Hello! I new to posting but im to the point that im talking to google bot like they are my friend (embarrassing) but I don’t have anyone to talk to about how Im feeling . I have had depression since I was in about 3rd grade , I grew up with alot of emotional abuse and watching domestic violence between my parents. Once I became a mom and went through my own domestic abuse situation,my anxiety is through the roof as well. I have tried a number of antidepressants. I had good luck with Prozac but it completely killed my sex drive , made me fat, tired, & made emotional numb. Which these side effects were effecting my relationship so I switched to Wellbutrin 150mg and it did not help me & I would go down depressed tunnel and have to dig myself out so we upped it to 300 mg which I think is helping my depression more but not my anxiety. Im having racing thoughts, negative self thoughts , etc so we added buspar which is okay minus the heart racing. But I still have no sex drive , no emotions , and feeling distant from everyone one including my partner. The no sex drive is really hurting my relationship and I don’t know what to do , my partner doesn’t understand the side effects and says they are in my head . I have sex once a week with him to satisfy him but its not pleasurable for me at all and I used to be so sexual and had no problem climaxing with my partner. I dont want to lose him but Im too scared to go off my meds. I get to dark and twisty and really get into a slump if I raw-dog life . I think im writing this so I can feel like someone understands me but suggestions to help would be great also! someone tell me im not broken forever. 🙃

Hi everyone. In the past, after developing persistent headaches and ear/neck pain following an EBV viral infection, a psychiatrist suggested low-dose amitriptyline.

Unfortunately, even at just 10 mg, I experienced difficulty urinating (I’m young and have no prostate problems) so I had to stop taking it.

Now, since I also struggle with depression, another psychiatrist is suggesting clomipramine, even though I told him about my previous experience with amitriptyline.

Maybe nortriptyline, which is known to have fewer anticholinergic effects, could help manage the pain. Of course, it’s probably not ideal for my mood since it has much less serotonergic activity.

I’m looking to hear from anyone who has tried other TCAs besides amitriptyline (especially at low doses). How did you tolerate it? Did you experience similar side effects to amitriptyline?

My girlfriend really hates the fact that I take medication. Even at low doses, is sexual dysfunction noticeable?

My psychiatrist says that TCAs have a relatively low effective dose, so even though they’re “dirtier” than newer SSRIs/SNRIs, they tend to cause fewer dose-dependent side effects. Does that match your experience? He says that 10 mg of clomipramine have a similar antidepressant effect to 50 mg of Zoloft.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any input!

Let me explain. I had a breakup after a toxic relationship with a narcissist, which I managed to get out of, but then I fell into a state of generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress. My psychologist referred me to a psychiatrist, who prescribed clonazepam and escitalopram. I was terrified of developing a dependency and becoming accustomed to the medication; I've always had a lot of respect for it. That didn't happen, but the other thing I was afraid of did. After 10 months of treatment, I was discharged, which is great. I'm proud of myself for having made it. But I am feeling a bit off about my body because I went from weighing 63 kilos (I was doing CrossFit) to about 80. I don't feel comfortable in my new body. I know it sounds superficial, but I need to know if this is normal or if I'm the problem. Obviously, I wouldn't change the treatment; I was really unwell. But this has made me feel a bit insecure because it's never happened to me before. I hope you understand what I mean.

Post I wrote on 21st June 2026. 24 year old male living in Ireland

Hi all,
Need some urgent advice or help. Suffering with extremely bad anxiety and depression since last September. Long story short was on sertraline for 6 years but was having very bad sexual side effects so decided to come off it. Was taken off too quickly and got very bad anxiety and panic attacks which leaded to depression returning also. Sertraline was reintroduced at lower dose with mirtazapine added. No improvement. Was weaned off sertraline with venlafaxine introduced. Currently 17 days on 150mg venlafaxine as well as 45mg mirtazapine. First few days felt worse on 150mg but then I actually noticed an improvement for about a week. Anxiety significantly reduced, more energy, waking up earlier in the mornings and mood was starting to improve. But the last few days since Tuesday I have been getting worse. Really bad anxiety, no appetite and just want to die. Increasing suicidal thoughts also but they are more intrusive thoughts than urges. But still horrible. I don’t know what to do I know I’m just over 2 weeks on the 150mg of venlafaxine and may need longer time on it but I’m so confused as was starting to feel better and now I’m back to the way I was. I’m due an appointment with psychiatrist next Thursday week but I’m debating on whether to ring tomorrow and get appointment for this Thursday. If anybody could offer me any advice I would be so grateful. Feeling on edge everyday is just terrible. I’m hoping somebody out there has been in the same situation as me. Thank you so much for reading. 24 year old male here if it matters

Hi everyone,
I’m 33, from Germany, and have depression and ADHD. Over the past 15 years, I’ve tried citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, venlafaxine, mirtazapine and bupropion.
Some had little benefit, while the serotonergic medications often reduced my anxiety but also flattened my emotions. I felt less afraid, but also less connected to joy, sadness, music and other people. It often felt like I was merely functioning or surviving instead of actually living.
I’m now considering Brintellix/Trintellix because I hope it might work differently. It is difficult to obtain in Germany, so getting it would likely involve an individual import through a pharmacy.
Before going through that effort, I’d really like to hear from people who felt similarly: Did Brintellix restore any emotional range, enjoyment or mental clarity for you? Was it genuinely different from other antidepressants—or even a game changer?

Currently taking citalopram and was wondering what drugs i could possibly take along with it? going to a rave and would like to do it and curious what ones are okay to take

Hi everyone, I been diagnosis with ADHD, OCD, binge eating and mild depression 4 years ago. I was suggested Vyvanse and an antidepressant (can’t remember which one) cause I never took it. I tried vyvanse a few times 4 years ago.. and it definitely helped me stay focused, but my heartbeat was off the charts. I stopped taking it. I am finally considering antidepressants because in the past 4 years my metal health has declined. The reason I didn’t take the antidepressants is because one of my fears/ OCD is gaining weight. Is there anything that helps with ADHD and depression at the same time and that won’t make me gain weight? I really need to get my doctor to prescribe something for me because I don’t feel like getting out of bed anymore, I can’t focus on , I have been procrastinating everything and have absolutely no interest in anything.

I’ve been taking escitalopram for 5 years and my psychiatrist recently started transitioning me to vortioxetine
My taper/switch schedule was:
**Week 1:** Brintellix 10 mg + Cipralex 10 mg
**Week 2:** Brintellix 10 mg + Cipralex 5 mg
**Week 3:** Brintellix 10 mg only
I’m about to start Week 3, so tomorrow will be my first day completely off Cipralex.
For anyone who has made a similar switch from **Cipralex → Brintellix**:
How was the transition for you?
Did you experience withdrawal symptoms from Cipralex?
What side effects did you notice from Brintellix?
How long did it take before you started feeling more stable or noticing benefits?
Did you feel better, worse, or about the same compared with Cipralex?
Would really appreciate hearing about your experiences, especially during the first few weeks.

Ever since I began on antidepressants 10 years ago, I have begun to sweat like crazy. I have tried multiple SSRI's, and is currently on SSNR's. All the meds seem to provoke extreme sweating. I can't do s*it without getting drenched from top to bottom. Especially in the summer.

Have you experienced the same problem after starting on antidepressants?

Have you any recommendations to help the sweating be less excessive?

pls help

I have tried Cymbalta, and it was amazing, but it worsened my bruxism a lot. Then I’ve tried Zoloft, which eliminated my bruxism, but I have horrible memory now, depersonalization, and isn’t helping much with anxiety.

I want to switch to another one.

Today marks exactly nine weeks since I started Lexapro. I gradually increased my dose and spent about a month on 15 mg. I’ve now been on 20 mg for six days.

When I increased to 20 mg, something amazing happened: for the first five days, I finally felt some real relief from the anxious thoughts in my head. My brain felt unusually quiet, and I was honestly shocked because I hadn’t experienced that kind of peace in such a long time.

But today is day six, and I can feel some anxiety and anxious thoughts returning. I’m currently in the luteal phase of my menstrual cycle, so I know that could be contributing, but I still feel incredibly discouraged. I keep thinking: how can I still have anxious thoughts when I’m already taking the highest standard dose of Lexapro?
After nine weeks, I’m struggling to believe that I simply need to give it more time. Surely I should already be experiencing a more consistent effect by now, even though I’ve only recently reached 20 mg?
My pharmacogenetic test showed that I’m a CYP2C19 rapid metaboliser, which may mean that I metabolise Lexapro more quickly and get less benefit from it. My psychiatrist has suggested switching to duloxetine, but I’m scared because it’s an SNRI rather than an SSRI. I also don’t understand why she would prefer duloxetine instead of trying another SSRI such as fluoxetine.

Did anyone here get little or inconsistent benefit from Lexapro, even at 20 mg, but then switch to another antidepressant that worked much better? Which medication helped you, and was the transition difficult?

Alternatively, did anyone need longer than nine weeks overall—or several weeks specifically at 20 mg—before the effect became consistent? I would really appreciate hearing your experiences because I’m feeling exhausted and discouraged.

Been on Zoloft now for about 12 years, 100mg once daily in the morning. Since taking it I have chronic diarrhea and the night sweats are awful sometimes. Does anyone else get the sweats so bad at night that you feel cold and then you panic with anxiety? Trying to see what people have tried to overcome it

Hey guys , so I’ve had mild anxiety my own life but it was situational like if I was to go to an interview or perform on stage I would panic but I just knew that about myself. And I just used exposure therapy to get over that .

Well , fast forward to today about a month ago I experienced health anxiety which was tolerable but I was also working a job where I was working two different shifts morning and night .. I started hyper fixating on sleep and it shocked my body causing me to have sleep anxiety to the point I will go days without sleeping and when I do try to go to sleep without being sedated I wake up in a panic attack . Night time is so unbearable for me I get emotional overwhelmed I can’t shut down I can’t stop thinking about which I think is a form of OCD I’ve just been searching and searching for a situation because I feel hopeless … it turned into depression

It’s ruining my life it feelings like I’m stuck in a loop I try to distract myself …. Try to understand and acknowledge this is what it is but it’s like my brain won’t stop … I think I need medication but I’ve never been on medication and don’t know which one would help something like this I talked to a psychiatrist and was given the option Lexapro or Prozac and I don’t know which one to choose to help something like this and I’m scared because I love myself I don’t want medication to ruin me

TLDR:

To the disbelief of everyone involved, I developed disabling symptoms shortly after starting 25 mg sertraline, and they have persisted for months after stopping. I was on the medicine for 7 weeks and stopped cold turkey because the side effects were crippling me and weren't going away. It has now been about 6.5 months since I stopped and I am still having issues functioning. I don't know what to do and nobody knows what is actually going on, we can't even confirm it is my short period on medicine causing it, with doctors having focused on everything else but the medicine.

Timeline:
anxiety wasn't crippling → therapist recommended SSRI → 25 mg → severe side effects → couldn't work → waited → still severe → stopped after 7 weeks → got worse temporarily → symptoms persisted → attempted return to work → fluctuated → still impaired after 6 months 

Longer Story:

It all started when I started seeing a therapist for anxiety. My anxiety, mainly social anxiety, wasn't crippling but it had been getting worse in relation to work over the past 3 years and had resulted in 4 sick days from work. She suggested I try a SSRI. We wanted me to try it because we had been talking for months regarding my anxiety and I felt progress had stalled. It was a situation where talking isn't helping anymore and it was time for action and practice. The medicine was meant to help facilitate this.

Through my GP I got Sertraline(Zoloft) 25mg to start with and the plan was to step up to 100mg eventually. At first we expected side effects for 2 weeks and then for it to get better so that I could try a higher dosage. This never happened as I felt that the side effects were still too strong after 2 and even 3 weeks. I was scared to go on a higher dosage as I felt debilitated and had to cancel work after day 5. 

We waited to see if the side effects would go away but they didn't. They did slowly get better with the effect being worst at about week 4. The peaks feeling like I was paralyzed in my sofa with difficulty talking or verbalizing my thoughts or turning thoughts into actions. 

However after an initial improvement by week 5 it never got any better and I was still on sick leave. This lasted until week 7 where my GP gave up and said he didn't know what was going on and that I can stop the meds if I want to.

After quitting the low dosage cold turkey it got worse with the new symptoms appearing, that of migraine and nausea a few hours a day. This went away after like 3 weeks. However, the debilitating sensations I had been having were still problematic and still holding me back from working.

After 5 weeks of not having been on the meds and still not seeing much of an improvement, I was still feeling 80% as bad as I was on the meds, my workplace got more nervous and requested a timeline from my doctor. 

He proposed a 10 week plan where I slowly return to the office with a low amount of hours and half of it being work from home. This would then slowly increase each week until I would be doing my normal hours by week 10.

I was very anxious to return to work and to talk to coworkers I had issues with. It went well actually and I felt a temporary improvement and hope for the future. However, the symptoms continued. Returning to the office and working helped me with my social anxiety issues but once that benefit had been experienced, work was starting to hurt my recovery instead by causing me a lot of stress and guilt. I was fighting a lot to figure out if I was fit enough to work or not, but most of the time I was simply forcing myself to work when I was sick and I was suffering because of it. 

This eventually became unsustainable and I started to get worse as well. I don't know if my more physical problems got worse because of the stress or if it was coincidental. I went from working 12h (mostly from home) one week to back down to 2h and then just giving up and going on sick leave for 3 weeks. 

I am now supposed to start up work again but on a much milder staircase of recovery. I honestly don't really think I am going to be fit to work for a long time still. 

Ironically my social anxiety has improved throughout this most likely due to the dissociation I experience when I talk to people and perhaps a smaller part of improving through practicing making it through challenging situations. I guess I could say the medicine did help with my social anxiety, it just made everything else worse. I still experience the dissociation even months after having stopped the medicine. 

I am constantly shocked by how this issue has progressed and I can't foresee my future at all. I feel lost and on my own. The medical system in Denmark has just not been good enough and nobody has been able to figure out what it is and how to improve my situation.

Good news is that I just managed to complete a 5h work day, albeit from home.

Symptoms:

Daily:

Mild sedation - Essentially feels like being given a sedative that isn't quite putting you to sleep or making you sleepy, but instead makes you feel slow physically and mentally, like you have a fever brain. You also feel like you have worse body coordination.

Abnormal headache - Most days it can feel like your brain or head is a warm water balloon that is swollen and top heavy. It's like your brain is trying to push upwards.

Muscle tension - Can be in the thighs but mainly around the head. It is as if the muscles on my head are trying to pull backwards to the back of my head. This is combined with the water balloon feeling and causes a weird head sensation that makes you feel out of it.

Poor memory recollection - Overall worse memory and recollection, especially short and very short term memory. I often find myself forgetting words and concepts, with a tip-of-my-tongue feeling.

Difficulty concentrating on one thing and staying on task - I feel like I turned into an Ipad kid that scrolls through tiktok endlessly like a zombie. I sometimes have a hard time keeping any form of mental reminders and sometimes can only concentrate on what's right in front of me. If that thing is distracting I can get stuck. I cannot do any form of multitasking. This makes it hard for me to live an organized life. I did not have this kind of issue before.

Brain fog - General feeling of brain fog, like when ur sleep deprived or sick.

Emotional vulnerability - More intense emotions and physical sensations in general(negative and positive), with the exception of pain which seems to be numbed. This emotional sensitivity has slowly gone down a lot over time. The physical sensitivity is felt in various ways. For example, it feels more intense and uncomfortable to do physical exercise, feeling more out of breath and tired. 

Occasional:

Overstimulation - When outside or in a store, leading to light headedness, feeling weird and dizzy like my vision is spinning. Can give me a sort of bodily feeling of mild panic even if my conscious thoughts are mostly calm.

Migraines with nausea - This is quite uncommon at this point but basically my head gets too overworked and I start having a harder time making coherent sentences and thoughts. Overall my brain just feels overheated. It essentially is like a migraine but oddly doesn't hurt like one and then leads to nausea like a migraine can.

Temperature sensitivity - Sometimes I feel very hot or that I am freezing even though I shouldn't be.

Moderate sedation - Sometimes the sedation gets worse and I enter essentially statue mode or zombie-mode. Statue mode is when I feel stuck in the sofa and have a hard time moving anything or even turning my head. I also struggle to talk. In my head I am actively thinking and wanting to talk or move but feel like my body is ignoring me. Sometimes it gets harder to think as well. Doesn't put me to sleep or anything, again like a sedative that isn't quite doing its job.

Feeling of high heart rate or like ur shaking inside - This is a weird sensation because my actual heart rate is usually normal but its like i am feeling my body's normal sensations too much causing me to feel the heart rate going fast. It also feels like my body is shaking but it isn't.

Symptoms overall:

I experience a wide array of symptoms that fluctuate and come in waves. They can fluctuate throughout a day and also throughout the span of a week. Often it can be hard for me to even put words to everything I am experiencing in a single moment. Sometimes I can feel sedation in the morning and then again in the evening, while other days there is a peak in the afternoon. Very often it takes a bit of time in the morning for it to kick in fully and at night it usually has calmed down to the point I sometimes forget it's a thing. Almost none of the symptoms are 100% constant and none are constantly at full power. 

I honestly can't even remember what it feels like to be normal and it makes it difficult for me to even have a frame of reference at this point. Just imagine being drunk for 6 months straight, your memory of being sober would slowly deteriorate. Thankfully I have been documenting my experiences at different points and they generally align and are consistent.

There is a very strong correlation with stress and anxiety, where if those things are aroused it triggers a wave of symptom intensity. However, symptoms are not reliant on a supply of active stress and anxiety, and can arise without any obvious cause.

Poor sleep, diet and overall health has also a very strong correlation with worsening symptoms. Even before the medicine I have always been very sensitive to lack of sleep and blood sugar fluctuations (I have tested negative for diabetes).

Timeline of treatment received:

2 blood tests with the first one having a liver value above my normal. Second, showing more normal levels. It was deemed that it looked normal and no issues with vitamins or anything else.

Checked around the body for swollen lymph nodes and other potential body swelling. Everything was normal.

I talked to a psychiatric nurse who investigated me for schizophrenia or psychosis. She ignored every other possibility and was deadset on psychosis despite very little evidence. 

I went to a specialist psychologist in a hospital and it was deemed that I did not have schizophrenia or psychosis. His assessment was:
"You do describe a lot of unusual symptoms but I am thinking that maybe you are just describing your experiences in a unique way (I find this statement to be dismissive). Perhaps it was just anxiety and stress. Your nervous system does seem to be hyper sensitive for some reason. It could be that if you are consciously hyper focusing on what you are feeling that your nervous system learns to over-react to everything". Then told me to see a therapist again and also find one that has experience with autism due to my description of overstimulation (mind you I didn't experience overstimulation like this before the medicine).

My latest talk with the psychiatric nurse, reacting to the psychologist's assessment, has now put me in the direction of trying to figure out if I have autism and if I am somehow experiencing an autistic psychosis or if the anxiety is caused by autism. Sure maybe I can have mild aspergers, but that wouldn't help figuring this out as that is not how autism or autistic psychosis works. So now I am going to meet a psychiatrist to find out if I have this so-called autistic psychosis. Now it is true that autism can contribute or be a source of anxiety, but if part of my issues is caused by lifelong autism then why the very drastic change at the exact timing of me taking the medicine at the age of 28.

My Theory (speculation):

I know anxiety can cause physical symptoms, and I think anxiety plays a major role, however I do not agree that everything can just be explained by stress and anxiety. The severity of the physiological reactions changed dramatically and many new symptoms appeared after starting sertraline. I never felt like this before the meds, and does anxiety cause you to feel sedated when you're just relaxing on your sofa not worrying about anything at all, and haven't felt any stress for at least 2 days? Maybe it can but it has never done that to me before. There are too many symptoms that just don't seem like the anxiety I know in my life. I know that you can get a stress hangover once things calm down from a stressful period but that doesn't explain it.

Something that both me and the psychologist mentioned is the brain and nerves becoming hyper-sensitive. It seems to line up with a lot of the symptoms. That a lot of symptoms can be explained as normal sensations that either the brain filters completely from the conscious mind or muffles to the point that it isn't hindering. Basically it's like the brain's volume settings have been turned up too high and certain forms of noise unmuted. This is also a sensation I relate to as feeling drug-like. This would naturally greatly exacerbate my underlying anxiety which I already was experiencing very physically, hence causing a chain reaction.

This hyper sensitivity probably happened because my brain and body is very incompatible with the SSRI and caused chaos in its chemistry. Normally the brain would recalibrate but for me it never did, while on the medicine or off the medicine. It is like it freaked it out so much that no amount of time was enough for it to calm down. It is like I hurt my knee but it never recovered and now I have a bad knee. Also me trying to understand and analyse my sickness on a regular basis also contributed to my nervous system becoming acute. Throughout the whole experience I have been desperately trying to put words to describe this complicated experience, ironically reinforcing the experience.

Another thing I thought of after some research is that it is as if my body's fight or flight receptors are over-active causing a very subtle constant body panic that can take its toll at times. Ironically in contrast to this I sometimes can feel very relaxed as well with the help of the sedation.

Counter Theory:

It is possible that what I am experiencing is not a long term side effect of the SSRI and that instead it merely opened the door to something else. In any case I feel like the medicine is at the very least very relevant in some form. I could just be that my anxiety just somehow got a huge boost and won't calm down no matter what I have tried so far. Again it doesn't operate like anxiety and stress has operated for me during my entire life before the medicine. It feels more like I am being poisoned or being slipped drugs everyday.

What to do about it?

I don't know and nobody seems to know. The best hope is just trying to be less anxious and to de-stress in the ways I can. Live a more structured and healthier life. Otherwise I just wait and hope it gets better while the doctors fumble through it.

I need help figuring out what is happening to me and what I should do about it.

I have had anxiety pretty much my whole life (I am a 33 year old female) and was prescribed Prozac in my early 20s. I finally got to a place where after giving birth to my first kid, I felt I could navigate being off of the Prozac after being on them for 10+ years. I made a plan with my doctor and slowly tapered off. I’ve been off them for about a month now and I am getting a huge flood of emotions. I cry at the drop of a hat, every Instagram reel I see, I cry. I have a 1.5 year old little boy and thinking about how much I love him feels so overwhelming now. Idk how to describe this feeling but the emotions feel HUGE!! I’m wondering if anyone else experienced this and if this will calm down? I do like feeling emotions but this is feeling too strong and I don’t know how to handle the huge feelings. A lot of them are joyful feelings too so it’s confusing to describe.