Do antidepressants help clear thinking or does it just dull strong thoughts/feeling - will I lose ME?

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I have had issues with my mental health for most of my life.

I am now 50 and when I say most of my life, it literally is. I have had anxiety, strange obsessional thoughts and processes, panic and fear of living since I was a small child in primary school. I recall nothing triggering this, I think it’s just my basic make up.

It has been a rollercoaster of an emotional journey over the last 50 years of my life.

I have tried everything (non-pharmaceutical) that I could physically afford. From endless CBT sessions, counselling, relaxation therapies, hypnotherapy, other talking therapies and weird whacky alternative stuff………….none have had lasting positive impacts on my MH because here I am still struggling (and not helped at all by the fact I am now in the throes of perimenopause).

One thing that I have never tried long term are antidepressants. That is simply because, and I’ll be frankly honest, I am absolutely terrified of them.

I am scared of ending up woolly headed, unable to think clearly, to have my senses, emotions and personality deadened and my brain and mind to be ‘taken over’ by pharmaceuticals (I know, even writing that down looks ridiculous but that is genuinely how my brain thinks).
I am also worried they will contribute long term to something terrible such as Alzheimer’s (my poor dm suffers and it’s hell).

Maybe they may deaden my senses and personality and I won’t know or care, maybe they will help turn down this internal dial I have on my mental and emotional health, the one that has been ramped up to overdrive since I was a small child and has left me in a state of permanent exhaustion.

I am scared (petrified) but nothing else has helped me. I just don’t want to carry on into my older years feeling this way anymore.

What will/could these meds do for me? Will I still be me? I don’t want to lose ME but to turn down everything else about me, if that makes any sense.

Hi, OP. I’ve had a great experience with Citalopram and have been on and off it whenever I need (although obviously you have to stay on it a little while and taper off very carefully). I still feel like me but just more able to cope and it really really lessens anxiety. I was reluctant to try it when I first did but now I just see it as another tool in the toolbox. I still laugh, I still cry, I still think amazingly intelligent thoughts ;)
Side effects were minimal and then disappeared and perhaps if you’re prepared for them that will put your mind at rest if they occur. Good luck with your decision.

I know this wasn't addressed to me but I've been on about 10 different types of ADs over the years and I've only had any real side effects on one and that was just nausea.

I have anxiety and became agoraphobic health anxiety panic 0 to 60 in a second.
Meds made me worse i could not cope anymore.

I was looking on MN at what helped others and one poster mentioned a woman called CLAIRE WEEKES her books had helped her.

(i went straight to google then youtube )

Ordered two of he books downloaded her audio that i played when i started to go out.
Saved my life in more ways than one.
It was an old post years old but thankfully i came across it.

Sertraline makes me feel like the human version of myself, all the bad things are still there but I can deal with them. And I'm still me.

I’m a better me on citalopram. I still overthink but I’m far more chilled and accepting of things.

Same experience for me on Sertraline as @PandyMoanyMum. Have, however, had to wave goodbye to physical libido. Mentally still very up for it; body just doesn't wanna play anymore. Don't (& won't) take HRT, so testosterone is out.

Oh are you me??? I am exactly the same - suicidal thoughts since about five years old, always anxious, depressed. It’s ruined my life tbh and it’s only now menopause is hitting and making it even worse that I’ve realised i can sort this out and I need to. I’ve had so much counseling and it never got rid of this constant sadness and fear.

finally a GP suggested I get anti depressants when talking about starting HRT and I explained how I’m feeling. I’m giving the HRT a go as I think I need it but it’s not touching the anxiety so I’m going to take the plunge next time I see them. I’ve always been too afraid to ask before

I was prescribed Citalopram for anxiety and honestly, it gave me ME back!

I was suffering terribly on a daily basis, with various mental and physical symptoms. The relief I experienced within two weeks of taking them had a massive impact on my ability to heal.

I also went for counselling at the same time, I would recommend talking therapy and CBT.

I weaned myself off (with support from my Nurse Practitioner - an actual angel 😇) after two years.

I can only share my personal experience and not offer advice but I will say that they did work for me. I took some convincing to start the course but I was broken at the time so I 'gave in'. I can honestly say they saved me.

Good luck, whatever path you decide is best for you. You will get through this.

My experience of ADs was that I was still 100% myself, just not on a constant downhill emotional rollercoaster. I didn't get massively excited about things, but nor did I get massively depressed/anxious, which was a blessed relief. I also slept a lot better.

When I started to miss the emotional highs I always knew I was ready to start transitioning off them.

I was on sertraline only 25mg and I felt fine but things were going well in life so I came off it when I really didn't need to. Few weeks later I had some problems at work, I felt really flat and depressed but put it down to the change in seasons but after almost having a panic attack over someone challenging me I decided I need to be on them and have gone back on to 50mg as advised by my gp and will aim to go to 25. I felt the same was it all 'fake' but actually I think I'm just less edgy on the low dose and I'm easier with others which then makes life better

Oh and now I've gone back on them I've had a headache for a week and pain and tension in my face but I'm hoping it will pass soon

I was on Fluoxetine for a few months years ago and hated it. Turned me into an emotionless Zombie. I'm quite an emotional person so losing these emotions made me feel like I had lost my entire identity. I couldn't cry or laugh when I felt I needed to. Horrible.

I also am not taking antidepressants for very similar reasons. I have been prescribed a few different ones in the past couple of years but I overthink the potential side effects and can’t take them. As a single parent with no support, I can’t take the chance of feeling unwell physically, worse mentally or fuzzy headed or too tired to get up and do everything. I know people say the side effects are temporary and it’s worth it if you put up with them for a few weeks, but I don’t have a few weeks to feel even more terrible.

I was on on Prozac, suffered from obsessive thoughts, anxiety, depression. It took the edge off, made me more able to function as I didn't have reoccurring thoughts going round and round in my head. As a result of that I was also less mentally tired and could manage life better.
I never felt woolly headed or not "me". It wasn't a fix to my issues but made my condition much more manageable.

I'm on citalopram for the third time & like you have just been an ocd/anxious/depressed person since childhood. I have started them at particularly low ebbs and they sort me out within weeks. Then I take them for a couple of years and stop. Tend to be able to carry on alright again until something bad/traumatic happens. They don't have any side effects at all for me; just make my body and mind relaxed and not worried. It seems just to take away the side of my personality that is quite bleak and existential!!

I'm about to go back on Citalopram. Took it 20 years ago when suffering terrible anxiety and some depression. Really helped and I found it made me more creative and productive. I am on hrt, but feel anxiety and depression creeping back in despite this and need a boost. I only took them for 1.5 years last time, but I felt for years afterwards that if I felt panic rising in me, that it seemed to reach a sort of capped point and not develop into a full panic attack - I felt it rewired my panic response almost permanently, which was great for me having suffered from bad anxiety for years. It seems to be wearing off now a little hence why I'm going back on them for a bit.I needed Diazepam to get through a recent flight and doctors won't prescribe it for me any more, not even just for very occasional use, so I feel that I'll need something else to cope with extra stressful situations like that.

I took Prozac (fluoxetine) when I had Post Natal Depression. With in two weeks I felt the real me was back.

Since the menopause and and being in an unhappy marriage, I have tried quite a few different ones including Prozac again(I haven’t tried Sertraline yet).

These times is has been more of a numbing feeling. It has allowed me to cope better with a bully husband.

So the answer is you won’t know until you try it.

Some people have amazing results with HRT, and for some it’s just meh.

One day we’ll have personalised medicine and it won’t be such a case of trial and error.

We really are the same, sadly.
I too can say with hand on heart it has ruined my life. I just don’t want to go into my 50’s and beyond continually feeling like this. It is not pleasant, is it?
I do also have a prescription for hrt but as with my non-stop blabbering brain, it has put me off taking it but I know I need to try it alongside the anti d’s.
Good luck, I hope you find relief from it all (and all the rest of us suffering from poor MH, we deserve some respite from it all).

Thank you LetsGoDoDoDo, I have had years and years of talking therapy and CBT but they just haven’t had the effect that I had hoped. In saying that, I was told many times that it would work much more efficiently if I was taking anti d’s as well as having the therapy and I know that I need to at least try that.

I started taking Sertraline 6 months ago and nowI realise I hadn’t been “me” for several decades

I totally get this and why I am always putting off trying them.
I care for my mum who suffers from dementia and I am also a PA for a disabled person, I just can not afford to feel any worse than I already do, I can’t take time off but it’s such a horrible vicious cycle isn’t it because I also don’t want to continue feeling this way.
I have reached a point where I have tried everything else (which doesn’t and hasn’t helped) and am at a kind of dead end with no other choices other than to continue like this, which isn’t fun.
I totally understand your dilemma.

I've seen on here someone describe antidepressants as supplements they take to correct their dopamine deficiency. Takes a lot of the angst out of it.

They don't work for everyone but when you get to the point where something needs to change, it seems worth a shot to me.

I’ve been prescribe escitalopram but like you OP too worried re side effects to take them, mostly lack of libido and inability to orgasm.

Also, the list of side effects is very similar to the list of symptoms of depression. I figured I have half of these anyway, I won't even know if these things are due to the meds or the depression/anxiety so I might as well just crack on and try not to overanalyze it.

It helped me a lot. I was on them for I think 2 years, came off them waaay more slowly than GP recommended which worked really well, and although I still have other problems my mood has remained fine since.

It's like this for me, as well.

I second that it's worth a try and that there's nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It's normal to feel worse for the first two weeks until your AD balances out.