Documenting my Prozac Experience

Hey everyone :) I’m new to Reddit, still trying to get the hang of it lol. A bit of background story.. I am 20 years old, have lived with excruciating anxiety / social phobia for the past several years. I was bullied A LOT in high school which I think started the anxiety, after I left high school and went to college I was absolutely fine. So confident. I hope I can be like that one day again. I used to take pride in my appearance, talk to people, go to the shopping mall on my OWN, get on public transport on my own, met my boyfriend .. ugh if only I was still that person. But anyway, I left college, got myself a job and that’s where it all started to go downhill. My manager was awful. Horrible. A completely bully. Picking you apart from everything, criticising you, singling you out, not a professional woman at all. I truly believe she is what has turned me into this mess. (I left my job in October and am now trying to work on myself before I find a new job) I am so bad that I can’t even leave my bedroom without having a pounding heart, feeling really on edge etc.

My symptoms are

  • shaking -sweating -trembling -weird head / neck tremor / twitching which is triggered by all sorts of crap (loud noises, eye contact) it’s the WORST. Not seen a lot of people mention this symptom, so I must just be super lucky to have it LOL.
  • blushing
  • overthinking
  • brain fog
  • probably more but I can’t remember.

Anyways. I finally gave in and admitted I needed help a week ago. My partner has wanted me to go to the doctors for a while but I just kept putting it off. So anyways, I finally agreed because I decided I didn’t want to live like this anymore. My partner had to ring the docs to make the appointment because I also have immense “telephone anxiety.” I got a telephone appointment due to COVID-19 THANK GOD! Perfect for me since I hate physically going to any kind of appointment (haven’t seen a dentist in years due to anxiety.) so long story short, the doc prescribed me 20mg Prozac / Fluoxetine.

First day - Felt amazing. Don’t think it was placebo, I think it was more the fact that I was happy that I finally got some help and felt like I was on the right path. I cleaned my room that day, shakes weren’t so bad. I felt proud of myself

By about the third day I started to think uh oh .. what the heck is going on. Because I started trembling like crazy! It was like all the physical symptoms I usually get but X10! Definitely an anxiety INCREASE. One of the worst days ever. It made my head / neck tremor / twitch A LOT worse too, I also had a really bad night sleep the previous night so maybe that didn’t help either. I couldn’t eat my food laid in bed next to my partner (don’t sit at the dinner table because of anxiety .. could’ve guessed right, lol) but yeah, I was too shaky and twitchy so I had to eat looking away from my partner. It was AWFUL.

Day after that, felt a little bit better.

Today / 1 week on Prozac - I do still feel trembly, but nowhere near as bad as before. Went for a walk last night and felt very ‘on the outside looking in’ I said to my partner that I felt like I was a character in a video game lol. Still can’t really do the whole conversation / eye contact thing. Still very twitchy. Still finding social situation immensely difficult.

I really want to reduce my anxiety as much as possible, so aswell as being on Prozac i have decided to also make changes to my lifestyle and diet. I am doing yoga every day (I used to do this and don’t know why I stopped because it feels great!) gonna start eating mostly plant based foods with meat and fish. No gluten, sugar, carbs etc. Because apparently they can make anxiety worse. So it’s worth a try. I usually live off of pepsi, chocolate, sweeties, cakes etc.. so it’ll be hard for me to cut them out of my life but if it makes me feel better then I’ll do it! Also want to start going for daily walks but still struggling to leave the house.

Thanks for reading guys :) hopefully things get even better by the end of the next week.