thecr4ne wrote: Sun Aug 28, 2022 10:55 am Anyone willing to share their experience of starting psych meds?

A thing I would say is that it's a journey. There's figuring out the right medication(s), and then there's figuring out the right dosage.

Once that's taken care of, meds will help, if you're most people. They won't be a cure-all, but they will help in most cases.


Have decided to edit my original post and leave it at that.

But best of luck with everything. Cheers!

Hello FM thecr4ne, I’ll tell you what I know, and it’s probably more and too specific that you might need, but it’s what I’ve got. Beginning in 2015, life threw some fucking nasty curve balls at me and my family which included cancer, layoffs, other diseases, career dysfunction and alcoholism. I tried to power through it (like an absolute moron) and somewhere along the way, I broke. Anxiety and depression were like clothes that I wore and couldn’t take off - a new skin I couldn’t shed.

Booze was my escape, and when that wasn’t working, I drank more. I went to a few therapists, which had varying effectiveness, but I never felt “good.” Just slightly improved. I had strategies on how to deal with the problem when it arose, but no way to escape. So that continued through about 2018, when life began to normalize, at least a little bit. The problem was my mental health didn’t recover like I expected, so I finally went to see a psych, who prescribed Paxil. At first, it wrecked my stomach and appetite, but a few weeks passed and….It worked….almost like a miracle, but I was still drinking a lot, so the results were short lived. We upped the dose, that helped. Then we added in another drug, which didn’t, so we stopped. I kept drinking, kept the dose the same, and kinda just rode the waves of anxiety every day until I could get home and drink - I never ever drank at work. There were days that I’d just sit in my chair in my office, close the door and kind of rock back and forth to do something with the anxious energy I’d have. This continued more or less until Covid hit and we were home full time, where I’d do the same,

Once I got sober in 2020, (different story for another time) things kinda stabilized in my mental health after a few months. I was kind of even emotionally, and in fact I asked to go down on my dosage, which my psych didn’t want because he felt I hadn’t been sober long enough to introduce another variable into my mental health and sobriety.

Finally, this year we dropped the dose a little bit, which had a couple of hiccups along the way, to be expected while getting off of an SSRI. I’m going to ask this week if I can go down another step and maybe get off of it altogether.

Pros: They honestly helped me a ton. This wasn’t some placebo effect. But since I was also an alcoholic, there’s something there to consider for you that’s probably different. I should’ve quit drinking a long, long time ago, but my history is what it is. Hard to say which one had more of a positive impact on me. I’d wager sobriety, but I can’t separate one from the other so there’s that. I tell folks that I have no regrets. I’m a much better human than before.

Cons: Weight gain is real. Sexual dysfunction is real (this is a Paxil thing). Gotta be prepared for that. Once you’re on them, if you want to get off, it’s a process to get off. Not all work the same for everyone. I know plenty of folks who have gone through all different kinds of combos looking for the right mix. I got lucky that the one I take works for me.

Keep trying. You can get better. Good luck.

Frankie99 wrote: Sun Aug 28, 2022 5:13 pm
Cons: Weight gain is real. Sexual dysfunction is real (this is a Paxil thing). Gotta be prepared for that. Once you’re on them, if you want to get off, it’s a process to get off. Not all work the same for everyone. I know plenty of folks who have gone through all different kinds of combos looking for the right mix. I got lucky that the one I take works for me.

Keep trying. You can get better. Good luck.

My spouse has struggled with severe depression / "clinical"-anxiety for many years and while they never feel like the meds are 'doing' anything, I have to remind them when they're taking them how long it's been since some kind of manic breakdown. The Cons are hard though, and that's what has always led to not taking them - weight gain, essentially sexual erasure, as well as wanting to drink socially/feel 'normal'.

But I can say right now safely that given their T-cell Leukemia diagnosis, Zoloft is literally saving their life. It keeps their mind from spiraling into the millions of what ifs with this terrible disease and allows them to get out of bed, walk 5 miles a day, hit the elyptical and be social when it' safe - things that you HAVE to do to convince your body to stay alive. I can't be thankful enough for this medication right now - it has been night and day in handling the recovery periods from chemo, physically.
So for some people, I can absolutely see how this could save their life regardless of a terminal disease - mental health very much being a potentially terminal illness.
With cancer treatment all the cons are weighed against being alive - it's something to consider here too.

@ FMTDP, I have read about and intended to respond to your spouses cancer diagnosis and sometimes words just don’t come to me the way I like. Thanks for your post and honesty - what you’re going through has no real comp, and what your spouse is going through is an experience only they will fully understand. It is brutal. H/T to pasta for the honesty he has brought here RE: cancer and the awful places it can take a brain, and to the others along the way.

I remember after about 10 months of chemo and a realization that we weren’t even halfway there, my wife’s clinical oncologist asked “how are you feeling emotionally and mentally? This is a hard process, how are your thoughts?”

My wife instinctually replied with “Oh, I’m doing OK, I’ll make it through.” And while I usually defer to her on most of these things, this was untrue, but she was trying to be brave. I interjected that she’d had some really bad days, and the prospect of another year was sometimes more than she could handle, esp. b/c our kids were still young and there was just too much to think about at one time. People with her diagnosis were dying within her online cancer circles, and the existential collapse she was facing seemed a mountain she’d never be able to climb.

There are no medals for taking an unnecessarily hard path. No trophies for suffering when you don’t need to.

I’m very glad I did that - they put her on a very low dose of an SSRI that was compatible with the other meds she was on, and suddenly all of the NOISE that’s in her brain became manageable. It killed the despair and allowed her to see things more clearly.

Sorry I haven’t replied RE: your situation sooner. You and your spouse have been in my thoughts.

Frankie99 wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 12:44 pm @ FMTDP, I have read about and intended to respond to your spouses cancer diagnosis and sometimes words just don’t come to me the way I like. Thanks for your post and honesty - what you’re going through has no real comp, and what your spouse is going through is an experience only they will fully understand. It is brutal. H/T to pasta for the honesty he has brought here RE: cancer and the awful places it can take a brain, and to the others along the way.

I remember after about 10 months of chemo and a realization that we weren’t even halfway there, my wife’s clinical oncologist asked “how are you feeling emotionally and mentally? This is a hard process, how are your thoughts?”

My wife instinctually replied with “Oh, I’m doing OK, I’ll make it through.” And while I usually defer to her on most of these things, this was untrue, but she was trying to be brave. I interjected that she’d had some really bad days, and the prospect of another year was sometimes more than she could handle, esp. b/c our kids were still young and there was just too much to think about at one time. People with her diagnosis were dying within her online cancer circles, and the existential collapse she was facing seemed a mountain she’d never be able to climb.

There are no medals for taking an unnecessarily hard path. No trophies for suffering when you don’t need to.

I’m very glad I did that - they put her on a very low dose of an SSRI that was compatible with the other meds she was on, and suddenly all of the NOISE that’s in her brain became manageable. It killed the despair and allowed her to see things more clearly.

Sorry I haven’t replied RE: your situation sooner. You and your spouse have been in my thoughts.

No apologies at all needed. Thank you so much for sharing that experience and I can absolutely see it being similar on our front - getting rid of the noise, and still having the fears or worries but being able to manage them, and persevere despite that is such a huge help. "no trophies for suffering when you don't need to" is absolutely right. You're in my thoughts now as well. Thanks again

Thanks for sharing. I don't think my situation quite compares in severity to those shared. My thoughts are with you.

Today's day 7 on meds for me. Lexapro and Buspar. One is anti-anxiety and one's SSRI. I feel it all the time, and it's a weird feeling like more weight in the front of my brain and in my face and mouth. Like a preasure/boarderline tingling and almost a metalic feel in my mouth. Hard to describe, but that's what I notice most. Mentally, nothing's really gone, it's just smaller, and I can actually get back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night. There have been days where the weird feeling has been distracting and I kinda zone out a lot. Some days are more or less fine, some days my stressors still get through, but the anxiety swells differently. Not better or worse, just different so far.

The doctor said to give it two weeks to start feeling "more like myself" again, and more like 4 weeks for it to really take effect. hanging in there. Trying to be patient.

^ it can take time for the meds to work and don't feel defeated if you have to try a diffrent one. Good luck.

thecr4ne wrote: Thu Sep 01, 2022 2:45 pm Thanks for sharing. I don't think my situation quite compares in severity to those shared. My thoughts are with you.

Today's day 7 on meds for me. Lexapro and Buspar. One is anti-anxiety and one's SSRI. I feel it all the time, and it's a weird feeling like more weight in the front of my brain and in my face and mouth. Like a preasure/boarderline tingling and almost a metalic feel in my mouth. Hard to describe, but that's what I notice most. Mentally, nothing's really gone, it's just smaller, and I can actually get back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night. There have been days where the weird feeling has been distracting and I kinda zone out a lot. Some days are more or less fine, some days my stressors still get through, but the anxiety swells differently. Not better or worse, just different so far.

The doctor said to give it two weeks to start feeling "more like myself" again, and more like 4 weeks for it to really take effect. hanging in there. Trying to be patient.

That sounds normal.

I took Lexapro for 18mos. Not a super high dose as I recall. Felt like it helped a lot. Didn't solve anything, but it let my brain catch up after a heavy mental trauma and stop trying too hard to work out what I was going through at the time (which was the product of pure chaos and unworkoutable really).

Gained 10-15lbs from increased laziness, got a little couchy there. I slept well. I didn't have the negative "dysfunction" that is sometimes an issue supposedly, but boy things took a while.

Getting off it wasn't trivial. I tried on my own once, slightly too aggressively, and it didn't go great. Def follow a doc's advice and wean yourself gradually if you ever try. Supposedly it's not as bad to kick as other things.

I was glad to be off it, but I could've kept taking it indefinitely if needed.

Eventually went to talk therapy after my brain could process shit again, and that worked wonders, particularly EMDR. I'll always be grateful for finding a great shrink.

Eephus is, as usual, correct.

Having one of the most difficult weeks I can recall.

My wife told me last week that she is profoundly unhappy in our marriage of 20 years, thanks in large part to substance abuse issues I am only recently aware of. For the last 7 or so years I've been working for myself, which has given me quite a bit of freedom to do what I want when I want. That has meant spending more and more time drinking with pals (and alone), smoking too much weed, and essentially ignoring her needs more and more as time has passed. The pandemic kicked that dynamic into high gear. When she shared her feelings with me, I was already planning on 'taking a break' from drinking after a particularly decadent weekend. I spent the next 3-4 days with what turned out to be alcohol withdrawal. Doing the math, I have not gone a day without 2-3 drinks since January 2022, and only then because of a dry January challenge. She is now in another city dealing with family matters, and I am home, alone, hanging onto any shred of hope that I have for saving our marriage. All I can think are hopeless, negative thoughts.

Not drinking/smoking has been quite easy. The withdrawal process really scared the shit out of me, and once I felt sober, I realized that I have been in some sort of listless, absent fog for years now. I feel positive about sobriety, but terrible about how I have made her feel. I feel like I've abandoned her.

The uncertainty is starting to have physical effects. My heart races, my stomach hurts, and I can't sleep.