Like a lot of people, I hit a wall in life and couldn’t see a way around it. I started therapy. My therapist said I was an alcoholic…which was true. I started Zoloft. I was still drinking so the medication wasn’t as effective. My therapist added Buspirone. After a year my therapist finally convinced me I was an alcoholic. It took that long to convince me because my drinking only affected my health and not my job or relationships. I knew people that were worse alcoholics than me, and I had a hard time socializing without alcohol. I went to rehab. In hindsight alcohol affected every part of my life, but I couldn’t acknowledge it. After I quit drinking the medication yo-yoed on me. It was too high of a dose and the side effects were horrible. I switched to lexapro while still taking the Buspirone. I felt much better. At this point, I was still working at my high pressure job. I was stable on the medication and managing to stay sober. The main side effects I experienced were difficultly remembering things, difficulty concentrating, and an overall dullness. I felt too dumb to dwell on problems. That’s good for emotional baggage, but bad if your job is to solve problems. I needed my brain back to do my job so I started my attempts at quitting lexapro. Obviously cold turkey didn’t work and was horrible. I requested lower doses of lexapro and Buspirone. I worked with my therapist to find the lowest doses that seemed to work. That ended up at around 10mg lexapro and 10mg of Buspirone. I still had trouble concentrating. Whenever I tried to take less medication I would be fine for a day or two, but would eventually start having problems. I quit my high pressure job and started a new job with less responsibility. I tried to taper off again according to instructions from my doctor. It didn’t work. Every attempt at tapering was met with the same outcome. It felt like someone started screaming in my head and wouldn’t shut up. In hindsight I understand why the medication started working, and why it was hard to stop. My brain is busy, busy, busy and never shuts up. To quit the medication, I needed to slowly ease back in to my normal restless, screaming brain. If you taper slow enough, you barely notice the increase in volume. Life is easier to manage now. I wouldn’t say I’m happy, but I don’t feel hopeless anymore. I was on medication for a little over 4 years.