Ummmm...well very, very subtle strangeness in the first few weeks. If I moved my head quickly, it was like my sense of body placement followed an almost imperceptibly short time later (that is only a bastardized explanation of the feeling) a bit of that and if I forget to take it for a day, I notice it because of this and also a not-really-headache but a strange feeling in my head...or a subtle twitch in my calves...then I go "oh..did I take my pill?" and remember...but all quite subtle...
Bryan Atinsky
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It sounds like what you are describing is a very mild ataxia. I take an inhaler where some of these symptoms occur. Anyway, the way to remember is to keep a small date notebook, and just mark it. I should do this myself and do, but systematically often enough.
I had a close rock climber friend who took Xanax. His primary difficulties were anxiety and sleeplessness. Xanax helped him a lot for the first six months to a year. But slowly the noted side effects started to become more prominant, including anxiety about going off the drug. So, be prepared to work your way off Xanax with your doctor some time in the future.
Advice from strangers may not be welcome. All I can say is I've had two periods in my life in deep grief and anxiety---not as bad as yours---but enough to have some idea what's going on.
It just so happened with me these periods were before SSRIs were developed. Because of the circumstances of the first period, I had to get a part-time construction job. The physical demands of the job, made the grief disappear for most of the days I was working. This also helped with sleep and broke the cycle of seeing death over and over again as I tried to fall asleep at night. Because I was a student, it also helped to move out and get somewhere else among new people who didn't know me or anything about me. I could start over. Young people seem to be able to start over. I am afraid there is some cut off period later where you can't really start over.
Back as a student I also discovered, since I was an art major, that doing art helped. In the later period of deep grief/loss/anxiety, I rediscovered art, but this time through reading, and writing a journal where I was free to write in full expression without worry or criticism or public view. Since I couldn't start over, and I was stuck in place because of economic necessity, I first turned to drug and alcohol abuse. Eventually I got off those. I discovered that intense exercise really helped. The effects were much better than manual labor.
Of course a sense of humor helps. The worst side effects of drugs and alcohol are going broke, getting arrested, jail, and getting beat up or shot by the cops and or your fellow criminals.
Science research was just discovering the endorphin effects of heavy exercise because some sports had become popular activities. I had discovered these great side effects back in the 70s from running, cycling, and climbing. I just felt better, life was looking up---even if it hadn't really changed much.
During yet another more recent period of much milder grief/loss/anxiety, my own and the world, I made another discovery rediscovery. Solidarity with others in struggle helps. For me of course it was a virtual sort, but a form of relief nonetheless. It was watching the Egyptians all night on AJE. Suddenly my forced retirement, unemployment, poverty, debt...this is anxiety and fear producing stuff...went away. I didn't care about my condition which was getting pretty dire, if I could believe in and get to see what was going on in Taquir. Their battle isn't over. But they got me through late winter with its short days, long and dreary nights with lot of time on my hands to stew about.
Other observations.
I found psychologists including clinical thearpists tend to not really understand these grief/loss/anxiety periods. They tend to treat these as a pathology. For some people they are. For others, they are seen as a part of life and there are psychological, social, and cultural ways to deal with them.
Because of my work, I saw a lot of people experience a very similar syndrome. It happens if you become severely and permanently disabled. The peer groups call this death and rebirth. The person you were died, and now you have to make yourself a new person. This experience and recovery has been incorporated into some parts of rehabilitation medicine such as peer counseling groups. A good peer group is really a solidarity group.
But I really got to see the rehabilitation and healing effects of political struggle and solidarity among disabled students as they struggled to change their world. I can't see this much anymore, because those men and women are gone, and I miss them. Maybe this time around I'll re-find them in new faces.
CG