Tried posting this on the SI board last night, no response of any kind, so thought I'd try here.

Brief background, which some of you know: I have generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social anxiety, some OCD (mostly contamination fears), plus depression off and on. Been on Effexor XR for about 2 months, was on Paxil before that, Zoloft before that.



The past few years, when I'm feeling especially anxious, I'll sometimes scratch my skin really hard or press my fingernail into my finger, like to take my mind off the anxiety. Not sure if that really "counts" as SI but thought I'd mention it since it does involve self-inflicted pain.

Now for the reason I'm posting here. A few times in the past two months, I've had a fairly intense urge to SI, something beyond just scratching my skin. Each time was triggered by something--one time, fear of abandonment by someone that triggered past fears of abandonment. Another, feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred brought about from a fight with my husband in which he was very critical of me (there was some other stuff going on, too). And yesterday, when I was feeling very incompetent as a mother, plus some other stuff. I didn't give in beyond just scratching/pressing my fingernails into my skin on my stomach, but I felt the urge to.

I think maybe some of this has come about because some recent work in therapy (plus some transference, but won't go into that here) has dealt with some of the stuff going back to high school and younger, so I'm dealing with some of those feelings. But I'm also wondering if it could partly be the Effexor, since I started that 2 months ago and have only felt this since then? Has anyone here experienced more SI urges with certain medications?

And how do you go about bringing this up to your T (and p-doc, in case it's the Effexor)? I've been seeing her for a few years, so she knows me well, but I'm still afraid of freaking her out. I don't want her to worry I'll do something serious. But I still feel like I need to bring it up. Suggestions on how to do that?

Thanks. And if I should have trigger-warned anything else, my apologies--please fix as needed, mods, or let me know.