I feel like Lexapro is giving me weird thoughts and hallucinations?
I don't know how to bring this up with my doctor, I feel like he will either think I'm crazy or that I'm faking it. I attempted suicide a few months ago, and ever since then I've been having weird residual symptoms, and I feel like Lexapro (10 mg) might have made things worse.
Some nights (but recently also during the day time) I've noticed intense fear and anxiety, the feeling that objects or 'things' are coming to get me, as well as visual distortions (like for example, in my head a car will turn into something that will hunt me down – OK, this is why I can't tell my doctor lol, it sounds ridiculous). About a week ago I've also noticed that I was smelling things that were obviously not there, but I can't really define the smell. Sometimes especially at night I've had a voice telling me stuff, but this is mostly gone and seems to be related to how suicidal I was at the time. Also, all of these are often coupled with general paranoia and a feeling that people are watching and tracking / following me all day.
I was never really anxious like this before my suicide attempt, just depressed. The very first night after my attempt this started, and it's been coming and going ever since. I'm not sure what to do. I don't think this is like schizophrenia because I'm mostly aware that these things aren't real. Are these known side effects of Lexapro? Should I switch to something else? :(
Posted Nov 1, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC