Medicine and loneliness

A lonely week can make you wonder about your medicine. Any change belongs in a conversation with your doctor, and this page helps you get ready for it.

Keep taking your medicine

Please read this part first. If you take an antidepressant or any other prescribed medicine, keep taking it as prescribed, even when you're lonely. Don't skip a dose to see if the week feels more alive, and don't change the amount because you feel better, worse, or just tired of the bottle. Stopping or changing a prescribed medicine on your own can be dangerous. Make any change with your doctor.

Loneliness is real and worth taking seriously. Feeling lonely doesn't prove that a medicine has stopped working, and it doesn't mean you should stop one so you can "feel more" and reach out to people. Only your doctor can tell you whether a medicine is still right for you, and this page is meant to help you have that conversation.

The same rule at every age

Younger people sometimes wonder whether a medicine they started early is why friendships feel distant. Later in life, some people wonder whether an empty week means the medicine has done its job. Both questions are worth asking out loud in your doctor's office, and the rule stays the same at any age: keep taking it and talk it over first. If you're younger, younger, and lonely is written with you in mind. If the medicine is what you doubt, questioning the medicine shows you how to write your questions down.

Friends mean well, and they may tell you that you don't need medicine, or that you should never question it. Neither of them can see your whole situation. If something you read online left you sure you should stop, hold off and bring it to your doctor instead. If your doctor has already told you to make a change, follow your doctor's directions.

Questions to bring to your appointment

Get a piece of paper and write down what you hope for, what worries you, and what you've noticed about your sleep, your mood, and your time with other people. You might write, "I've been lonely, and I'm keeping my medicine the same. Should we talk about the loneliness too?" You could also write, "I've wondered whether this medicine makes people feel far away. What do you think?" It's fine to ask what to do if a friend tells you to stop before your next visit. Bring the paper with you, and keep taking your medicine while you wait.

One sentence to say out loud helps: "These are my questions, and I'm not changing anything until we decide together." For more on getting ready, read talk with your clinician. Neither page can give you a yes or a no, and neither one will describe how to stop a medicine or name a dose.

Other pages that may help

This page is education to use alongside your doctor's care and the people in your life. For a long, empty weekend afternoon, read Sunday. The page wanting a friend at seventy is about making one new friend later in life. If low mood feels bigger than missing people, the depression room has more. The medicine rule is the same on every one of them.

Everything on Arcana Mentis is about your own mind, so you won't find tips here for talking a doctor into an answer you've already picked. Tell your doctor the truth about the lonely week and make the decision together. If tonight already feels like a crisis, skip the questions and go straight to the next section.

If you need care

If you're in crisis in the United States, call or text 988 (https://988lifeline.org/) now, before you read any further. You don't need a good reason or the right words. If you're outside the United States, call your local emergency number or a local crisis line. A real person can stay on the line with you.

If you're not in crisis, keep every prescribed medicine as prescribed until you and your doctor decide on a change, and bring the questions you wrote. There's more in the loneliness room, short definitions in the glossary (including loneliness and adjunct to care), and short answers, including one about antidepressants, in the FAQ. Nothing on this page is for sale. This page is not yet medically reviewed.