I’m currently on bupropion 300mg (Wellbutrin), buspirone 10mg (Buspar), and lamotrigine 50mg (Lamictal). I’ve been on so many different meds for so long now that I don’t even know what problems are just the mental illness, what problems are side effects, and what problems the meds are actually treating. But I feel like shit and I feel stuck.

I regularly feel either so anxious or lethargic (always a tossup) that I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. Throughout the rest of the day I’ll feel a mix of anxiety and exhaustion and want nothing more than to take a nap, and can’t help but neglect my work to do so sometimes.

My stomach feels like it’s in a knot most of the time, I have very little appetite, and even when I am hungry in the morning eating makes me feel sick. I can basically only eat late at night after I smoke some weed, which I think then adds to my stomach feeling fucky in the morning. I’ll often go with just coffee until around 11pm.

I struggle to focus, just 2 weeks into my first year of grad school and I struggle to pay attention through a whole lecture. The whole time my brain is just so loud with other things it wants to be doing, and I end up anxiously habitually checking my phone even though I know nothing will have changed, and even if it had it’ll still be there later. I sometimes read every single comment on the megathreads here because I habitually check it half the day because I’ve run out of other things to habitually check because I deleted most social media.

I just feel physically off. Like my body doesn’t feel good and I don’t know what exactly it is. I try to work out when I can but it’s hard to convince myself to do it, and I still feel just as off when I do or don’t.

I’ve been on a bunch of different meds since 2017 now and I still feel like shit, but I don’t even know how shitty I would feel without them. I guess they’re doing something because pre-meds I broke down crying multiple times while on vacation in London for literally no reason at all whatsoever (Went to the Greenwich observatory, it was cool, had a good time, broke down crying on the way down the hill, on a beautiful 75 degree summer day) and I don’t do that anymore so I guess that’s something?

I was on Zoloft first but it didn’t do much and also made me not want to have sex which ruined my relationship (very cool). Then switched to just Wellbutrin but then had bad panic attacks, so they added the buspar, but then I still didn’t feel great so tried adding Abilify but that made me have a complete breakdown worse than I’ve ever had before so that stopped after two days, went back to just Wellbutrin and Buspar for a while but then had suicidal thoughts for the first time, so then tried Zyprexa which at first made me feel WAY better. Next day after taking it I felt like a new man. But over time i started feeling worse and worse again and the side effects were annoying (I went from sleeping 6.5 hours a night and feeling totally rested to sleeping 11 hours a night, and also had horrible food cravings and gained 10lbs), so she weened me off that and put me on Lamictal, but I just don’t feel like it’s doing much?? I can’t tell. I don’t feel good I know that for sure. But I don’t know what’s being caused by what anymore, aside from the Lamictal making me sweat even more than usual and I’m already a sweaty motherfucker.

Basically the only time I don’t feel bad is if I’m blazed or really thoroughly distracted by something or someone interesting. Idk. I see my psychiatrist in a few weeks but it feels so far away. I had to cancel my last appointment at the beginning of august because I didn’t have health insurance at the time, but I really did need that appointment tbh. I also don’t really know what I’m gonna say to my psychiatrist besides “I feel bad in unclear ways and I don’t know why or what’s doing it.” I also have this really strong feeling I’m gonna have some sort of break in the next couple months and I’m gonna end up in a psych ward, but I have no reason for thinking that, I’ve never self harmed or attempted suicide before, and I’ve only even had real suicidal thoughts one time and they scared me so much I called my doctor the next morning. I just can’t shake this feeling though. I think it might be tied with the general feeling that everything is getting worse and more intense, so it just seems like a reasonable next step.

I’m also starting to question if some of it is actually undiagnosed ADHD and that’s part of why this shit isn’t working, but I dont think I showed many ADHD symptoms as a kid, but I’ve been depressed since I was like 10 and I’ve been having anxiety attacks even longer than that although I didn’t figure out that’s what they actually were until fairly recently.

That’s all. Thanks for listening, or not listening, either way’s fine. I just needed to write this down. Love you guys.

Also I listed my meds not because I’m hoping people will tell me what to take or decrease or anything like that, that’s my psychiatrist’s job. Just wanted to add the context in case anyone had similar experiences on those meds.