I extremely appreciate the apprehension towards giving teens medication. I am beyond horrified how we medicate children with incredibly developing brains and medicate teens without understanding what they are experiencing. Of course, I had experience with a med when I was 14 and then started again when I was 19. I struggled in the mean time (but not as much as now) and its a shame that my parents and doctor never striven to truly understand me. This could have saved a lot of grief.

At the same time I want to stress that you need to talk about this with your brother and remain open to a medicated future. Keep him grounded and give him the realistic expectations that meds aren't' magic and are their own struggle. But at the same time understand that you aren't feeling what he is feeling and mental illness is not easy to crawl out of. So please, don't shy him away from meds completely, you could be causing harm that you are not aware of. Remained informed about them and make sure that he has a psychiatrist that is greatly involved in his recovery.

Tell him everyday that he will get better. That encouragement has always meant so much to me on the rare occasion that someone would tell me this. Keep him motivated, you are a great sibling.

As for the medication listed: I have only had experience with two of those, one long term, and the last I refuse to take. I am extremely concerned that all of these meds are extremely stimulating and are often not the answer for anxiety. They can also severely interrupt sleep and that is not good for anybody! Furthermore, buproprion and adderal are common drugs for ADHD -- does his doctor think he has these symptoms? As for myself, even though I commonly feel ADHD, I also feel that this ties into anxiety and thus I do not want a stimulant.

My experience on cymbalta lasted a week on the starting dose -- I was having twitches that intensified as the week wore on. I was not going to take it anymore. I was on wellbutrin for over a year, it did help my focus but never solved the depression or anxiety. I started on 150 for three days then moved up to 300. At one point I dipped low into depression again and my Pdoc upped it to 400mg. Still wasn't a fix.

I experience depression and anxiety but I was eventually diagnosed bipolar 2 instead. I have done much better on mood stabilizers and never had success with any antidepressant -- a common feature of bipolar 2. My experiences on the ADs I spoke about that are experiences based on taking drugs not for me, so keep that in mind.