Reply to Any success stories of anxiety being ADHD and going off SSRI

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DS's anxiety was the direct result of ADHD. He's off the SSRI. He's 20 now and recently told me that [b]therapy was more of a help for him than the SSRI.[/b]

Good luck to you and your DC.[/quote]

Therapy is more of a help than SSRIs for most people. The reason it takes a back seat to medication is only because it is expensive and time consuming and requires commitment. SSRIs are definitely easier and cheaper (but ugh, the side effects). [/quote]

I don’t think you can claim most people just because of your experience. For many kids with anxiety, they are not able to open up in therapy and make effective progress until some of the “edge” is taken off by a low-dose SSRI or other similar drug. I have worked  with kids on mindfulness and unfortunately this has been the case for many, although not all. For some children with anxiety just talking about the anxiety, makes it worse for them. [/quote]

I’m an adult that took an SSRI for GAD. The SSRI doesn’t make you more open to therapy - it can be effective at tamping down anxiety but then you don’t really have any anxiety to work on in therapy. Mindfulness didn’t work because … mindfulness is not actually and evidence based therapy for anxiety. If my kid was having acute anxiety or especially OCD I might consider an SSRI. But my impression is that most families don’t actually access good pediatric anxiety therapy and are anxious themselves about their child’s anxiety. So it becomes easiest to medicate. [/quote]

In my experience, the point about meds not making you more open to therapy is false. I think it depends on the person and their needs. For me, it was eye-opening to see a different way of life. I didn't realize people could really feel that calm until I did, and it enabled me to be more open to therapy and processing things so that I could look at things more clearly after I stopped meds. I'm still anxious without meds but have some tools to help now and can recognize the feelings and when I'm not in a good place.

It can also help set up new norms if you need to break certain negative cycles. Sometimes even the idea of a new start on meds can be useful.

But it depends on the person and the needs. There's no reason not to consider stopping the SSRI and seeing how things go, but remember that it takes a while for those meds to build up in your system (unlike ADHD meds), so it will be a slow weaning process, and if you need to start up again, it will be a slow start-up process. With a teen, this can be hard. Just something to consider.

Also note that ADHD meds can make anxiety worse for some people. I would talk through it with your DD and the psych to decide what is the best approach.[/quote]

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