Depression and anxiety.. shouting in head!

[bonjour16]

Hope someone can help or reassure. I'm currently suffering from depression and anxiety and recently started hearing angry shouting in my head. I am currently on citalopram. Has anyone experienced something similiar? And was this linked to your depression? Desperately seeking help. Thank you in advance.

@Tomselleckhaskindeyes 20mg citalopram.

Afaik thats the normal dose, and half the max dose; so its really unlikely to be the citalopram.
With my symptoms (which included voices, visual hallucinations, PTSD and panic attacks) they put me on 225mg Venlafaxine.

Hi @bonjour16 sorry I just saw your question. He moved from fluxotine to sertraline and he is on a very high dose (200mg).

I spoke with him about your symptoms and he has also confirmed to speak with your GP.

Are you feeling any better?

@Thelnebriati thanks. Have your symptoms improved with the venlafaxine. Did you need antipsychotic medication too? My doc has put me on 20mg citalopram, 5mg olanzipine and lorazapam for anxiety x

@AgathaVanHelsing thank you. I'm feeling okay still hearing the shouting from time to time but I hope this settles x

@Thelnebriati sorry just looked back to earlier message and note you were on olanzipine too. I hope it helps I don't need to take it forever. Have your symptoms cleared up now?

Hi OP,
I currently take Sertraline 50mg and find this has really help with the 'shouting'. I have noticed that when I stopped taking it (my own decision not on medical advice, big mistake!) it returned quite severely and once I started taking it again after a few weeks it settled again. I now don't really get the shouting in my head and when I talked to my counsellor about it during my CBT sessions she was unconcerned.
I hope you find something that works well to help you manage it

@NZlife thank you. When you experienced this did you find it was like hearing angry shouting? That's what I'm experiencing. Thanks again.

@bonjour16 I have schizoaffective disorder & have been getting audio hallucinations recently when tired.

I take 337.5mg Venlafaxine anti depressant.
I also take Aripiprazole which is an anti psychotic which has just been increased by 5mg to 30mg.

It takes afaik several weeks for any dose of anti psychotic to become fully effective so that could be why you are still getting the voices.
It is possible to experience Psychosis as part of serious depression & this could be what is happening to you.

(Initially my diagnosis was 'depression with psychosis' but then the psychiatrist realised that I get psychotic symptoms when I'm not depressed as well.)

I suggest that you contact your community mental health team tomorrow & discuss this with them. Ime you have to be quite firm about how distressing the symptoms are.

Op, I went on Sertraline this time last year for a couple of months and within a day or two the symptoms had gone. I hope you can do something similar.

I would say 20mg is too lower dose to deal with aural hallucinations. I would have expected it to be a higher dose. Between 30-40 mg.

@OpheliaBalthasar Thank you. When it happened to you, was it like hearing angry voices/yelling. My anxiety has been sky high recently.

Would love to hear anyone elses experience of this or similar. I'm really struggling just now. Thank you in advance.

Thank you @absopugginglutely hope citalopram works for me. When you experienced it, was it like hearing angry yelling? x

@bonjour16 it was angry yelling & also like I was shouting at myself. Hard to describe to be honest!
I found that when I started taking sertraline everything got worse after a week or so and then after another few weeks things started to improve. Now if I don't take them I notice things starting to get worse again.

@NZlife thank you. I hope this settles for me after a few weeks on 20mg citalopram. Thanks again.