antidepressants in general...and especially the ssri and ssnri drugs...are basically "emotional novocaine." its...what they do. i read somewhere that Prozac, for instance, is sort of like taking some Thorazine (an old school tranquilizer/antipsychotic) plus a little bit of Ritalin. The drugs tend to be somewhat stimulating, but they also cause apathy.

I don't know what to tell you, honestly. Personally, I avoid SSRI and SSNRI drugs now. I was on a high dose of Wellbutrin until I dropped it fairly recently. Wellbutrin is more stimulating, less numbing, but even so...once I'd been off the Wellbutrin for a little while, I was amazed at how numb it had made me, while I was taking it.

Some doctors add wellbutrin to ssri drugs for apathy and such. Others will use Provigil, Nuvigil, Ritalin, Focalin, sometimes an amphetamine.

If you need help with anxiety and low mood, remeron can help some of the same problems as ssri drugs, but it works differently, so some people get what they need with less apathy. weight gain and sedation tend to be major problems. another problem is that some people find remeron effective, and then it suddenly stops working. but, there's plenty of people who take remeron, respond to remeron, tolerate remeron, and stay on remeron, so...its an option, maybe.

i've read that adding buspirone (buspar, in the us) helps some people with this, and can improve overall response. i dunno though...ive taken buspar, and it just made me feel more apathetic. everyone's different, though.

there's also other drugs for anxiety, of course...benzodiazepines, gabapentin, lyrica, hydroxyzine, promethazine, now and then low doses of some antipsychotics/tranquilizers.

ever tried talk therapy, art therapy, group therapy? im not pushing it on you. some people love talking treatments. im not one of them, but...yeah. valid option, for some people.

i hope things get better in your world. its kinda lame...for all this talk of "safe and effective treatments," blah blah blah, the psych drugs have definite limitations and they all cause their own problems. i guess it just comes down to weighing risks vs benefits and deciding what to do.