Now days most people are warned about the use of Benzodiazapines and so doses are usually strictly kept at a certain intervals and dose amount. It is possible that your long term drug isn't cutting the mustard yet, or at all. I have been fortunate in that I have always kept my doses low to avoid that withdrawal. Hopefully your longer term med will kick in soon, if not, you may have to switch to another while you closely monitor your Ativan intake...which I know can be hell.
The thing is, you could take larger doses of benzos to alleviate most of that anxiety until you find the correct SSRI or whatever but what if you are treatment resistant in those medications?
You could find yourself in serious trouble if you aren't careful.
Fortunately at least for me in the states, the medications are pretty tightly monitored regarding use, requiring doctor calls for each refill and a limited number of pills/doses in each bottle. The pills are a very very sharp double edged sword, so hang in there waiting for correct long term med/dose and take the smallest amount of your Ativan as you can... You might also ask your doctor if there is a more reasonable benzo than Ativan you can have, Ativan is terrible for use at home because it's so fast acting and drops off so quickly when most of the time for us with PTSD the anxiety is constant.
Maybe ask for Valium because it lasts longer, you could use it to get more effective sleep, which might go a long ways in helping you. I was only able to get an hour of sleep at a time on Ativan! That is not good at all.
