[CW: DEPRESSION] Help: what were your experiences with SSRIs and/or SNRIs especially in terms of side effects?

Thank you to everyone who posts, it means a lot to me!
- <3

i've tried so many different SSRIs and SNRIs
they have all had 0 useful effect on me. i've experienced side effects; digestion issues are the most common. i got uncontrollable leg shaking from one of them. i've never experienced any withdrawal symptoms coming off them, but for most people they are quite bad.
when i was a kid i was put on fluoxetine, and it was just as unhelpful. i wanted to stop and they wouldn't let me, so a few months in, i quit them myself. some months later, my mother commented on how much better i seemed, how well the medication was working. i told her i hadn't been taking it, and she didn't believe me.
i'm now at a point where i absolutely refuse to touch them. the only thing that has actually had an impact on depression for me is ketamine.

Most of them mainly made me sleepy. Of the ones I've tried, Cymbalta kept things in check but also nuked my sex drive.
- I went through a whole list before I got to cymbalta, the only thing that worked. Yeah sex drive was non existant and still isn't the same years later, and it made me have to sleep 12 hours a day, but at that time in my life I could very well have died and I have to look at it that way.
  They tried to switch me to Mirtazapine after that, which made me put on 40 lbs in less than 6 months and I have never felt so awful in my life.
  
  Yeah, I dropped mirtazapine, I said it turned me into a depressed panda

Might be experiencing bad ones right now. Recently got put on buspirone and I've been having really vivid and painful nightmares in which I'm tortured, killed, or subjected to a harrowing traumatic event. They've gotten increasingly frequent over the last few weeks to the point where for the last few nights, I've been waking from nightmares in a cold sweat every 40-90 minutes.
It might also be entirety unrelated to the medication. Worth noting that it's an anxiolytic, and neither an SSRI nor an SNRI.
- Huh that’s interesting. I wonder if I’m hiding the buspirone dreams with the copious amounts of weed I smoke
  
  I honestly don't know if it's actually buspirone related.
  Having said that, I stopped taking it the day before yesterday and last night I actually got a full night's sleep and don't remember having any nightmares at all. Just a weird dream in which I drove a go-kart and was running for joint-mayor of a city with a close friend the dream made up, on a platform of curing diseased trees by taking them out of the ground and bringing them to a plant hospital and raising the ceilings of all multi-story buildings somehow.

Venlafaxine/Buspirone combo for anxiety and depression.
"Lower highs and higher lows" is how I'd describe it. Although my doses had to change after transition - lower Venlafaxine and higher Buspirone, because my depression got better and my anxiety got worse I guess.
Oh also I hadn't cried for 12 years while on the higher Venlafaxine dose. When that went down the water works turned back on.
- Is that a new one ?
  
  Those are the generic names for Effexor and Buspar and I've been on them both for a long time (like 12+ years lol)

Haven't read the comments, but the biggest problem I had was inability to orgasm, with both an SSRI and an SNRI. I could do it sometimes myself if I was alone, but the fact that I couldn't at all during sex was hurting my relationship at the time. Other than that, they did the job. I may be about to have to go back on something as my mental health has been concerning of late as well.

My wife has been on sertraline for about two years now, and it's been nothing short of miraculous for her. She went from passively suicidal on a good day to happy and functional within two months of starting it. She told me that it was the first time since she was 12 that she didn't want to die. She had some mild headaches when she was first titrating up to her full dose, but those went away once the dose stabilized, and she's had pretty much no side effects since. I know she's been incredibly lucky in terms of how she responded and how few side effects she got, but it 100% saved her life.

20 mg citalopram.
Keeps me overweight and a cannot get off them. Paroxetine caused me to gain 50”lbs in no time at all.
They help with anxiety - but don’t eliminate it. I don’t feel they do a lot for depression - I have to manage that with exercise.
Been on them for 20 years and would love to leave them or try something else .
- Oof yeah I was on Citalopram for a bit it didn’t do shit

Zoloft: First antidepressant I ever took, it kinda worked but I didn’t feel good just less bad. Also destroyed my sex drive. I went up doses over a long stretch of time before adding Wellbutrin and then stopping Zoloft.
Prozac: Made me super nauseous and felt like my brain was very loud. Did not like. Stopped on the lowest dose because of the side effects. My partner was on it for years and it worked well though, with just a couple weeks of nausea that ended.
Wellbutrin: Not actually an SSRI or SNRI, it’s an “atypical antidepressant” which basically means “idk but it works.” Works so so well. It’s what lets me operate on a daily basis. I feel like I have the normal range of human emotions. Side effects: Increased libido, increased sweating, and mild tinnitus. Oh and I cry really easily at tv and movies now. I’m currently on 300mg, I started on 150mg and then went up, at 450mg my anxiety got worse so took it back down. 300 seems to have me in a good place.
I also take Buspar along with Wellbutrin, because Wellbutrin helps with depression but unlike SSRIs and SNRIs does nothing for anxiety. I think I’m taking 15mg twice a day of that.
- Wow wellbutrin sounds amazing. One of my biggest challenges is how hard it is to cry,
  
  There’s a playlist for that !

I've been on a number of SSRIs since my late teens, and my side-effects (mostly decreased sex drive, increased appetite and night-sweats) have been minor and manageable. Antidepressants and regular therapy together have significantly improved my life.

Only used sertaline. Sex drive way down the first couple of weeks, but that normalised. Sweating like a pig when I sleep was a constant though, but I’m not sure if that is common or not. Not sure it helped me a lot either but that depends from case to case.
- Sex drive way down the first couple of weeks, but that normalised.
  you mean it came back to normal levels while you were still on the drug?
  
  Yeah, it went back to normal. Took about a month.
  Raising the dosage didn't do much to affect it either.

Prozac: i got ED. I was still horny as shit, just couldnt get hard.
I'll also echo the "higher highs lower lows" thing. I didn't really feel better i only felt less. I didn't do any of the other things youre supposed to do to alleviate depression like exercise and socialize and shit.,but by itself it didn't really help

- Be very careful! SNRIs + most psychadelics can cause potentially lethal seratonin poisoning.

BAD! but a little helpful? My head felt crackly and my libido went down massively. Then I felt very numb but able to do slightly more life functions and my acute distress was not present. Then I got a little bit better in my inner heart and the effects of the pills made me feel grey and zombielike. When I get off them it felt like a film had been removed from over the world. Experience felt more immediate and direct.
While I was mega in the pits, that film gave me a lot of safety but when I was doing the littlest better it held me back and made me feel just wrong.
I am thankful for the initial stages AND thankful I did not stay on them. Do with this mixed bag as your will.
Also I was on an SNRI with my psych's intent being to treat ADHD.

I'm way too worried about developing PSSD (sexual dysfunction that persists even after you stop taking the drug) to ever try psychiatric drugs.

probably not the case, but something to consider
the executive dysfunction symptom of ADHD can resemble depression, like if you find yourself wanting to get a school assignment done but not being able to get yourself to do it until the task becomes urgent and stressful could be the task lacking enough dopamine reward (I want to X, but I can't get myself to do X)
this can also directly cause depression: if you feel like you're never able to get yourself to do the things you want/need to do, you can find that you eventually stop trying (I can't ever do X, so why bother)
the main reason i say this is that untreated ADHD can resemble/be co-morbid with depression, and SSRIs can aggravate ADHD symptoms in some people
- I didn't even consider this, I've definitely been experiencing that for the past 2 years. I'd say that it got so much worse after my father died 2 years ago.
  So maybe I should ask for a referral to rule that out?
  
  if it's symptoms that you feel you've struggled with your whole life but are now struggling especially hard, i'd say it's possible it could be ADHD + depression
  for me it's like, i've very rarely been able to get academic assignments done without using the dopamine rush from getting stressed out and sometimes getting panic attacks (unhealthy and unmedicated way to do necessary tasks with ADHD), but when i had a depressive episode i couldn't even bring myself to get stressed out enough to do the stuff i needed to do, and ended up continually taking and failing the one class i needed to continue my degree for two years, doing the bare minimum to stay in college and rack up more debt until i sought help
  it's worth talking to a PCP or someone else about it if you suspect it, they'll sometimes have outdated views on what ADHD is, but usually they can give you an overview and whether or not they suspect enough to personally recommend a screening
  i'm sorry for your loss comrade, and i'm proud of you for seeking help, you deserve it

I tried several things, one was the SNRI bupropion. It didnt agree with me. The first 2 days or so i think i was having a manic episode. It felt like I was constantly on coke, and it was terrible. Afterwards it diminished in my mood, but not my energy levels, so it was like i just had tons more energy to be depressed with. When i talked about it with a friend they said it sounded like a bipolar mixed episode. I got off it after 2 weeks. After that I tried citalopram which actually worked fairly well with few side effects beyond zeroing my sex drive. I ended up going off it because i was feeling like i had a constant almost-hypomanic-but-not-quite vibe going. Like i wasnt quite in control, and i had tons of energy, and it was just not great. But it stabilised me during a really bad time, and kept me mostly stable. By stable i mean my range was narrower, so less depressed and less happy. The not-quite-hypomanic aspects felt super sideways and im not sure how quite to describe it.