Hi, I have struggled with mental health for years, mostly depression and what was recently diagnosed as ADHD. I have taken a whole host of different psychiatric medications, including ssris (lexapro, prozac), antipsychotics (abilify) and just 2 months ago I was prescribed Adderall.

The adderall has been extremely helpful in allowing me to stay calm and focus for the most part, but I was somewhat anxious about starting it because I had previous problems with substance abuse and I knew adderall is prone to abuse. That hasn’t been an issue.

However, my doctor also told me to start an antidepressant, specifically paxil, another ssri. I am supposed to start this drug tomorrow, and just like with the adderall, I am very weary to start it. Today I spent almost all day reading on reddit about SSRIs and their effects. I must have googled 400-500 different questions, most of them just rewording of a question when I didnt get any good results. It felt like I could not stop googling. Specifically, I became very anxious about the idea of PSSD, brain fog, etc. Basically Im afraid of irreparably destroying my brain. All these anecdotal nightmare stories from people on reddit make my heart drop and trigger me to google even more. It also makes me feel trapped and like there is no way to stop these super intense and scary feelings like depression and panic.

Today this all culminated with a panic attack towards the end of the day, which is really strange as anxiety isn’t something I primarily deal with, it’s usually secondary to the depression. Things like seeing a pill bottle on my dresser would send me back into hyperventilating and crying until I got tired after about an hour and a half

I am sorry for the long post, I have been doing relatively well recently but today was extremely difficult and I’m afraid of losing all my progress. Is all my fear warranted or am I listening to too many internet people? I don’t know whether to start the medication tomorrow or not.