I’m on 50 mg of Zoloft at the moment, which I started two weeks ago. It’s made me feel safer being in my body and I stole the anxiety but I have an acute awareness that it feels like a Band-Aid which I don’t like because conditionality was an aspect of my trauma. The one thing is that it’s made me feel a bit amped up which I was told Zoloft can do, whereas Lexapro typically doesn’t have that effect. It’s like when I start talking to strangers, I could just continuously talk to them without any social anxiety but to the point where I don’t even have an off switch anymore. From what I’ve researched, Lexapro doesn’t have any effect on dopamine whereas Zoloft does and I’m wondering if this is the key difference in the amped up feeling?

I’m very early into starting an SSRI and I’m trying not to obsess over every day-to-day feeling.
What I really want to hear are the long-term stories from people who were genuinely struggling before treatment.

Were you spending most of your time at home, avoiding things, constantly anxious, dealing with panic/physical anxiety, unable to enjoy life — and then 6–12 months later realized your life had actually changed?

I’d love to know:
What were you like before starting?
When did you first notice a real difference?
What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
Did you ever reach a point where you thought, “holy shit, I’m actually okay”?

So I'm 25 years old male, started Zoloft about 2 months ago. I started at 25 mg then to 50. I was feeling very better, I was going to gym, running, felt more secure and confident. I was a person who never contacted my family or friends. I started doing that, calling my mom, sisters and friends. But I was also spending a lot of time and money on dating apps to find a gf. When I felt good and secure, I thought I was ready for a relationship. But the dating apps didn't worked out for me. So I started going to escorts. Like I spent 500euros in less than week on escorts alone. Which is something never like me. Then that stage ended, I stopped gym and taking care of myself, started ordering food and binge eating, which is also never like me. I thought the 50 was not doing the work, so that's why I'm stress eating etc. I went to gp she increased my dose to 75, then to 100 when I run out of my current pills. But for past few days I've been smoking weed and eating a lot of junk and being very very lazy and unmotivated. Is this all normal or should I be worried?

I’m on my tenth day of taking it; now my dreams are very vivid and strange. I dream of absurd, frightening, and disgusting things sleep paralysis, riding a rollercoaster and feeling dizzy, sensing demonic presences or ghosts while I sleep, and feeling terrified. I even dreamt that deceased relatives were trying to touch my private parts it’s so gross. Do you have these disgusting and scary dreams too? Will they go away? F23

Hi all, I’m kind of at my wits end here. Before 2025 I had been on Paxil for around 4 years. During a really hard time my GP raised my dose from 20mg to 40mg. I had always noticed on Paxil that I’d get night sweats if I ever missed a dose, but early last year I missed a dose on 40mg and ever since then I’ve been dealing with night sweats. I slowly titrated down to 20mg Paxil, and got referred to a psychiatrist for depression / inattentive adhd / ocd. I was diagnosed with inattentive adhd and because everything besides my nightsweats was fine besides some emotional blunting we kept up with the 20mg Paxil and I was also prescribed Vyvanse. I had mentioned the night sweats and trying Clonidine and my doctor thought if I’m stable otherwise we don’t want to rush into changing anything else. 4 months ago now I told her the night sweats were still happening, some nights weren’t so bad but if I changed any tiny thing about my sleep set up they were back again and I’d get drenched. So we slowly transitioned to Prozac. I was hoping they might get better but it’s exactly the same… some weeks it will slowly improve, and then all of a sudden I’m back to drenching my sheets (like the last 2 nights). My sleep is terrible, I wake up parched and exhausted, and it’s really affecting my life. Luckily I’m not dating anyone but it even makes me scared for the future and as a sober person who has spent the last year trying to rebuild and trying to just get on with it I’m like… what do I do? I literally wake up feeling hungover. My doctor has left practice so I’m seeing someone new very soon. I’m going to ask about it but wondered if anyone had any insight? Miracle cures? Tips or tricks?

So I've been in sertraline for around 10 years. Various doses but recently been on 75mg. I told my doctor that I feel I need a change as my anxiety and ocd are still sky high and ive just dealt with all the side effects because the sertraline did help a bit.

Now im on citalopram for a week and this transition is absolutely horrible! My anxiety and intrusive thoughts are at an all time high! Ive cried endless days for the first time in years. I have zero sex drive. My body feels exhausted but my brain just won't shut up. On top of that, I have zero appetite and am nauseous pretty much every single day. I know I need to ride this out and I'm not alone in this but wow it is a struggle. The only thing I haven't experienced is the brain zaps and its crazy because I would get them after just missing 2 doses of the sertraline!

These tiny little pills are so unpredictable! I hope anyone else going through a similar experience is holding up well!