
Nefazadone

And a few more I can't remember...

I think I am probably grasping for straws, there are no perfect pills..

Mostly I need help with anxiety/depression because the medication that helped the most was buspirone...possibly going to try that again and hope the thunder shock side effect does not come back...

Has anyone tried klonopin? How does it compare to other benzodiazepines?
Most didn't have much effect on me....except they sometimes would help me sleep.

Ask your doctor about using a very light dose of meds. Particularly in the case of antipsychotics, SSRIs, SRIs (trycyclics), and and anti-anxiety meds, a very light dose that most medical literature does not consider therapeutic can work surprisingly well.

I like your signature

I have bad results with ssri's and sri's but I might try a very low dose of klonopin, maybe having the smallest dose....just need to find a doctor down here as I recently moved.

maybe try medical marijuana? It has been shown to help with anxiety and social problems. It also doesn't give you withdrawls or hang overs since it's a mental dependency drug not a physical dependency drug. That doesn't mean you can't get addicted to it though. You can get addicted to any drug.

While it is a valid option for many people, my marijuana days are over- it seemed to have the opposite effect on me in that I would become less social and very paranoid (After the initial tolerance building faze, the paranoia seemed to gradually grow) Though I did see a much greater benefit from sativa vs indica- sativa being the superior helper in my experience. Also my parents would be strongly against it and I do not wish to hide that habit again.

Thanks for the suggestion...
if you are a MM user..i'd suggest trying super silver haze (my favorite though probably hard to get) and though I have not tried it I hear great things of strawberry cough.

What about L-DOPA?

Any drug that doesn't engage dopamine, that includes ones that inhibit dopamine. Dopamine is always involved in addiction.

This works for my 6-year-old son, who is on 4mg/day of Prozac. He was on a much higher dose initially, and it basically pulled him out of selective mutism (not wanting to talk at all in public). However, after he got over the selective mutism and made significant speech improvements, the side effect of hyperactivity became too much to handle. (Initially, just getting him to talk more was great--who cared about hyperactivity?) He cannot get completely off the Prozac without getting weepy. Temple Grandin mentions the low dose thing in her book Thinking in Pictures.

Personally, I occasionally take valium--I was diagnosed with anxiety. (I have too boys on the spectrum and my husband is bipolar; I didn't need to say much else to get an anxiety diagnosis). Valium can be taken every day, but it does not seem to be addictive and it works right away--you don't have to work up to a therapeutic dose. Careful about taking too much, though, and you might need to have a caffeinated beverage with your dose--no alcohol with it. If you need something every day, I would go with something else.

Of course, a psych should be in charge of any medication program. And be sure to read up on side effects, drug interactions, and signs of overmedication as the doctor may not tell you every possible side effect that you might experience.

benzo's can be addictive can be addictive and don't use touch dopamine that I am aware of.

I think I heard that benzo's do, but at any rate the most addictive drugs involve dopamine. Others can be abused as well but the addiction is going to be more intense in the former case.

Have you tried non-medical approaches such as analyzing your sources of stress/anxiety and dealing with them, or cognitive therapy to train yourself to refocus your mind away from anxiety? If you've not had good results with medication, it seems high time you tried something else, or something else in combination with whatever med seems most useful to you.

aspirin.

ya i've been trying to eat healthy, excercise, go out in public more see if I can try different techniques to manage stress such as listening to motivational music.

benzo's didn't seem to have really any negative effects on me...and it's been about a year or so since I used them and when I did I didn't use them very often.

But I am opened to ideas for anxiety management techniques

Benzodiazepines are problematic because they're only good in the short term; in the long term people will develop a tolerance and then they don't work anymore. So, they're a solution for someone with a phobia getting on a plane, but not someone with generalized anxiety getting through their lives.

CBT-style therapy does seem to have some effect; if you can change thoughts, you can often affect feelings associated with them including anxiety.

Sleep is also important. If I don't get enough, I get edgy and jump at shadows. When sleep-deprived I even, oddly enough, become scared of the dark!