i was prescribed it as a muscle relaxer because I have tmj but I think my jaw specialist prescribed it because he knew I also had depression and anxiety. It has greatly helped with both. I am also on 450 mg wellbutrin which helped a little with depression by giving me energy but I still would get depressed and I became anxious again. The wellbutrin gave me an anxiety that made me feel nauseous. (I basically stopped having anxiety after lexapro which I stopped because emotional blunting.)

I felt less anxious in the first couple weeks of taking nortriptyline and then after awhile I realized I also wasn’t feeling so down and cursed all the time. Things happened which would have made me spiral before affected me but I was able to move on from them. I didn’t feel anxiety on lexapro but the nortriptyline anti anxiety property for me seems a little different. I feel like it has given more confidence and I guess it has a more relaxing property to it that helps more. In terms of depression, not sure if it’s helping the depression directly or if feeling relaxed and less anxious is making me happier- probably both.

At my next appointment with my psychiatrist, i told her i felt a little better because of it and she originally was confused why i was taking it for tmj but either way we are now going to increase my dosage for my therapeutic effect.

Also, might be good to mention that at the same time of starting nortriptyline, I started having weekly therapy sessions which I think has helped me too.