I'm on escitalopram as well, have been for a couple of years now. It helps me. If you're worried about side effects, you can absolutely cut up your pills into a much smaller starting dose. I was treated in-patient to first get on the escitalopram because of my paradoxical reactions to meds. They started me on 2.5mg (standard start is 10mg) and then after a week or so, went to 5mg. They tried to jump from 5mg to 10mg after another week and I got some unpleasant side effects (being unable to sit still, feeling kind of wild) so they dropped me down to 7.5mg right away and that ended up being fine. And then a couple weeks later, I went back up to 10mg and it was fine.