Am I over-reacting? Or the fear of fear?

Aside from the time today outside that my anxiety got down to level 3 and my depression got a little better, my anxiety level has pretty much been stuck near level 8. Back on February 25th, my psychiatrist switched me to a new Benzodiazepine (a drug that has fast acting relief of anxiety and depression, but has a high possibility of over-use and addiction) which allowed me to feel a LOT better, lowered my depression till it was all but gone and decreased my anxiety an average of a few levels. Then, on March 5th, he increased my Atypical Antipsychotic medication, and ever since then it's as if I was never on the Benzodiazepine.

{Ed. note: The National Alliance for the Mentally ill has a good site listing information about common medicines for people with symptoms like mine.)

This past Saturday at like 1 am I wrote my therapist an extremely long e-mail explaining my distress, but he hasn't read it yet. I'm afraid to make an appointment with the psychiatrist for financial reasons, another appointment would be a financial burden on the family even though they encourage me very well to get the help I need.

So, am I over-reacting and just need to wait another week as I get used to the Atypical Antipsychotic medication increase, and the Benzodiazepine will then work normally?

Normally, my approach to finding out if I'm over-reacting is to wait a few days and see if my reaction stays the same before acting on it. Well, my reaction is the same for about 4-5 days now, so I guess I might not be over-reacting, but that's often my problem, I over-react or under-react to situations and emotions.

So, I've committed myself to going to the clinic tomorrow, assuming I can drive, and talk to the nurse, see what she says, and I'll see if there are any cancelation openings for my therapist.

Especailly since my sleeping has been bad, I've been having nightmares I don't remember, sweating and kicking, and grinding my teeth at night. I'm supposed to wear an appliance to keep from grinding my teeth at night, but I'm often too depressed to even care enough to wear it, which is another thing I'm going to bring up with my therapist, it's part of my overall hygeine problem.

It's all made me think of the famous phrase, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself!" That's got special meaning for me, the fear of fear often drives me.