Hello everyone,

I'm a 27 year old male from the UK. I'm gonna try and keep it short, I've been diagnosed with GAD, without a formal diagnosis for depression.

I've abused stimulant drugs for a long time, got myself out of work and failed a degree. I see this myself self-medicating for everything else. I later found some light through mirtazapine, therapy and a relationship with someone who was just as damaged as me and I thought I could save them (as I felt so good on mirtazapine). I also managed to get a great job with fantastic prospects and gave up the drugs.

Once I got out of the relationship, mirtazapine stopped working so two months down I decided to come off of it. I'd also given up on therapy by then.

Now, another two months later I'd have panic attacks on a daily basis and it began to interfere with all that I've managed to overcome in the great year that was 2013.

Doctor's put me on citalopram, but I don't want to be on it for life. I'm going to try and maintain this to post all about my progress. I'm also starting therapy in a week's time and want to share the experience with you. Any advice and suggestions for services that can help is more than welcome as I know they're available in this country but its a bit of a mission to find them!

I'm grabbing this from the head and taking it down

Day 1: Took the tablet in the morning, went to work. 1 hour later I started feeling nausea. It wasn't very uncomfortable and it came and went for a couple of hours. I was constantly yawning and feeling somewhat sleepy. I also went through bouts of anxiety, lasting 5-10 minutes each. In general the day went by fairly quickly, I somewhat felt like I was enjoying what I was doing again (I generally love my line of work, but I've been so anxious lately that I couldn't feel the joy anymore!).

Day 2: Nausea, but to a much less extent. I'd say it lasted about half the time Day 2. Anxiety bouts more often and more intense. Was at a meeting where I was sweating crazy. Sleep was almost impossible at 1AM at night. 0.5mg of xanax eased this and got a pretty decent 6 hour sleep. Woke up at 6.30 and then slept for a further 3 hours, 1 of them I laid on the bed being unable to sleep.