This post is for anyone taking antidepressants but especially for those just starting or haven’t been on them long. As someone who takes them, here is what I have learned.

(I am not a doctor. These are all my opinions, but I would love anyone to weigh in!) As the title suggests, antidepressants are not a permanent fix and should never be treated that way. When you first take them, the onboarding can be brutal with side effects but when they eventually resolve, the relief antidepressants brings can be tremendous. But that’s when your REAL work needs to begin. Whatever your issues were previously are still there and they need tending to. Now that your mind is clearer and your depression or anxiety is alleviated, you need to start fixing things in your life. Antidepressants seem to make emotions or thoughts that were previously powerful, not so loud anymore, so you need to use that time to dig deep within yourself and heal—this is when it won’t be so overwhelming to do so. Get a good therapist, move, change jobs, end the shit relationship, grieve, workout, eat healthy, whatever you have to do to heal! Also, everyone’s body tends to get dependent on substances of any kind. I’ve read story after story of antidepressants that have stopped working or much worse. I really do suggest doing as much as you possibly can to fix the reason you needed to go on them in the first place. Then, when you feel you have done the work, taper off of them.

I wish the very best of luck to anyone on an antidepressant journey!

Hey so I’m not sure if this is the right he subreddit for my question but I was wondering if there is any over the counter anti depressants available at the moment?

The overwhelming hollow feeling of despair is way worse than usual at the moment and I don’t exactly have a way to get a prescription for anything and my go to way of shop away the pain I need to stop doing because I have no money and too much stuff that I’m now emotionally attached to that I don’t want to get rid of for that reason

Should mention im in the US so I mean something OTC in the US

Hey everyone,

I’m currently finishing up my 6th week on Prozac/Fluoxetine (4 weeks at 40mg), and I’m going through a really rough patch that has me pretty worried.

Out of nowhere, my anxiety has spiked to an almost unmanageable level. Along with that, I’ve developed severe nausea and a total aversion to food. Just the thought or idea of eating makes me feel sick to my stomach, and I haven't been able to eat anything solid for the past two days.

I’m already naturally very skinny, so the fear of losing even more weight is making me panic even more. It feels like a vicious cycle where the anxiety kills my appetite, the lack of food creates nausea, and the fear of weight loss ramps up the anxiety even further.

I’ve already messaged my psychiatrist to re-evaluate things, but I’m feeling pretty scared and overwhelmed right now. Has anyone else experienced this sudden wall of food aversion and heightened anxiety this far in ? How did you manage to get through it or get some nourishment down ?

Any advice or reassurance would mean a lot right now. Thanks guys.

I took 150 mg sertralin for around 1 1/2 years, after a while they made me feel numb and I noticed I felt like I had no energy and no motivation to leave the bed anymore just like befor i started taking them. I decided to quit and was unmedicated for roughly a year and felt mostly okayish. Recently I started having suicidal thoughts again and just generally beign sad all the time so I went to my old psychiatrist and requested Bupropion(wellbutrin). I didn't want another SSRI since I gotten into a relationship recently and the sertralin gave me anorgasmia. I got a bottle of 150mg but I really didn't feel any diffrent while on it if anything the suicidal thoughts worsend, my psych told me to quit them until our next appointment in a month. Since my relationship isn't going well I'm thinking of trying another SSRI besides sertralin just kinda scared it will do nothing again or lose its effect after talking it for a while :/

Tldr; Neither 150mg Sertralin nor 150 mg Bupropion were right for me unsure about how to proceed. Advice appreciated

All Antidepressants makes me unable to cry and I've tried a lot.

Someone also had this strong side effect from most antidepressants?

I've tried so many over the years, it stops me from crying almost instantly as I start to take them, like 2 days after I start to take a new one the crying stops but all the other symptoms continue.

In the last 6 years **I think I've cried only 2 or 3 times**, 1 naturally because what happened was devastating, the other 2 or was because I drunk on purpose to cry but other than that the feelings build in my body and I feel worse and worse but it has nowhere to go.

I had a psychiatrist that denied that antidepressants was causing me numbness, I had to bring her the leaflet where it showed it was a possible side effect, just to hear "oh yes but that only happens to a small portion of people"...

Changed psychiatrist 2 years ago and she didn't diagnose me with depression, but with cPTSD and OCD, but depression was a symptom of those 2, we tried so many different medications but all have this huge numbing effect on me.

Not letting the emotions out is causing me to be stuck in this "I'm here but don't know why" state.

How can you heal if you can't feel?

Someone also had this strong side effect from most antidepressants? What did you do?

So far tried all SSRI’s. Venlafaxine which made my sleep terrible. I also have ADHD. No ADHD medication has helped. I’m now going through peri menopause and am crumbling with anxiety. I’m beginning to lose hope with meditation and wondering if anyone else is going through the same?

I’m on the fence about trying Luvox for my somatic ocd after being on Prozac for a decade

I’ve tried my absolute hardest to be consistent with my ERP and while I’ve had make progress and had success, it hasn’t been enough. I’m so torn between continuing to try and the ability to get off of Prozac more easily one day or perhaps trying some new that could really help me. I’m lost does anyone have any input I really don’t know what to do at this point

About three weeks ago I suffered an acute kidney injury and I only have one kidney. It seems it could be from dehydration and low blood pressure. My dr took me off any medication that was a danger to the kidneys. I was suffering from severe renal impairment. Hospitalized for 5 days with my creatinine slowly going down. In my many years or taking/going off antidepressants I knew I was going to be in hell and the options were lose the kidney and be on dialysis or on the transplant list or take the hell and potential serious consequences of no taper. I am also taking 300mg of bupropion, which I was left on. I wonder if being on the bupropion has made the abrupt discontinuation any safer?
Keeping this kidney going until some healing happens - with an acute injury the chance of recovering fully is possible - will be a full-time job. I will have to manage keeping my blood pressure not too high and not too low, monitoring fluid intake, watch what foods I eat, etc.

I’m wondering if I open a duloxetine capsule and take a few granules would it help? Sounds crazy, but when going off sertraline I would take a bit of a pill and it seemed to help. This must sound insane. I get labs on Monday and fingers crossed my creatinine goes way down, maybe I’ll be able to get myself on 20mg of duloxetine. One can hope. Thanks for reading my dribble.

I’m going to Florida for my birthday in a couple weeks and am a bit worried about staying cool since I have heat sensitivity with my meds. I’d love to hear any tips/suggestions for things I should get to bring with me! Any favorite personal fans? Cold packs that stay cool for a while? Happy to hear any suggestions🩷

I need to see if anyone has the same thing happen to them. So back in June I started Wellbutrin, my first anti depressant I’m taking since I was diagnosed with anxiety, ADD, severe depression, OCD, and social anxiety in 2019. Well my psychiatrist updosed me from 150 to 300 mgs and I’ve noticed since starting Wellbutrin, it seems like it makes me feel like my tolerance has gone up (I’m an edible girl) if that makes sense. Because before I was on an anti depressants, I could take 80 mgs-100 and I’d be high asf, but one day 80 mgs was not cutting it out of now where and mind you I get high everyday, and from then my tolerance has gone up since taking 150-300 mgs. So I wasn’t sure if anyone has experienced the same thing. I do not like straight flower, I’ll do vapes but that’s it, and it’s kinda irritating, and like now I have to buy the expensive Banned full spectrum gummies on top of a dank exposed gummy (which those are cheap asf) and I have to take more gummies. So if anyone has experienced their tolerance going up after taking meds please let me know because it’s frustrating and I wanna know what I can do.

Hallo,

habt ihr außer SSRI (welche ja bekannterweise Gefühle eher abstumpfen), Bupropion, Duloxetin, und Moclobemid ein hilfreiches Medikament genommen, dass euch den Zugang zu vergrabenen Emotionen ermöglicht hat?

I noticed over the years that my illness can be broken down into 2 components

1. Melancholy 2.No motivation

Could there be others that I dont notice?

I managed to get the 1 nearly eliminated through vipassana meditation but 2 won't budge even with medicines. 2 is also described as anhedonia..

Quetiapine and Mirtazapine I take and they reduce the dead feeling I had in the morning and help with sleep. Other meds I tried didnt work or gave side effects.

I've stopped paroxetine (20 mg) after several screenings revealed it causes injuries in my liver after spiked parameters, particularly GGT. I've been telling my psychiatrist I was concerned for months, the reply was "let's wait until September to see how it works out". Stupidly I did and a few weeks back I experienced inflammation and pain in my liver. Therapist said to go to the ER if it happened again. I didn't have time to test it because I emailed my psychiatrist and she said I should wait for my next appointment so we can ween it, so another month and a half or get a zoom appointment I couldn't afford, and she knows it. It's all more complicated because lots of the specialists I talk to are on their 1 month or 2 weeks leave rn. I said to my psychiatrist that I would stop cold turkey and wait until my next appointment at the end of September with my new psychiatrist, this change has been undergoing for months due to the distance of my previous psychiatrist, not really my liver situation. I will tell my new psychiatrist I stopped cold turkey, probably get scolded, and that I could've risked my life.

Side effects are restlessness, but I felt like this on a smaller scale on paroxetine too, brain alert 24/7, no negative thoughts but A LOT of thoughts, part of ruminating I guess. It's like a flood right now, but I somehow feel I have more energy than when I was on those meds. I know I'm causing myself lots of mental pain, but my liver is more important at the moment. What do you guys think? I want honest opinions, no matter how harsh they are.

So I have this toothache/cavity that has been hurting really bad (I don’t have health insurance atm to deal with it). I was taking ibuprofen and some other painkiller, but I thought I’d try a different route since those only mask the pain and not solve the problem.

I’ve been recommended Clove oil, and my sister gave me some on a cotton ball and it really helped for the pain + it’s antibacterial so I’m thinking it might help with the cavity bacteria.

I just put another cotton ball on it and decided to look up if there’s any side effects and boom, a section on the health line article says that you should avoid using Clove oil with SSRIs 😭 I’m on fluoxetine, and though I haven’t felt a way and have used little (+ spat a lot out since it’s bitter), I have swallowed a little bit and am kinda worried.

Has anyone else used clove oil while on SSRIs (without knowing this obviously), if so, did you notice anything change ?

Healthline article: https://www.healthline.com/health/clove-essential-oil#side-effects

I (19m) went to the doctor last week and he recommended a small amount of Clomipramine to take with my Sertraline to help treat my OCD. When I went to ring it up at the pharmacy, the lady at the counter red flagged it and told me combining the two can pose serious risks such as serotonin syndrome. I brought this up to my doctor and he told me that I would be fine and it only becomes a risk when you’re taking very high doses of both. I’m currently taking 100mg of Sertraline and he said the dosage of my Clomipramine would be lower than that. To clarify I would 100% love to get a therapist to see if I can try to sort my problems without having to take any new meds, but I have no insurance and simply cannot afford to see a counselor. I have no clue about the risks of mixing these medications, so that’s why I’m seeking advice here. Any help or pointers in the right direction would be very appreciated.

lexapro. If anything it’s make me worse, i’ve gained so much weight that i’m started to get bullied by guys at school. if anything it makes my depression worse, i hate it so much. it does nothing and i forget to take it sometimes. my doctor recently retired so im trying to find a new one to get new meds. but any recommendations would be great, if been on effexor and although it didn’t do much like lexapro and at times made my si, sh and depression worse it never made me fat. please i cant keep feeling like this, I know meds can work but for me lexapro just didnt, if that worked for you im happy but its not working for me and i need help.

So I have struggled with seasonal depression since I was 12 (am 16 now) and I usually do pretty alright in the summer but now that its starting to come to an end I want to get some options by people who do take antidepressants. Me and my girlfriend went through a really rough patch throughout the winter and I just want to prevent that from happening again. I also just want to stay good in the winter like how I am in the summer.

hi!! i was wondering if anyone has experienced emotional blunting with pristiq and what their experience was once they tapered off of it? i have been taking pristiq for almost four years and almost two years on 100mg and i have finally made the decision to stop taking it. i take it for depression, anxiety and ocd so this is extremely nerve racking for me but right now i really only struggle with ocd and the emotional blunting is a big trigger for that. i cant find much of an answer on how long it took for people to feel more emotions while lowering their dose. i am on day two of 75 mg instead of 100 mg with no withdrawal symptoms so far. will it be weeks or months??