All right, since the subject of anti-depressants has been broached (see Eshel's downer a few blogs back), I'm throwing out the question, who among you is on them, which one, and is it working?

I have been on some sort of anti-depressant for most of the last 12 years or so.  I couldn't sleep and had anxiety in college, so the campus doc put me on Zoloft.  I went off of it for a while, then decided that I was getting depressed, losing my temper, and just felt like a total asshole too much of the time.  So I went back on Zoloft.

That worked for a while, but as these things are wont to do, I started getting back into the troughs of depression and finally decided that I really didn't care if I died or not.  The final sounding bell was when I was sitting on the throne at work having a full blown anxiety attack/bottom of the barrel depression incident and wondering if my tie was strong enough to hold me up long enough to do the job.  (I decided it probably wasn't.)

I went to the doctor again and he prescribed Cymbalta.  Right away, I thought it would work better, but I found out that when the samples ran out it was going to cost me over $100 a month.  After a couple months he switched me to something else that was only about $50, but it didn't work.  After a couple months of that, he put me on Paxil, which I am still on.

Now for the most part, from my perspective, the Paxil is doing the job.  And, it's a generic, so I can get it for $4.  However, my wife surprised me with "Wtf, you are, like, extra withdrawn the last couple months".

Really?  I didn't see it.  I asked a couple people at work and they agreed.  I'm not the corny "happy-go-lucky" person I used to be.  So I have a dilemma.

In the couple months that I have been on Paxil, I haven't gotten so depressed that I wanted to take the fast train out of Life Station, but I have been unmotivated.  I haven't even had a real severe depression episode.  But, according to eye-witness accounts, it has apparently made me "boring".  And, though I don't feel motivated to do it myself, I still don't care if I die.  So what do I do?  Do I keep playing RX roulette?  Do I go to a psychiatrist?  Do I drop them altogether and go back to being an asshole?  I don't know.

So fuck me for asking a bunch of strangers on the internet about the solutions to my problems, but what do you suggest?  What works for you, and what doesn't?

I am footfknmaster, and I really don't feel masterful.