Sertraline Advice

[AMessOfJess]

Hello everyone,

I’m so happy to have found a community here that I didn’t know I could experience thank you all for an extremely supportive environment.

I’ve been anxious for as long as I can remember, highly sensitive also. I’m 22 and have gotten to a point where I think I needed to seek some sort of help with it as it was preventing me from obtaining my drivers license (if you have an help with that i’d Love it, my confidence and self esteem are also non existent to make a eccentric combination) so I went to a doctor and told him about it. Basically Ive been on Sertreline almost a month now, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel as I’ve always felt anxious that’s my normal. My sister has noticed a difference and I feel I can sense when to take a new pill as I start to get moody close before, but they may be my sister being consistent in her nagging (😂🤷🏼‍♀️) any advice?

Thanks

[Jeff1943]

AMessOfJess, I think the effectiveness of Sertraline builds up over a number of weeks so I'd be surprised if you can sense at what time of day you need to take your tablet. You should be feeling the benefits now as you've been taking it for a month. But read the notes that come with the prescription.

It's good to take a break from anxiety with a course of meds and I'm sure that you will feel much better for it. But maybe you won't want to stay on meds for ever and it's never too early to start investigating how you can enjoy freedom from anxiety without meds. I'm saying that you can recover from anxiety disorder without meds if you so wish.

May I suggest a three point plan designed to cure you of the bad feelings that all who have experienced anxiety know only too well.

1. Understanding - you need to understand why you have anxiety and why it developed. It is not the natural condition for humankind. Sometime in the past you may have gone through a period of stress caused by worry, over-work, trauma, disappointment or grief. Or any combination of these. Finally your nervous system had enough and became over-sensitised. In this state every slight concern or worry becomes magnified ten-fold. Like your learning to drive. This can also express itself in terms of health: some people think every ache or pain is the harbinger of cancer or heart disease. Every alarming thought generates fear hormones that keep our nerves sensitised. It's a vicious circle of fear causing symptoms causing more fear causing more symptoms.

2. Reassurance - this vicious circle can be stopped and your nerves can become desensitised if only we can stop the negative thoughts and fears every five minutes. Although anxiety is very good at mimicking physical illness it can't kill you, can't disable you and can't send you crazy. Because the 'illnesses' of anxiety are fake symptoms then unlike real illness they don't show up on scans, x-rays or blood tests. They are frauds and confidece tricksters. That's right, stress can't kill you or give you a heart attack. Only a diet rich in fats and poor in vegetables can do that. So relax, you can cancel that funeral insurance plan, you're not going to need it.

3. Recovery - armed with the knowledge that anxiety's powers to harm you are limited you can start planning your road to recovery. This is aimed at ending your fear and your fear of fear: deny the fear hormone to your nerves and in time they recover and your nightmare is over. To achieve this you must basically do the complete opposite to what you've been doing until now. You've been fighting your anxiety, right? Has fighting cured you? Of course it hasn't - fighting only causes more strain and tension. So the first thing to do is stop fighting anxiety. Surrender to it completely, agree to co-exist with it for the time being. Run up the white flag. Second, you've been trying to reject the symptoms that accompany anxiety, right? You've been rejecting them and hoping they'd go away. Well, you can stop that too. That hasn't worked either has it? So instead do the exact opposite: accept all the bad symptoms (for the moment) and stop resisting them. Let them come as often as they please and accept them calmly and with the minimum of fear. It's uncomfortable but you can still carry on with your normal activities. But because you're not fighting and fearing the symptoms so much because you've decided to Accept them you're generating less and less fear hormone giving your nervous system (and you) a chance to recover.

AMessOfJess, if I told you that you that a book written 50 years ago could set you on the path to recovery you might think I'm a madman. But that's exactly what I am going to suggest - the Acceptance method for recovering from anxiety is fully explained by Doctor Claire Weekes in her book 'Hope and help for your nerves' available new or used from Amazon. This book, which has been reprinted dozens of times since it was first published in 1962, six years before men first went to the Moon. And in that time it has helped untold thousands to recover.

Maybe you should read it some time, it could save you from endless suffering in the course if your life - and with your recovery could come the greater confidence and self esteem you seek.

[AMessOfJess in reply to Jeff1943]

Thanks I’ll see if I can find the book at my library.