After half a year on Sertraline (75mg), and a few months coming off, I feel comfortable sharing my experience with this medication.
Positives:
Visuals reduced maybe 30-40%
Anxiety reduced maybe 20-30%
Negatives:
Memory was worse
Motivation to do work & to accomplish daily tasks went down the drain
Emotions felt kind of dulled
Became more socially inhibited (meaning, when hanging out with friends, I was totally content in not talking, or engaging socially. I felt comfortable just sitting back and letting others control the flow of conversation. Didn't have much of a desire to talk or be social)
Since coming off (slowly tapered down from 75mg to 50mg, then 25mg for a few weeks, then finally 12.5mg before stopping altogether)
My visuals have come back with a vengeance. In fact, they seem twice as worse than before I started Sertraline. It's incredibly distracting & I'm having a tough time focusing on anything. This has really scared me, I'm hoping I'll come back to baseline eventually, but I'm also afraid the Sertraline has made long-term impacts to my brain structure or receptor function.
My memory also still feels really scattered...
Final thoughts:
Sertraline definitely reduced some of my HPPD symptoms while I was on it, but the side effects, in my experience, were not conducive to being a productive person. It seems I was trading one symptom for another. (But this might not be your experience)
And now that I'm off of Sertraline, I feel strange, my visual hallucinations are so strong, & I feel more out of it than usual...I have a feeling (although maybe I'm being a bit dramatic/overthinking it) but it's going to take me a long time to get back to my baseline after this.
Has anyone else experienced something similar?