To ask the advice of anybody who has ever been on anti-depressants?

[therewillbetime]

I will try to keep this brief:
I suffered PND nearly 20 years ago with son (treated with ADs over several months and recovered pretty well)

Several years ago, I went through pretty tumultuous time: divorce, moving house, illness etc BUT coped pretty well. It was almost a case of the more I had going on, the better I coped.

Two (ish) years ago: went to GP as I felt down and had no apparent reason for this- things had settled in my life. GP helped me to narrow it down to most possibly, pretty severe PMS and was prescribed 7.5 mg Prozac.

Weaned myself off Prozac a couple of months ago with GP's advice. 7.5 mg is a tiny amount but dropped it really, really slowly as remember feeling terrible when coming off ADs when I had PND. Felt ok, but then had terrible crying bouts. Then felt ok for a bit. Currently - feel ok when I'm busy (which I often am), and can conduct myself pretty normally with other people even when I'm feeling a bit shit. But, at certain times I just feel so sad and tearful which is really not like me. There is nothing major in my life that is bad and I have lots of positives in my life - nice home, job (very stressful but work with good bunch of people), caring partner, healthy happy grown up son, and apart from all this, am healthy and fit. But, when I get tearful for no real reason it affects so much - for eg, partner asked if I wanted to go out for a bit tonight but I just couldn't face it and then I get more and more upset and things start going round my head.

I came off the Prozac because I seemed ok and the drug actually seemed to numb me a bit - I swear I did not shed a tear the whole time I was on it and I would rather not be on anything.

SO: I guess the Q is: at what point do/did people who have been on/off ADs know IF they should be on them? At what point do we sit and think that actually, we are feeling shit, but that's life OR do we think that this shouldn't be the case and ADs help. How much do they mask stuff? (The point I'm making is that yes, there are some things in my life I would like to change such as moving to a different area which I currently am unable to do but are my emotional feelings a normal reaction to being a bit fed up with stuff?) And also, if I AM depressed, how come I can function so well - not missed a day off work for 10 years, go to gym daily, blah blah blah). I would just be so interested in any of your experiences. Thanks

I've been on 20mg Citalopram for several years and never had any side effects and find that I do feel a range of emotions but the dark ones aren't as dark as they used to be and usually last for a very short time rather than for days.

One doctor said I would be fine on them for years to come, another said I should come off them this year.

Have got to the stage where I can miss a couple of doses during the week without any ill effects so going to do that regularly and try to drop them completely by the end of the year. However I'm a little apprehensive as when I came off them before, I needed to go back on them 6months later and felt I would have been better staying on them!!

Trazodone is a good AD if you struggle to sleep at night time and it doesn't make you want to eat everything in sight like mirtazipine

Blobby - 20mg cito for years here too. If you miss 2/3 days in a row do you get brain zaps/washing machine head? I tried going down to 10mg but quickly felt depressed again despite being fine for years.

I've just had a chat with an employee who is having a rough time emotionally and gave her some advice about possibly seeing her doctor

It sounds like you're the kind of person who is better at giving advice to people to look after themselves, than you are at looking after yourself. Oh how familiar this is! If you can possibly spare £9, I really, really strongly recommend this book www.amazon.co.uk/Depressive-Illness-Strong-Overcoming-Problems/dp/1847092357/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=depressive+illness+the+curse+of+the+strong&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1535995587&sr=8-1

In fact, I need to read it again myself because I know I'm falling back into bad habits myself (many years since I had therapy)