My Journey Through Medication-Induced Weight Gain

Coping with the difficult reality of weight gain from my antidepressants has been a struggle. After battling years of frustration, I’m now striving to regain balance through mindful lifestyle choices and a renewed commitment to both my mental and physical health.

My psychiatric medications do a lot more than stabilize my mood. They make me tired, blur my vision, and have made me gain a significant amount of weight. All of these things were entirely unexpected and even serve as frequent reminders that I suffer from depression that’s severe enough to require these medications.

I started taking Prozac, an SSRI antidepressant, many, many years ago when I was 14 years old. I was a freshman in high school — the time when my classmates judged me based on how much I weighed and what I looked like.

But I didn’t really have a choice in the matter because my depression impacted my life. I cried through English classes when my teacher gave me failing grades because it was so hard to do my homework. And after school, I sobbed in the locker room because I was too depressed to do toe touches in the dance room with the rest of the cheerleaders.

I knew that I couldn’t continue this way. And everyone in my life knew this, too. My pediatrician recommended that I see a psychiatrist. And the sooner, the better.

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Noticing my body change for the first time

When Dr. G scribbled out the name of the medication, I wasn’t thinking about the side effects. The only thing on my mind was that these little capsules would hopefully allow me to return to my life.

I’d made the Junior Varsity cheerleading squad, been invited to all the best pool parties, and planned on taking enough honors classes to enable me to apply to big-ticket colleges and universities one day.

After taking psych meds for a while, I noticed that my cheerleading skirt was tightening around my abdomen. It was getting harder to zip it up. 

Unfortunately, Prozac didn’t seem to resolve my depressive symptoms. This was just the very beginning of my journey with psychiatric medications.

Experimenting with different medications

In the middle of my freshman year of high school, we moved 2 hours away. I changed schools and started seeing a new psychiatrist. She was immediately concerned about my worsening depression, and we experimented with one medication after another.

During my appointments, I mentioned the sedation and weight gain I was experiencing with all these medications. I quickly learned that when your depression is so bad, and you’re hanging by a thread, psychiatrists don’t pay as much attention to these side effects.

Toward the end of my sophomore year, I spent some time in a child/adolescent psychiatric unit. The doctor prescribed a medication called Risperdal that was unlike anything I’d ever tried before.

During a few hours of the hospital day, we spent time doing the homework from our home schools. I felt so sedated that I placed my head on the desk in front of me and fell asleep right then and there. The teacher working with us immediately recognized the side effects that were coming from the psychiatric medication and allowed me to rest.

Throughout that summer, I noticed that the weight gain was only getting worse. “This could only be from the medications,” I thought to myself.

Coping with outside comments and low self-esteem

The worst part was that everyone else noticed it, too. My brother was telling me how fat I was, and my family members whispered to each other when they saw me. I knew that they were talking about the weight I was gaining. Throughout my childhood, I’d always been stick thin. I had always looked at “fat” people like they were somehow lazy.

Now, suddenly, in addition to dealing with this significant depression, I had to worry about side effects from the medications. This also underscored the fact that I had a mental health condition. Looking at my full face in the mirror was a daily reminder.

However, I had to keep choking down the pills every night before I turned in. I didn’t have the luxury of discontinuing these medications even though the side effects were so severe.

As I progressed through the rest of high school, my weight gain became even more of an issue. I was becoming furious at the fact that I’d been diagnosed with depression and was forced to keep taking more medications. My newest psychiatrist didn’t care that I had to fit into a prom dress after all.

When the professional prom pictures came back from the photographer, I almost didn’t recognize the person in the photo. I quickly tore up the pictures and tried not to cry.

I should’ve been more concerned with other things, like graduating from high school and flying across the country to begin college.

Finding a balance between my physical and mental health

Throughout college, I kept taking psychiatric medications. And the weight gain only increased. I felt like this side effect was also a barrier between me and my psychiatrist. I kept complaining about how heavy I was getting, and again, he seemed to be less and less concerned about this.

So many years later, I have a different psychiatrist who’s mostly concerned with my physical and mental health.

During my monthly appointments, Dr. S lectures me on how essential exercise is to my brain health. She knows that weight gain is inevitable and that I’ll need to find ways to work around it.

The takeaway

Instead of getting frustrated about the medication-induced weight gain like I did during high school and college, I’m trying to find ways to live a healthier lifestyle.

Sometimes, this just looks like running up and down the stairs at my apartment or walking my dog around the block. Whatever the case, I know that I’ve come a long way.

And I’m so ready to keep on going!