I noticed there's a few new people posting here lately, and I know how desperate I was to hear positive stories when I first started so I thought I would share my own in the hope it makes people feel a little bit of hope for the future.

I was started on Citalopram after being unable to tolerate the start-up effects of sertraline. I was started on it for anxiety & severe panic attacks which left me unable to go to work & unable to leave my house. At my worst point I wasnt sleeping, wasn't eating, wasn't going out, was plagued by intrusive thoughts and genuinley believed that I was going mad. I spent many dark days googling my symptoms, sure that I was schizophrenic or something worse.

After 4 weeks on citalopram I had the occasional good day but then I became deeply depressed. I struggled to get out of bed, nothing made me happy, I felt completely unable to connect with anyone. The anxiety had eased but I felt like I'd been left with something much worse & it scared me. I never thought I'd be able to live a normal life again, go for days out, belly laugh at things. I was hopeless.

When I very first 'got bad' I wrote a list of goals that I wanted to achieve - go back to work, go for a night out - just little things like that. Now after more than 10 weeks on citalopram I've finally ticked everything off my list and am living a normal life. I don't feel scared all day every day, I don't have intrusive thoughts, my heart doesn't race as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I don't feel total despair, I can sit and feel complete peace, I can laugh at things, I can open up to people. I feel almost like my old self & that's all I ever wanted.

I'm still scared that my anxiety will come back, but I know that if it does then I can deal with it and I wont go back to those dark days.

My GP told me I could expect to see improvement in 2 weeks, but honestly it took at least 4 weeks before I saw any improvement and even then it was small. It's been such a long & rough road and I'm so happy that I'm finally almost through it. Everyones journey is unique and what we all think of as being 'cured' is different but for me it's this - just being able to sit here on a sunday morning feeling peaceful, enjoying the sunshine, not feeling terrified of the week ahead.

I didn't just rely on the tablet to make me feel better, because I believe it's the way that I think which makes me the feel the way I do, and tablets can't change the way I think. I read self help books, I listened to audios, I wrote about how I felt, I set myself daily tasks and I practised meditation. But I couldn't have mustered the energy to do all that without the tablets so I'm really grateful.

Anyway - sorry for the essay! If you're just starting out on citalopram, just hang in there. I promise it gets better - just probably not as quickly as you would like! X