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SSRIs, please help me decide

1 reply

bloodywhitecat · 01/04/2021 09:15

I am struggling to sleep. The reason I am struggling to sleep is that DP has cancer and is unlikely to still be here come late summer so although I can go to bed feeling really really tired and I can fall asleep I wake up every 40-75 minutes with a start and find it hard to get back off again. I am also tearful at times (which I think is only natural). I don't think I am depressed. I am stressed, of course I am but I don't think I am depressed.

Yesterday I had to call the surgery because I have a UTI again and ended up crying on the phone to the nurse because everything was just so complicated; go and get a sample bottle, come home, do sample, go back, drop sample off, come home, wait to hear. I guess it doesn't sound too bad but the baby we are fostering has a brain injury and finds the to-ing and fro-ing too difficult, he has an ear splitting screaming cry that could peel paint. I apologised for crying and explained our situation (I haven't slept properly in weeks) and she suggested I give SSRIs a thought. I am not sure what benefit I would get.

Surely it is natural to find what I am living with hard? I can still see the joy in the day, every day DP and I are happy and smile, laugh and joke. I don't feel that dark weight on my shoulders that I have done in the past. Life is OK, I am just scared of the future but isn't that natural? I need sleep but would SSRIs help with that? Zopiclone isn't helping (I don't take it all the time just when the insomnia is really, really bad) so should I consider an antidepressant?

OP posts:
nothingcanhurtmewithmyeyesshut · 01/04/2021 10:52

Honestly I would try asking for a very low dose of Amitriptyline. It's an antidepressant but an old one, not an SSRI. They won't give it to you in a high enough dose to treat depression but tbh it doesn't sound like you are depressed.

What it will do is make you sleep well and possibly just take the edge off the stressed out feeling. It is often prescribed at 10mg for sleep and at that dose you're unlikely to get side effects.

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