I think I need medication, where to from here?

I have been getting anxiety for about 5 months and in the past couple of weeks I have been getting panic attacks.

The attacks have only lasted a few minutes, but are becoming more frequent. The anxiety is consistently there, I feel like I am always in flight or fight mode.

I live in a a small town, and I dont

need everyone knowing everything about me so I’m finding it hard to even get myself to my gp for help.

I have been seeing a councillor for about 11 months for marriage counciling and then started seeing him about 7months ago on my own to help me come to terms with child sexual abuse.

It has taken all of these past 7months to finally open up and speak about my past abuse, and I know I can’t turn around and in one 5minute consult with a dr tell him what’s going on to be able to start medication. I’m not going to get meds by walking in and just asking for them, but I’m too scared to tell him why I need them.

As it is, I travel a 540km round trip just to see my councillor, seeing my local gp is way too close to home. My councillor has given me a couple of grounding techniques, which help if I’m on my own, but aren’t real effective if I’m in a busy place with lots of people.

I’m self medicating with alcohol just to get some kind of relief, and I know that’s not effective, it just makes the anxiety worse, but it gets to a point where there is nothing else and I need to do something at the time.

Is there someone else besides a gp that I can go to? This whole experience is new to me and I really don’t know where to start, any advice would be hugely appreciated.