This is too broad of a question. There are many SSRIs and the people giving answers have not tried them all.
And each affect people differently.
Like all of the bad parts of a very low dose of LSD without any of the fun.
Like putting a fence around the spiralling pit of doom.
Lexapro gang gang! Gave me insane bouts of diarrhea for the first week or so, but it helped fix what i thought was IBS, got me out of a severe crippling depression, and has helped immensely with my adhd. It pretty much renewed my lease on life. I was able to quit smoking a gram of dabs every week which i was using to self medicate ny depression, now i only take 1 CBD gummy a day to help with a neurological condition which other medications do nothing for. Wish i had started taking it sooner, but i thought i had it under control with the copious ammounts of weed i was smoking. I was so fucking wrong.
Less anxiety. For a bit there I felt like “nothing” and then I realized that’s what it feels like when I’m not constantly ruminating on all the crap that brings me anxiety.
Like the first ten minutes after waking up from a really hard, hot, nap, all day, every day.
For me personally, it didn’t really feel like anything. Kind of like taking an over the counter pain medicine, it’s not an obvious change but the pain that was there before is numbed or even entirely gone. Not noticeable unless consciously thinking about it.
It took a while to find the right dosage (roughly a year, multiple hospital visits, and a divorce from a toxic marriage), but I went from being obsessed with suicide and doing multiple attempts every day to being horrified at the thought of suicide and wanting to live as long as possible.
Do you ever think it might have been getting away from the marriage that was the ultimate antidepressant? I’m starting to think 99% of the problem is environmental (like home life) and antidepressants are medicine’s way of modulating a status quo that is otherwise not economically changeable or feasible to change
Honestly I don’t think I would have filed for divorce before the medication. I was convinced that I was not only the problem, but that I was an evil villain, and that I was making the world a better place by killing myself. Suicide was the noble and heroic action in my mind at the time, and it’s only with the benefit of hindsight, continued medication, regular therapy, and reassurances from my family that I’m able to recognize how toxic my former situation was.
i forget what exactly i had but it was in drops. This is from a perspective of someone for whom the meds didn’t work, rather, did the opposite of what they were supposed to
First week i felt nothing, second week i thought my anxiety was getting worse and really started hoping the meds kick in soon (let’s call it foreshadowing). Week three… well i noticed that in the mornings i feel alright, then i take the prescribed amount of drops, then i feel terrible, and in the evenings i feel alright again. My doctor told me effects fully kick in after around a month of treatment, and there can be some bad side effects at first, things getting worse before they get better kind of stuff, so i kept taking them hoping they start working as intended but the thing is- it didn’t stop there. Past week three my anxiety was constant, usually it gets triggered by something i have to do and then fades but when I was taking those SSRI it never stopped. I constantly felt like i was on the edge of a panic attack. I spent my days paralysed, just sitting before my PC trying to distract myself with comfort games & comfort videos, i didn’t even feel like i could play something more challenging or unpredictable than picross or tetris. It drove me to the point where i decided that i’m gonna risk it, do some ill-advised and understudied drug mixing and smoke weed
After 3 days of being nearly constantly high I decided to stop the meds. Though i was close to the elusive month of treatment i just couldn’t keep going like that, some people can stay high for weeks on end but not me, i do actually like being sober. And at that point being sober felt like hell. I gave it a quick Google and when i read that i can quit cold turkey (you can only do it if you haven’t been taking them for longer than a certain amount of time) i did.
It was fucking terrible, 3rd type of anxiety meds in a row that made me so much worse than normal. I’ve just been rawdogging my normal anxiety ever since, well, with some help of weed, alcohol and occasional psychedelics. It’s strange that so far the only “meds” i’ve found to be helpful are uh “self prescribed” so to say
this is obviously not something that happens to everyone, majority of people react fine to SSRIs, i’m apparently just not one of them :(
What in the actual fuck are SSRIs?
