Vivid dreams and panic attacks are back, stronger than ever

They're not nightmares, they're just very, very vivid dreams (not lucid tho). And I always end up waking up sweaty and anxious.
I've been feeling more and more disconnect from the world tbh, feeling lonelier than ever, memories of past day just blend together into one big ugly mush (I'm 99.999% convinced that antidepressants fucked with my memory in an unrecoverable way, even tho the psychiatrist doesn't listen to me).

I feel like I'm going back into into the self-hatred (i hate my looks) and despair pit, and the problem is that, last time I got in, it took me 1.5 years to leave it.
I hate therapy, i feel like I'm being dissected, idk what to do, and it's scary tbh. I talked about it to a friend, and she told me that the only thing that worked last time was antidepressants + taking a break, but I dont wanna do that.... I'm in the middle of my studies, already took a break from them, taking a 2nd one would be impossible to recover from.

Why is life so tough?