I try to put up with the side effects, at least for long enough to see if the drug is making any difference to my mood but I work full time and have to be able to function so initially when I started venlafaxine I put up with the vile taste in my mouth, everything tasting horrible, no appetite and nausea (at least my GP gave me something for that) but when the dose increase then gave me horrendous fatigue so I was struggling to stay awake during the day and feeling very weak and shaky I just couldn't carry on to see if the effects faded over time...


After my failed attempt at CBT last year I didn't think there was anything else available but then my psychiatrist referred me for "psychological intervention" and after an initial assessment I have just started doing some distress tolerance work (based on DBT) to try to give me alternate coping strategies to SH. I have six sessions of that and then a review and then possibly some sort of therapy for anxiety/depression, although, this being the NHS, the psychologist who did the assessment couldn't promise me anything...

I really want to hope that this will work but I'm at the point now where I don't want to let myself think that because when it doesn't I will just feel even worse. I am also slightly angry that it's taken a year for me to be offered help that was available all along (and I even asked about - very unlike me) during which time my everything has gotten so much worse to the point where I am losing the will to try to fight this any more