Hi, mod of /r/anxiety here, and I also stutter, have social anxiety, and have severe depression. First of all, please x-post there, and maybe pop in at our IRC channel as well! You'll meet a lot of people who have experience with social anxiety, anxiety about sexuality, meds, panic attacks, all of that. Sometimes the good people in the IRC even organize a small Google Hangout where people know to be patient and understanding of others because they're all going through something themselves. In the meantime, a few things I just thought I'd say: - Panic attacks generally have physical symptoms beyond what the anxiety alone would give. You could take a look at the [DSM diagnostic criteria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_attack#Diagnosis) for panic attacks, but remember that even if you have never experienced a panic attack, it doesn't invalidate your anxiety. You can still have problematic anxiety or an anxiety disorder without having attacks. - Meditation can help, and so can meds, but generally they won't solve anything by themselves and may even be confused for the natural ups and downs that many of us experience anyway. Some people are more lucky than others with these things - personally I've been on about a dozen different meds and haven't found anything that helps as much as alcohol or benzos, both of which I've been trying to avoid most of the time. I do really like the way you put it when you said, "Sure, drug experiences aren't real life, but I have a right to feel highly sentimental and inspired by this revelation." - When you talk about "non-opioid anxiety meds" you might be thinking of benzodiazepines (which I briefly brought up above) - things like Xanax, Ativan, that sort of stuff. They're also a big no for me! I've even had a psychiatrist tell me straight up that he considers it irresponsible for anyone to prescribe benzos to people with chronic anxiety problems. [SSRIs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor) and [SNRIs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin%E2%80%93norepinephrine_reuptake_inhibitor) might still be worth looking into, though. Since they have a cumulative effect and are nonaddictive, there's no danger of getting into the "it's a hard day, I'll just take one more pill" mindset, since doing so wouldn't have any immediate effect anyway. - If you're able to do so, getting out and being around people without having to talk to them is something I'd look into. It helped me for a while, although admittedly right now I'm facing somewhat of a dark patch and haven't been able to do anything like that for a while. Not only might it be beneficial to deal with the anxiety a little bit at a time so it doesn't start making more headway, simply being outside and/or getting exercise in and of itself has been shown time and time again to be beneficial for depression (and I'm sure you're very aware of the depression/anxiety feedback loop type of thing that tends to happen).