Help Antidepressants that make you feel less dead inside/more emotional?

[Lightkeeper]

Hi, based on advice from my therapist, I want to give antidepressants a shot, but I am bit scared of them. My main concern is that I have aspergers and absolutely cannot communicate with people, so I am worried I will not be able articulate my thoughts correctly to the psychiatrist and will end up getting prescribed something bad, and then I'll afraid to tell the psychiatrist that what they prescribed me doesn't work (already happened to me in other areas multiple times).

Basically, since there are apparently a lot of different antidepressants with various effects, does someone have experience with those which help with emotional numbness? Something that helped you be more emotional, more excited about things again? Thanks in advance for sharing experiences.

 

[EG1141]

In my personal experience, antidepressants like SSRI's and SNRI's, seem to make me feel more empty. Like feeling nothing at all. However, I have had a good experience with Lexapro (Escitalopram), which is an SSRI, but I felt good for a while when I was on it.

 

[Just_Another_Person]

I have been taking meds for over 2 years, some worked well others were horrible. I suggest you give your therapist's contact to the psychiatrist so they could have some talk. But back to the meds, people react differently for different meds. I for example had a really bad experience with sertraline but to others it works well. Sometimes it is sort trial and error. If I understood correctly, you DON'T want emotional numbness right? I had a combination of bupropion+escitalopram (lexapro?)+olanzapine that worked well, problem was I was gaining weight and my ED was getting worse, but there are alternatives to olanzapine so no need to panic.

Won't lie to you, if you get one that makes you feel bad, it will be hard. But be honest with your psychiatrist, you can say "I am not blaming you but these meds aren't working" or "making me feel worse". It happens, they know about it.

I wish you luck!

 

[-Link-]

Effects of medications vary greatly from person-to-person so you won't get straight answers anecdotally. The most reliable information you're going to get is in the form of aggregated data on any individual medication (information collected via trials, studies, etc.). Generally, if you Google the name of a medication, the top results will be pages that include this information.

My main concern is that I have aspergers and absolutely cannot communicate with people, so I am worried I will not be able articulate my thoughts correctly to the psychiatrist and will end up getting prescribed something bad, and then I'll afraid to tell the psychiatrist that what they prescribed me doesn't work (already happened to me in other areas multiple times).

If you have trouble articulating your thoughts verbally in the moment, then write them down ahead of time and refer to your notes in the appointment. If there's a particular symptom you want to target, it's perfectly OK to emphasize that.

Whenever you start a medication, it would help also to keep a medication journal. Note the start date of any new medication or change in dosage. Note any positive or negative effects you feel. Bring this information with you to every appointment with the psychiatrist. (This will have the added bonus of the doctor observing you taking the treatment very seriously.)

As far telling your doctor about concerns or problems with medications, you are the patient and therefore YOU ARE THE BOSS. Remember this!! It's OK to disagree with a doctor -- best approached in as calm and as rational a tone as you can about it.

 

[Sadgirl121]

For me personally Citalropram was the best.. that was the only one I tried and within days I was already feeling the effects, smiling more, sleeping better, and enjoying myself