I went to Amazon in hopes of finding a book(s) on fighting anxiety/stress.

I'm so stressed out with my job and finances, as are many people these days. My company lays people off almost everyday. I commute 1 hour each way and with gas prices my stress climbs a little more everyday. I have four kids with one entering college next year. I can't afford to leave my job but really am ruining my life by staying.

My actual job is so slow that I don't have anything to do on about 60 to 70% of the days. I literally sit here and have nothing to do but surf the net. For a guy with an over active mind already, that spells disaster.

I'm trying to find something to read that might help me keep my mind off living in such a S-word-y situation. Weekends are usually OK, but weekdays are h-word. I don't want to live M thr. F. I literally live for the weekends.

Like someone else said on this site, I come here when I hit a down cycle. At this point, I'm falling.

As I stated above, I'm looking for books to help me through this. By the way, I'm on Depakote to fight depression. SSRIs cause me grief.

"The Language of Letting Go" by Melody Beattie. She is an author on Codependency. When I was going thru some depressing times and lots of anxiety this book saved my life. It is written for each day of the year. For every imaginable problem - anxiety, anger, depression, panic etc. It is very well written and gives good advice and support.

GS

Gentle Sun,

I sent you a PM and appreciate your suggestion.

OCDRunner

Are then any other books that anyone would recommend? I didn't know I had anxiety, although it was probably obvious to the rest of the world!!

Hi OCDrunner,

The book that I was recommended to read by my CBT person was 'Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness' by Gillian Butler. Obviously this is specific to Social Anxiety, but some of the exercises could be useful to other types. I've read through it, and it really helped me to identify some of the symptoms I hadn't attributed to anxiety, and to realise that other people go through some of the same stuff.

I hope you can find a book that will help you through this, and I hope that your situation improves soon.

Keep us posted

Florry