as someone thats been on many different medications ... i would say that increasing the zoloft to 100 or even 200mg isnt that much a biggy... IF it would work for you...

and if you were bipolar there would be a chance that it could trigger the manic side of the bipolar....

but i havent had any luck with any of the medications that i have been on besides the klonopin, which is highly addicting and you grow a tolerance to so it stops working after some time... the gabapentin works really well so if you have anxiety problems i think thats a really great medication... i love my gabapentin... it also stabilizes my mood and helps with my depression some how i dont know how but i have ALOT of problems and everyone is different....

i would just say the things to the psychiatrist that you said here... that you have a stressful job, that you try to put on the mask to hide your true feelings from the world and that stresses you out more, that you have a hard time showing how you really feel, and that you are really struggling with your depressive episodes...

right?

medications arent that bad of a thing... they 'CAN' be really helpful to some people...
when i first started taking medications i was like you and didnt like medications and didnt want to be medicated/heavily medicated either...

but my symptoms were really bad... and as time went on i just grew more tired and more pained... i hurt alot and suffer a great deal with my symptoms, but i also have zero coping skills so ive had no other choice but to try medications... hospitalizations... rehab... ect....

and sometimes the first medications you try will not work, you may have to try several medications to find the right ones that will work for you... its not an exact science because everyones chemistry is different and we have to shoot in the dark to try to hit the targets and hopefully get something that will work for us...

being nervous about medications is 100% normal... but they aren't going to turn you into a monster or a completely different person, you will still be you, just hopefully you without the debilitating symptoms you know?

sometimes when trying new medications we have to be vigilant and careful looking out for side effects though... because they do happen and when they happen we want to be on the look out, but we arent going to lose an arm or go blind like talking about over night... so try not to be afraid of that... i've tried a lot of medications... and im still trying new medications because none of them seem to work for me... and each time im scared of new side effects but i have to weigh the benifits... do i want to try to get rid of these symptoms? or not?

welcome to psych central....