This message is a positive one, so please read through to the end.
I was active on the anxiety and depression boards a few years ago. I never had a history of any type of mental health issues prior to Covid, and being out-of-work during the same time period, plus dealing with a family member with terminal cancer.
I started getting some bad anxiety attacks a few times a week, which turned into a few times a day, and then devolved to to all-day, every day, severe anxiety for a year. I also couldn't sleep for more than 2 or 3 hours and tried every supplement under the sun to work around that problem, without success. I lost interest in food, sex, music, reading, tv and found something negative and sad in every aspect of everyday life. I also put myself in this hopeless catch-22 where I knew working would help me mentally, but I didn't think I could work until I got over the anxiety and depression.
Nine months into this dark period, I decided to try AD pills to help. This went against everything I believed in, because I thought it was a sign of weakness, plus I had a family member who had abused such pills. My GP prescribed Effexor, which gave me bad side effects. Next, a psychiatrist put me on Klonopin and Paxil, which kicked in after 5 weeks but had bad sexual side-effects. Next, we tried Lexapro, which gave me vison problems and made me pathologically restless. Then, back on Paxil briefly. Then, a second try at Lexapro, with no luck.
Finally, I got a new psychiatrist who had me take a genetic test, which I swore up-and-down would be a waste of money. He prescribed Pristiq with a low dose of Klonopin to assist with anxiety while the anti-depressant kicked in. Despite being bashed online, Pristiq gave me no side effects and was effective. I gave the psychiatrist a million reasons why it wouldn't work for me, but it did. No sweating, no anxiety, no depression, no sexual problems, and no relapses after a month of being on the medication.
I stayed on the medication for 1.5 years. I took some online classes and worked very hard at getting a job, which finally happened. I tapered slowly off of the low dose Klonpin, with no problem and without withdrawal side effects. I then nervously made the decision to taper off of the Pristiq. I said to myself, even under a worst case scenario, I had found a working formula and could go back. Surprisingly I had little to no side-effects coming off of the Pristiq. The dreaded "brain zaps" didn't happen to me.
Today, I am very happy and without any depression or anxiety, and I have my dream job working with great people. In looking back, I can't really understand what went wrong in my brain where I couldn't break the cycle of anxiety, worry, and depression. Worrying about it was an all encompassing, all day thing, every day. In my case, I needed the AD pills to break the circular mental cycle that I had trapped myself in.
I wrote all this because I know that the people who are well, or get well, usually don't spend the time to go back and let other people know about their successes. I wanted to do it, to let people know there is hope, even after facing a year, or many years, of feeling hopeless, lost, and experiencing anhedonia. I think good experiences are more of the norm than not, but they don't drive people to write about them online.
xx
Happy new year
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