Anti-anxiety Medication - Worth It?

[Yarco]

I've always been pretty against the idea of taking medication for things like anxiety or depression. The idea of something changing something as foundational as the thoughts in my head seems pretty scary. (I'm guessing many people on the forum feel the same way.) It's also scary that you become dependent on many of them and need to wean off if you ever want to stop.

However recently my anxiety has been getting increasingly worse over the years, and now it's at a pretty debilitating point. I'm pretty much constantly feeling stressed, anxious, and wound up about just... pretty much everything. More things than not at this point.

In the past I've always rationalized that I'd rather just suffer and be my genuine self than change my brain chemistry. But now it's so bad that's not really true any more.

What's changing my mind and making me more open to the idea of medication -- My dog is super anxious and scared of fireworks and thunder, so we talked to the vet and decided to put him on anxiety meds for the summer. (He's on Fluoxetine aka Prozac, same thing people take just at a lower dose.) I've noticed a big improvement in his temperament and anxiety, it's really significantly changed him for the better and made him a calmer and happier dog.

So I wonder if I should give meds a try myself and take the edge off for a while so I can just relax for once.

Most likely my doctor is going to put me on an SSRI like Sertraline though. And with the recent study about serotonin and depression I don't know what to think about that.

If anybody's had experiences, either good or bad, on specific medications, let me know.

Or if you have any other ideas or suggestions, maybe something more natural like ashwaganda or something, let me know.

I don't know if therapy would help. I feel like my anxiety is so bad that it's able to rationalize pretty much anything. And of course I'm super anxious about the idea of getting a therapist and talking to someone new about something so personal. Plus I've heard from more people than not what a struggle it was to find a good therapist, it sounds like most people go through like 5 on average before they find one they like.

Also with the whole personal development thing, I feel like I know myself better than most people and can pretty much self-therapize myself better than an outside person, if I just had the right questions to ask myself and contemplate. So if you know any kind of online course or worksheets for anxiety that you'd recommend, I would be very interested in those. I've tried free CBT for anxiety offered online by the UK or AUS government but it was boring and too theoretical.

[Someone here]

Totally worth it .I take :

Zyprexa

Prozac

Invega

Few months ago I suffered from extreme anxiety and depression and panic attacks. 

Now after taking these medications for a few months I feel totally different and the anxiety and mood swings have completely vanished 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Someone here

[Ulax]

25 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Totally worth it .I take :

Zyprexa

Prozac

Invega

Few months ago I suffered from extreme anxiety and depression and panic attacks. 

Now after taking these medications for a few months I feel totally different and the anxiety and mood swings have completely vanished 

 

Congrats dude!

[ThePoint]

18 hours ago, Yarco said:

What's changing my mind and making me more open to the idea of medication -- My dog is super anxious and scared of fireworks and thunder, so we talked to the vet and decided to put him on anxiety meds for the summer. (He's on Fluoxetine aka Prozac, same thing people take just at a lower dose.) I've noticed a big improvement in his temperament and anxiety, it's really significantly changed him for the better and made him a calmer and happier dog.

Wtf. I never knew they gave these medications to pets too???

[integral]

 

 

[Arcangelo]

On 7/28/2022 at 10:11 AM, Yarco said:

maybe something more natural

Weed

[Yarco]

6 hours ago, Arcangelo said:

Weed

Hell no it gives me terrible depersonalization / derealization lol

I wish I could use it to get some relief. But even if I could, it wouldn't be good to be stoned all day every day. At that point it'd be basically the same as becoming an alcoholic to cure my anxiety. It might work but the downsides would outweigh the benefit.

[integral]

try tryptophan it's very effective for me. I take 200mg, but if i take double that i'm falling sleep standing up from relaxation. 

Tryptophan is a dietary supplement, its not medication. 

Edited August 2, 2022 by integral

[Michael569]

Do you have any hint as to what's triggering those anxieties? For me, for example a radical change of lifestyle that includes lack of sleep and a lot of stimulation can get me close to a panic attack. 

In terms of some natural remedies. You could try Chamomile extract. Doses up to 1200mg per day in split doses are safe. I took a deep dive into research on chamomile, feel free to look it up in my blog and evaluate if the magnitude of evidence is worth giving it a shot. Not driving traffic to the website just sharing a summarised review for simplicity. 

Aswaganadha that you hinted o could also help. I've got an article on that as well. I found ashwagandha to be very effective with sleep for people and the sort of night-time stress. It also seems to have that GABA-ergic effect that can calm people down without the weird side effects of things like benzos

Other than that looking at sleep patterns and stress patterns may be useful as well as the use of caffeine. Ofcourse anxieties can come from a feeling of being trapped and having one's values stepped all over by other people. 

And finally anxieties can be triggered by certain parts within us (the IFS method) that are subconsciously responding to threats that we do not even perceive with our conscious mind. I found the book "no bad parts" extremely useful in this exploration. 

Good luck with it!

 

[Yarco]

7 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Do you have any hint as to what's triggering those anxieties? For me, for example a radical change of lifestyle that includes lack of sleep and a lot of stimulation can get me close to a panic attack. 

It probably sounds like something an angsty teenager would say, but I feel like my anxiety stems from just living in a fundamentally sick and corrupt society. Living in a city with hundreds of thousands of people, no real connections or sense of community, isolated and don't feel like anyone around me has the same interests/beliefs as me, no one is on my side or looking out for me. Alone and vulnerable in a sea of people. (At the same time I'm introverted and anxious so it'd be hard to make connections even if I wanted to.)

At some level I think all of my anxieties are about people.... people being unpredictable, violent, increased crime, or just people being loud and obnoxious and inconsiderate. Worrying what people will think, say, or do.

My current cope is that if I could just move away from the big city I live in, and be on a couple acres away from everybody where I don't even have neighbors to worry about, and only need to go into a small town once a week to get groceries or something, then it would be a much less anxiety-filled life.

At some level I suspect this wouldn't work though. I have an extremely avoidant personality and go to pretty genius lengths to get myself out of situations that make me anxious. I made my own business to work from home so I wouldn't have to deal with the stress of taking a crowded bus to work every day, dealing with coworkers and work drama, having to talk on the phone, etc.

But all that tends to happen when I remove my bigger sources of anxiety, is that my level of anxiety just stays the same and I find smaller and smaller problems to be equally anxious about. So instead of worrying about a meeting at work I'm just worrying about what my neighbor thinks of me or something instead. PLUS it wears away the desensitization to everyday stressors, so where it was easier to go out and do stuff before, now it's extra anxiety-provoking to go to a mall or if I had to go back to riding a crowded bus.

If I moved to a place where I never saw people again, my anxiety would most likely shift onto something else like worrying about racoons or skunks on my property or something.

In terms of sleep I have no problems. I've always been out within 10 minutes of hitting the pillow. I have a baby now so there's more interruptions in the night, but I don't think it has really had an impact on my anxiety. Although I have started drinking caffeine in the past couple of years as a result and it'd probably help if I cut that out.

I will check out chamomile extract and ashwaganadha though, plus watch the IFS videos that Leo just posted on the blog. Thanks!

On 8/1/2022 at 11:51 AM, Medhansh said:

There are 2 types of depression-

1. Clinical depression- This is the hardcore one. It usually involves a genetic factor and is by birth/childhood. You have to take medicines in it. There is no choice. Functioning without medicines is virtually impossible for such a person. He/she can't really worry about brain damage, since it is already damaged. Of course more damage will be worse, but at least the person will feel good, which is ultimately what matters. The good news is, this is super-rare. So most people don't have this. 

2. Non clinical or "normal" depression- This is the more common one. According to my estimate, 1 in every 3 persons is depressed, or atleast suffering from anxiety. Even many of the people who think and look like they are happy- they are depressed as well. The depression is just covered up with career, wealth, parties, pleasures, etc. This depression is highly situation-dependent in nature.

I have what is probably the "normal" depression where I just feel less happy and motivated for months at a time, a slightly depressed state is pretty much my default state. Then rarely a few times a year, I'll get 1 - 2 weeks where I'm happier and have lots of energy and almost manic.

Then maybe 4x a year I'll have a period of 1 - 3 days in a row where it's severe depression where it's extra hard to do things, crying for no reason, etc. (But still not to the point that I can't get out of bed or shower, like the most severe cases I've heard of.)

On 8/1/2022 at 11:51 AM, Medhansh said:

Being happy with brain damage > Being depressed without brain damage

So you will die 10 years earlier. Who cares? Atleast you were reasonably happy while alive.

What are the long-term health risks of taking anti-anxiety or anti-depression meds? I did a quick Google search and didn't see any studies on brain damage. I saw something about 14% increased risk of cardiovascular issues.

Do you know how these meds negatively impact the body and cause brain damage? (especially SSRIs like sertraline, which is most likely what I would end up taking)

Is the increased mortality statistic maybe just skewed because depressed people are more likely to commit suicide or something like that?

Appreciate all your insight either way

Edited August 2, 2022 by Yarco

[Flowerfaeiry]

I stay away from medication because it will never address the root cause and does not allow for true healing to occur. Being high in anxiety means that you are running in a constant fight/flight state. If possible, try reducing things that are adding to your stressed out state. 

Things such as reducing your work load just a little, if you workout, do gentle movements, slow walks, time in nature if possible, make it a priority to really truly rest (laying in bed scrolling doesn’t count), social media can add to anxiety, cut out all caffeine, you may need to change your diet (less sugar, more whole foods , healthy fats, quality meat). 
 

[Michael569]

15 hours ago, Yarco said:

It probably sounds like something an angsty teenager would say, but I feel like my anxiety stems from just living in a fundamentally sick and corrupt society. Living in a city with hundreds of thousands of people, no real connections or sense of community, isolated and don't feel like anyone around me has the same interests/beliefs as me, no one is on my side or looking out for me. Alone and vulnerable in a sea of people. (At the same time I'm introverted and anxious so it'd be hard to make connections even if I wanted to.)

At some level I think all of my anxieties are about people.... people being unpredictable, violent, increased crime, or just people being loud and obnoxious and inconsiderate. Worrying what people will think, say, or do.

My current cope is that if I could just move away from the big city I live in, and be on a couple acres away from everybody where I don't even have neighbors to worry about, and only need to go into a small town once a week to get groceries or something, then it would be a much less anxiety-filled life.

At some level I suspect this wouldn't work though. I have an extremely avoidant personality and go to pretty genius lengths to get myself out of situations that make me anxious. I made my own business to work from home so I wouldn't have to deal with the stress of taking a crowded bus to work every day, dealing with coworkers and work drama, having to talk on the phone, etc.

But all that tends to happen when I remove my bigger sources of anxiety, is that my level of anxiety just stays the same and I find smaller and smaller problems to be equally anxious about. So instead of worrying about a meeting at work I'm just worrying about what my neighbor thinks of me or something instead. PLUS it wears away the desensitization to everyday stressors, so where it was easier to go out and do stuff before, now it's extra anxiety-provoking to go to a mall or if I had to go back to riding a crowded bus.

If I moved to a place where I never saw people again, my anxiety would most likely shift onto something else like worrying about racoons or skunks on my property or something.

In terms of sleep I have no problems. I've always been out within 10 minutes of hitting the pillow. I have a baby now so there's more interruptions in the night, but I don't think it has really had an impact on my anxiety. Although I have started drinking caffeine in the past couple of years as a result and it'd probably help if I cut that out.

I will check out chamomile extract and ashwaganadha though, plus watch the IFS videos that Leo just posted on the blog. Thanks!

It actually sounds like something many of us on here feel. I think once you push yourself a little bit higher on the spiral and start becoming aware of the destructive behaviour and the path others are taking towards "happiness" if your empathy is high enough it will cause suffering and even disgust. 

But perhaps rather than isolating yourself there is a way to channel that into a mission or a vision? To help elevate other people in one way or another. In a way that is most meaningful. 

I have seen super high quality content from you on the forum and I know you have a lot to offer. That also would probably help with those anxieties for a few reasons

1. you would feel in control because you are doing something to help 
2. you would be honoring your values 
3. rather than focus on what is wrong with the world and getting depressed by it you would be focusing on the solution and your mind would be occupied by your thing - otherwise it is easy to ruminate 

To give you a personal example, for me whenever I stop focusing on my work and start ruminating on why things are not working, how hard it is and how nobody cares about what I do and how this is never going to work, I can easily slide into feeling depressed. But when I am laser focused on the work and stop thinking about all the other shit, my mood elevates and my motivation follows. 

Ultimately one wants to trancend that and elevate themselves to the highest level of consciousness, but I am nowhere near a place where I would be ready to do that without burning through another karma first. 

Perhaps there is a karma that you need to burn through first as well

This is the most obvious question of all but have you tried the LP course? If so, did you finish it and got something out of it? 

P.S. Caffeine is a MAJOR source of anxiety triggers. The way it works is that if you are already stressed and tense, caffeine will give you a one-up and push you over the emotional threshold towards full blown panic attack. The effect may be delayed so the connection can be harder to make tho 

[narkuser]

maybe this is too obvious but it works for me, and I would try it before getting on medication(if you haven't tried it already):

Run. Run as far as you can, until you reach complete physical exhaustion. (perharps on a treadmill if you can't leave the house)

I think this always gives enough "neurochemical" relaxation. From that base I find easier to do more advanced stuff like meditation or doing therapy on myself with self-help materials, to get more persistent benefits.

[Yarco]

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

But perhaps rather than isolating yourself there is a way to channel that into a mission or a vision? To help elevate other people in one way or another. In a way that is most meaningful.

Yeah this is a more long-term goal of mine once I accomplish my more short-term goals, to take on more of a mentor role, but not sure if I'm qualified or deserving of that yet.

I've also noticed that you can only help people who want to help themselves, which is pretty depressing on its own. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" situation.

For example I have a 25 year old cousin that just sits in his parents house all day smoking weed and playing video games, never had a job, doesn't even have the motivation to fill out paperwork to get disability/unemployment that he qualifies for, basically free money for almost no work. His parents are both in bad health and I'm almost certain he's going to become homeless in 10 or less years when they both die. I would love to help him get his s**t together before it's too late, but he has no interest in putting in any effort when he can just delay the consequences and coast for another 10 years.

It's maddening to see preventable train wrecks all around you but being powerless to stop them. I guess there are plenty of people online I could help but 1. I worry coaching is a lazy life purpose that lots of people default to because they see Leo doing it. 2. I don't want to beg people to let me help them. I have a youtube channel where I've done 50+ videos about writing (my life purpose) with goals that eventually I'd build an audience and I could sell a course for people who wanted to make a full-time living being a writer, but none of the videos got more than 100 views despite my SEO knowledge, good thumbnails, etc. I guess I don't want to invest hundreds of hours trying to help people and have nobody show up who wants to be helped.

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

I think once you push yourself a little bit higher on the spiral and start becoming aware of the destructive behaviour and the path others are taking towards "happiness" if your empathy is high enough it will cause suffering and even disgust. 

I think you're definitely on to something here. I feel like I've had to strategically turn my empathy off or it would cripple my ability to do anything. I have to care for no one, or very few people. Otherwise it'd open the floodgates and I'd have to donate all the time and money I have to helping every starving kid in Africa, every kid and dog and cat that needs to be adopted.

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Perhaps there is a karma that you need to burn through first as well

Do you have any recommendations on how to identify karma, baggage that I need to burn through?

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

This is the most obvious question of all but have you tried the LP course? If so, did you finish it and got something out of it? 

Yeah I'm a big proponent of the LP course and I actually go through the entire course again every December. It helped me to be sure that quitting my job to become a freelance writer was the right decision.

For about 4 years my life purpose was "Summarizing information in an easy-to-digest format and empowering people to pursue their dreams." I paid the bills by writing blogs and articles for sites that I considered ethical, and usually topics I was interested anyway. Then I created a few of my own blogs on the side.

This year I changed it slightly to "Explaining unique topics to people to create a sense of awe and wonder" because I wanted to include a podcast, I've recorded 44 episodes since February but getting a bit burned out on it now.

My top 3 values are 1. health/vigor/energy, 2. contribution/impact 3. freedom/independence

I might end up back on something like coaching with that eventually. If I could do something all day it'd be commenting on Forums/Reddit/etc and I seem to get good feedback for the comments and advice I leave. If I could create an advice column that might actually be my ideal purpose, but it seems like you'd need some kind of following or accomplishments before anyone would want your advice.

13 hours ago, narkuser said:

maybe this is too obvious but it works for me, and I would try it before getting on medication(if you haven't tried it already):

Run. Run as far as you can, until you reach complete physical exhaustion. (perharps on a treadmill if you can't leave the house)

I think this always gives enough "neurochemical" relaxation. From that base I find easier to do more advanced stuff like meditation or doing therapy on myself with self-help materials, to get more persistent benefits.

Yeah this is good advice and something I should be doing more. I was up to running nearly 5 km 3x a week before covid, but then I just stopped and never picked it up again. On the days that I ran my partner did say she noticed an improvement in my mood.

[SQAAD]

@Yarco

On 28/7/2022 at 7:11 PM, Yarco said:

.

Most likely my doctor is going to put me on an SSRI like Sertraline though. And with the recent study about serotonin and depression I don't know what to think about that.

 

What does this recent study say? I'm very interested to know.

[SQAAD]

I took anti anxiety medication for like 3 weeks and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I became like a zombie. Basically i didn't feel much of anything. I didn't feel anxiety much but i also didn't feel much of anything else.

It was a very dull state of consciousness that i despised. I quickly weaned off the medication. I am very against medication unless they are super necessary.

From your post, it seems you haven't exhausted all other methods yet. My anxiety nowadays is very low level. I don't feed into anxiety by ruminating about it. And i accept the worst case scenario by being willing to experience everything.

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by SQAAD

[Michael569]

On 04/08/2022 at 1:27 AM, Yarco said:

I've also noticed that you can only help people who want to help themselves, which is pretty depressing on its own. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" situation.

yes exactly. You can only help someone who has come to you in need of help. It is pretty much impossible to help someone who resists your efforts to share advice. There is also the issue of power balance. In order for someone to accept your advice, in a way they need to let go of control a bit and become open minded. Not everyone is able to do that and when there is a power struggle between the client and the service provider, it is impossible to be of any use. I've had that happen to me a few times in my practice. 

The best clients I've had were the ones who were completely able to let go off their control and be fully open-minded and came to the therapeutic process 100% willing to do whatever it took to change their habits. But it is hard to do if one has a belief that letting go of control is dangerous. 

On 04/08/2022 at 1:27 AM, Yarco said:

I worry coaching is a lazy life purpose

maybe that's not the path for you. There are many other ways to take it. 

The best way to go about it is through some reflection and understanding what you actually enjoy doing the most and sharing with others the most. Like, if you were not paid, what is the one thing you would still be researching/doing.

What's the thing you get pulled towards the most when nobody is watching. 

And then the next step is to figure out how to market it - but I'm sure you would be able to do that as I've seen lot of good quality entrepreneurship type of content from you before. 

Don't let any negative thoughts (such as "nobody cares about it anyway" stop you from sharing your best work  People care. Not all but some do. FInd them and help them. You don't need 1000s of clients and followers. You only need a few.  

On 04/08/2022 at 1:27 AM, Yarco said:

Do you have any recommendations on how to identify karma, baggage that I need to burn through?

I think this is individual process for everyone. But listening to your intuition and having some sort of reflective practice for insights you get in the day is a good way to get those hints. Your mind will tell you what you need to do, if you listen patiently. 

As a personal example, I use an app called Braintoss which I have linked with my Trello organiser.

Whenever I get a random insight or an idea in the day, I record a short voicemessage to Braintoss and it converts it to written message and it sends to my Trello Account as a "new task" so that I can look at it later during my review time.

If the insight is worth brainstorming on further, I open a new entry in Penzu and write about it. The beauty of writing (rather than thinking about is) is that it helps you to activate deeper regions of your prefrontal cortex that are hard to activate during rummination and it helps to shut down your limbic system (fear, anxieties, doubts) and give space to creativity, imagination and strategic planning.

 And so you get a high-altitude perspective rather than being in the midst of all the emotional turmoil that prevents you to see the tiny details. As the saying goes "you miss the forest for the trees"

But that may not work for you. It doesn't work for me always but it is the best system of capturing insights I have found so far. 

There are two books that were helpful with this. 

Cal Newports's Deep Work and Productivity Ninja by Graham Alcott. 

 

One more thing: I know this may not be relevant but also quality of your diet, lifestyle, activity (and lack thereof) and all these other, more biochemical factors, can have a profound impact on how well you can control anxieties and whether they come or not. 

Certain types of food may have a significant impact on mood, certain mienral deficiencies, imbalances or excesses of certain foods have been associated with depression in research. All of those are also worth looking into. 

Good luck with everything !

[Average Investor]

It took me several years of highly refining my diet and life style to get rid of a lot of the anxiety and depression I had. I found caffine to be a big source of anxiety for me. Weed was also a big issue. I eat all organic whole foods now. I make all of my own food as well. I have a list of about 10 foods that I cannot eat or I will get brain fog or other issues. I spent a lot of time slowly adding foods into my diet to really test what works best for me.

I found doing some heavy metal chelation was a bit helpful for my depersonalization issues I had for years. However, I would not really recommend that unless you have done some serious gut healing and really worked on your life style. 

I found doing regular meditation for years helped me as well. It seemed to take awhile though. 

Personally I never tried any of the medications. So I can't really say what is the most optimal there. 

Edited August 5, 2022 by Average Investor