Thanks again everyone, so much good info and experience from all of you. As a follow up, I just got back from an appointment with a Psy.D Counselor, the first of my life ever. We only had an hour but we had a good conversation. His initial assessment is that we can definitely try a "natural" cure first with counseling and other methods and wait and see if drugs are needed, he thinks we may not need them at all which makes me feel very good ( although he didn't rule them out entirely, only time will tell ). His office prescribes them too so the option is there if we need it.
I'll be taking a mental inventory of how things go over the next week as my "homework" and next week we will start working on getting better...i am very much looking forward to it.
I'm also going to try some of the meditation and breathing suggestions I've gotten here and try to start getting back into a regular excercise routine - that will help no matter which route I go.