Zoloft was the 3rd SSRI anti-depressant I had taken for treatment of anxiety and depression, after my body had rejected Paxil and Celexa. All 3 meds, including Zoloft, made me MUCH MUCH worse. I felt like I was on a bad trip the entire time I was taking it. The worst was first waking up in the morning, feeling like I wanted to die. Severe anxiety throughout the day, tapering off a little in the evening, and then sever insomnia throughout the night due to the anxiety. A general altered state of mind, mostly making me feel like I lost my mind altogether. A detached sense of what was real and what was in my head. I tried to stick with Zoloft for longer than Paxil or Celexa, and the end results were this:
1. My anxiety induced insomnia was so bad that I was only getting around 1 hours sleep per night, constantly falling asleep and then waking right back up in a state of panic. Prolonged insomnia of this nature can make you feel like you are dreaming when you are awake, and I began to experience this every time I closed my eyes. Weird nightmare like dreams while I was awake. I also started seeing nightmarish patterns in normal everyday things, for example a simple wallpaper pattern began to look like angry, distorted faces.
2. Suicidal idealogy. I could not stop thinking about hurting myself. I was thankfully lucid enough to comprehend that I didn't actually want to hurt myself, but towards the end it's all I could think about.
3. Stopping the meds: I eventually decided that trying to tough it out through these symptoms would not work. I stopped taking the med, but unfortunately the insomnia and suicidal ideology did not go away. Maybe they would have eventually, but 2 nights later I decided that my risk of suicide was high enough that it warranted a trip to the hospital. I had been obsessing over a pocket knife that I generally keep in my pocket, and once I got the thought of using the knife to hurt myself into my head, it would not go away for an entire sleepless night. Again, I did not actually want to hurt myself, but still could not stop thinking about doing it. The next day my wife drove me to the ER. I talked with the doctors there about my suicidal ideology, and they were able to get me checked into a mental hospital.
4. Psychiatric Hospital: I spent a week at the Psychiatric hospital, and luckily the doctor there was extremely helpful. She stated that after the 2nd failed attempt at taking an SSRI, she would have not tried a 3rd (which Zoloft was my 3rd attempt). She thought that my extremely worsening symptoms were simply due to my body rejecting Zoloft. She prescribed Remeron, which really helped me sleep, and was a cure for my worsening state of depression. After a couple nights of good sleep, my daytime dreams and seeing weird faces in patterns went away. They also put me on a steady regiment of Klonopin for my anxiety, which also really helped. The hospital also connected me with a psychiatrist who was accepting new patients. This was something I was struggling to find on my own.
5. Afterwards: I am writing this in 2024, all of the above happened in 2015. The last 9 years have been an uphill struggle (especially 2015-2020), but every year seems a little better. I am at a very stable point now. Within a couple of weeks of leaving the hospital, I was still feeling depressed and anxious. In my first appointment with my psychiatrist she put on Lamictal, which is generally used for Bipolar disorder (which I am not), but can also be used for treatment of anxiety. This was a game changer for me. She also put me on Gabapentin because she felt it would help with my social anxiety, and she was correct. She explained to me that an SSRI has the potential to take care of all of these issues with just 1 pill, but because my gut couldn't handle being on the SSRI I needed to take what she called a drug cocktail. And she was right, taking a number of different meds really helped. 9 years later, and Read More Read Less