Tablets masking something

What does occur to me, however, is that some of the symptoms you're describing - your mind scrambling and being unable to get sentences out - can be side-effects of all three of the medication types you've described. They can also be withdrawal effects of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds - particularly benzos in the latter case.

​I can identify with your feeling that your anxiety and depression might have been masking something else. I was diagnosed with depression in my early 20s and put on amitriptyline - one of the old tricyclic antidepressants - but had the good sense to take myself off it after a few months, so didn't suffer severe withdrawal problems. It was also mooted at one point that I might be bi-polar, which in the 1960s was still known as manic depressive, due to a tendency to get very excited and generally hyper about things on occasion.

After five years or so of depression (made much worse by the psychiatric approach of 50 years ago) I eventually realised I wasn't really depressed, I just couldn't cope with being me. It was only when I started being brutally honest with myself, around the age of 30, that I managed to climb out of it.

I too have always had the sensation that there's something wrong somewhere, though I know beyond doubt now that I only have a very minor bi-polar tendency, which doesn't require treatment. I had a bit of a breakthrough in my mid-40s, when by pure chance I managed to get enrolled on a research programme looking for adults who were possibly on the autistic spectrum, but had never been diagnosed as a child (as none of us were before at least the late 60s, of course). The verdict was that I definitely had a degree of Asperger's syndrome, but a lifetime of trying to "act normal" had altered the symptoms. There was no help available at that age, but simply knowing I wasn't in a minority of one was such a relief that I cried for three days!

I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is what you have. But with the benefit of hindsight I can see very clearly how my awareness of being different from everyone else led to my youthful depression, and how my longing to be "cured" of being me led to an incorrect psychiatric diagnosis. It may well be that something similar has happened in your case, though you're the only one who can unravel this.

I've never experienced withdrawal symptoms from psychotropic drugs, but I've seen several friends go through this, and know how bad it can make you feel, physically as well as mentally. I'm sure there will be others on this forum who'll be able to give you more detailed help. It's my understanding that antidepressants (unlike antipsychotics) don't permanently alter your brain chemistry, so you will eventually come through this very difficult time. Just try and be kind to yourself in the coming months. There is light at the end of the tunnel.