Restarting anxiety medications

I had a few appointments last week that resulted in my anxiety suddenly spiking really severely. Over the last two years I’ve managed to cope much better with my anxiety by using Mindfulness and studying Buddhism and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, and just really trying to take care of myself and being careful to not push myself too far in terms of forcing myself into situations that are too much for me. But last week was horrendous. However I’m noticing that I’m getting back to feeling a bit better more quickly than I used to. I tried medication years ago but I just couldn’t tolerate the side effects. 
Mindfulness has really helped me - but admittedly it’s taken me a long time to learn about it and to practice it, and to feel significant benefits. However at the same time I think the benefits are long lasting - I still get anxiety of course but I have some really good tools to help me be less frightened of it and less panicky when I feel it worsening. I recently did a BBC Maestro course to help with Anxiety done by Owen O Kane - and I found that to be really good too. 
I don’t think there’s any silver bullet for anxiety - but I’ve found that I can do lots of things that really can support me to cope better with it. Even simple things like making sure to go to bed at a decent time and getting enough sleep, eating healthily, not watching too much News on TV - all these things help in small ways. But Mindfulness and Thich Nhat Hanh are the things that have helped the most. I needed to change how looked at things - being more accepting of things not going as planned, and trying not to feel I had to control everything in my life to feel safe. Accepting impermanence, surrendering a bit more to life. Just so many things. I’ve learned that you have to ‘tackle it’ from lots of different angles. I found Eckhart Tolle to be helpful too. The world won’t change - life will always feel challenging and scary at times (especially for autistic people) - so we can only change how we react and respond to the anxiety we experience- we cannot get rid of anxiety. Accepting that is the first step really. I hope things get easier for you soon. 

I will look into some of the suggestions you have made, thank you. Unfortunately I do find it hard to accept change or when things don’t go the way I expected. 

Yes - it’s a challenge isn’t it? Because I don’t like unexpected changes etc I tend to do a lot of planning and research to try and avoid unexpected things happening. However sometimes no amount of planning in life can prevent ‘curved balls’ coming our way, so if we can find ways to increase our tolerance for those times then we will have a slightly easier time of it. For me part of it is remembering that when things like this have happened in the past I have (most of the time) actually managed to cope with them - I have survived them. I remember the metaphor of how plants and trees that grow in stormier places develop stronger roots and stems, whereas plants grown in greenhouses aren’t as strong. I sometimes think that more we ‘hide’ from the stresses of life the more fragile we start to view ourselves. We are probably stronger than we believe ourselves to be. 

Yes - it’s a challenge isn’t it? Because I don’t like unexpected changes etc I tend to do a lot of planning and research to try and avoid unexpected things happening. However sometimes no amount of planning in life can prevent ‘curved balls’ coming our way, so if we can find ways to increase our tolerance for those times then we will have a slightly easier time of it. For me part of it is remembering that when things like this have happened in the past I have (most of the time) actually managed to cope with them - I have survived them. I remember the metaphor of how plants and trees that grow in stormier places develop stronger roots and stems, whereas plants grown in greenhouses aren’t as strong. I sometimes think that more we ‘hide’ from the stresses of life the more fragile we start to view ourselves. We are probably stronger than we believe ourselves to be. 

I like your attitude, I need to be more like this.