Background Stuff
It can be funny how much internalized stigma we have about medication. I considered myself super pro-medication, and yet I was always anxious about starting to take anti-depressants for anxiety. What if it made things worse? I knew withdraw was a thing, how bad was that? After a rather long journey of actual years of watching myself go up and down, through mental health hell and back; I hit a new low and for no reason at all.
I was 29 at the time and everything in my life was actually going well, but I kept having horrible panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep. Things were stressing me way more than usual and it just wouldn’t STOP. Even changing my environment wasn’t helping. Furthermore it was getting harder and harder to get out of bed. It seemed like every day took more effort.
I have an Associate in Arts with a focus in Psych. I know the symptoms of depression, but -I- couldn’t POSSIBLY be depressed. I was always high energy and go go go. Anyways, I had to get everything brain related re-diagnosed for college to get access to for my disability aid in my classes. I was a bit annoyed by this, and by ‘a bit annoyed’ I mean rather resentful and…. you guessed it, ANXIOUS! I was cross that I had to have my parents pay for a test for the severe ADHD that I’ve had as long as I can remember.
Anyways, the long and short of it was a new list of diagnoses that I already knew I had, but several of them had never been formally on paper: Severe ADHD, Moderate Generalized Anxiety, Mild OCD, Mild PTSD, and oddly… Borderline Depression. When I finally broke down after my (what felt like) 20th Anxiety attack not long after the test, and went to the doctor where she talked me into the SSRI. Gently, she also pointed out that it was used to treat almost everything on my list of Brand New Brain Things.
I was hesitant, but I had to do something, so I agreed. She went over how I had to take them on time everyday and that I can’t just stop taking them or I could go into withdraw. She did note that she was putting me on one of the more gentle ones which was not known for hard withdraw but how it was still important to make sure we don’t have to find out.
THE SSRIs
I started on Lexapro/Escitalopram 5mg for the first week then up to 10mg after that. They also told me that it will take a few weeks to feel a difference so to stick with it.
Within an hour of me taking my first pill, I became fairly nauseous even though I was entirely distracted with the game I was playing, the nausea was hard to ignore. But I ate a little bit of mac-n-cheese and some tums and it moved back into manageable. That night happened to be a hard night, I had learned a friend went into the hospital and we hadn’t heard back.
Then something odd happened; I became tired at a reasonable hour of 3am rather than my usual 6 or 7am. And I went to sleep and actually slept, abet with some crazy dreams. The next day, I woke up and grabbed my phone to start my morning wake up slog and realized pretty quickly that I FELT awake. Getting out of bed was nothing that day and despite not hearing about my friend, I only had one panic attack about it and it was fairly mild.
The next couple of days were the same, I was able to fall asleep, stay asleep (with INTENSE dreams), I was able to get up, and I oddly had a LOT of motivation to just get stuff done. All through a MONSTER headache. Something that never happens. If my head hurts, that’s something that just saps my energy so much. By this point, I realized that it was an anomaly, even on ‘good days’ I never did this well. A scooped up my meds in disbelief because there was NO WAY it was them already, right? They said it would be WEEKS. I had been skeptical about them in the first place so I wasn’t experiencing a placebo effect. If anything I had been worried that my doubt would hurt my ability to judge it fairly.
After a little bit of research it turns out that some anxiety patients respond rather quickly, even within hours to SSRIs. And I was responding just fine on only 5mg.
The Good
~ WAY fewer anxiety attacks and the ones that I do experience are a LOT smaller. They are so manageable now.
~ Sleep Schedule started to normalize. I’m still a super night owl, but Im not still awake at dawn.
~ I have a lot of ‘get up a go’. I don’t feel like I HAVE to lay in bed forever waking up. (This is one of the first things to go away when Im about ready for a dose change.)
~ I feel more like getting stuff DONE. Oddly, it helps to balance out my ADHD. I’m still a hot mess and an agent of chaos, but I’m LESS of a hot mess and an agent of chaos!
~ Im less constantly exhausted. (Another thing that is a sign for a dose change.)
The “Meh”
~ The near euphoria of the few days after a dose change go away quickly but not in a ‘crash’ sort of way. It sort of just trickles away.
~ I had to increase my dosage pretty quickly, I’ll update this once I talk to the doctors because it might be time for another and it’s only been a few months.
~ My dreams are WILD! Almost nightmare-like however they aren’t -stressful- like a nightmare. I use to wake up in knots over nightmares and now ones that are on entire other levels don’t even make me blink when I wake up. They are so vivid that I can feel the temperature or the taste of the air in the dreamworld. I can FEEL the things that I put my hands on. Oddly, they’ve been a lot of me being more of a hero than a victim even when attacked or chased. Yes, I’m being chased by a monster, and yes it already cut off my arm, but Im helping this other person escape too, lets figure out how to survive together.
The Bad
~ Sex drive took a HUGE hit at first. NOTHING could make me orgasm but this improved after a couple of weeks after a dose change.
~ Headaches, oh holy hell the headache the first few days after a dose change. Manageable with Excedrin Migraine. The good news is that it never went into full Migraine mode which I do get. These went away for me after a week.
~ I HAVE HAVE HAVE to eat it with a lot of food or at least something bland and starchy. Once I only took it with an orange and a nearly painted the floor with my insides.
~ If I forget to take them the anxiety comes back, HARD and it’s almost impossible to sleep without sleep aides. More than usual.
Closing Out
Honestly, I shouldn’t have been so worried about them all of this time. I wish I had started them years ago when my GP first touched on the subject. I’ve been REALLY lucky that I responded so well to my first one but after 7 years of hell trying to find the right birth control, I guess the universe just owed me one. I’ve had a VERY positive experience and while I know a few people who’ve had bad ones, for the most part my friends and I who have been on them have seen a positive influence on our lives.
After picking up a refill I realized that I wish I had read a nice and personal post like this to get a really experience on it. So here it is! Well, was. We’re done now!
Thanks so much for reading and stopping by. I hope if you’re considering SSRI’s that this was a bit helpful for you.
Glitter and Games 