It's terrifying when the treatment meant to help you makes you feel worse, especially with suicidal thoughts. This page helps you understand what happened and how to safely move forward without guilt.
I have OCD and my doctor prescribed medication, but it made my panic attacks worse and I started feeling suicidal, so I stopped taking it. Now I'm trapped in a cycle of guilt, repeating prayers and giving charity multiple times a day, but I'm too scared to see my doctor again because the treatment felt dangerous. I don't know how to break the cycle when the medicine itself made things so much worse.
That is genuinely terrifying—you trusted the treatment, and instead of relief it made you feel worse and brought thoughts of ending your life. No wonder you stopped and no wonder you are afraid to go back. That is not weakness; that is a completely reasonable response to something that felt dangerous.
The most important thing to understand right now: the suicidal thoughts were almost certainly a side effect of the medication, not a sign that you are hopeless or beyond help. Some medicines can cause that reaction, especially in the first weeks or when the dose changes. It is a known problem, and a good doctor takes it seriously—they can switch you to a different medicine or adjust the dose very carefully. You did the right thing by stopping, but now you need a doctor who knows how to handle this.
The guilt and the repeating of prayers and charity are the OCD itself attacking what matters most to you—your faith and your sense of being a good person. That is what OCD does: it grabs the thing you hold dearest and turns it into a cage. You are not failing your religion; you are being bullied by an illness that feeds on guilt.
You broke a dangerous cycle once already by stopping a medication that was harming you. Now you can break the next one with help. The doctor is not your enemy; the wrong dose was. A different medicine or a lower starting dose can give you relief without making you feel suicidal. That is a real possibility, and it is worth trying one more time.
Zara is here to talk whenever the panic gets loud. You are not alone in this.
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