Serotonin

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Guess who was prescribed an SSRI for the first time today? Honestly it feels really weird. I hate feeling like I need some sort of magic pill to help me function normally throughout the day. Why does not feeling like shit require so much fucking work? My psychiatrist put me on Sertraline today, which I guess is some generic Zoloft. I've never been on any medications before other than the as-needed anxiety pill that I'm on, so this experience is pretty new to me. Both my psychiatrist and the pharmacist who filled my prescription told me of some of the side effects I might end up experiencing, but generally I'm not expected to notice anything different for at least a few weeks. Boy how they were wrong. 

If you've ever done any sort of Psychedelic drug before, it felt like I was coming up. For those in the class who haven't partaken in very illegal recreation activities, there is typically a period of time after taking a Psychedelic where you start to feel slightly different. Your mouth goes dry, your jaw tingles a bit and you notice that you're clenching your teeth, there's a knot in your stomach and you aren't going to throw up but you feel a little nauseous, and you feel a slight change in perception. Suddenly, before you know it, you're whacked in the face with a baseball bat made out of Psilocybin. That is how I felt. I took a 25mg dose as prescribed and a little less than 7 hours later I started to feel as though I was on some sort of come up of Psychedelics. This might have something to do with how Psychedelics initially effect your brain chemistry before you start feeling the more traditional effects and hallucinations. They might drastically boost your serotonin levels before you start feeling those traditional effects and that's what I could be feeling. 

I like to consider myself pretty in-tune with my body and how I'm feeling both physically and mentally. That might be some sort of anxiety driven fixation, but it helps me just as much as it may hurt me. I can still feel the change in brain chemistry even now, almost 9 hours after the initial dose, and it feels very strange. Do most people consider this dizziness? Are these just the basic side effects that everybody experiences when taking new medications and anti-depressants, but I have a unique experience of having them from another type of drug? There is a lot to unpack here and a lot of questions that I have that aren't answered, so I guess I'll just have to wait for word from my doctor or some other clinically trained professional. It's strange to me that I would feel this from my first dose, but hey, maybe I'm special.