Anxiety and Panic Support

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WEEKLY MINI-FAQ - updated 09/05/00

Welcome to alt.support.anxiety-panic: known as ASAP to its regulars :)

ASAP also has a full FAQ overview of anxiety conditions, which is posted here monthly. If you would like a copy sooner it can be obtained via the WWW sites listed below.

Meanwhile, this weekly mini-FAQ contains useful WWW addresses, general information plus a few hints and tips.  Even if you skip the lists of essential URLs and other information, please take time to read the hints and tips at the end of this, before you start posting.

At the end of this document there are some commonly used acronyms (e.g. YMMV) that some of you may find useful.

& The Anxiety-Panic.Com search engine (devoted to hundreds of anxiety related web sites world-wide) and the ASAP Dictionary of Anxiety and Panic Disorders can be found at the following links.

& http://anxiety-panic.com

& http://www.netaxs.com/people/aca3/AD-ENG.HTM

Cathleen Henning has produced a very useful site with much information and comprehensive links.  You can also find the ASAP FAQ there:

The National Anxiety Foundation has a very promising site, covering both Panic Disorder and OCD. It's well worth a look:

    http://lexington-on-line.com/naf.html

Regular ASAP contributor and founder of the Panic Disorders Institute, Dr. Stuart Shipko, has his own thought-provoking and stimulating site. Highly recommended:

    http://www.algy.com/pdi

The US National Panic and Anxiety Disorders newsletter can be found at:

&  The npadnews link is no longer available
    http://www.npadnews.com/

The Anxiety Disorders Association of America also has a site:

    http://www.adaa.org

Snit's Anxiety Suggestions at:

    http://www.treefort.org/~snit/anxiety.html

As well as the renowned "Amusing Panics" collection

    http://www.treefort.org/~snit/anxiety/tidbits/stories.html

Other valuable locations include the following:

    http://www.nimh.nih.gov/anxiety/

    http://www.ocs.mq.edu.au/~abaillie/adfa.html

    http://www.mhsource.com/expert/consumer.html/#anxiety

    http://www.mentalhealth.com/

&  The fairlite link is no longer available
    http://www.fairlite.com/ocd/medications

    http://www.MedsiteNavigator.com/Medications/

    http://mindstreet.com/cbt.html

    http://anxietynetwork.com/hcbt.html

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

It is best to read a newsgroup for a week or so before posting - especially if your comments might be controversial. Two topics particularly likely to cause trouble here are religion and the alleged addictive properties of benzodiazepine medications, such as Xanax.

The convention on ASAP regarding religion is that preaching or exhorting others to follow any particular faith is not acceptable. It is fine to say that faith in X or Y has helped you individually, but *not* to suggest others follow your beliefs and especially not to quote religious works for the purposes of conversion.

Regarding medication, it is extremely important that you check out previous postings on the subject (see below).  The "addiction" issue has been exhausted several times over on this NG and detailed explanations of the medical difference between addiction and dependency have been posted on countless occasions. Please do *not* post inflammatory material on this subject. Read the earlier discussions.

Most posts to ASAP are archived and can be invaluable sources of information about therapies, medications, symptoms etc. Posts can be accessed via:

    http://www.dejanews.com/

and/or

    http://altavista.digital.com

It is quite acceptable for posters to withhold their identities if need be, provided, of course, they post sensibly.  For information on anonymous servers, send e-mail to:

    help@anon.twwells.com -- for an automatically returned help message.

If you are completely new to newsgroups and want to find out the general do's and don't's, the following site provides FAQs and guides:

    http://sunsite.unc.edu/usenet-i/