Hi everyone,
I’m 17 and I’m looking to see if anyone has had a similar experience.
About 3 weeks ago I restarted fluoxetine (20 mg). Since then I’ve been having really distressing intrusive thoughts that I’ve never experienced before.
The main thing is that I keep questioning my sexual orientation even though I’ve always considered myself straight and wanted relationships with women. I now constantly catch myself checking my reactions to men, feeling like my eyes are drawn towards them to see if I feel anything, and then I panic about what it means. It’s exhausting and I spend hours overthinking it.
Before restarting fluoxetine I don’t remember having these thoughts like this. I have struggled with anxiety before, but this feels completely different and has really frightened me.
The strange thing is that I’ve had a couple of days where I felt almost like my old self again and the thoughts were much quieter, but then they came back.
I’m under CAMHS and will be speaking to them, but I just wanted to know:
- Has anyone else experienced intrusive thoughts like this after starting fluoxetine?
- Did they settle down after a few more weeks?
- Did you stay on the medication or did your doctor change it?
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar because it’s been one of the hardest few weeks of my life.
Thank you.