Hi sweettooth
in my experience that awful morning anxiety is by far the worst symptom of menopause. Mine seems to be associated with progesterone, in the sense that it started when I started taking progesterone after several months of feeling better on high-dose estrogen alone. I've been through every anti-depressant in the book, plus beta-blockers, pregabalin, herbal remedies etc. and in the end it got so extreme I took an overdose. Right now I'm on two psychiatric medications - quetiapine, which is an anti-psychotic but functions as a mood stabiliser at low doses, and duloxetine, which is an AD and the first one I've been able to tolerate. Feeling a lot better but now trying to wean myself off diazepam, which I've been on for several years. I really wouldn't recommend you go down that route - short term they work well but it's just too easy to become dependant on them and that brings all sorts of extra problems....