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Wellness Wednesday for September 2, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Does anyone have experience with short-term use of psychotropic medications (SSRI's, Benzos, etc.)? I have experienced an absurd amount of situational stress and grief over the past few weeks - long story, very tragic - and am looking for a little chemical help to make it more bearable. However, I don't want to be on them for very long and I know that coming off meds can be difficult once you start. Anyone have personal background? And yes, I'm trying to make lifestyle changes but any advice there would help as well. Appreciate it.

I went on an SSRI in college when I was very suicidal. I probably would have killed myself without it so I am grateful that I was put on it, but I stayed on it for too long. I finally told my doctor I wanted off them when I was feeling much better about things, probably after being on them for 5 years or so. She halved my dose and then I just quit them without consulting her (I wouldn't advise others do it that way but I just wanted the agency to choose for myself.) I am generally wary of weirdo psychological drugs but if you are going to kill yourself or are a danger to yourself in some way I do think they can help. I had a few weird side effects going on them and similar weird side effects coming off them, and felt some brain fog while on them which is mostly why I wanted to stop, but I don't think the side effects were really bad and I didn't have enough trouble coming off them that I even remember what it was like.