(((Ro))) my friend, I'm sorry to hear you're having some difficulties.
I had a looooooooooong reply to this, and of course when I went to submit it our lurvely website asked me to register as a new user and my post was lost
That was a nice reminder to save my lengthy posts somewhere else and maybe my HP's way of telling me to keep it short and simple!
If I could just share two very important things I learned from SSRI's:
1. As historyteach mentioned, it can take a long time for them to become fully effective. Lexapro and Zoloft made me immediately suicidal, Paxil worked like a dream but I was told I couldn't stay on it because it can be addictive, so I finally settled in with EffexorXR. For the first six weeks I felt like I lived in a foggy, distorted haze. I could barely function at work, and I preferred lying in bed or on the couch in absolute silence to doing something productive. When it finally started to take effect I felt amazing, and after slightly more than a year I weaned off of it with no side effects.
2. This is the most important thing I learned. SSRI's were only as effective as my mental well-being allowed them to be. By that I mean that if my outlook and attitude was positive and healthy the Effexor worked beautifully. My instinct was to isolate and be miserable, but I found that I felt best when I was doing something outdoors, even something as simple as sitting at an outdoor cafe, sipping coffee and watching the world go by was an incredible feeling. And while there were times when I still felt suicidal, I found that going to a recovery meeting or diving into service work always relieved me of those feelings. Being around as many people as possible helped too, and of course others in recovery understood me best.
In early recovery and before I started taking the meds I felt like Winnie The Pooh walking around with a black rain cloud over my head. Life felt dark, miserable, and unbearable. Nobody deserves to live like that, I hope you find something that works for you soon.
Scott