My son had extreme fears of medication, especially SSRIs. He finally started Zoloft a few months ago. It made a world of difference. The doctor was wise to start him off at an extremely low dose and only increase it slowly. He started off at 12.5mg for the first week, then upped it 12.5mg to 25mg the second week. We continued increasing 12.5mg each week until we reached 100mg. We may go higher. I think starting an extremely low dose and increasing it slowly helped eliminate side effects. He is very sensitive to medication but had zero side effects.