Panic/everything anxiety related you can imagine.

[Chriseld]

So, instead of going into an exhausting and lengthy description of all the things that are wrong with my head, I'll make this as brief as possible. I'm pretty much losing my mind. I suffer from extreme panic, intermittently, and constant anxiety inbetween. I've recently started to develop some physical symptoms I believe are due to the emotionally crushing panic and constant anxiety. More recently I've developed a constant feeling of despair, which you'd think would be related but honestly I feel like it's just a random addition that makes life that much better. I'm talking near constant emotional lows where I could be winning the lottery, look around and realize everything I know and love will one day be nothing and existence is completely meaningless. This has lead to further complications, a cross between anger, depression, but sometimes complete apathy toward everything. My question: I cannot afford therapy (although I'm sure I need a fully qualified psychologist and not a therapist) and I've looked into free/reduced price help stuff to no avail. If anyone has any information, I would be greatly appreciative. Even someone online to talk to, anything at all. Pretty sure Im in a deadly downward spiral right now, and it only seems to be accelerating. I'm looking for free psychologists, communities where you can talk to people with similar problems, any decently qualifies person to talk to online, basically anything at all that could potentially help. Aside from help, I'm also curious about possible diagnosis. I seem to fit part of the way into about 5 different ones, but there's always something that doesn't quite fit. Ie. Bipolar episodes (from what I've read) seem to last months, my brain is much too chaotic for that. Borderline personality seems to be centered around abandonment, one of the only issues I don't feel like I have. Severe panic disorder fits best, but I have way too many symptoms for all that, as of there are multiple disorders... but I feel like having some sort of potential diagnosis (and I say potential because I'm aware I can't get an accurate online diagnosis) would give me some sort of relief, so I'm not constantly assuming brain tumor or whatnot. Again, anything is helpful. Thanks.

[Paxiled]

I think healing is often more art than science, and the cooperation of the patient is required -- which is rough because if we could cooperate we wouldn't need therapists.  So the amount of education isn't necessarily as important as the quality of the therapist.  That being said, psychologists have 8 to 9 years of college, and the vast majority spent all that time in both undergraduate and graduate school studying psychology.  Why I think this helps is that most people who see therapists have minor, incident related problems which any caring person with some training can help with, but diagnosing chronic anxiety and depression are hard to do and require a lot of training and exposure to different forms of therapy over the years to help.  But that psychologist also has to specialize in treating what ails you, so it does no good to see someone who specializes in relationship counseling if you're suffering with chronic anxiety.  Good luck.

[Chriseld]

In my opinion they're all bad, at least for me. Nothing against therapists, mine seemed alright. I just don't see anyone with less than 8 years of college being able to help me. My therapist did his best, but I mean, telling someone to stay positive in contrast to the ever downward spiral of chaos, fear, apathy and slowly developing hatred of existence just... it's not that I don't try, I just think I'm well past the point of "being positive."

[Paxiled]

You really need to find someone to help pay for a psychologist who specializes in anxiety treatment.  There are community health clinics where you can see reduced price people, but I've not found them particularly good or helpful.  You need not just anyone, but someone good, and you need to get a diagnosis so a plan can be made for treatment.  It's not a good thing, but bad therapists are a waste of time.  

[Chriseld]

And because I can't figure out how to edit, I'd like to add that the part about life being so much better with the additional despair was sarcasm. In case it wasn't obvious.