Graciecat

Actually a very good friend of mine and I started our own Anxiety group.
At the time she was no longer suffering with panic/anxiety issues, but I still was...I have since stopped having problems but we both still go to the meetings.

We didn't do it in anyones house, we called around and found a place that would allow us to have the meetings in their facility free of charge.
It turns out the my Priest also suffered from panic/anxiety problems at one time and he allows us to hold the meetings in the Church social room.


It's not any kind of a set plan that we use...we'd both tried CBT and other forms of therapy with no success.
We'd also tried other groups, but they were mostly run by P'docs who only wanted to talk about the kinds of drugs that they thought we should be on or tried to tell us that there HAD to be something in our past that was causing the panic/anxiety...which in both of our cases wasn't true..we both have a family history of this disorder.
So one day I just decided that the only people who'd really listen to me and really understand where I was coming from were people who were like me...people who actually suffered from this disorder.

We were able to get the word out about the meetings through word of mouth and the Priest made an announcement in Church one Sunday....Also our cable company has for lack of a better word an "Announcment" channel and they allow non-profit groups to put an ad on that channel free of charge...our local newspaper does the same thing.
We gave out both mine and my Friends phone numbers and told people they could call for information.
It turned out that several people that called and showed up at the meetings were people that we either knew or that we'd come in contact with around town....keep in mind that we do live in a small town...around 10,000 people...so I'm not sure how or if any of this would work in a large City.

We just meet once every two weeks and simply talk.
We have a book and anyone who is willing puts their phone number in that book so that if another member just needs to talk between meetings, they know that there's someone who they can call who'll just listen.
There was no pressure to do this, at first the only numbers in the book were mine and my friends...we now have well over 30 numbers.
We also had name tags...if someone wanted to write their name on it and wear it that was fine, but again no pressure to do this.
At first only a handfull wore a name tag, then over a period of time everyone was wearing them...we all know each other so well now that there's no need for them any more...when we get a new member we just simply say "We have a new memeber with us tonight."
If they want to share their name, that's fine...if not that's fine too.
The key is to never pressure anyone to talk, they'll talk if and when they're ready.
We talk about how we've been since our last meeting, just basically vent to one another, because we know that chances are anything we've felt someone else in the group has felt also and we're not going to be judged or made to feel like we have two heads.
When someone says, "I needed to go to the store, but I couldn't because I was afraid"...nobody says "Get over it", "It's all in your head" or "What were your afraid of, nothing in that store is going to hurt you."
Because we've all had those feelings and we know it's not something that you can just get over, there's not a switch that we can turn off and on at will.
We know that the person may not know what they were scared of, but they were just scared.
Some people will talk about what medication they are taking and what's working for them.
Someone else may say "That medication doesn't work for me, but this does."
Nobody ever says "That didn't work for me, and you shouldn't take it." or "This is what works and everyone should be doing it."
Almost every meeting we'll have someone say "I was able to drive my kids to school today without freaking out" or "I had a really bad couple of weeks".
Basically everyone just talks.
There's never any pressure, people talk if they want to while other members just feel better being with others who are like them.

There did come a point in the first few months were we found that we had to set some ground rules.
What we found to be very important was to never allow any member to put another member down for taking a certain drug or not taking drugs at all.
We had a member once who was on a mission to tell everyone how horrible this drug was and how horrible that drug was and how if you took this drug you were going to have this problem and if you took that drug you WERE going to have to up your dose and you WERE going to become dependent on it.
We found that served no purpose at all other than to freak everyone else out.
Yes, some people do have problems with some of these drugs, but not everyone does.
This person had had a problem with one of these medications and felt they had a duty to warn everyone else.
Yes, everyone should be informed about any medication they take, but shoving her opinion down everyones throat just wasn't helping any one.
That's when we decided that it was fine for members to talk about what was helping them, or what didn't help them but to not allow members to preach on about the "Evils" of some drugs and the "Miracles" of others.
We were all just suffers or former suffers and nobody was an expert and what worked for one member wasn't going to work for all.

Sorry I wrote a book, but I just wanted to give you an idea as to how our group is run.

Also, maybe the Women you spoke to could give you some ideas on how to start your own group, or maybe tell others that call that someone is interested in starting a group and ask them if it would be something they'd be up for.