I’ve been fortunate to have never had to deal with psychological issues personally but I’ve had friends that have. I’m glad you seem to be doing well now. Interestingly, I am currently taking Duloxetine for back pain. The original dosage was too strong for me, it knocked me out for hours when I took it. Now I’ve cut the dosage in half and only take it at bedtime when being knocked out is a plus. No nightmares, though, fortunately.

I very rarely have nightmares in the classic sense. For just over two decades, I owned my own business and it was a very stressful job. I’ve moved on now, but during the final few years before I sold it, I would have what I called work-dreams. Basically, it was like a really bad day at work. The absolute worst possible, yet realistic, work disasters I could imagine would occur in these dreams and I would wake up as stressed as if they had actually happened. Luckily, I was eventually able to self medicate with tiny doses of cannabis gummies.

By the way, psychiatrists are not the only ones who fail to mention side effects. I have a number of medical issues I’m being treated for with a variety of drugs. I’ve taken to looking up all of them when they’re prescribed so I know what to watch out for. Most of my physicians don’t mention possible side effects unless they are very common ones. I suspect that they worry that people will be more likely to suffer the side effects if they know about them due to a version of the placebo effect so they just don’t bring it up unless asked. I always ask now.