My Sertraline Story!!

Hi everyone I am on 50mg of sertraline for the past 3 weeks & I am a lot better since before I started it but the anxiety can be quite bad. I'm wondering is it too soon to up the dosage? I was on 15mg etalopro before a couple of months ago. I read that 50mg sertraline is equivalent to 5mg etalopro.

Hi there everyone now the anxiety has gone down alot but now I feel depersonalised like really weird & like

I'm a different person :-/ I'm only on sertraline about 3 weeks, I don't know if it's helping me or not. I don't want to wait another 3 weeks. I miss the way I was on etalopro, I wish I could go back on it. What do yous think I should do? I just want to me & to be back on track. Ive suffered enough with these meds.

I know this was awhile ago. I've been on sertraline 3 weeks. My appetite, mood and sleep are tiny bit better but the anxiety and negative thoughts are still there. I'm on 100mg. Should I stick with it ?

Hi dani and readers. I stumbled on this site and am not sure if I should be here. However: I am 53, have suffered from depression since I was a child. If one must categorize, I am cyclothymic/dysthymic. I have been on SSRI's for many years, but gradually tapered off Serlife about 4 months ago as I no longer felt any alleviating effect to my depression, I no longer had a sense of who I really was, as if my self was a vague memory. Intense sadness and joy returned like a broken dam wall, but with that were post-SSRI things happening and they still are happening months later. I must stress thst before meds I did not suffer from the following, so I attribute them to the SSRI's: 1)insomnia: difficulty falling asleep with a frihghtening, dread-like anxiety which seems to press on me as soon as I lie down to sleep. 2)certain thoughts get stuck in my head as if I can't let go of them, for instance if someone was rude to me I keep seeing the face and hearing the replaying his words, possibly an OCD thing? 3)Suicidal ideation. I often think of death, imagining myself "not here". When I hold my dog close I am aware he too will be gone. This I recognise as a part of my existential depression but I did not ideate about my own death and fear/become sad about losing others PRIOR to SSRI's. 4)Dissociation and alienation, as if I am not me, as if I am an actor in some play, as if I can float between different roles or persona, coming back in the evening to this ever-fretting me. 5)agoraphobic response to crowds and occasional horror at being with people who suddenly seem threatening and malicious 6) heightened sense of smell and sensitivity to sound and light. 7)Libido was messed up on SSRI's. It has returned somewhat, but feels more like something alien to me, as if my bogy is an alien appendage.

I have been reading online about the long term negatives of SSRI's, SSRI-withdrawal, and altered physical and mind states after the SSRI's. I feel that all of this points to drug addiction and withdrawal, and I am angered that doctors and psychiatrists did not sufficiently alert me to this. I am in a bad space but am determined not return to SSRI's as they appear to have created these new demons. I stress again that before long term use of SSRI's I was depressed, melancholy, but not with these symptoms. In a way I was better of with my old cycles of sadness, and I hope that my brain will one day find its old patterns again. I feel my brain was interfered with by these drugs, and they came with a new set of demons I must now contend with. In closing, I am trying to walk a lot every day with my dog, am attempting to avoid sugar and alcohol. A year ago I became vegetarian (connected with not being party to animal sufferiing). So there's my missive, not certain ewhy im sharing it as I am now wary of psychiatrist s and psychiatric medication.

Determined to survive this,

Benjamin

Hello all. I think what disturbs me most is that I went on SSRI's because I was suffering from depression, now that I have been off Serlife (Sertraline) for approximately 4 months I have a bunch of symptoms which were not a part of my original diagnosis: panic attacks, a feeling of dread as I go to sleep, anxiety, aggression, paranoia, agoraphobia. I was on SSRI's for many years, initially Paxil then Serlife. Right now I feel angry with Doctors and psychiatrist s who seemed clueless of the side effects and withdrawal symptoms, or who downplayed the effects. If it is so difficult to get off these meds, if the side effects must be mitigated by additional drugs, it seems there is something wrong with the whole SSRI project. My daughter and my wife have both been prescribed SSRI's, and I am very, very concerned about the long term effects and what they will have to go through if they ever come off SSRI's. Frankly these forums reveal to me a whole lot of good folk who are in a double bind with this medication, and Id dearly love to see a psychiatrist's non-partisan input; not to have him simply promote SSRI's, but to give an honest assessment of the recent Scientific American research on SSRI's. Are we being treated like guinea-pigs to keep multimillion dollar pharmaceutical companies in business? I am battling with the WD effects of this drug, and all the psychiatrists seem able to do is offer new cocktails. Angry and confused, Benjamin