How will I ever gain control of this anxiety if I can’t tolerate antidepressants?

[Septemberintherain]

I am 50 now but have suffered from anxiety since a small child.
No idea why it started so young as I had a good childhood but I was plagued with anxiety,panic disorder, ocd, health anxiety and strange thoughts and behaviours/routines etc. This has continued into my adult life.
The anxiety and ocd etc has never left me and depression now often tags along too.
To add to the shitshow, at 25 I developed IBS which has been so, so bad during the last 6 years that I now have daily (often all day) symptoms which just goes on to exacerbate the anxiety (I have tried absolutely EVERYTHING to ease the gut issues and break the cycle but nothing helps).
I have also tried everything to break this anxiety (I am sure the IBS may calm down too, if my anxiety was lower).
All of my time, effort and money goes onto trying to ease all of the above because I literally have no life anymore.
I initially attempted to tackle this with meditation, hypnotherapy, eating well, drinking water only, exercising every day, going to bed at a decent time etc but none of this has had a big enough impact to help control my issues. I still do these things every day though as they are obviously good for overall health.
So I then went down the medication route. I have tried various SSRI’s but they make my gut issues so much worse which then triggers more anxiety.
I am absolutely desperate to get my life back on track, I just can not live like this long term as it’s having a hugely negative impact on mine and my families lives.
So I am desperate to try something else, anything,
I see many people with anxiety mention beta blockers and how these have helped with their anxiety due to easing their physical symptoms (no GP has ever suggested this to me despite years of consulting them over this issue).
I am wondering if these could help me, if it could ease the physical issues which come from my over anxious brain then maybe all the other things that I already do may start to have more of a positive affect on everything? I can only but live in hope.

What triggers the anxiety? Sometimes we get so used to the feeling that it becomes almost a natural state. When you wake in the morning do you scan for anxiety?

Have a look at this Ted X - it might go some way to helping you understand that fighting what is essentially a normal emotion is counterproductive;

Can't help with the beta blockers unfortunately. If you can afford or get a public referral a psychiatrist is the specialist when it comes to medication for mental health issues. There are definitely more options than just the various classes of antidepressants and beta blockers. Have you tried any of the tricyclic antidepressants? Ive got IBS and anxiety too, amitriptyline plus daily movicol is what works for me. I had a bad reaction to a couple of SSRI and to a different tricyclic. My IBS means there's a lot of medications I can't tolerate and very limited treatment options.

Beta blockers helped me far more than antidepressants, but I gained a lot of weight as was on 80mg a day

On the physical health side of things, are you absolutely sure you have IBS and not Inflammatory Bowel Disease? I'm not medically trained, or even ANY sort of an expert, but my 10yo DS has just been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and also has very severe OCD and anxiety. There was some interest on the part of the gastro doctors we saw in the fact that DS had both of these conditions. So I was off down an internet rabbit hole. I realise IBS and mental health issues are very much linked anyway, but it was just when you mentioned how bad your symptoms have been for the last few years. Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis are sometimes misdiagnosed (and dismissed) as IBS. That's not to say that IBS isn't extremely debilitating.

I hope someone has a helpful answer for you. My son's OCD is almost more crippling than the Crohn's. It has taken over his life ... and ours.

Might be worth genetic testing as this gives an indication of which SSRIs you're compatible with. It will also tell you whether you have a genetic mutation to your MTHFT gene and if so, this can prevent SSRIs working until you've supplemented with methylated folate.