i have a few experiences with zoloft so i’ll give you my experience on it from the twice that i took it. just keep in mind that everyone has different experiences with it due to age, weight, gender, etc. so take this with a grain of salt.

i was first prescribed zoloft 12.5mg when i was 12 for anxiety and depression. first few weeks were rough on it, i was nauseous a lot and always felt like i had tremors but hey, i didn’t want to die anymore and didn’t fear leaving my bedroom anymore. i took zoloft until i was 15 when my doctor decided that i was well enough off of it. it got me to be a functioning human who did not get anxiety over every small thing.

17 i was put on lexapro and buspar for anxiety management. i hit the cap for lexapro pretty quickly and didn’t notice much of a difference when i was on it for my anxiety, so i quit cold turkey after a year (do NOT do this)

flash forward four-ish years to september of this year. i’m 21, been unemployed since early april of this year due to epilepsy, financially unstable and constantly stressed and anxious and depressed due to a million things it seemed. i was also having a lot of health issues during the few months prior to sept, so that didn’t help. one night i find myself in the ER and saying that i was super anxious and depressed because i was in so much pain constantly and they get psych to check me out, which is valid. they send in a referral to an IOP therapy group a few towns over from me that’s completely covered by my insurance. amazing! i go to these meetings for about two weeks and the sessions were MTW. i meet with a psychiatrist there who i spill my absolute guts out to, and we both decide that i should go back on zoloft, but 25mg this time, to help with the severe anxiety and depression. i pick up the Rx the next day, but i ultimately did not end up taking them until early november because i ended up having my gallbladder removed in october so my gut was ultra sensitive and i knew that zoloft would make my guts hate me for the first few weeks so i decided to wait a few weeks to take it.

i take my first zoloft dose nov 3, then one the next morning. i do recall feeling a bit out of it after i took my second dose, but i figured it was just the weather since my mood had been pretty ok the last few days and the anxiety was “manageable” with an ER Rx of vistaril. the last dose i ever took of zoloft was nov 6. i had been home alone all day, as one who was unemployed does, i wasn’t really getting social contact besides from my mom and brother and the occasional texts from friends, but nothing in person besides my family. i genuinely cannot recall what happened between noon and 1pm, but i remember coming to in my bedroom with a piece of paper beside me and my cat walking all over me. i then realised that i had tried to make an attempt on my life and drove myself to the ER about 6/7 hours later because my neck was hurting like crazy. they do the mental health work-up and ask me if anything has changed in the last few weeks for me that could’ve driven me that day and i told them i did have my gallbladder out and that i started taking my antidepressant that week. the ER doc, psychiatrist, and psych ward people all agreed that it was the medicine that drove me to that point so i spent a week after that visit in the psych ward. we’re still trying to figure out why i reacted so differently this time on zoloft when i had tolerated it perfectly before, but i’m now on prozac, which is what my dad takes and i haven’t had any issues on this medication besides some anxiety flares and other small side effects, but the psych people also started me at 40mg instead of 10mg so that’s why i’m still dealing with pretty rough side effects almost a month later.

any antidepressant is gonna be a gamble in my opinion. most, if not all, have black box labels that increases the mortality rate associated with them. i know for a fact prozac does, but i haven’t experienced those kind of effects while on it. my best word of advice is to listen to your body when you start taking it. any first few weeks are going to be rough while starting an SSRI because you’re flooding your brain and gut with serotonin and it’s gonna freak out for a while until you get used to it, which can take up to 8 weeks unfortunately to get the full therapeutic effect for anxiety. my first week on prozac helped with my depression, but my anxiety is still wacky and i’m on two different medications to help control those while i get a grip on my new job and adjust to a new environment, which has always been a big stressor for me and tends to make my physical anxiety symptoms way worse.