Intrusive thoughts and Sertraline

[Anxietyriddled]

Those of you that have had intrusive thoughts and high anxiety and been put on sertraline what dose were you on?

what dose if any did you find helped stop the racing thoughts that go out of control.

Please help with some positive stories.

I was recently recommended the book Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Winston and Seif. It has been really helpful. I did not find sertraline or citalopram helpful but I am hoping duloxetine will suit me better.

@lorisparkle ooo I’ve ordered this today. I also start CBT this week too x

I was so glad I ordered the book. It has really helped me change my mindset. I was feeling completely overwhelmed by my thoughts and desperate for somebody to tell me what to do. The book is an easy read with practical suggestions. I am hoping my CBT will work well alongside the book.

I'm a CBT therapist and am always banging on about the "Overcoming" series of books. They are generally CBT based so should have relevance alongside CBT sessions.

Another book relevant to intrusive thoughts is Break free from OCD by Drs Bream, Oldfield & Professor Paul Salkovkis. Obviously it's best to be guided by your therapist's suggestions of appropriate and directly relevant reading outside your sessions but I just wanted to endorse the book choice mentioned by @lorisparkle
and wish you @Anxietyriddled and anybody tackling anxiety in all its manifestations the very best of luck.

Hi, I went on sertraline for crippling anxiety (major intrusive thoughts, constant racing mind and 'fight or flight' feeling all the time).

It was a complete game changer for me and allows me to function on a level I couldn't before - I take 100mg and now able to look after my mental health in other ways like exercise and engaging with CBT that I just couldn't before.

I feel a totally different person now and much better mum to my daughter.

Be warned though it can take a week or so to settle - the first week on it was worse for me (anxiety, sickness) but if you can get through that if it's fabulous stuff.

Good luck OP.

@lorisparkle i know what yoh mean about being overwhelmed by the thoughts. They consume you don’t they?

@YouOKHun thats good to hear! The book should be arriving tomorrow and then I have CBT Thursday. As a therapist do you see a lot of people come out the other side of anxiety? Is there a way to completely break free of intrusive thoughts or at least not let them overwhelm me with guilt and disgust?

@TruffleMonkey thank yoh for sharing your experience! I have been on 100mg since June and I was doing well but seem to have had a bad time recently so I am starting CBT.

@Anxietyriddled yes I do see people vastly improve how they respond. CBT can be challenging because it involves challenging the way you think and behave including the apparently helpful things you might be doing to manage anxiety, but there is a strong evidence base for CBT particularly for anxiety and I think it's particularly strong for OCD. One of the key things is that CBT should be collaborative in nature so ask lots of questions of your therapist so you know why a certain approach is being taken and why it's likely to be helpful.

Intrusive thoughts are interesting. I often ask people if they think many people have intrusive thoughts that are disturbing in content and strength. They are often surprised when I say that intrusive thoughts are something that pretty much everyone has from time to time; those thoughts that go against one's moral code. Everyone experiences these intrusive thoughts from time to time (though people don't always recall them readily if they are undisturbed by them). So it's not the presence of these thoughts but what you do with them and if you buy in to thoughts as facts - that's what makes them problematic. If you believe that having a thought makes it true/likely to happen - that is when intrusive thoughts become overwhelming.

So getting rid of intrusive thoughts is not so much the goal as allowing thoughts to happen but not engaging with them as true/real/facts.
Often there is something someone does to ward off the threat/discomfort and the intense distress intrusive thoughts produce, it can be an external compulsion (e.g intrusive thoughts about contamination, compulsion to wash hands) or an internal compulsion (thinking a "good" thought to cancel out a "bad" thought for example). So a CBT therapist would help you to examine your thoughts and restructure them and test out how helpful your behaviours are so that you can stop behaviours that may be helping to maintain the anxiety.

There is something called Exposure Response Prevention which is a structured and carefully managed exposure to distress whist not doing the behaviour that maintains the anxiety (but feels like it helps manage the distress in some way), but there is other work that comes before that. It depends on what the precise nature of your anxiety is and a good CBT therapist will pitch the treatment to you and your specific needs.

In short, yes, you can recover - I've seen it many times.

Citalopram helped me. I do still get them - 9 years on - but I can cope with them better