I Eat Prozac for Breakfast (and my OCD thanks me for it)

A green and orange pill saved my life

Before I share, I want to remind y’all that I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. I am a licensed therapist, but I am not your licensed therapist. I’m sharing my personal story, not providing clinical recommendations. If you would like medical advice or have questions about medication, please reach out to a psychiatrist near you. Additionally, I will not be sharing the medications that didn’t work for me. Medication efficacy is unique to each person and I would not want someone to fear that a medication won’t work for them because it didn’t work for me.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Finding medication was a journey for me. It wasn’t just about finding the right medication, but finding a well-suited psychiatrist. It took me 4 different medications to find the medication and dose that actually worked for me, and 4 different doctors to find a psychiatrist who understood my OCD symptoms and proper doses of medication for OCD (sometimes higher doses, exceeding the FDA approved amounts, are required to treat OCD symptoms).

This all happened over a period of three years.

I was 19 years old, and a few months into suffering with undiagnosed OCD, the first time I was introduced to psychiatric medication. I had no idea why my brain, out of the blue, started terrorizing me with scary (sexual) intrusive thoughts, images, and sensations all day long. I had no name for my symptoms, and the only thing I felt comfortable voicing to my family was the anxiety I was experiencing because of them. After bursting into tears on the way to dinner one night (is it more iconic if I tell you we were on our way to the Cheesecake Factory), my mom introduced me to psychiatric medication and her general practitioner to discuss psychiatric medication.