[CW: DEPRESSION]
spoiler
I’ve been at a really low point with my mental health, I’ve lost the motivation to do most things save for personal hygiene and grooming. I wouldn’t say that my situation is severe thankfully, but it is seriously hindering my academic, physical health, career prospects, and personal relationships. I want to talk to my doctor and get started on antidepressants before I really lose control of my life.
One of my close friends is on antidepressants and that gave me enough courage to actually seek help from my primary care physician. But right now I need some more information.
My question: Those of you who are on -or have been on- antidepressants, what were your experiences? I’m really worried about side effects (mainly CNS, Autonomic, and especially the risk of serotonin syndrome) while taking these kinds of drugs. But I’d also like to know about your experiences first taking them, how you’ve adjusted to doses, and how you overall felt. Experiences with other therapies are also welcome!
Please don’t be shy, and share as much as you feel comfortable! Thank you!
Thank you to everyone who posts, it means a lot to me!
<3
i’ve tried so many different SSRIs and SNRIs
they have all had 0 useful effect on me. i’ve experienced side effects; digestion issues are the most common. i got uncontrollable leg shaking from one of them. i’ve never experienced any withdrawal symptoms coming off them, but for most people they are quite bad.
when i was a kid i was put on fluoxetine, and it was just as unhelpful. i wanted to stop and they wouldn’t let me, so a few months in, i quit them myself. some months later, my mother commented on how much better i seemed, how well the medication was working. i told her i hadn’t been taking it, and she didn’t believe me.
i’m now at a point where i absolutely refuse to touch them. the only thing that has actually had an impact on depression for me is ketamine.
Most of them mainly made me sleepy. Of the ones I’ve tried, Cymbalta kept things in check but also nuked my sex drive.
I went through a whole list before I got to cymbalta, the only thing that worked. Yeah sex drive was non existant and still isn’t the same years later, and it made me have to sleep 12 hours a day, but at that time in my life I could very well have died and I have to look at it that way.
They tried to switch me to Mirtazapine after that, which made me put on 40 lbs in less than 6 months and I have never felt so awful in my life.
Yeah, I dropped mirtazapine, I said it turned me into a depressed panda
Might be experiencing bad ones right now. Recently got put on buspirone and I’ve been having really vivid and painful nightmares in which I’m tortured, killed, or subjected to a harrowing traumatic event. They’ve gotten increasingly frequent over the last few weeks to the point where for the last few nights, I’ve been waking from nightmares in a cold sweat every 40-90 minutes.
It might also be entirety unrelated to the medication. Worth noting that it’s an anxiolytic, and neither an SSRI nor an SNRI.
Huh that’s interesting. I wonder if I’m hiding the buspirone dreams with the copious amounts of weed I smoke
I honestly don’t know if it’s actually buspirone related.
Having said that, I stopped taking it the day before yesterday and last night I actually got a full night’s sleep and don’t remember having any nightmares at all. Just a weird dream in which I drove a go-kart and was running for joint-mayor of a city with a close friend the dream made up, on a platform of curing diseased trees by taking them out of the ground and bringing them to a plant hospital and raising the ceilings of all multi-story buildings somehow.
Zoloft (Sertraline): First antidepressant I ever took, it kinda worked but I didn’t feel good just less bad. Also destroyed my sex drive. I went up doses over a long stretch of time before adding Wellbutrin and then stopping Zoloft.
Prozac (Fluoxetine): Made me super nauseous and felt like my brain was very loud. Did not like. Stopped on the lowest dose because of the side effects. My partner was on it for years and it worked well though, with just a couple weeks of nausea that ended.
Wellbutrin (Bupropion) Not actually an SSRI or SNRI, it’s an “atypical antidepressant” which basically means “idk but it works.” Works so so well. It’s what lets me operate on a daily basis. I feel like I have the normal range of human emotions. Side effects: Increased libido, increased sweating, and mild tinnitus. Oh and I cry really easily at tv and movies now. I’m currently on 300mg, I started on 150mg and then went up, at 450mg my anxiety got worse so took it back down. 300 seems to have me in a good place.
I also take Buspar (Buspirone) along with Wellbutrin, because Wellbutrin helps with depression but unlike SSRIs and SNRIs does nothing for anxiety. I think I’m taking 15mg twice a day of that.
Wow wellbutrin sounds amazing. One of my biggest challenges is how hard it is to cry,
There’s a playlist for that !
One of my biggest challenges is how hard it is to cry,
What do you mean by that? Do you want to cry more?
Yes. I feel very blocked up when I want to cry and I wish I could just cry a lot. For me, crying is very rare and cathartic but I can imagine how it would be otherwise if you could do/did it too much.
I almost never cry, I’ll tear up on rare occasions but I’ve probably only cried like once a year since I was a late teen. I really hate it when I cry and can’t imagine wanting to do it more.
Though I have been called emotionally stunted before so I don’t even have an idea what normal is.
It’s a very intense and personal thing. For me, it was a cathartic release that I was shamed for and lost and I want back. But that def is not the universal view of it.
My wife has been on sertraline for about two years now, and it’s been nothing short of miraculous for her. She went from passively suicidal on a good day to happy and functional within two months of starting it. She told me that it was the first time since she was 12 that she didn’t want to die. She had some mild headaches when she was first titrating up to her full dose, but those went away once the dose stabilized, and she’s had pretty much no side effects since. I know she’s been incredibly lucky in terms of how she responded and how few side effects she got, but it 100% saved her life.
20 mg citalopram.
Keeps me overweight and a cannot get off them. Paroxetine caused me to gain 50”lbs in no time at all.
They help with anxiety - but don’t eliminate it. I don’t feel they do a lot for depression - I have to manage that with exercise.
Been on them for 20 years and would love to leave them or try something else .
Oof yeah I was on Citalopram for a bit it didn’t do shit
Haven’t read the comments, but the biggest problem I had was inability to orgasm, with both an SSRI and an SNRI. I could do it sometimes myself if I was alone, but the fact that I couldn’t at all during sex was hurting my relationship at the time. Other than that, they did the job. I may be about to have to go back on something as my mental health has been concerning of late as well.
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Be very careful! SNRIs + most psychadelics can cause potentially lethal seratonin poisoning.
I’ve been on a number of SSRIs since my late teens, and my side-effects (mostly decreased sex drive, increased appetite and night-sweats) have been minor and manageable. Antidepressants and regular therapy together have significantly improved my life.
Venlafaxine/Buspirone combo for anxiety and depression.
“Lower highs and higher lows” is how I’d describe it. Although my doses had to change after transition - lower Venlafaxine and higher Buspirone, because my depression got better and my anxiety got worse I guess.
Oh also I hadn’t cried for 12 years while on the higher Venlafaxine dose. When that went down the water works turned back on.
Is that a new one ?
Those are the generic names for Effexor and Buspar and I’ve been on them both for a long time (like 12+ years lol)
Prozac: i got ED. I was still horny as shit, just couldnt get hard.
I’ll also echo the “higher highs lower lows” thing. I didn’t really feel better i only felt less. I didn’t do any of the other things youre supposed to do to alleviate depression like exercise and socialize and shit.,but by itself it didn’t really help
Only used sertaline. Sex drive way down the first couple of weeks, but that normalised. Sweating like a pig when I sleep was a constant though, but I’m not sure if that is common or not. Not sure it helped me a lot either but that depends from case to case.
Sex drive way down the first couple of weeks, but that normalised.
you mean it came back to normal levels while you were still on the drug?
Yeah, it went back to normal. Took about a month.
Raising the dosage didn’t do much to affect it either.
SSRIs really seem to be a die roll person to person. I have a friend that they worked great for, for me though all they did was make me so fat I got even more depressed.
I’m bi-polar and major depressive so my cocktail is probably geared a little different than what you need. But here it is anyway. Lamictal has been a good help for the (sad?) depression, venlaflaxin has been a fucking huge help for the angry depression and the mania. And propanol has helped with the anxiety which has had a knock on bonus with the depression, although I want to get off of it. It apparently can have extreme long term side effects.
I also am a god damn alchemist at self meditation. Kratom, THC, CBD, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine etc can all be titrated and timed for different effects. Takes a while to figure out how to stack things for best effect but it really makes a difference knowing how to tweak your mood when you need too.
probably not the case, but something to consider
the executive dysfunction symptom of ADHD can resemble depression, like if you find yourself wanting to get a school assignment done but not being able to get yourself to do it until the task becomes urgent and stressful could be the task lacking enough dopamine reward (I want to X, but I can’t get myself to do X)
this can also directly cause depression: if you feel like you’re never able to get yourself to do the things you want/need to do, you can find that you eventually stop trying (I can’t ever do X, so why bother)
the main reason i say this is that untreated ADHD can resemble/be co-morbid with depression, and SSRIs can aggravate ADHD symptoms in some people
I didn’t even consider this, I’ve definitely been experiencing that for the past 2 years. I’d say that it got so much worse after my father died 2 years ago.
So maybe I should ask for a referral to rule that out?
if it’s symptoms that you feel you’ve struggled with your whole life but are now struggling especially hard, i’d say it’s possible it could be ADHD + depression
for me it’s like, i’ve very rarely been able to get academic assignments done without using the dopamine rush from getting stressed out and sometimes getting panic attacks (unhealthy and unmedicated way to do necessary tasks with ADHD), but when i had a depressive episode i couldn’t even bring myself to get stressed out enough to do the stuff i needed to do, and ended up continually taking and failing the one class i needed to continue my degree for two years, doing the bare minimum to stay in college and rack up more debt until i sought help
it’s worth talking to a PCP or someone else about it if you suspect it, they’ll sometimes have outdated views on what ADHD is, but usually they can give you an overview and whether or not they suspect enough to personally recommend a screening
i’m sorry for your loss comrade, and i’m proud of you for seeking help, you deserve it
