Mental Health Help – Coping Tips (Including Meds?)

[Victoria Ashford]

I’ve been dealing with anxiety and low mood for a while now. I’ve tried the usual stuff—exercise, journaling, better sleep—but it’s still tough some days.


I recently started considering medication but I’m nervous about side effects and whether it actually helps long-term. If you’ve taken meds for mental health, how was your experience? Also, what non-medication habits have helped you the most?

 

[thatmf]

Counselling/psychology helped a lot. I've been on a few different SNRI/SSRIs. I think desvenlafaxine (50mg slow release?) was best followed by mirtazapine. But desvenlafaxine is quite gentle. Good stuff so far. Try to get out a bit whenever you can

 

[aokorn]

I’ve been dealing with anxiety and low mood for a while now. I’ve tried the usual stuff—exercise, journaling, better sleep—but it’s still tough some days.


I recently started considering medication but I’m nervous about side effects and whether it actually helps long-term. If you’ve taken meds for mental health, how was your experience? Also, what non-medication habits have helped you the most?

I have actually had a mental ‘illness’ almost all my life. I was also hospitalised a few times because of it. The first time was when I was 25. As far back as I can remember, I have always had thoughts about various things concerning life.

I have taken various psychotropic medications (some of which I still take), but they have by no means taken away my sense of self. I see that as a success. My psychiatrist also saw it that way when I talked to her about it.

In my opinion, you have two options with your disposition.

You can go the way I did. That is, with all the medication and everything. But then you run the risk of losing your ‘self’, because you believe that it is to blame for your condition. You also come together with different people with similar difficulties, with all the consequences of that.

But you can also try without medication. I don't know this way, but many take it. I know there are many (if not all the rest), because we don't know about these people. They live their lives as if nothing were happening. They are our neighbours, our friends, acquaintances, work colleagues, relatives...

Good luck!

 

[insufferablenerd]

i did FBT, psychotherapy & DBT and i take fluoxetine (brand name Prozac). medication was life changing for me. i’m very lucky that the first med i tried worked for me. i have BPD/EUPD, chronic depresssion and autism. DBT was also life changing but some people don’t gel with it and i get that.

what i found with my meds is that for the first two weeks i was massively depressed, numb and had no appetite or energy. even more so than usual. but since then i’ve never been as depressed as before i was on meds and i don’t think i’ve had a panic attack since (and they used to be a fairly frequent occurrence, at least monthly). i will likely be on meds forever and i’m totally cool with that. i’ve had no side effects except that i get extra effects from the sun when it’s hot (tiredness, dehydration, etc.).

i feel like a bit of a veteran atp and my big coping thing has been doing a lil smth every day. the dishes, the cat litter, seeing a friend, and so on. accomplishing things is sm better for my mental health than anything else which is sometimes unfortunate because it does take a lot out of me.

having a long term goal has also kept me quite sane. school, training, a job, a project, something that involves me doing something that i get better at over time rather than a goal like a house or car that more involves me saving.

if those 2 things are not on the table bc i’m too unwell, really small acts of self care like making sure i’m keeping up with hygiene and reading or listening to a podcast or playing board games instead of being on screens can improve my mood if i’m really in the illness. even if all i’ve done all day is watch TV in bed, a shower and 30 minutes of reading can make me feel a lot better and like i can handle the next day.

edit: i’ve been on meds for 3 years now btw, so they did really continue helping long term. things are still hard just because of the severity of my issues but they are SO much better.