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Weaning off anti-depressants
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I'm currently on 100mg of Sertraline and I think it's messing me up. It's giving me mood swings, where I get so high I feel like my stomach is in a knot and can't eat, I feel anxious, feel a desire to self-harm or kill myself, my mind races to the point I get afraid... The only thing I've found to take the edge off the highs and the lows is to get drunk.
It kinda comes in waves of high and low. I'm normally like this, but other a longer period and less intense (though it's getting worse in intensity, but not length). I used to manage my moods with intense exercise, diet, meditation and mindfulness... Now I feel I am losing it. I get bouts of paranoia where I feel that I'm looking over my shoulder a lot because I think somebody is behind me, or people are hiding from me. I also have no sex drive and find the gym harder (when I have the will to go), as my muscles get fatigued.
I've actually had a good week. I went to London Pride and functioned fine. I'm back to the state where I can read, converse, I don't feel sad... I feel a bit on edge, but that's it. I don't know when the next mood swing will happen.
I wanna come off this drug... It's vile. I'm worried it will push me in to being bipolar (I have cyclothymia).
Does anybody have similar experiences with this drug, or weaning themselves off it?
I'm not sure if I can get help/support from my local services, as they normally only take on severely ill people (I don't self-harm badly and at the moment, I don't want to kill myself), in particular people with schizophrenia. I don't want to have to wait ages to see a psychiatrist.
It kinda comes in waves of high and low. I'm normally like this, but other a longer period and less intense (though it's getting worse in intensity, but not length). I used to manage my moods with intense exercise, diet, meditation and mindfulness... Now I feel I am losing it. I get bouts of paranoia where I feel that I'm looking over my shoulder a lot because I think somebody is behind me, or people are hiding from me. I also have no sex drive and find the gym harder (when I have the will to go), as my muscles get fatigued.
I've actually had a good week. I went to London Pride and functioned fine. I'm back to the state where I can read, converse, I don't feel sad... I feel a bit on edge, but that's it. I don't know when the next mood swing will happen.
I wanna come off this drug... It's vile. I'm worried it will push me in to being bipolar (I have cyclothymia).
Does anybody have similar experiences with this drug, or weaning themselves off it?
I'm not sure if I can get help/support from my local services, as they normally only take on severely ill people (I don't self-harm badly and at the moment, I don't want to kill myself), in particular people with schizophrenia. I don't want to have to wait ages to see a psychiatrist.
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Comments
I have no experience of this drug, and can no longer ask my walking reference as to metabolism times for the different ones - so can offer very little advice.
You haven't said what sort of timescales the swings are on - I found splitting my venlafaxine dose into twice a day helped me with that, but have no idea wether that would be appropriate for your medication.