EA - My experience experimenting with a bunch of antidepressants I'd never heard of by Luisa Rodriguez

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: My experience experimenting with a bunch of antidepressants I'd never heard of, published by Luisa Rodriguez on October 19, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This isn't professional medical advice, it's just my experience and amateur knowledge. Summary I got moderately (and occasionally, severely) depressed about four months into the pandemic. I tried a bunch of things to treat it, including therapy, antidepressants, meditation, and a long list of other things. I was prescribed the antidepressant sertraline (aka Zoloft) by my NHS GP, and it really helped! But it had a number of side effects that made me very unexcited to stay on it. I experimented with a bunch of different types of antidepressants to see if I could find one that worked well and didn’t give me bad side effects. I knew this would probably be a long and grueling experiment... and it was. It took over a year, and was really hard, both emotionally and physically. But I ended up finding a great one for me, and it now feels well worth the costs. I think this kind of experimentation might be a good approach for some people who also experience depression and anxiety. Caveats: This was expensive. It’s probably much harder to do this without savings or great insurance, or both. I have a particularly supportive work environment and partner. It’s probably much harder to do this without those things. Things besides antidepressants were also really important to feeling better (and also allowed me to stick with the experiment). Therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) were extremely effective for me in treating my imposter syndrome and perfectionism, and in making my depression manageable. Searching for an antidepressant that worked for me probably wouldn’t have gone nearly as well if I hadn’t done it alongside these other practices. Antidepressants have not solved all of my problems — and it’s important to set reasonable expectations for how much they can help. Context I got moderately (and occasionally, severely) depressed about four months into the pandemic. This was triggered by: The pandemic — including things like: feeling very isolated, not having much personal space, shitty British weather, having to work from home, not being able to see my family for years. Genetics — my mom has suffered from moderate-severe depression since she was in her early thirties. Imposter syndrome at work — I’d gotten a dream job, but it felt like, sooner or later, my employer would realize I was a total phony. I was afraid to do really any task that might reveal I was actually a big idiot, which made me anxious for a lot of my day-to-day activities. My main symptoms were: Having continuous low mood or sadness Feeling hopeless Having very low self-esteem, feeling like I was letting everyone down all the time Feeling tearful Feeling guilt-ridden Feeling irritable and intolerant of others Having little motivation or interest in things — finding myself and everyone else really boring Finding it difficult to make decisions Not getting much enjoyment out of life, including out of things that were previously some of my favorite activities (hiking, seeing close friends) Feeling anxious and worried Non-pharmacological things I did to treat my depression: Weekly therapy with an excellent therapist, who taught me a bunch about CBT (helped a lot) Weekly therapy with a couples therapist (sometimes my depression made me especially angst-y about my relationship) (helped a bit) Taking time off work (sometimes helped, sometimes made things a bunch worse) My depression was a factor in switching jobs (kind of helped) Changing my role at work significantly to focus on tasks I found especially exciting and satisfying (helped a lot) Spending time in sunnier countries (helped a fair bit) Regular exercise (helped a fair bit when I actually had ...