I have always been an anxious person for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a house where if I wasn’t seen as anxious or worried about something, I was given something to feel anxious or worried about. I wasn’t allowed to be relaxed unless my parents weren’t around.
So I’ve always had a low level of anxiety that crippled my every thought. When my mother died and my siblings were split up for various reasons, I couldn’t hold myself together. Everything changed I would wake up with panic attacks, so I decided to start antidepressants. After a year or two I tried to stop, but I crashed and went back on them, this time at a very low dose of sertraline 25mg, which worked really well overall.
I was later diagnosed with ADHD and continued with both medications.
Another two years passed and in January of this year I decided to stop the sertraline again. Now the anxiety is back. I was really hoping that the last time I tried to stop, I just hadn’t pushed through the discomfort of the withdrawal symptoms but it’s been 4 months now. Life is feeling heavy again.
I have no intention of harming myself, but the feeling of “if I went to sleep and didn’t wake up it wouldn’t be so bad” is back. The loneliness is really dragging at me. I’m a very proactive person I go for walks, I work shift work, I go to the gym, I run a business. I stay busy. But I isolate, and strangely, when I am around people the voice gets louder the sadness and anxiety get worse.
Is this just who I am, or is this still medication withdrawal?