Question: I am a female, 57 years old with anxiety tendency since childhood. I had a few crisis in my life often triggered by an outside events, but I always became better again after a few months. I had 2 jobs as accounts manager, one for 18 years and the current one for 13years. In 2010, for a crisis of high anxiety after a bad flu, I was given Xanax XR 1mg that I took for about 6 months, than I tapered down to Xanax XR 0.5mg that I took for about 9 months, than I switched to Xanax 0.25 mg 2x/day for another few months, than I cut down to 0.25mg/day for a while, I am not sure how long, than to 1/2 of 0.25mg/day and than to 1/4 of 0.25mg/day that I took for a couple of years, I think. Then at the end of last July 2013, I stopped it. First I did not notice anything, but later I developed insomnia and in October I started a full blown severe anxiety episode with debilitating anxiety basically all day long, which has not stopped as of today. In December I went to my doctor who gave me Ativan 1mg 2x/day that I took for over 3 months. I than started to feel worse and worse and now I am trying to taper out of the Ativan and having a horrible time. I am very scared and not quite sure what is happening to me. If I know that it is withdrawal, then I will try to tough it through, hoping that I will eventually get better. But my fear is that it is the underlying anxiety which is coming back or getting worse and this totally discouraged me . I am very worried because the onset of this severe anxiety episode which started last October has no real reason that I am aware of. My question to you is : Could it be delayed withdrawal from the long term Xanax I took even though it was such a small dose ? After stopping it in July, I took occasionally some Ambien because I could not sleep. But I took it no more than 1 or 2x/week.