I've been on bupropion (generic Wellbutrin) for 5 years. It's the only thing I've ever taken, and it's a huge part of my life turning around from aimless, lonely, and bewildering to purposeful and way more secure. It's not like I'm massively different. It feels more like I had this latent ability all along to make sound logical decisions, move my life forward, set boundaries, and understand what's best for me--I just didn't know it was there and I couldn't access it. With the bupropion, suddenly it was unlocked.
My two major notes are: I take generic, not branded Wellbutrin, because the branded gave me really unpleasant insomnia. Not like, oh I'm tossing and turning and not getting a great night's sleep insomnia. More like, I'm being tortured with a chemical that prevents my brain from ever shutting off. It was not good. I tried the branded version after a couple years of taking the generic, so I knew it wasn't the medication itself.
Note 2: My starting dose was very low, but it was still a little too much for me. My first week on bupropion I felt a little .... manic, haha. I was VERY motivated and active -- I finally wrote all the stuff I needed to apply for a promotion at my job, but I also cleaned my entire kitchen top to bottom with a toothbrush, so I knew maybe something wasn't quite right. At work and in social situations I felt kind of twitchy and over-caffeinated. After four or five days I called my psychiatrist and she instructed me to lower the dose, but I waited until the weekend so I could have a day at home to myself to deal with the change. I did have a couple hours of weird withdrawal symptoms that day, but I knew to expect them and just sort of hung out with my cat and had a Netflix day while they went away.
Since then, it's been smooth sailing. After about three years I eventually did raise my dose back up to my original prescription and have had no problems with it. I make 3x as much now as I did then, I met the person I eventually married, I made a lot of really smart career decisions and started writing a book. I can't even tell you what a mess I was my entire life before this. I just didn't have any coping skills, having grown up with undiagnosed clinical depression and zero parental nurturing or guidance. The trauma is still there of course, but it's so much easier to see it clearly now that the mental health issues are being managed. And it's easier to approach it and deal with it because I'm so much safer emotionally.
