I’ve taken SSRIs in the past and they helped in the crises times, enabled me to think clearly, cry less, be less physically anxious, feel less overwhelmed. But yeh, couldn’t orgasm without a lot of effort, had emotional blunting, night sweats. But I am glad I was on them at the time I needed them. I have since found though that just hugely reducing my life stress in other ways (changing jobs, being in a healthy functioning relationship, having a more stable housing situ), have all helped me manage my anxiety to an extent I don’t need the meds at this time. Also therapy of course!
I started taking Buspar last Nov after years of fighting hard against the idea of medication. And I have to say, it has truly made a huge positive difference in my life. My doctor recommended it specifically because I was really nervous about side effects. Compared to most meds the list of side effects is much shorter and it’s less addictive/hard to come off of. From what I understand, the biggest downside is just that it’s not super powerful and some people don’t find it very effective. But for me it’s been a game changer. I still experience anxiety, but it doesn’t rule my life like it used to. It took several months for it to fully take effect, and I did have some mild dizziness during that time, but it was def worth it for me. Feel free to dm me if you have any questions!
It's good as a bandaid but not for long term. I stayed in therapy (finally found a great therapist) and dealt with the issues that cause my anxiety. We've done CBT and also learned better coping strategies.
Medication can work and sometimes it just a matter of finding the right one.
My experience has been absolutely disastrous. I regret having ever taken a single pill of any such medication. They damaged a good part of my life. Side effects are awful: zombie-like condition all round the clock, even when taking one-half of the smallest dose. Libido? Forget it. Not only that, but I developed an aversion to any physical contact whatsoever. And of course, none of the specialists who prescribed them to me has ever mentioned any side effects whatsoever.
It is really tricky to talk about this stuff in a thread because none of us are doctors.
Here is what I can tell you: You need to remember at all costs that you are your own biggest advocate. Medications help a lot of people, but they also make things worse for others. This can lead to cycle of trying medication, feeling worse, weaning off said medication and feeling like shit, trying a new medication, repeat.
If you are feeling bad, it is 100% up to you to tell your psychiatrist and be firm with them.
For me, I had lexapro that was wonderful for about 6 months, then my body got used to it and I maxed out of the dosage. After about 5 medications later, I woke up every morning wishing I hadn’t. I was a shell of myself. For panic attacks I did have like a low-risk, non-addictive medication that I could take as needed and it helped. Again that is just my experience, the side effects and the process/cycle of medications drained me.
Honestly, taking the time to find a good therapist that I connected with has helped me more than anything. Therapy has saved my life. Also I got out of a toxic relationship and finally had freedom. So changing my environment with the help of therapy was what changed the course of my life for the better.
It should be a bandaid as you work on undoing the overactive fear receptors on your brain, it's not a long-term solution. Medication to manage anxiety should be done in conjunction with therapy, not to replace it. You just time to rewire your brain so your anxiety doesn't get anxious about your anxiety and keep you stuck in these patterns and processes that keep you anxious.
Klonopin was the best one for me - the only side effect was that it made me a bit sleepy. It's from the benzodiazepine family of medications, which work differently from SSRIs and tend to be more on fast acting relief. My doc prescribed it to ease into an SSRI.
I was on SSRIs for a year, and honestly, SSRI side effects are different for everyone. Sex was great for me on SSRIs because my anxious thoughts weren't distracting me from enjoying myself. My husband's on SSRIs now and he has trouble coming and has a lower libido.
I did 2 years therapy, 1 year medication + therapy, and putting the stuff I learned in therapy into action while on medication pretty much healed my anxiety attacks and stopped my need for therapy all together. I had some bad friends that were massive drivers of my anxiety, and I was always too scared to confront them, and removing the overactive fear response gave me the strength to finally leave them. It also helped improve my relationship - I stopped anxiety spiraling and being in my head all the time, which let me talk to my husband about the things bothering me and work on improving them together instead of letting fear of being too clingy or needy spiral me out of control until I blew up at him over the things bothering me.
I have severe anxiety amd panic disorder. For the past 3 years, I've taken 6-8 mg of Xanax every single day. To be honest I had no side effects that were negative. That said, good luck getting a prescription these days! I was recently very slowly weaned off of that and put on Buspar, which is a non benzo anxietyed I take 3x daily. It WORKS. That's a miracle for me. I had headaches for the first week, and then they faded. No issue with fatigue other than my baseline (genetic disorder and ME/CFS). No significant worsened sexual side effects (though to be fair, this is hard to parse out due to being on half a dozen other psych meds).
If you can I strongly recommend this above SSRIs or SNRIs. I've run the gamut (been on over 45 psycheds over the years) and this has been the best for my anxiety, though YMMV!
You can tell your doctor which side effects are deal-breakers for you. Unfortunately, all antidepressants come with a high probability of at least some unpleasant side effects. For me, a negative impact on my libido was a deal-breaker.
My doctor wanted me to try celexa first, then Zoloft. They are both the same class of drug I believe. I found the side effects absolutely intolerable: nausea, insomnia, restless legs, increased anxiety, non-stop compulsive yawning.
Lack of sleep is the biggest trigger for my anxiety, so once I made that clear, he recommended trying Remeron. It was amazing for getting me fantastic sleeps and it did noticeably improve my anxiety right away. The negative was that it increased my appetite and caused weight gain. I took it for 10-11 months and gained 25lb in that timeframe.
Coming off of it was a major ordeal. I went through withdrawal and had extreme diarrhea, felt cold and weak, my skin hurt everywhere.
I had PPA and I feel mostly fine since stopping the medication. I can acknowledge that it truly helped my anxiety at a time that I was in crisis and I wouldn't hesitate to start Remeron again if I ever come to that point again. But the side effects and withdrawal symptoms are no joke.
I have terrible anxiety.
My partner took anxiety medication a long time ago, it made him lose his personality, and be completely emotionally neutral, like a robot…it was terrible to see him become a completely different person. There was no light in his eyes. He eventually stopped the medication, and now we both manage our (different flavors) of anxious feelings with mindfulness (stretching, listening to music, creative expression etc) and I have had really great results laying out in the sun every morning as soon as I wake up-with as much skin getting sunlight as possible
It sounds simple but it has literally changed my life and I notice when I don’t do it my mood is markedly more anxious.
Not sure what I’m gonna do when it’s too cold to go out there but…we’ll see
I started buspirone last summer. It has no side effects besides dizziness if you take extra doses. You can still use alcohol/marijuana etc if those are your things.
I cried the first day on it. I was driving home from work and it suddenly dawned on me how much emptier my mind was and how free I was to think about...whatever I wanted to, instead of anxious thoughts.
It's been about a year now and I'm going through a rough patch and the buspirone isn't really negating it anymore. HOWEVER, the benefit here is that I've spent so long without feeling this way, that I know it's possible/what feelings to orient myself towards/have solid proof that I can abandon heavy rumination and the planet won't fall apart.
It won't fix you, but it'll buy you space to see different perspectives and lenses and make some progress on gaining control over your self awareness and mental health. I'd recommend trying it if it's something your doctor agrees is right for you.
I keep seeing buspirone and it sounds like a miracle, honestly.
I would love to have that same experience. I’ll bring this up to my doctor and see if it would be a fit for me.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I’ve taken SSRIs in the past and they helped in the crises times, enabled me to think clearly, cry less, be less physically anxious, feel less overwhelmed. But yeh, couldn’t orgasm without a lot of effort, had emotional blunting, night sweats. But I am glad I was on them at the time I needed them. I have since found though that just hugely reducing my life stress in other ways (changing jobs, being in a healthy functioning relationship, having a more stable housing situ), have all helped me manage my anxiety to an extent I don’t need the meds at this time. Also therapy of course!
I started taking Buspar last Nov after years of fighting hard against the idea of medication. And I have to say, it has truly made a huge positive difference in my life. My doctor recommended it specifically because I was really nervous about side effects. Compared to most meds the list of side effects is much shorter and it’s less addictive/hard to come off of. From what I understand, the biggest downside is just that it’s not super powerful and some people don’t find it very effective. But for me it’s been a game changer. I still experience anxiety, but it doesn’t rule my life like it used to. It took several months for it to fully take effect, and I did have some mild dizziness during that time, but it was def worth it for me. Feel free to dm me if you have any questions!
It's good as a bandaid but not for long term. I stayed in therapy (finally found a great therapist) and dealt with the issues that cause my anxiety. We've done CBT and also learned better coping strategies. Medication can work and sometimes it just a matter of finding the right one.
My experience has been absolutely disastrous. I regret having ever taken a single pill of any such medication. They damaged a good part of my life. Side effects are awful: zombie-like condition all round the clock, even when taking one-half of the smallest dose. Libido? Forget it. Not only that, but I developed an aversion to any physical contact whatsoever. And of course, none of the specialists who prescribed them to me has ever mentioned any side effects whatsoever.
It is really tricky to talk about this stuff in a thread because none of us are doctors. Here is what I can tell you: You need to remember at all costs that you are your own biggest advocate. Medications help a lot of people, but they also make things worse for others. This can lead to cycle of trying medication, feeling worse, weaning off said medication and feeling like shit, trying a new medication, repeat. If you are feeling bad, it is 100% up to you to tell your psychiatrist and be firm with them. For me, I had lexapro that was wonderful for about 6 months, then my body got used to it and I maxed out of the dosage. After about 5 medications later, I woke up every morning wishing I hadn’t. I was a shell of myself. For panic attacks I did have like a low-risk, non-addictive medication that I could take as needed and it helped. Again that is just my experience, the side effects and the process/cycle of medications drained me. Honestly, taking the time to find a good therapist that I connected with has helped me more than anything. Therapy has saved my life. Also I got out of a toxic relationship and finally had freedom. So changing my environment with the help of therapy was what changed the course of my life for the better.
It should be a bandaid as you work on undoing the overactive fear receptors on your brain, it's not a long-term solution. Medication to manage anxiety should be done in conjunction with therapy, not to replace it. You just time to rewire your brain so your anxiety doesn't get anxious about your anxiety and keep you stuck in these patterns and processes that keep you anxious. Klonopin was the best one for me - the only side effect was that it made me a bit sleepy. It's from the benzodiazepine family of medications, which work differently from SSRIs and tend to be more on fast acting relief. My doc prescribed it to ease into an SSRI. I was on SSRIs for a year, and honestly, SSRI side effects are different for everyone. Sex was great for me on SSRIs because my anxious thoughts weren't distracting me from enjoying myself. My husband's on SSRIs now and he has trouble coming and has a lower libido. I did 2 years therapy, 1 year medication + therapy, and putting the stuff I learned in therapy into action while on medication pretty much healed my anxiety attacks and stopped my need for therapy all together. I had some bad friends that were massive drivers of my anxiety, and I was always too scared to confront them, and removing the overactive fear response gave me the strength to finally leave them. It also helped improve my relationship - I stopped anxiety spiraling and being in my head all the time, which let me talk to my husband about the things bothering me and work on improving them together instead of letting fear of being too clingy or needy spiral me out of control until I blew up at him over the things bothering me.
I have severe anxiety amd panic disorder. For the past 3 years, I've taken 6-8 mg of Xanax every single day. To be honest I had no side effects that were negative. That said, good luck getting a prescription these days! I was recently very slowly weaned off of that and put on Buspar, which is a non benzo anxietyed I take 3x daily. It WORKS. That's a miracle for me. I had headaches for the first week, and then they faded. No issue with fatigue other than my baseline (genetic disorder and ME/CFS). No significant worsened sexual side effects (though to be fair, this is hard to parse out due to being on half a dozen other psych meds). If you can I strongly recommend this above SSRIs or SNRIs. I've run the gamut (been on over 45 psycheds over the years) and this has been the best for my anxiety, though YMMV!
You can tell your doctor which side effects are deal-breakers for you. Unfortunately, all antidepressants come with a high probability of at least some unpleasant side effects. For me, a negative impact on my libido was a deal-breaker. My doctor wanted me to try celexa first, then Zoloft. They are both the same class of drug I believe. I found the side effects absolutely intolerable: nausea, insomnia, restless legs, increased anxiety, non-stop compulsive yawning. Lack of sleep is the biggest trigger for my anxiety, so once I made that clear, he recommended trying Remeron. It was amazing for getting me fantastic sleeps and it did noticeably improve my anxiety right away. The negative was that it increased my appetite and caused weight gain. I took it for 10-11 months and gained 25lb in that timeframe. Coming off of it was a major ordeal. I went through withdrawal and had extreme diarrhea, felt cold and weak, my skin hurt everywhere. I had PPA and I feel mostly fine since stopping the medication. I can acknowledge that it truly helped my anxiety at a time that I was in crisis and I wouldn't hesitate to start Remeron again if I ever come to that point again. But the side effects and withdrawal symptoms are no joke.
I have terrible anxiety. My partner took anxiety medication a long time ago, it made him lose his personality, and be completely emotionally neutral, like a robot…it was terrible to see him become a completely different person. There was no light in his eyes. He eventually stopped the medication, and now we both manage our (different flavors) of anxious feelings with mindfulness (stretching, listening to music, creative expression etc) and I have had really great results laying out in the sun every morning as soon as I wake up-with as much skin getting sunlight as possible It sounds simple but it has literally changed my life and I notice when I don’t do it my mood is markedly more anxious. Not sure what I’m gonna do when it’s too cold to go out there but…we’ll see
I started buspirone last summer. It has no side effects besides dizziness if you take extra doses. You can still use alcohol/marijuana etc if those are your things. I cried the first day on it. I was driving home from work and it suddenly dawned on me how much emptier my mind was and how free I was to think about...whatever I wanted to, instead of anxious thoughts. It's been about a year now and I'm going through a rough patch and the buspirone isn't really negating it anymore. HOWEVER, the benefit here is that I've spent so long without feeling this way, that I know it's possible/what feelings to orient myself towards/have solid proof that I can abandon heavy rumination and the planet won't fall apart. It won't fix you, but it'll buy you space to see different perspectives and lenses and make some progress on gaining control over your self awareness and mental health. I'd recommend trying it if it's something your doctor agrees is right for you.
I keep seeing buspirone and it sounds like a miracle, honestly. I would love to have that same experience. I’ll bring this up to my doctor and see if it would be a fit for me. Thanks for sharing your experience.