I apologize for any grammar or vocabulary mistakes as my first language is not English. And also I'm sorry for the length.

  


Last year, after going through a rough patch, I finally went to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with dysthymia and put me on Fluoxetine 20 mg after a brief and rather gloomy session.

  


Although it would be somewhat pointless to pin down a starting point, I have probably been affected by dysthymia since I've been 10. Or maybe I've always had it, as in my childhood I normalized this state of being, growing into my teenage years believing life just was that way, and later assuming that I was a "melancholic" person and that was that. It was reassuring to know, once my diagnosis arrived, that something was indeed wrong with my brain, at least to a certain point. That would have avoided several suicide attempts when I was a kid. I don't want to blame my therapist (I have been in and out of therapy for 11 years), but if she had referred me to a psychiatrist earlier JUST IN CASE maybe I would have been a happier child. But it is pointless to sorrow about that, I didn't tell her most of the important stuff anyway.

  


Once I started taking my medication and summer arrived, my life changed quite suddenly. For the first time, I started going out and hanging out with friends, I got invited (and assisted!) to parties, and I even could get inside nightclubs and have a good time instead of having an anxiety attack before getting to the gates. Went from being shy, awkward and unattractive to being a cool, funny, and cute guy. I lost weight and cut my hair short. I started using drugs (I'm not saying that's a good thing) and drinking. For the first time, I felt like I was a likeable person.

  


Some time has passed since. Now I don't go out that much anymore, mainly because it got kinda boring... and I also started dating a girl with whom I rather spending my time. Life has been, for the most part, OK.

  


But lately I've been thinking. How much is this gonna last? I've been through good but brief ups, which have always resulted in intense and everlasting downs. This has probably been my longest and biggest up, even to a point when I thought "hey, I'm cured!". But now I'm just worried that when the down comes, it will be a BIG one. Then I went to r/dysthymia, and I read many people's experiences, which made me feel a little bit more hopeless since "The Average Dysthymia Experience (™️)" seems to be a life going on and off meds constantly, feeling each time worse and more willing to give up.

  


&amp;\#x200B;

  


There's also another thing. Fluoxetine. I got a weird relationship with it. I kinda hate it. I feel sleepy and tired, most of the time, it has been this way for something about a month after taking them. At first, it was great since sleeping had always been something tough, and my insomnia all of a sudden went away. Now I hate it, I can't stand struggling to stay awake after 10 PM, and EVEN THEN being drowsy and sleepy during the day. I'm just so tired it's embarrassing.

  


On top of that, everything feels so blunt and kind of \*reduced.\* There used to be an intensity within life. Like, a brightness. In the good and the bad stuff. Yes, when I felt bad \*\*I REALLY\*\* felt bad. But when I was happy, it was such an intense feeling! Neither of those are around anymore. It is all OK, it has been all OK... but not more than that, not more than \*\*\*okay.\*\*\*

  


Even when I'm feeling bad, it's weird. I don't feel as sad as I feel that I \*should\* be. Has anyone experienced this? It is a feeling of void and emptiness, a hole in my chest and mind that should be filled with overwhelming sadness, but instead, it's empty (or half-full at least). I'm not complaining, I'm not saying I prefer to feel bad, I'm saying it's weird. It feels weird, almost wrong sometimes. It's like that extra serotonin from the SSRI stops the sadness I should be feeling from fully showing up. It's weird. Artificial.

  


There's also the side effect everybody talks about. I don't wanna talk too much about this, as you also probably don't want to know. But there has been a big impact on my libido. At first I didn't care, I was glad since getting horny and masturbating depressed me. But now that I have a girlfriend it has not been a good thing at all. I'm waiting patiently to get off meds to check if it goes away because having erectile dysfunction at this age scares me to death. Luckily (or not) a quick and 100% effective medicine is smoking weed. :p

  


I'm getting my dose reduced to 10 mg, I believe that in December. In some way I'm excited, but I'm also scared. Will it get better? Maybe, I hope so. I also feel some loss of mental sharpness, which I could act oblivious and blame fluoxetine and not weed, but that's for another time. I'm scared too. What if this artificial well-being is all I got? What if I go back to where I was before? I honestly doubt it as I'm having a better quality of life overall, but I'm scared anyway.

  


And that's the end of my rant. I don't know what I'm expecting to get out of this. Maybe just a rant for the sake of it. Thanks for reading anyway.