Can I ask about your experiences with antidepressants?

[Coffeeisnotmycupoftea]

I didn't want to put this on the Mental Health board as I assume most people on there are in my position and needing help, I wanted to ask this as an all round question to not only people in full mental health crisis right now but also those who may have found themselves on the other side and feeling well again.

I think that I need to try anti-depressants but every time I try I am wracked with fear to the point that I just can't do it. I know I need to grow up but I am genuinely paralyzed with fear.

As I type this I appreciate that it must seem ridiculous to many people and I am fully aware that it is more than likely my poor mental health talking me out of it all but I just can't do it.

It's not about the stigma of mental health medication, I honestly couldn't give a toss about that, nor is it the fear of being 'hooked' on these meds because tbh, if they were to change my life for the better I would be more than content to be on them for life.

It's how I feel now and the fear of being made to feel worse by the drugs. Anti-depressants appear to have such a reputation for awful side effects and sufferers having to push through feeling much worse before they feel better and this could be weeks to months. I just don't think I could cope feeling any worse than I already do. I have daily gut issues which completely control my life (and yes, I have tried everything else, literally everything to ease these issues), my anxious state of mind is high 24/7, I have visceral hypersensitivity so feel everything stronger than I probably should do (every ache, pain, weird sensation in my body), my health anxiety is dreadful and the worst it has ever been, not helped by the fact I am 53 and in perimenopause/menopause and have a heap of added issues including endometriosis and adenomyosis (HRT made this worse) and helping to care for an elderly parent with advanced dementia - I am exhausted and mentally spent. I am also waiting for surgery for the gynae issues and due to my heightened state of anxiety, I just don't think I can go through with it right now.

I am a hot mess, as they say. I acknowledge this and know full well that I need to make changes and have tried really hard by living as healthy a lifestyle as I can but it's doing sod all for my mental health (and physical it seems). No amount of living well, meditating, counselling and/or cbt is cutting it.

Yet I sit here staring at the bottle of fluoxetine my GP prescribed 2 months ago knowing full well it will more than likely end up in the cupboard with the out of date tablet form of Fluoxetine, the box of Citalopram from 2022, and the Amitriptyline and Sertraline because I am so terrified of any side effects especially a worsening of my gut issues which have taken over my life and made me fearful of going out in case I might suddenly need the loo etc. All the side effects list everywhere for AD state diarrhoea and nausea as the most reported side effect and I just can not risk a worsening of that (and Imodium makes my stomach issues worse before anyone suggests taking it at the same time).

I asked for the liquid form of Fluoxetine because I thought, maybe, I could go in at a really low dose and build up but even that has me in a panicky meltdown whenever I have tried to take it.

I am so fucking angry with myself......so angry.

Please tell me about your experiences with antidepressants, did they help you get a life back on track? Did they not help? Did they make you feel worse than before? Just how can I get over this overwhelming fear of the side effects? I know we are all different and each experience with antidepressants is unique but I don't know what else to do.

They helped me,

I have endo. I got massive anxiety due to peri menopause which was frankly fucking brutal,

I was in duloxetine (still am).
can’f recommend it enough. Honestly changed my life.

The drugs won't make you feel worse. They usually work by numbing your feelings so you don't feel anything.

This was a good thing for me as once my feelings were numbed I could focus on doing what I really needed to do to improve my life.

There's depression, then there's "shit life syndrome" I actually had "shit life syndrome" which was ironically depressing me but I did manage to sort out my issues while my feelings were numbed. It definately helped.

That’s so reassuring, thank you.

I’ve suffered with anxiety all my life and peri has made everything a trillion times worse.

I always say I’m currently stuck in a ‘Shit life syndrome’ situation. There has been so much crap the last 15 years and it’s just getting to me now.

I’d love to feel numb for a while, I’m done with feeling.

I’ve been on them many years, 3 or 4 different ones. They have actually been lifesaving. I have at times come off them but, after several months, have fallen apart to the point I couldn’t even pick an alternative loaf of bread if my usual one was out of stock!
I have never had side effects from any of them tbh, certainly none that stick in my head.
They enable me to function so that I can go to work, look after DC and have a ‘normal’ life as possible. I don’t kid myself that close colleagues don’t know I have anxiety issues but, for the most part, the general public I deal with daily wouldn’t know I have severe anxiety, OCD, depression etc.

That's where I want to get to. I know that I must come across as a bubbling wreck half the time (I understand the bread situation well), tbh I don't go anywhere anymore and shy away from most social engagements these days so people don't really know what I'm going through, I don't work as a result of my issues.

If antidepressants could offer me something other than this but without suffering from some of the dreadful side effects I've seen mentioned on some sites (including here on the mental health board) then I'd be more than happy even if they were to give me only a small piece of my life back to me.

They’ve changed my life for the better, they’ve seen me through the most awful few years dealing with death, serious illness and redundancy. I just wish I’d been brave enough to start them sooner. No side effects either and I still get anxious, happy, excited etc but it’s proportionate.

Fabulous for me!
I've been taking them about 4 years, due to "shit life syndrome" as a PP put it, everything was just getting too much and I was SO sad and crying all the time, and I tried therapy but it didn't help.

I did have nausea from them for a few weeks, but I persisted as I know that most medication side effects do go away, and yep sure enough the nausea completely disappeared. I didn't have any worsening of mood either, it just started getting better within a few weeks.
I am so glad I started them.

They have been life changing for me. I’ve been on them for years (with a much lower dosage now) and genuinely, I’m a completely different person whilst on them. I can actually function like a normal human being, which I couldn’t before. I have therapy on the side which is really helpful too and a good tool to help me cope when otherwise I wouldn’t. I’m accepting of the fact I’ll probably be on them for life

IME they work great for a while and then they don’t.

History of chronic depression in our family, including many suicides.
I’ve been on them since I was a teenager, low dose. Attempts to have come off them have seen me back on them within 6 months, even when life is absolutely fine.
I just appear to have a faulty chemical balance, as does my mother and as did my nan.

I simply got to the point where something had to change. It was no sort of life. So one foot in front of the other, don't think about it too much, just take them. I tried not to sit and analyse side effects. People can obsess over a headache, nausea or change of mood but the list of potential side effects is so similar to the symptoms of anxiety/depression it's pretty difficult to unpick whether it is side effects of symptoms of the illness. As long as you feel safe (if you do not, talk to someone urgently especially on the first few weeks) then just keep on keeping on.

I distinctly remember the first time I felt joy again - just joy at doing something simple with my daughter. I hadn't even realised it had been missing until it came back. Life is better now, and I am a better parent for it.

Firstly, not everyone on the mh board is in full crisis mode, far from it. I actually think you would get better advice on there.
The danger of posting this outside of the mh board is that you may get a lot more posters coming on to tell you you don’t need ADs. If you’ve been prescribed them, chances are you should take them.
Secondly, what you’ve described is extremely common in people with depression/ anxiety. It is so common to be at least a bit resistant to treatment, it’s practically the norm. It can actually be a feature of the illness itself. The only way to get through it is to force yourself to swallow the first pill, then the next…eventually you feel better and stop being afraid. It is so common for patients to go back to their doctor and say they were too afraid to start the meds, the doctors don’t blink an eye. They are used to it.
I can’t function without ADs personally. I’ve been on them for most of my adult life. I’ve tried to cope without them and I can’t. I can for a while, then think start to go south and the momentum picks up and pretty soon I’m back in the hole.
Its also very common for patients to find it hard to tolerate the side effects or to think I’m fine now, I don’t need these anymore after a while. So you stop taking them or want to be taken off or reduced. I spent about ten years denying that I was better than I had been and wanting to come off and eventually weaned myself off about six different meds without supervision. I then had a massive relapse and was so ill that I refused to go back on the meds. It’s a thing.
I had to get to absolute rock bottom before I very reluctantly took the first pill. Within a few weeks I realised how stupid I’d been. My brain cleared like the clouds just suddenly parted. A lot of this was down to the regular sleep the meds allowed me to get tbf. And the previous eight or nine years off meds seemed like a blur. I couldn’t identify with some of the thoughts I’d been having. I was mortified, horrified, disturbed and embarrassed when I remembered some of them but at the time I thought I was finally thinking clearly or when I knew it wasn’t right, I thought there’s nothing to be done so keep dragging myself on.
I have spent the last 25 years since I was diagnosed with depression as a teen battling the illness, battling the doctors, battling the meds…
This is just based on my own experience but my advice: Do whatever the hell the doctor tells you, relinquish whatever sense of trying to stay in control keeps you from accepting treatment. Treat it like a physical illness. If you had an infection, would you be like this about taking antibiotics?
And yes, pharmaceutical companies are evil, and ADs don’t cure anything etc etc, but they help. Most of the time. You’ve nothing to lose. Take this from a lifelong depressive who has fought this battle many, many times, many times.

In my 20s I tried two and they didn't suit me. One made me feel worse with anxiety, the other seemed to make any food I ate go straight through and I had to stop. In my 30s I had severe depression and stress after a series of stressful events - plus the fact I have always suffered from depression and anxiety. I tried fluoxetine as I needed to feel better and after getting to crisis point was up to a very high dose. The side effects were unpleasant for the first few weeks and every time I upped the dose but they mostly subsided. I remained sweaty and with those weird electric shock feelings while I was on them. And I could not orgasm. But they worked, I started to feel better. The depression lifted, I was less anxious and after a few years I slowly came off them and have remained depression free and the anxiety I have had all my life has not returned as badly, I can deal with it better now as well as I know what it feels like without it. I was nervous about stopping them but wanted to stop the very flat feeling they give you. For a long time on them that flatness was so much better than the awful depression and suicidal ideation though.

The side effects and withdrawal can be challenging but it was absolutely worth it.

Life saving and life changing for me. They have a slow long term effect, it did take a few weeks of side effects to adjust but it was worth persevering. In the first few weeks they worsened my insomnia but I just got sleeping tablets from my GP which counterbalanced that. I didn't need them after a few months once the antidepressants began to take effect and I slept normally. I took them for about 5 years and I wouldn't hesitate to go back to them if I needed to.

I’m on fluoxetine atm and it’s helped. Coming off it soon. AD’s do help. Menopause depression and anxiety is next level so I’d take all the help you can tbh.

Same.

They helped me a lot - I was on them for an acute period of anxiety, and I spent about 7m on then 6m tapering off.

I do have to say that the withdrawal from the last dose to zero was fucking awful. But I was able to cope, and I haven't had to return to them.

To be honest you may not need to be on them forever and therapy (talking) helps a lot too ime.

I tried to ignore the side effects. One anti psychotic made me sleep loads in mornings so it was a relief to come off those but I knew they were healing me if you get my drift. MH board is good to go on btw. Very helpful.

I couldn’t cope with sexual dysfunction that comes with them

I’ve been on sertraline for years, varying doses as needed, currently on my lowest dose. Absolutely life saving for me, and they enable me to get on with and enjoy my life. No side effects except tendency to put on weight at high doses. No sexual disfunction.

Reading your OP, you seem to have got into the mindset that it’s an irreversible step to start taking ADs. It might help you to reframe that you can just try them and see. You can stop anytime. But do remember it takes a few weeks to start to feel the effects.

I also have never experienced the flatness or numbing some people report. Quite the reverse, they enable me to experience normal emotions. I was “flat” and numb from happiness and pleasure when depressed.

Agree with pp that plenty of posters on the Mental Health board are not in crisis mode and it can be very supportive.

Sertraline and anti anxiety meds (propanalol) plus cbt and emdr has helped me come back from my lowest.

I did have some grim side effects for the first 2 weeks of sertraline - nausea, restless legs at night, insomnia, headaches- but I took it easy and they disappeared, I’m v glad i persevered 😊

Not to put you off but I have had negative experiences with every antidepressant I have tried including Fluoxetine. When I started trialling them I remember reading how much they helped everyone, which then made me feel that something was wrong with me as I experienced it so differently. All SSRIs/SNRIs/MAOIs gave me 'serotonin apathy syndrome'. Basically the increase of serotonin shut down all my dopamine production. I had zero cognitive abilities, complete numbing of emotions and zero motivation. Basically turned me into a zombie, unable to work, drive or look after myself. Gave them months in some cases and that was at half of a child's dose 🥲.