Every encounter that I have had with the health care system recently has been horrible. I either had to explain myself over and over, defend myself as if I was accused of lying or the caregivers - PSYCHOLOGISTS no less - giggled, laughed or belittled me and my depression in some way.

Today, I finally met an amazing doctor. He was really good at listening, communicating in clear and easy to understand terms and made me feel safe when I panicked about having to start taking another substance.

I have been eating sertraline 150mg/day for a year now with no noticeable effect. I’ve tried to have my previous doctor give me something else on several occasions, but she just said “this is what I give everybody, so just take it ☺️💀”. Idiot. And because I’ve been on setraline for so long, I can’t just swap it for, say, an SNRI just like that. I have to gradually get it out of my system before we can even start exploring other substances. Grrrr.🤬 And I’m not even allowed to start doing that because of the dark thoughts and feeling that I’ve been having of late.

Which leads me to the new doctor’s plan of action: take mirtazapine alongside sertraline for a while, until these heavy thoughts and feelings are alleviated somewhat. Then we start phasing out sertraline. And "then* we start exploring other antidepressants.

I gave him so much positive feedback. Hope he has a lovely weekend.