Escitalopram is the generic version of Lexapro, one of many medications that healthcare providers may prescribe for anxiety. Everyone’s experience is different, but I wanted to share what my first six months have been like.
There are moments in life when you realize you’re no longer the same person you were six months ago.
Not because life suddenly became easier.
But because you changed.
This month marks six months since I started taking escitalopram, the generic version of Lexapro, for anxiety. If I’m honest, I debated writing this post because mental health and especially medication can feel deeply personal. But I also know what it feels like to sit on the other side of the screen, searching for someone whose story sounds a little like mine.
If that’s you, I’m glad you’re here.
Before we dive in, I wanted to share something I created while reflecting on these past six months. One of the biggest surprises was realizing that healing didn’t happen in one dramatic moment. It happened quietly, in dozens of little ways I almost missed. Because of that, I created a free reflection guide called The Changes I Didn’t Think to Measure to help you notice the small signs of healing that are easy to overlook.
If you’re on anxiety medication, or even just considering it, you can download it here and come back to it throughout your journey.
🌸 Download The Changes I Didn’t Think to Measure
This isn’t medical advice. It’s simply my story.
It started with a panic attack.
I had never experienced a panic attack before last year.
When it happened, it scared me enough to finally make an appointment with a therapist. Looking back, I’m thankful I did because therapy became the first step in understanding what was happening in my mind.
For months, therapy was my focus. We unpacked my anxiety, my thought patterns, and the weight I had been carrying for years. During that time, my primary care physician also mentioned medication. I wasn’t ready. Therapy felt like the right place to start, and I wanted to see where that journey would take me.
Then I had another panic attack.
At my follow-up appointment, my doctor gently brought up medication again. This time, he sent me home with about a two-week prescription, not to pressure me into taking it, but to give me the opportunity to think about it.
So I did.
I took the prescription home. I talked through my fears with my therapist. I asked questions. I wanted to understand what medication would actually do and what it wouldn’t do.
One thing my doctor said has stayed with me ever since.
He told me I would still be me.
The medication wasn’t meant to change my personality. It was simply meant to quiet some of the background noise my brain had been carrying for so long.
My therapist echoed much of what we had already discussed together, and after those conversations, I felt ready.
Looking back, starting escitalopram wasn’t a moment of giving up.
It was a moment of giving myself permission to accept another tool alongside therapy, rather than expecting myself to carry everything through willpower alone.
My biggest fear wasn’t the medication.
My biggest fear was losing myself.
I’ve always been creative. My mind is constantly generating ideas, organizing systems, dreaming about the future, and finding better ways to do things.
I was afraid medication would make me feel numb.
I was afraid it would take away my creativity.
I was afraid I wouldn’t feel like me anymore.
None of those fears came true.
I’m beginning to understand that becoming calmer doesn’t require me to become a completely different person. I can still be driven, creative, and intentional without allowing anxiety to control the pace of my life. I wrote more about that realization in Maybe I Don’t Need to Become Type B.
I didn’t realize how much I was catastrophizing.
Before therapy, I didn’t have a word for what my brain was doing.
I thought I was simply being prepared.
In reality, I was catastrophizing.
One situation would quickly become ten different scenarios in my mind, and somehow I always landed on the worst possible outcome. Once I imagined that outcome, my brain treated it like it was the most likely thing that would happen.
It was exhausting.
I wasn’t looking for a magic pill. I wasn’t expecting medication to fix my marriage, make parenting easier, erase financial stress, or make Multiple Sclerosis disappear.
I simply wanted my brain to stop treating every challenge like it was the beginning of a catastrophe.
I thought taking medication meant I had failed.
If I’m being honest, one of the hardest parts wasn’t swallowing the first pill.
It was swallowing my pride.
For a moment, I wondered if I had failed myself.
Had I let things get this bad?
Shouldn’t I have been strong enough to handle it on my own?
Those thoughts didn’t come from anyone else.
They came from me.
I’ve always been stubborn when it comes to medication. I’m the person who waits to see if a headache disappears before reaching for Tylenol. If I thought I could push through something on my own, I wanted to.
Then life humbled me.
Within my oldest son’s first year of life, my health changed dramatically. I was diagnosed with diabetes. Then, after months of unexplained symptoms and searching for answers, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Looking back, I can see that years of chronic stress had affected both my physical and mental health. My relationship with food, my weight, my anxiety, and my overall well-being were all connected in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.
Those diagnoses forced me to stop believing that healing was simply about trying harder.
Instead, they taught me that healing often requires learning differently.
I began making lifestyle changes. I learned more about nutrition. I started moving my body more intentionally. I went to therapy. I accepted medications that my healthcare team and I believed would help.
Little by little, I realized something important.
Accepting help isn’t the same as giving up.
Sometimes it’s exactly what allows you to move forward.
What actually changed
The biggest surprise wasn’t that I suddenly became happier.
It was that my mind became quieter.
Problems didn’t disappear, but they stopped feeling like emergencies.
Instead of immediately spiraling into every possible outcome, I found myself staying with the situation that was actually in front of me. My brain wasn’t constantly trying to solve tomorrow’s problems before today had even finished.
The best way I can describe it is this:
The background static became quieter.
That mental space changed more than I ever expected.
Creativity came back.
One of the things I feared most was losing my creativity.
Instead, it flourished.
Once anxiety wasn’t taking up so much space in my mind, creativity finally had room to breathe.
Over the last six months, I’ve consistently written blog posts, learned Pinterest SEO, redesigned my website, brainstormed digital products, created systems in Notion, and started building Her Morning Commute in ways I had dreamed about for years.
The ideas didn’t disappear.
They finally had room to grow.
Little changes I didn’t expect
Some of the biggest changes weren’t dramatic enough for anyone else to notice.
But I noticed them.
I started looking forward to checking my Pinterest analytics instead of expecting disappointment.
I found myself thinking less about surviving life and more about building one that genuinely excites me.
Instead of having twenty ideas competing for my attention, I naturally began organizing them into systems and plans. I even caught myself outlining future products while standing in the shower because my thoughts finally felt connected instead of chaotic.
I also became more aware of my emotions instead of simply reacting to them.
Recently, I realized journaling wasn’t always what helped me release anger.
Movement was.
A workout accomplished something another journal page couldn’t.
None of these moments changed my life on their own.
Together, though, they painted a picture of someone becoming more present, more intentional, and more hopeful.
Want to notice your own quiet signs of healing?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the last six months is that healing rarely announces itself.
It doesn’t usually show up in one dramatic moment.
Instead, it appears quietly, in the thoughts that don’t spiral quite as far, the hobbies you slowly return to, the conversations that feel lighter, or the moments where you realize you’ve handled something differently than you would have six months ago.
The problem is…
Those changes are incredibly easy to overlook.
That’s why I created The Changes I Didn’t Think to Measure.
It’s the reflection guide I wish someone had handed me when I first started anxiety medication. Instead of focusing only on the big milestones, it helps you recognize the smaller shifts that often tell the real story of healing.
Inside you’ll reflect on things like:
- returning to hobbies that feel like you
- noticing when your thoughts become less catastrophic
- recognizing healthier relationships with yourself and others
- celebrating the quiet progress that’s easy to dismiss
Download your free copy below and come back to it every few weeks. You might be surprised by how much has changed, even when it doesn’t feel like it day to day.
I don’t see this as forever, I see it as this season.
From the beginning, I’ve hoped this medication wouldn’t necessarily be forever.
Not because I’m ashamed of taking it.
Not because I think needing it makes me weak.
But because my goal has never been to simply manage my anxiety.
My goal has been to become healthier.
I’m continuing therapy. I’m learning to recognize when I’m catastrophizing instead of assuming the worst. I’m exercising because I’ve discovered movement helps me process emotions in a way journaling sometimes can’t. I’m working toward a healthier weight, changing my eating habits, and taking better care of my body after my diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis diagnoses.
My hope is that these habits continue to strengthen me from the inside out.
If one day my healthcare team and I decide it’s appropriate to taper off escitalopram, I’ll welcome that conversation.
If that day doesn’t come, I’ll welcome that reality too.
Because I’ve stopped looking at medication as a life sentence.
I see it as one of many tools that’s helping me build a stronger foundation while I continue doing the deeper work of healing, growing, and becoming healthier.
Finding myself again
If you’ve been wondering whether you’re making progress, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to work through The Changes I Didn’t Think to Measure. Sometimes healing is easier to recognize in hindsight than it is while you’re living it.
Looking back over these six months, I don’t think medication changed who I am.
It helped me uncover the person who had been buried beneath years of anxiety, chronic stress, fear, and survival mode.
Healing didn’t happen because I took a pill. Healing happened because taking the pill gave me enough breathing room to actually do the work.
I’m still creative.
I’m still ambitious.
I’m still the woman who dreams up businesses in the shower, writes blog posts in the Notes app before bed, and wants to leave the world a little better than she found it.
The difference is…
I don’t feel like I’m fighting my own mind every step of the way anymore.
I’m not finished growing.
I’m not finished healing.
But for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m simply trying to survive my life.
I’m finding myself again.
And I think that’s leading me back to the healthiest version of me, not just physically, but at my core.