Cipralex

Hi all,

I'm really new to all this and I'm feeling a little alone/scared/confused, so I wanted to share the experience I'm having to see if anyone has advice or similar stories.

Mine started a little over a year ago. I went through the most stressful time of life so far. I was working 2 jobs while taking 3 summer courses at University so I was barely sleeping or eating. On top of that I was getting harassed by a co-workers girlfriend who thought there was something going on, and then had my boyfriend cheat on me and leave me for a new girl I'd gone to high school with, not before spending months degrading my entire self-confidence and throwing all of my secrets and insecurities back in my face. On top of that I was going through friend changes and really trying to figure myself out/who was there for me (not many people) which left me feeling isolated and lonely. I've pulled away from the rest of the people I considered close and found myself getting agitated with everyone and everything. I was spiraling and around December of last year I'd gone from my avg 120 lbs to 92 lbs and was at the doctors doing all sorts of tests determined that something was wrong, and ignoring the obvious signs of stress.
After narrowing down the diagnosis it took me another couple months to accept what was happening and try to get help.

I've been on cirpralex 10mg now for approx 5 weeks. My side effects for the first couple days were: trouble sleeping, dry mouth, restlessness and headaches. Those went away within a couple days and I started to feel better (not sure if I was pushing myself to feel this way) and my weight has held steady at 100-105 lbs
Then I started noticing I would still have down days, and I told myself this is common they can't all be good days and compared to where I was in December I'm doing alot better.
I'm at the point now though where I feel absolutely awful again, and the bad days have turned into bad weeks. The past week or so I've felt depressed and upset, I'm sitting at work right now typing this message willing myself not to cry.
My main emotions before when I was unable to control my mood swings were anger and sadness but now its mostly sadness.
I get mad with myself because I feel like I should be putting in effort and making friends and doing things but I dont have the energy or the desire most of the time. Sometimes I can control my thoughts but most of the time I just drift back to thinking about what happened. I know I'm in that 'woe me' mindset and I dont understand. Despite everything having happened I got on honor roll at my university, landed a great summer job, got asked to create the first business case competition at our school and got the position of Vice President on the council for my program. Despite it all I can only focus on how crappy I feel.

I'm feeling hopeless and lost again and I really hate this feeling. I never imagined feeling like this even a year ago and it really scares me. I've only talked with a therapist once and I didn't really enjoy it. I felt like I had to dredge up the past and talk about all the things that made me feel worthless, but I think of those things everyday anyways. I'm setting up another appointment with my therapist to try.


I guess my question is should I consider increasing the dosage (I don't want this to be a permanent thing in my life) or is this the normal way to feel until you work through your problems?