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Hi! I (28f) quit venlafaxine 6 months ago and I’m still suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I will give some context. Around 2018 I took escitalopram for a year for depression. It had no effect on me (with the exception of sexual dysfunction). I quit cold turkey and had no WD. In September 2022 I started venlafaxine for anxiety. I steadily increased the dose up to 225mg in steps of 37,5 each time experiencing various symptoms that would subside after a couple of weeks at which point I would increase the dose again. This continued until January when I reached 225mg, stayed on that for 6 weeks and decided to start coming off it since it wasn’t helping me. I reduced the dose in steps of 37,5mg until I was at 75mg in May. I had withdrawal symptoms after every step with nausea and motion sickness. The step down to 75mg was scary enough that I decided to stay at that dose for a while. The WD from that last step did get better after a couple of weeks and I returned back to normal. In June I broke up with my partner and was experiencing some really intense emotional pain. The next day the same symptoms returned. For the next few months the symptoms would come and go without any pattern that I could tell. On the good days I felt completely normal, on the bad days the symptoms varied in severity. My main symptoms were dizziness, motion sickness, headaches, a strange sensation in my hands, drowsiness, weakness, no concentration, brain fog, difficulty breathing, sensitivity to light and sound, chills, anxiety, confusion. The symptoms were always worse around midday/afternoon. In September I tried taking 20mg of Fluoxetine for 10 days as suggested by my psychiatrist. I didn’t see any difference. I thought I might as well get on with it and reduced my venlafaxine down to 37,5mg. The next 2 weeks were really bad. I had the symptoms I mentioned above at a pretty extreme intensity and lasted the whole day. I could barely eat and I couldn’t get out of bed and was not really present mentally. I was sleeping more than usual (10 hours). After the 2 weeks the situation was starting to improve, so I quit completely (this was in October). I was in bed for the next 3 weeks and then there was a gradual improvement for a few more weeks. I thought that would be the end of it. I felt pretty much normal for like 2 months. I did however have very stressful things happening in December and January. At some point in January my symptoms came back in full and I’m still dealing with them. There was an exception in March when I had a cold and had no symptoms for 2 weeks. One interesting pattern that I’ve noticed consistently, is that if I don’t get enough sleep (not more than 6 hours), I have no symptoms. I feel very sleep deprived but otherwise normal. So this is my experience with venlafaxine. I’ve never taken any other psychiatric meds other that what I mentioned here. I’ve suffered with extremely low energy and insulin resistance all of my adult life. I struggled with depression and anxiety since I was a child.

Hello everyone, this is my first post. I want to start by saying that I am very grateful that this site exists, it has helped me and many others a lot to understand more about our subjective experiences with these drugs. I am 27 years old and I think I need help sorting out my sertraline experiences. It all started when I was 19 years old, I had a very bad, intense and emotionally overwhelming quarter life crisis. After a year and a half of being isolated at home, I was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric ward when I was 20 years old. My treatment with Sertraline began there (see my signature), without informed consent, as usually happens. When I started taking Sertraline I was already very confused and scared, after that period of isolation, so it became even more difficult for me to understand what happened to me. I more or less rebuilt my life for the next few years. I remember that in 2018 I told my psychiatrist when I could stop taking the pills and she told me that I had to take them for the rest of my life (I have had a psychiatric diagnosis of OCD since my involuntary admission). I told her that I wanted to stop because of the side effects or something, she told me to try tappering and give it a try, to see how I was doing without the pills. In the end, after a while, I went back to taking the pills in the same amount as before, 50 mg. Now it's summer 2019, I don't remember much or clearly about that time of my life and those years. I think at some point I started tappering in September or so, but I remember that the last months of 2019, from October to December, I stopped and went back on the pills several times by myself, because I stopped going to my psychiatrist (probably because I didn't trust her and/or felt betrayed after being told I had to take sertraline for the rest of my life, no one told me when I took the pills in February 2017). It was chaotic. I decided not to take them anymore, and I became more emotionally unstable, I think I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms, but I didn't know then, my psychiatrist just told me very briefly about the "rebound effect". April 2020, it's the COVID-19 lockdown, my anxiety is very high and I don't like how I feel, I feel unstable, so I go back to 50mg again. I was already in bad enough shape, mentally and emotionally. I also lived with my parents and they stressed me a lot. I stayed on that dose until the last days of August 2020, when I stopped taking them cold turkey after 4-5 months of taking the pills. Then in September my withdrawal kicked in. But it kicked harder in the following months and June/summer 2021. This time, at the end of 2020, it also coincided with the end and breakup of a very toxic relationship that I had, which ended very badly for me. I lost control of my emotions and got stuck in a fight and flight stress/trauma response. I think in the last few months of 2021 and the first half of 2022 I also experienced very bad withdrawal waves. Back then, withdrawal was not something that was on my mind, I didn't think about it. In Jan or Feb 2021 I also took Sertraline again, I can't remember if 25mg or 50mg, for a one or two weeks, maybe three but I don't think I reached week three. I also think in 2019 that dose of sertraline didn't work anymore because of how I felt, I was probably experiencing withdrawal before I even quit Cold Turkey and/or tapped. For the next 3 years I have been trying to figure out what happened to me and learning about sertraline effects, side and adverse effects and withdrawal. I'm still recovering from all this chaos, it was too much. For the last year I have been trying to stabilize myself, my mind, and calm my body. My mind is still confused and shocked by the experiences I had, especially since September 2020, I have a hard time remembering many things, emotions and feelings that I had. I would like to hear other people's opinions and advice. Thank you for reading.

I began taking 2.5 mg of Celexa and .5 mg Xanax as needed for anxiety after my youngest son was born in late 2003. Over the years I increased my Celexa dose to 10 mg. About 4 years ago I started weaning the xanax very slowly. It took 4 rather uneventful years to completely stop. I took my last dose of xanax June 4th 2022 with no issues. In August 2022 I started weaning Celexa. I completely stopped August 19th. I was fine with minor withdrawl symptoms like brain zaps and a bit of dizziness. Some minor mood changes , etc....By the end of September I was having a couple panic attacks (I didn't know it was withdrawl). On September 28th I reinstated Celexa at 5 mgs. This is when the true horror began. I had extreme anxiety, full body shakes, intrusive thoughts(had no idea what these were prior), could not sit still, had to pace constantly, facial twitching, it felt like by body was burning from the inside and it would come in awful waves, my heart would pound very hard and my chest muscles would contract. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. I stayed on 5 mgs for over 4 weeks because people on online sites said to stick it out and it would go away. It didn't. It got worse so I stopped. I haven't had panic attacks since I've stopped. My only real symptoms now are still muscle shaking and headaches. I'm just so terrified that at around a month off Celexa these symptoms will begin again. Any help is appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I am a 62 year old man with Ankylosing Spondylitis that was diagnosed 40 years ago. This systemic autoimmune disease made life quite difficult. And it began with going from being a decently talented Track & Field athlete, to not being able to walk very well. Along with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), I had a spondylolisthesis, which led to temporary paralysis a couple times. While my doctors told me I needed a double fusion back operation, I was terrified of such a surgery, and put it off until the second time I lost the feel of my legs. I then went in for surgery the very next week! After the surgery I thought I would just take off and be back to sports. But I struggled another few years until they found I had AS. Dealing with sciatica for years prior to the surgery, and after the surgery, I had to use anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxants to get through the really difficult times. Aside from the anti-inflammatories though, I never really took any drugs for long. I had to take steroids for inflammation many times, but they were short lived dosages. But around 2002, a doctor prescribed amitriptyline for nerve pain, and strange, severe muscle cramps I would get during sleep. I ended up taking that drug on an off from that point up until three months ago, when I did a very short three week taper from 50 to 25 to 12.5 to stopping. And for the first time I had many side effects that I don't recall experiencing any time in the past when I stopped the drug for awhile. Even three years ago when I stopped it, it wasn't bad at all, and I never even concluded anxiety could be from amitriptyline. I truly thought it was the safest drug ever! And if I am honest, I had forgotten it was an antidepressant drug being used off-label for so many things. Since Ankylosing Spondylitis is systemic with inflammation, I ended up with blocked arteries, kidney issues, and hypothyroidism. I had to take beta blockers the past 6 years, along with some other heart medications, and a thyroid medication. I went on a strict whole food plant based diet 8 months ago, and have since stopped all medications except the thyroid medication. I stopped the beta blocker Atenolol 4 months ago (and my blood pressure and heart rate has been amazing), and quit the Amitriptyline completely almost 3 months ago. I went from feeling very clear minded, serene, and proud of my strict diet accomplishments, to feeling odd heart fluttering (maybe palpitations), anxiety, panic attacks, hypersensitivity in these cuts on my hands that get during the dry, cold winters here, and waking insomnia (I would fall asleep but wake up restless, worried, etc.). This all started a few days after I stopped taking the amitriptyline completely nearly 3 months ago. I didn't expect the amitriptyline to cause this. But I noticed when I began taking metoprolol 6 years ago, that I angered quickly, became impatient, and things began to feel harder and harder to do. With AS, I am fused in much of my spine making simple movements difficult; which of course makes life filled with daily pain already. But I thought the beta blocker metoprolol was the reason for it all, and tried changing over to other drugs (I only had two drug class options due to my blocked arteries). Only when I was able to change from a lipid beta blocker to the water based atenolol did it improve a bit. But it only improved somewhat. I learned that amitriptyline was so good at getting past the blood brain barrier that it was often used with other drugs designed to heal brain issues (because most drugs were not able to get past the blood brain barrier). I then began to think that the amitriptyline was escorting all the beta blockers I had been taking and perhaps acting as a potentiator, augmenting the different side effects I had (hallucinations, nightmares, numb hands and fingers, eye issues). It wasn't till I got off the beta blockers completely that it seemed amitriptyline may have been behind all the difficulties over the last 6 years. Sorry for the lengthy story. I just wanted to share that while life with AS is difficult, I was never into any type of drugs. I had problems with drinking beer at times of my life, but always managed to stop that. And I only had alcohol once during the past several months during a horrible panic attack! I don't wish to take anything to get through this, unless someone thinks that starting amitriptyline again to taper slowly is a plausible course of action?? I would rather not though. I just wanted to know what others taking amitriptyline thought about all of this. I can already understand that there is no definitive time frame for discontinuation syndrome, or protracted withdrawal. I can only recall stopping the 50mg amtriptyline back in 2020 after having Covid (stopped for about 4 months without much of an issue). I did take 100mg a couple times after a new blood pressure medications terrified me after a single dose I went through several trying to reduce the horrid side effects, and used amitriptyline just to calm myself and get through that night. Other than that, it was always 50mg. Thanks again for taking the time! WestOn4th

G'day SA community My name is Anthony and I have been lurking on this site for a few weeks and thought it time that I start my contribution. And hopefully get some well needed support without being too selfish. I would firstly like to preface my intro by thanking all the members, staff, moderators and founders of this site. It is helping me get through a dark time in my life that I have never ever experienced before. And it has been and still is scary. My story is long (as is most sufferers) so I will do my utmost to be as concise yet brief as possible without losing the important information. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Aeroman in particular as His success story is what I have needed and his time and investment in answering all the questions from the members relating to his journey has been inspiring to say the least. I won't go into the usual diatribe about how I suffered as a child in a dysfunctional home from physical, emotional and mental abuse of which was the case but my story is more about the incompetent people in white coats we see as all knowing, professional, caring and are in their chosen field because they like helping people and not the money! It all started when I was 21 years old. I had recently finished my apprenticeship with a National Manufacturer as a HVAC & R Technician (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration) and was around two years into starting my own business. Things were going very well when all of a sudden and out of nowhere my heart started racing and I was feeling faint. It was fortunate and by coincidence that I was working next door to a Medical Centre. I literally crawled into the Medical Centre and was dragged by a lovely receptionist wo a consultation room. She got me glass of water and informed a doctor. Unfortunately by the time the doctor arrived my heart had suddenly reverted back to normal and I was feeling fine. Tired but, well. He did all the usual work up of tests, including a 24hr Holter monitor to check my heart but basically put it down to either dehydration (as it was the middle of summer here in Australia) or anxiety/stress. Anyway, I was given the all clear. A couple of years later, with out any warning, the same thing happened again. And then again. and then again and again and again. There would be sporadic episodes of this that would last from anywhere from 3 minutes to as long as three hours. It would also involve many Emergency Department visits, ambulance call outs, blood tests, tests for this or that, tests for something else more visits with a GP and yet nothing could be found other than that old chestnut. ANXIETY......STRESS......DEPRESSION. Duh...of course I'm stressed out, I am as anxious as all get up because I feel like my heart is either about to stop or beat so fast its going flop out of my chest.......and nobody can find what the...is wrong with me. So fast forward a couple more years and with still no answers I decided to start seeing psychologists, Chinese medicine Practioners, hypnotists, more GP's, more Psychologists, even a Psychiatrist who suggested the bad word.....Anti Depressants.........of which I have never been one to even take a paracetamol for a headache let alone nasty stuff like that. Well, they all promised they could resolve my anxiety and stress related heart problems but none of them ever did. I was eventually convinced by a psychologist (and my wife) to try Zoloft because I was one of those people that was either born with a chemical imbalance or I acquired one due to my childhood traumas. Well lets just say that those three days were what I thought at that time to be pure hell on earth. Stopped CT and straight in the bin with the free sample. With all the money I spent over the years I could have bought my own little Island retreat somewhere in the Pacific Islands. Fast Forward a few more years and continually dealing with my heart palpitations I got married, had two daughters, multiple businesses and generally a reasonably good time even though that this heart issue was hanging over my head constantly my Quality of Life was very restricted. Fast forward a few more years and Feeling pretty bad about this and being at that age where I wanted more out of life I hunted down a new GP who was the mother of my daughters best friend at school, I had known her a few years personally and my wife thought she would be able to help with this trouble that I was enduring. Well now is where trouble really starts but I did know that till recently. Into the first consultation and boom, out comes the Mental assessment questionnaire and what do you know, I have anxiety and stress bordering on depression. WTF? Being tired of all this I caved in, desperate for my heart to be normal I took the free sample of Lexapro with my tail between my legs, went home and told my wife who was ecstatic (in her defence she only wanted the best for me and a happy life with her husband and the big house and cars and white picket fence and she believed all the doctors saying I was mental blah blah blah). Sucked back my first tablet and went back to my life. Yeah, I thought my life was coming back and that these medicines really do work, why didn't I persist last time because I don't even think about my heart anymore.......A year down the track I went back to my doctor and told her that it feels like it wasn't working like it was 6 months ago, boom, up my dosed from 10mg to 20mg. Well well well, wouldn't you know it. 11pm on a Tuesday night I woke up, my heart was going crazy, I was ill, vomiting, fainting and feeling like I was going to die. Told myself to suck it up, it was all mental, I was mental, I have something seriously mentally wrong with me, the doctors and everyone said so.........three hours later I called for an ambulance, woke up my wife and kids and told them what was happening, my kids were freaking out......The ambulance arrived and as the paramedics came into my bedroom a thud and my heart slowed down to normal, I felt okay, all the stress and anxiety and ill feeling gone just like that. A two day stay in hospital with all the usual tests again and the doctor comes to see me, "Yep, unable to find anything, must be stress or anxiety". Great I thought. So much for Lexapro, time to get off this rubbish because I don't feel anything anymore, no fun, no anger, no happiness, nada......Two weeks later I tapered as per doctors advice and against her wishes I was off the AD's for good. Three months later I was back in her office begging for some relief, I was in bad shape, out of work and my wife again seriously wanted to go back on the meds or there would be repercussions maritally speaking. This time the Doctor said I now had Major Depression Disorder, those words alone stressed me out. Anyway, time to start the heavy hitting SNRI now, I was in bad shape she said..........Well two days later I ended up having another heart episode that was the worst I had ever had, I really thought that I was going to die, I screamed at my wife to call the ambulance, my kids started crying immediately, the Ambulance sent an Urgent care Hi-Priority paramedic who was in my bedroom hooking my with ECG leads all over my body, cannulas in both arms and then said quite casually..."It okay mate, no worries, your not dying....you got SVT. Just relax and Ill fix it for you in a minute I just have to get this ECG trace to show the docs and will get it done" What? SVT? Did I eat something bad, what is SVT. Isn't it anxiety? I asked the Paramedic. 'Nah" he says. Got nothing to do with anxiety. you may have anxiety from having this but having this is definitely not from anxiety" Anyway, a few valslva manoeuvres and a couple of jokes when the transport ambo turns up later I'm feeling quite calm. Off to the hospital for further tests and the Paramedics hang around for a while and with the Doctor explain to me what SVT is. Also known as PSVT (Paroxysmal Supra Ventricular Tachycardia). 24 years of my life chasing this, never not once did any medical or other professional suggest I go see a cardiologist but they were all too willing to take my money...............For those of you who don't know what PSVT is or don't want to use google, I had AVNRT (Atrio ventricular nodal re-entrant tachycardia) type of heart arrhythmia, there are several, of which I had an additional pathway next to my AV node causing my heart electrical conduction system to short circuit causing my heart to beat at extremely high rates which was captured on the ECG at 230bpm. Diagnosis meant that it was not life threatening, just very unpredictable and uncomfortable...No Joke! After my hospital stay I was referred to a cardiologist for follow but decided I should see my GP so I can stop the Prisitq because I have found out, after 24 years, that I am not mental, or at least the reason why I am a bit skiddish is because the actual heart problem. Again, my wife and GP convince me to stay on the Pristiq to just help get over the next couple of months until I sort out this heart arrhythmia and me, after all these years being brainwashed what did I do....I agreed, good idea, just to get me over the next hurdle because now I have to go and have a heart operation I need to be in the right mindset..............how stoopid am I? I am now back at home waiting to see the specialist cardiologist and everyday my mood is getting worse and worse. I am constantly crying, panicking, thinking I am going to die and I haven't even seen the cardiologist yet. This snowballs to the point that during my Consultation with the Cardio I was in a very bad emotional state my wife had to talk for me. When the Cardiologist found out I was on Prisitq he asked me why I was on this junk, I should get off it as quickly as possible, and medications like these are only for people who are in dire need of help and in Hospital. The Heart operation, Electrophysiology Study and Cather Abalation will resolve the heart issues and I won't have to worry about heart arrhythmias ever again. I informed him that my GP told me I needed to stay on them, well after that there was some correspondence back and forth from my Cardioligist and GP about this and finally my Cardiologist gave up. Operation day arrives and I go to the hospital, supposed to be a day procedure, should be home that night.......Two procedures and two weeks later I am sent home with some complications that the Electrophysiologist had some trouble sorting out. I wouldn't want to go into detail but I was an emotional wreck, my kids were destroyed emotionally as well I am happy to delve further into the complications during and after the procedure if anyone wants to know but, .Lets just say that I had almost, almost was going to have a pacemaker installed but thankfully it was found out that I had some complications from some "Medications" Namely a SNRI Pristiq. Basically I am still not right after three months and I am diagnosed with a condition called Inappropriate sinus tachycardia that needs to be controlled with some heart medications. Hopefully this will resolve with time. Nonetheless, I was totally traumatised by that event and I am struggling with it mentally still. So out of hospital I meet with my GP as I had lots of Chest pain, and irregular heartbeats etc etc and to finally get off the Prisitq. But no. now that I am in pretty much an uncontrollable state she suggests and refers me to a Psychiatrist to re-evaluate and possibly change medications and wants me to look at going to a Mental Hospital and to help get through the next few days while I am waiting for the Psych Doc appointment that I should start on Valium and Sleeping tabs to get me through. Wait, what. Now I'm treating this med with another med. Anyway, I'm so desperate ill do whatever......... Finally see the Psych doctor and she DSM's me as Panic Disorder only, stops the Pristiq immediately, but after three days break I need to start Lexapro again at 10mgs and then three days after that start 20mgs. Oh by the way, its because you have a chemical imbalance disease in your brain, you will need these the rest of your life, its like insulin for diabetics, most people are on these now, its what you need to live and get by........................................These nasty people play on your vulnerability!. Well I stopped the pristiq on a Wednesday. Thursday morning I woke up like a new person. No Crying, energy back, no dizziness, my heart was beating regularly and slowly and I felt brilliant. I told my wife that I didn't want to go on the Lexapro again but after some heated discussion, what she and the kids had been through recently and the potential issues going forward I handed my genitals back to her to put in her purse for safe keeping..........Start sucking those poison pills down again as directed by all those who had never been on this rubbish, two more weeks in bed feeling like death warmed up, headache, nausea, sore mouth, teeth sore everything, could not talk could not eat, that's when I woke up one morning and trashed the lot of pills in the bin. That was the day I Cold Turkey again Wrong move I know but boy, was I sick. The suicide ideation, the gory vivid dreams, the grim reaper and death is all thought about for those two weeks mixed in with insomnia. Well, I haven't recovered from these two weeks of Lexapro, they have changed something in me and I didn't get the relief I got from when I stopped Pristiq. This time Lexapro, only for two weeks has done something to me and I feel these withdrawal symptoms are going to take something special from me to get through...................These drug pushers need punishment for their actions. All these years of feeling intimidated by these charlatans and all along I had an issue that should have been resolved with a day procedure. Yes it was heart surgery nonetheless but still, my family and I are in a world of hurt now that was unnecessary. Thank You for letting me to get this out, I needed it. I am struggling with the WD side effects and I am concerned for the future and pain that is coming from this but I will no longer be controlled by these poison pills..........................

Hello, my name is Jami. I am new to this forum and need some support and advice on a taper. I haven't started the Prozac taper yet but i have been injured by the medical field for the past four years. I have come off five diff phyc med drugs given to me for one wd for the next. It has been a brutal couple of years. I was given the wrong advice and Poly drugged because no dr or phyc dr. understood what i was going through. I searched for help and came across a benzo forum and found out what i was going through was benzo wds. and then i was told to come off lexipro . I was on that for 16 years, and it wasn't even being given to me by a phyc dr. I didn't ever struggle with depression or anything. I had an acute situation 16 years ago and just stayed on the Lexapro with no one tell me it is doing more harm than anything? i tapered 20 mlg for 8 months and when i got down from 5mlg to 2.5 something unimaginable happened. I had severe pacing akathisia and verbal aka. I paced for 5 months. I went to ers hospitals, phyc hospitals everywhere, and they all said i had anxiety! I had flu symptoms, chills, burning skin, insomnia, shakes, pgad, muscle pains, joints, agoraphobia, sweats, paranoid, angry etc. and it wouldn't stop? I had full on ssri discontinuation syndrome. No one was able to help me. I was told by a phyc dr that that cannot happen when i did my own research and it can and did. I was then put on Zyprexa with Prozac. 20 mlg Prozac, and 5 mlg of Zyprexa. I decided i didn't want to stay on the Zyprexa so i lowered it right away to 2.5 and then began to taper it by liquid for 14 months. I also was put back on a benzo that i had to taper another benzo liquid for 12 months. I was also having wds from baclofen was given to me again with no clue that was so addictive, and I even was put on suboxone for pain that I had to come off and went through severe wds from. It's been an absolute terrifying nightmare. for me and my family and loss of job and life. I am now 5 weeks off Zyprexa and having horrific wds. and am just taking the Prozac 20 mlg and I feel like when i now take the Prozac my now sensitive brain cant even handle that? I want to come off it but i am scared that i will have aka again like last time. I don't know if the Prozac is an entirely diff drug then the Lexapro now being out of my system for almost 3 years. Can i taper while i am in Zyprexa wd??? and still 6 months now off this valume? I also can't find much literature on Zyprexa wds ? I have all the aches pains anxiety tremors insomnia joints ache teeth hurt eyes blurry. its getting a little better but still very much there. I have spent over 100,000 on tests and treatments being told i have Lyme again and this and that. had major Lyme treatments. nothing worked. Because it's been one drug wd after the next and there is no information out there? These drs don't have a clue??? Its not my Lyme its classic brain injury. I am wondering if anyone has any advice or help for me to get through the rest of this nightmare. Thank you. I cannot even type the major harm and trauma that has been done to me with this, its hard to fathom this can happen to people.

hi,all been on &off antidepressants for 20 yrs but never felt this crummy.since stopping Paroxetine have had flu-like symptoms ,then fatigue loss of appetite,taste changes,eye problems(excessive blinking actually started while on it,that's why I quit).depression,anxiety,just miserable,wondering if I should reinstate or just try & hang in there.I was on it about 6 mos.stopped May 4 after about 7 wk taper.thanks for any suggestions

Hi all, I'm at a complete loss regarding my situation so I'll start from the beginning. During the summer of 2016 around july I began taking Sertraline 20mg for what I would now describe as mild anxiety, when struggling with initial sides of increased anxiety and sudden insomnia my doctor prescribed me flupentixol which I then took with the sertraline for around 3 months and then went cold turkey on due to severe drowsiness. I continued the sertraline for around 9 months before going cold turkey. I'm so confused regarding my situation because in order to cope with the insomnia I also smoked weed every night whilst taking it to help me sleep which seemed to work wonders. Even after dropping the sertraline I continued smoking weed in order to help me sleep. I had actually never smoked weed prior to this insomnia (I was 26 BTW) and it was a friend's suggestion. Anyway I attempted to quit smoking several times last year after dropping the ssri but noticed an extreme feeling of anxiety at all times whenever I did and and inability to sleep until early hours of the morning. This pattern went on until early this year where I smoked once again before bed internally praying that I would be able to stop somehow. That night and for the next month I suffered the most extreme anxiety attacks I never thought possible, which definitly helped me to cut the weed permanantly. The strange thing is, ever since then I have experienced various symptoms associated with withdrawal which are, Extreme rage/anxiety/depression constantly alternating. Headaches sometimes unbearable migraines. Horrendous restlessness which after reading some accounts on this site I think is akathisia. Burning and aching throughout my body. Extreme hatred towards family and friends which comes and goes. Blurred vison Awful digestive problems (burping nonstop everyday, diarrhea and constipation and bleeding. Bloating Brain fog feels as though someone has hold of my brain smothering it. Vibrating in my ears. Sometimes I spend the entire day crying uncontrollably with anguish twisting my hands and feet with worry and anxiety. Muscles twitching all day and almost zero appetite. I guess my question is, Can withdrawal sometimes take a year to fully manifest? because the weed aswell as cbd oil seemed to keep the anxiety and insomnia at bay then suddenly almost a year after dropping the sertraline I developed all these mental and physical symptoms. Or is there something else wrong with me because I've had cameras in me, been to three different doctors and various homeopaths and they say everything seems fine when it clearly isn't. I've lost my job my friends three stones and it feels as if I've lost control over my entire body and mind. Someone please help lol. I have many other symptoms to an extreme degree but I've actually lost track of everything I'm going through. Still sane though I think.(hope)

Hi--I'm so glad this site exists. I took my last dose of Prozac on December 15, 2018. 3 days later, what I call the Horror, began. I had been on ssri's for over 20 years during which time I had become constantly sick. It never occurred to any doctor that my illnesses were medication related. Eventually I began to link studies of the ssri's to my problems. I tapered over a 6 month span, and now realize with the discovery of SA that it was probably too quick. I'm frightened because I still don't sleep well, suffer from akinesia, bone-crunching depression, suicidal ideation, especially in the night and mornings, tinnitus, extreme weight loss, blurred vision, and obsessive ruminations. This mental state is a million times worse than anything I experienced before starting on Zoloft. At that time, my husband had been diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, and during the first 2 years Zoloft did seem to help me cope. After that, it never worked the same, though the dose was consistently increased. Eventually my doctor had read that Zoloft was associated with an increased risk of stroke in those over 60, and he switched me to Prozac. Over these years I lost my hair, had an oophorectomy for cysts on my ovaries, had appendix removed, two heart attacks, and was put on Enalapril for HBP, Metformin for diabetes. I always had digestive problems during this time--including hiccups! And terrible sweating-- Three days after my last dose of Prozac, I was admitted to ER with BP of 250/150ish. Administered clonidine. Back to ER again about a week later with same high BP which had never gone down. My urine was pink. My body and mind could barely function. I was given a diagnosis of Serotonin Syndrome by the ER toxicologist. Since then I have tapered off the Ace inhibitor in 2019, and Metformin, the last dose being in March 2020. About 8 months in, it seemed I might be improving somewhat, but the final withdrawal from Metformin has set me back again. A couple of months ago, the mental nightmare had become so unrelenting I considered reinstating, but haven't. I still can't watch movies, read novels, or enjoy music the way I did. But the good news is that my blood pressure is now normal. This month I've slowly returned to my job part time after nearly a year away. Thank you for all that you all contribute here. I hope I can offer support as well. Your journeys mean a ton to me--life rafts, in fact. Zoloft: 1995 - 2015 Prozac: 2015 - 2018 (tapered from July to December) Gabapentin: 2016 to 2019 Enalapril: 2010 - 2019 Lipitor: 2017 -2017 Metformin: 2000 - 2020 Liothyronine: 2007 - 2019 Levothyroxine: 2000 - Happy to be here, Arbor

I am newbie here. I have a long history with other psychotropic drugs and several DSM diagnoses over the course of my life and I am now well over 40 years of age. I won’t go into the totality of it as it would take too long and the moderators have enough to do. I just want some advice on getting off Remerone (Mirtazpine) and dealing with what I think may be ongoing withdrawal from Cymbalta which I stopped taking 2 and half years ago. My story in as brief as I can make it (not great at editing) I started to suffer with chronic back pain in 2007 when I was 36 years of age which resulted in severe insomnia and work absences and was not resolved by manual treatments or exercises. It was eventually diagnosed as fibromyalgia and I started to take 50mg Trimipramine, brand name Surmontil for sleep in 2007. By 2014 it was no longer working for the pain. I had met people on a pain management course for arthritis who were taking Cymbalta. I saw the rheumatologist about it. She said Cymbalta was good for nerve pain so I decided to give it a go as I was desperate for the pain to stop. On the first night I stopped the Surmontil I got no sleep and began in the next three days to experience severe anxiety, restlessness and insomnia. I took my first Cymbalta pill (30mg) four days after stopping the Surmontil. The back pain went away within 24 hours of taking it. I was ecstatic. However the anxiety and insomnia that started when I stopped the Surmontil got worse. For the first time in my life I got akathisia and panic attacks. I could not sit still or concentrate – I couldn’t even watch TV and I’m a big TV watcher. I walked about 12 miles a day and could not eat. I was prescribed sleeping pills but still got no sleep. I spent the night pacing around the house and lost over a stone in weight (I’m relatively slim for my age so a stone is a lot for me). After six weeks of this was I was near breaking point and saw a psychiatrist. A friend of mine had been taking Remerone (Mirtazapine) and found it wonderful for sleep. I was desperate for sleep so I asked the psychiatrist if she could prescribe me some and she gave me 30mg of it and some Rivotril and Seroquel to take as needed. To be honest I think if I hadn’t gotten the Remerone I might have gone psychotic from the lack of sleep. I got my first night’s sleep in six weeks and stabilised within a month. After two weeks I reduced the Remerone to 15mg. For the next four years I was ‘stable’ on 30mg Cymbalta and 7.5mg Remeron except for regular appalling migraines which I put down to approaching menopause. After approx. eight months the pain killing properties of the Cymbalta pooped out and I started to get pain again but it was manageable. In 2018 my blood results showed dangerously high cholesterol and liver enzyme readings. I rarely drank – maybe a glass once every six weeks. My psychiatrist said it was the Cymbalta and said I could have a drug holiday as she called it. She told me that I could stop the Cymbalta immediately as 30mg was a low dose but by this point I had finally realised from stopping the Surmontil that this would not be a good idea. I looked up the instructions on tapering on this site and some other sites and purchased the book ‘The Antidepressant Solution’ by Dr Joseph Glenmullen on withdrawal from antidepressants. I bought a milligram scale and started a journal documenting my titrations by removing a number of beads and decreasing by 10% of that reduction every two weeks. I documented my withdrawal symptoms in a journal. I started the titration on the 2nd of June 2018 and finished on the 20th February 2019. Even with extremely slow titration I began to experience insomnia, anxiety and restlessness and my mood began to drop in July 2018. I took herbal, vitamin and omega three supplements throughout but to be honest I don’t think they helped greatly. I thought once I was off the drug the side effects would dissipate completely but two weeks after my last taper they got much worse. I had constant debilitating anxiety, insomnia and began to experience regular suicidal ideation. I was unable to concentrate. I had also tapered my dose of Remeron down to 3.75mg in tandem. I had developed eczema on my hands and feet four months before I started the taper from Cymbalta and this continued unabated. The only thing that brought down the anxiety was HIIT workouts but the hip issues I had been dealing with for the previous 4 years acted up again I had to stop the classes. I started bioidentical HRT in September 2019 and though the progesterone did help with sleep a little bit it did not resolve the anxiety and suicidality. The following year 2019 I again sought psychiatric ‘help’ as I was at the end of my tether with suicidal thoughts and severe anxiety. I was told I was bipolar. I got a prescription for Lamotrigine 50mg in January 2020. I got assessed for Autism spectrum disorder as a therapist I had been attending had kept banging on about my being on the spectrum for several years. Two weeks before the lockdown occasioned by the pandemic in 2020, I got a diagnosis of ASD and was told the other diagnoses I had been given over the course of my life of borderline and bipolar disorder were probably incorrect. The local mental health clinic had shut down due to the lockdown. My anxiety was very bad and I had no other meds to ‘help’ so I started taking the Lamotrigine in June 2021 and within nine days developed a rash. I sent photos to my GP who told me to stop taking it because it could prove dangerous. I tried taking it again three weeks later – same rash. On this occasion my GP told me I could not take it again. I finally got an appointment with the Mental Health day clinic and got 150mg Seroquel. I had upped the Remeron up to 7.5mg again. After being on the Seroquel one month I developed stomach issues and was prescribed Omeprazole. I had to take laxatives and enemas for constipation. I lasted on this dose until October 2020 when I got a bowel impaction an enema did not fix which was scary. I gradually weaned the Seroquel dose down not very scientifically until December 2020 when I stopped taking it completely. I noticed that since taking the Seroquel that I had developed muscle cramps and pains in addition to the chronic pain I already had. In the last month I started doing somatic exercises which have proved quite helpful. My anxiety has continued but I have held off taking anything else like Rivotril or Lexathan which I had a small supply of as the rebound anxiety they cause is not worth it. I am 2 years and four months off the Cymbalta and am currently still on 7.5mg Remerone in tablet form. I would like to get off Remeron but accept that it might not be possible. Once I had titrated down previously to 3.75mg the weighing scale would not register any further decrease in weight and there are no chemists where I live who will liquefy the dose down. I missed the dose by two days once when I ran out once and nearly ended up in A&E with fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. My immediate concern if someone has managed to read this far is how much longer does the Cymbalta withdrawal last? And if this any way in hell that I could ever get off the Remerone? My sleep has stabilised somewhat over the last three months and I now get five/six to seven hours per night most nights. My anxiety is still very high but my living situation is very difficult and I don’t have any significant support. The pandemic removed the few support structures I did have so I think this has a bearing on things. I have found that the amino acid Lutein helped the eczema which is now (touching a lot of wood) manageable though I still can’t wear jeans because of the nickel. surviving antidepressants timeline.docx

I stopped taking antidepressants in 5 days after being on them 20 years. I've been med free 2.6 years. I still have anxiety, depression. And insomnia. A lil better tho Has anyone cold turkeyed after being on them 20 years? I get heartburn and have gastritis. When did you start feeling better?

Hi, I'm Stitch I was take to a hospital where I was put on a cocktail of medications. After I left I started to become suicidal and didn't know which medication was causing it. The doctors would not help. So in a panic I started getting off of them. The last few I quit cold turkey. One of the last being zoloft. I experienced short breath for a week. Then that changed to not eating for a week. Then everything was ok. Then anxiety hit hard. I was in a panic for days. I couldn't sleep or eat. I went back to the hospital where I tried to explain that I thought it was the zoloft. They ignored me and said it was impossible. I was put on different meds. The Gabapentin calmed me down enough to function but still with high anxiety. This went on for 5 months. Then the doctor gave me celexa. It fixed everything. But I started to have headaches in my frontal lobe. And my emotions were very blunted. I got off the medication and my emotions did not come back. Three months later I was adapting to having less emotions when suicidal depression hit. I told the doctor I didn't want anything with serotonin. He gave me Remeron telling me it worked differently. I didn't want to take it but with suicidal depression and my family pressuring me to do something about it, I caved. More headaches in the frontal lobe and rest of emotions lost. After I got off the Remeron they did not come back. And now I cant eat well. My body doesn't want the food. My heart rate has gone up permanently. But most distressing I cannot love, I cannot feel the cool breeze, I have no interest. The emotional loss is more than I can bear out of any symptom. It's heartbreakingly empty. I lost all my coping skills with it. I would have ended it if not for my partner. If I die, she said she would die. The pain, anxiety, heart issues, fear, lack of appetite, I believe those can heal. As for my emotions I feel as though they were lost forever. I have yet to see a post that describe the headaches. I think something was dying in my frontal lobe. I can't explain it but I feel like there is physical damage there. I have had windows with everything except my emotions. If anyone has experience with the emotions not coming back after off the drug or the headaches that caused it, I would be so enterally grateful. How does one cope without emotions? I can't even leave the house. Thank you for listening to my introduction. I hope I can heal along with you all or make a life I can live with.

Hello everyone, I guess I might be an outlier here. My journey into the hellscape of psychiatry started with an anti-emetic, metoclopramide, to which I had a terrible reaction which amounted for what I now know to be akathisia. Now I know that drug mimics or is similar to anti-psychotics. I took the drug at high doses for 20 days in December (10mg x3 day) for a nausea problem and it nearly destroyed my life. After that I took it as needed and only realized it was causing and keeping my akathisia going at the end of February. My restlessness appeared first with the typical akathisia movements only appearing after discontinuation. I was taken off the drug suddenly and my symptoms got worse after discontinuation. March and April I tried winging it without any medicine but the waves were so violent that I eventually caved and tried propranolol, didn't help. Biperiden, an anti-cholinergic, did help but had nasty side effects. Now it's May and here is the conundrum: I started tandospirone to help with anxiety a month ago. I also started on Mirtazapine recently as the propranolol doesn't help. First, 7.5mg in the evening, that was a month ago. I got a 10 day window, the best until now. Then I had a bad crisis and my psychiatrist upped my dose to 15mg. I got a nice 7 day window, then another crisis, that was a week ago. That crisis has passed. Yesterday I had a good day, today I am worse again. It is a rollercoaster. I don't know how I'm holding my job. I guess I have two questions. 1) Should I stay on the drug or not? This is something I have to decide by next Friday, that's my psych appointment day. 2) Given that I have only been on the drug around 1 month, two weeks on 7.5mg and two weeks on 15mg, would I need to taper if I chose to stop? If yes, how fast or slow would be advised? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Taking it one day at the time here. Very rough. PortugueseSea

I stopped Cymbalta in April. Dropped from 50 mg to 30 mg in February after discovering I was pregnant. Then I miscarried. Decided to stop, so I tapered to 20 mg for a week (after consulting with my doctor). I had some initial irritability but was "fine" until June. I tried Clomid and started crying and couldn't stop for 2 months. I finally started taking some supplements like CBD, 5HTP, and l-theanine managed to improve my mental state. Time helped too. I also tried Wellbutrin 150 mg for a week and that made my anxiety worse. Now I'm struggling with akathsia (I thought it was just anxiety but no), my skin burns, I get the shakes, and I have trouble concentrating. I don't feel like eating or drinking until the end of the day. I wake up with a cortisol surge and hr in 120s. I take a Cbd gummy in the morning with ashwaganda and l-theanine that seems to help with the cortisol surge. Then I take propanolol 10 mg which helps get me through the morning. Yesterday I stayed in bed too long and got a terrible cortisol surge. It really caught me off guard. I tried to burn it off through exercise but that made it worse. I also woke up with a cold. I ended up taking a bunch of supplements trying to get my equilibrium back and that just made me worse. A natural healer person put me on a bottle of adaptogens and that seemed to help temporarily but made me a bit woozy. I took them early yesterday to deal with the surge but that didn't help. Now I'm thinking they might have made me worse? It was my 3rd day to take them. I have flexeril and Vistaril for sleep. Neither one seems to help much anymore. I have some other cbd gummies I was taking for sleep but they have a bunch of things in them. I will post a picture. I also have been taking "Calm" gummies (25 mg 5htp, l-theanine 100 mg, and lemon balm extract 1 mg) after lunch but had moved those to bedtime along with the sleep cbd gummy and all my vitamins and supplements I was taking for fertility. Is it possible I'm having a rebound effect from taking these things? I'm eating low carb/keto but now I can't eat most of the day and have difficulty drinking too. I actually went and got an IV the other day because I was so dehydrated. I'm caffeine and gluten free. My face started burning today after taking my morning propanolol and cbd with ashwaganda and l-theanine. I noticed 5htp caused my face to burn when I started taking it a few weeks ago which is why I cut out the large doses of it by itself. The cbd sleep gummies have 10 mg 5htp, l-theanine, lemon balm, chamomile, passionflower, cannabidol 25 mg, and melatonin 3 mg. I tried taking magnesium last night with l-theanine to fall asleep and it would have worked but my 2 year old wouldn't go to sleep and I got agitated. Ended up taking 10 mg Flexeril which did nothing and I was outside pacing around the house at 2 am. My psychiatrist gave me Prozac 10 mg and Ativan. She said I could take the Ativan 14 days out of the month and I'd be fine. I don't want to take it. I know someone who was able to stabilize on Prozac after getting off Cymbalta CT so that's why I asked for it. Is this going to get worse before it gets better? I'm scared because I'm not eating enough and I'm losing weight faster than I intended. My hair is falling out. I'm scared I might lose my job. Should I try the Ativan or Prozac or is there a 3rd option? Do I need to stop the herbs or CBD? Is Propanolol OK to take with in w/d? Flexeril? Vistaril? L-theanine? My med history is 2017 - 3 weeks Paxil, stopped c/t 2022 - Knee surgery - took Percocet and Gabapentin stopped c/t Aug 2023 - took 1 week Wellbutrin stopped c/t, it made my anxiety worse I also take thyroid meds for Hashimotos and immunosupressants for Rheumatoid Arthritis. Is there a doctor who can help me? I just need to stabilize. Holidays are coming up and we are supposed to go on a cruise in January. I don't know how I'll manage any of that. I'm terrified of having more panic attacks that last for hours. I have more anxiety about my anxiety because of it. I need help! Thanks, Danielle

I started taking MMJ two years ago to help “manage” my anxiety so I could come off of 50 mg of Amitriptyline and .50 of Klonopin. My doctor was completely on board with this as he said it’s “natural” and really wanted me off Klonopin. This past February I ended up accidentally overdosing on MMJ and started to hallucinate. I was told my metabolism must have changed and that I would have to readjust the dose. Even in my state of mind I knew that was a horrible idea and CT’ed the MMJ. I had NO idea what I was doing or what was in store for me. I was put on 2 mg of Abilify and was told that it would help “speed the withdrawal process.” I never even decreased the Amitriptyline or Klonopin the entire time I took the MMJ. I was told after a month to just stop the Abilify. I can’t even attempt to describe the terror I felt the next two months. I had de realization, depersonalization, disordered thinking, panic attacks, it goes on and on. I didn’t sleep AT ALL the first month and then the second month I was getting 1-2 hours a night. I didn’t even know that it was physically possible to go that long without sleep. I developed paradoxical insomnia as well as a fear of insomnia. I stopped the Ability after one month. I decided by the third month I would taper the Amitriptyline since I initially took it for sleep and it wasn’t helping. Did I mention I had NO idea what I was doing? I went from 50mg to 6mg in two months. I honestly was about to throw in the towel at this point and go on an antidepressant but then found this site. I knew at this point I was in PAWS from MMJ but didn’t realize cutting the Amitriptyline this fast was a contributing factor. I thought that this was my “mental illness” coming back. I increased back to 10 mg in July and am holding steady. I am currently on 10 mg Amitriptyline and .50 mg Klonopin. Seven months later I still have a lot of issues. More importantly I have a lot of hope. I worked with a wonderful hypnotist and am at the point where I don’t worry about sleep. I eat well and exercise every day. I practice gratitude and am learning to live in the moment. I still wake up every 1-2 hours a night; most nights I fall back asleep and I am grateful for that. I’m learning to observe my thoughts and use my anxiety and fear as guides. I am already the strongest person I know. I’m only starting my journey but wanted to share early hope for those that may be struggling with acceptance. I also want to thank everyone on this site, you have been a part of my journey.

Hi Everyone! I’m so glad I found this forum. I hope it’s the right one for me. I came here because an antidepressant was the start of my problems. Also, I have been unable to find a forum just for people trying to get off mood stabilizers. I was put on 10 mg of Lexapro at age 36 during a moderate depression in 2004. Before long, I was told that I had a “mood disorder NOS” and 600mg lithium was added in. Eventually, I was told I had Bipolar 2 Disorder, dropped Lexapro, and 100mg Lamictal was added. I think it’s very odd to be diagnosed with BD2 at age 41. I happened across videos by a lovely man, Dr Peter Breggin. Before long, I showed them to my husband. We both knew that we had to get his book and get me off these toxins! My psychiatrist reluctantly agreed to go along with us. He called Dr Breggin an “outlier”. My taper began March 11, 2020. I took my last pills on May 14, 2020. I had a very uncomfortable week in the middle of April, but otherwise was holding it together pretty well. About two weeks after I took my last pills, I began to have more symptoms. I haven’t had a normal day since. It’s been about three weeks of ups and downs. I’m waiting for “normal“ to come back. I have had these symptoms: -hypomania in the form of over-talkativeness, scattered energy, and insomnia -anxiety, frequent but fleeting panic attacks -depression symptoms that affect the body, such as tiredness, low motivation, sensitivity to lack of sun. I have not felt the hopelessness or despair I had when I was diagnosed with depression in 2004. -I have light headaches when I feel depression symptoms. -I have heard a “buzzing” in my head, only for one day though. -I struggle to drive further than my local small grocery store. I fear highways. It’s almost as if I’m a student driver. I’ve gotten mixed up a few times. (I’ve driven for 32 years with a good record.) I hope to gain some helpful information here and I hope I can help others. I feel rather alone, knowing nobody else in person who has gone through this. Sometimes my family doesn’t seem to really get what’s going on with me, though I try to explain again and again. My husband is a treasure! He was the one who adjusted my meds for me and filled the boxes every Tuesday night. May God bless him for it! He is the wind beneath my wings. ❤️

Hello. This website is surviving antidepressants so i don’t know if this drug counts since lamictal is not an ssri or snri. I started lamictal and once I got to 100mg I started having panicked attacks and anxiety insomnia dysohoria brain fog and dizziness I taper to 0 in one week and this was one year ago and I still have severe dpdr anxiety and panic attacks. I believe I had an adverse reaction that didn’t rear its head until I got to higher doses. Could I have had an adverse reaction as well as withdrawl? I was on the drug for 10 weeks total. After lamictal I take buspar for three weeks then cold Turkey at 7.5mg. It has been one year total of drugs and still have panic anxiety insomnia and severe brain fog and feel like nothing is real. I also dissociate and get vivid mental images that cause me to panic.

Hi everyone, I’m new here, (22 y/o Male) and I have been reading all your threads on this forum for quite a while and it gives me great hope. I have a story off my own that I would like to share with you. It’s a long read and I would really appreciate your feedback back on it and where I can go from here. My story starts in 2021. To start I struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and have done since I was 11 years old, I am now 22. In 2021 after 8 years of suffering and sweeping my problems under the rug they finally blew up in my face and I had to deal with them. This included horrific intrusive thoughts, rumination and anxiety all day everyday for about 3 months straight so much to the extent that I had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t do anything. It affected my eating, sleeping and work life and I don’t even like talking about it to be honest. I had heard about ssri’s for many years but never considered them until my back was against the wall and I had no other choice. With much hesitation I started Sertraline in August 2021 (at age 20) and to be fair it did provide a lot of relief. I went from 25mg to 50mg and was on the medication for roughly six months, August 2021 to February 2022. Somehow or other the first time went alright and I successfully cold turkey’d off 50mg in feb 2022 because my prescription ran out. I didn’t have any prolonged withdrawal symptoms or sexual side effects. I also once took 25mg for a day or two in August 2022 but stopped because I didn’t like the spaced out and drowsy side effects. Now this is where I’m getting round to the not so great part. In January 2023 I was resuming my college degree after working for six months. I was anxious being in a new house with new roommates, and was looking for something to help me calm down and settle in. I knew I had left over Sertraline from the year prior. And while giving it some thought I foolishly decided to reinstate by myself and treat them as if they were benzodiazepines. This is where trouble began. I started 25mg again in late January 2023 jumped to 50mg and quit them cold turkey again roughly in around mid April 2023. The reason for doing so is because I was having severe headaches which very well may have been an adverse reaction. I feel very foolish about this because I unintentionally did this to myself when I really, really didn’t need to take the medication. And because I successfully quit cold turkey the first time round I thought I could do it again and was completely unaware of withdrawal symptoms. I was quite wrong, I guess this is what I’m getting to now. I have most the textbook PAWS symptoms I.e. poor to no emotions, anhedonia, lack of motivation/drive. Not to mention the sexual side effects numb genitals,watery semen, no real effect on libido however (thankfully). It’s now roughly 12 months since I last took Sertraline and while I see small windows there’s not much real improvement. I guess what can I do now?. I have heard about reinstating small doses of the drug to alleviate withdrawal symptoms but to be honest I’d rather not touch it with a ten foot pole after what happened. I’m probably outside the reinstating period anyway but I am open to suggestions. So what should I do, I’m no stranger to hard times and I know that this is just another bump in the road and will pass as it has for many others, but it’s starting to drag on a bit. I have often heard that it takes between 12 - 14 months for your dopamine receptors to reset so that gives me hope. I know I am slowly healing as I am getting very small windows but it’s still slow, is there anyone else who was in a similar situation as I am currently?. How long did it take you to recover and is there any feedback you could offer me. Considering that I only took it for 2 - 3 months shouldn’t that mean that I should recover a lot quicker and more linearly?. Can I 100% recover from this, and be even better than before?. Like said I’m hopeful and optimistic and know I will get there. I would just like to know where to go from here. Thank you for reading my story and I look forward to hearing your responses.

Hello, I am a 23 year old male suffering from possible withdrawal symptoms (7-8 months in after quitting Fluoxetine). I'll keep it short: since the age of 16 until now, I have failed in all facets of life, with symptoms ranging from the substantial loss of IQ to sleep disturbances which I've never suffered from. Every single day I suffer from body pain underneath my skin (possible sleep deprivation due to my interrupted sleep). I don't experience any waves nor windows. Never. I am unable to enjoy anything and, on top of that, I'm unable to re-enroll back to tertiary education. However, I am grateful for my parents still giving me a roof where I can live — without their support, I would've died in the streets as a homeless person (might be exaggerating, but highly possible as a neurodivergent individual). I want to stop the tingling and the pain on my feet, so I can sleep. Nothing is going away and I only see my symptoms worsening by the day. I... I can't take this anymore. I'm a walking dead person.

Hello to all. I cannot write much or often due to tardive dyskinesia (or dystonia?) of my right eye, arm, neck, tongue and face. Reading, writing and using my phone, tablet and desktop exacerbate this condition. However, I would like to add my voice here and say two things that I feel are important: 1. You will in all likelihood get better - much better, and 2. If a moderator suggests that you reinstate, please read the horror stories of those of us who did not have that chance before you decide that you "do not want to go "backwards."" I believe I developed serious side effects in 2005 or 2006 including dyskinesia, but I did not know that the drugs could cause that. Before that, I developed anxiety in 2002 or earlier which I did not have to any appreciable degree before taking Celexa. I sit here now in disbelief that I suffered from increasing anxiety for 9 years on Celexa (and 5 years on Zoloft), and the doctors simply raised the dose, not by a little, but by 50 percent each time for Celexa. I also realize now that I developed dystonia in my feet and toes and my chest and neck, but I had no idea what it was, and doctors' appointments resulted in no doctor suggesting the medication could be the culprit. I didn't even know the terms dyskinesia or dystonia. No one mentioned them either. In 2011 I gave birth to a girl. That very night, the OB at the hospital switched me from Celexa 150 mg to Zoloft 10 mg with no cross taper, no advice and no warning of the Hell I was about to endure. After many nights with no sleep due to this switch I finally started to sleep again. Then, over the next 6 years the doctors kept raising the dose by large amounts despite increasing anxiety and what I now know to be akathesia, dyskinesia, and various other side effects including cognitive decline, increasing OCD, and inability to see reality. I threw more and more amazing parties, and I became a hoarder. Buying things on eBay became my job it seemed. I became obsessed with organizing my home, but it was impossible without a professional to help, and I could not see that. Until my child was about 4 I was functioning, but I thought I was a bad organizer, a bad mother, and a terrible wife. After having had horrendously stressful jobs that I managed pretty well, I could not understand why I was so bad at being a wife and mother with a much less stressful job. Eventually, I showed some signs of serotonin syndrome and mania, but I was probably spellbound by the medication (as Breggin suggests can occur.) I believed I was normal, right about everything, etc., and my husband could not convince me otherwise. I enjoyed all the energy I had and could not understand why almost everything I tried to do did not work. All my projects caused a lot of anxiety for me and my husband, it was nearly impossible to complete any of them, and I would often start a new one whilst struggling to complete a previous project. I could not believe what my husband was saying -- that a professional carpenter, bricklayer, party planner, etcetera would be needed. I began to cut corners or abandon plans in order to complete a project or be ready for a party. I had a great deal of trouble leaving the house by 2015. I could not be prepared for all of the possible disasters while I was out. I had to cancel or be late to many activities. I couldn't keep the house, cook or do laundry or organize clothing, toys, kitchen supplies, etc. I count NOT THINK straight at all. I became unable to socialize well by mid 2015. I stopped working in early 2016. I was not willing to cut corners for work so I stopped altogether intending to start again very soon. I could never do that. I continued to develop dystonia of my foot and toes and my neck and chest on my right side and slightly of my left toes, but, again, I didn't know these terms, I never connected this to Zoloft or Celexa, and I thought I was just not stretching or exercising enough. In late 2016 I decided to stop taking Zoloft. Using Xanax had worked for a few hours for anxiety, but I knew it was addictive. So, I used it only once every 3 days until I realized that after it wore off I became very angry. My child was 5, and I could not bear it if I yelled at her. I decided that discontinuing Zoloft was my only hope. If I micromanaged my child and taught her to feel anxiety over every mistake, I would not be able to live with that. I knew which behaviors were harmful to her even though my personality was utterly changed since I began medication. I could not, however, see how harmful my behavior was to my husband. He had begged me to stop with the projects and the hoarding, but I could not, and I could not see how it harmed him. I did recognize that I was not perceiving reality, and that I needed Xanax to get through all activities that were ordinary or not. I marveled at how other mothers with 2 or 3 children managed so much better than I did, and it worried me that I could not work. Something was very, very wrong and it was very likely to be the Zoloft. I looked up how to stop Zoloft on webmd or maybe a different site, and I checked many others to verify the information on other "reputable sites." All I found were instructions that parroted the quick taper that the pharm cies and doctors knew. I never saw anything about this site or Breggin or any other doctor who was aware of tardive withdrawal, PAWS, etc with regard to SSRIs. So, I made the worst mistake of my life - I "tapered" 150 mg in about 6-8 weeks. I found SA after it was too late to reinstate. I am a person who doesn't trust the pharm cies. I don't feel comfortable with the high number of vaccines for babies and young children. I'm suspicious of the flu vaccine, statins, and, of course, benzos. I try to eat organic food and even if I don't I make sure my child has organic eggs and milk. Despite that predisposed mistrust of pharmacology, I never thought to question a quick taper of Zoloft because I believed it was not "addictive!" I had a honeymoon period for about 5-6 months until August or Sept 2017. I am now medication free for 10 months. It has been HELL a hundred times over. I am still experiencing waves. It's been a few weeks, 2 or 3, since I wanted to die, and all my symptoms are less intense and less frequent except right side bruxism and dyskinesia/dystonia of my face, neck, jaw, chest and eye plus numbness on my right side in my arm, hand, face, nose, eye, jaw, hip, leg, foot and toes. I am no longer living in terror and fear and wishing an accident would take me from this world. I still have cortisol mornings in a wave, and I need to keep my mind occupied at all times, but I am not exhausted and weak all the time. The insomnia I had in Sept and October is gone seemingly for good. There are many other mental and physical symptoms that are gone or are less intense. Thank you for reading and I look forward to meeting each of you. I hope you all recover quickly and take some solace in seeing the progress I have made. Peace, Rosetta

Hi everyone, I have been following this website and forum for several years, and would now like to share my story because I think it’s important to get the information out about what these drugs can do to people. I am a 41-year-old male, and I have now been off all medications for over 36 months. Unfortunately, I have not experienced much in the way of healing or recovery from whatever these drugs did to my brain and nervous system. Please be forewarned, I’m sharing a lot of details about my experience, so it’s a long post. My experience with psychiatric drugs began in 2007 at the age of 25. I had recently graduated college and was having some difficulty with my career path. I ended up accepting a job that was going to be very demanding with long hours, which caused me to start feeling very overwhelmed and anxious. I was having trouble sleeping and felt a need to escape from the situation I was in, but also felt I didn’t have any options because I needed the income. In retrospect, I should have realized that demanding, high stress jobs are simply not a good fit for certain people – including me. Admittedly, I have always been somebody who was prone to anxiety, overthinking, and sometimes low mood. Generally, these issues would be relatively situational and transient in nature, and would resolve on their own in time. I believe now that had I simply walked away from that job and looked for something else, in time things would have resolved and returned to normal as they always had before. I wish I had sought counseling to better learn how to deal with my anxious thoughts, and I wish somebody would have reassured me that anxiety can be a normal response to stress and that there was nothing inherently wrong with me. Instead, I questioned why I wasn’t able to deal with the stress and demands of such a job. Other people are able to, so there must be something fundamentally wrong with me, right? Maybe something like… a chemical imbalance. By that time, I think the pharmaceutical industry’s “chemical imbalance” marketing campaign had really taken hold in our culture. It definitely must have planted a seed in my mind. I remember thinking back to the old Zoloft television commercial with the sad little blob who had a chemical imbalance, and coming to the conclusion that must be what I had. The direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising in the United States is insidiously effective in the way it permeates our society to believe we are broken in ways that only their drugs can fix. I ended up going to my doctor where I filled out a short questionnaire about how I had been feeling for the past two weeks, and was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Depression. I was prescribed Celexa (citalopram). I was also given Xanax to take for the first couple weeks as my body “adjusted” to the citalopram. Part of me felt relieved and legitimized that I had a medical diagnosis for what I was experiencing. Another part of me felt like this label now defined me and meant I was defective and wouldn’t really be able to live a normal or fulfilling life. I felt somewhat uneasy about taking a daily pill that changes the way your brain works, but naively believed that the medical community had a full understanding of the inner workings of the brain and nervous system, and that there was no way my doctor would give me anything that wasn’t safe. I reasoned if it didn’t work or caused bothersome side effects, I could just stop taking it. I remember looking up patient reviews of SSRI medications. They were generally positive, with people saying the drugs helped them. Mixed in were also some unsettling reviews where people mentioned things like significant withdrawal symptoms and sexual side effects that didn’t resolve. Again, my trust in the medical system won out as I simply could not believe a drug that was capable of doing those things would be allowed onto the market. So I started taking the drugs. I believe I took them for a couple of weeks, but didn’t like the strange way they made me feel. I didn’t feel like myself. So I stopped taking the drugs, but things didn't improve. I experienced the first panic attack of my life while I was driving down the highway. I started having issues with extreme anxiety, insomnia, dizziness, and DP/DR. These things felt very different from any anxiety related issues I had ever experienced, but I was unaware of adverse reactions and withdrawal, so I attributed my symptoms to a worsening of my anxiety condition. I went back to my doctor and was prescribed 20 mg Paxil (paroxetine). Within a few weeks, I felt significant relief from many of my symptoms. In some ways, I felt better than I ever had. I felt almost a calm euphoria, and certain things like my self-consciousness seemed to almost disappear. During this honeymoon phase, I truly felt I’d found my miracle drug. There were also some negative side effects like emotional blunting, jaw clenching, and mild sexual dysfunction/numbness – but those seemed like a small price to pay for the benefits I felt the drug was providing. I also became somewhat disinhibited, slept a lot more, and developed a voracious appetite. I gained about 40 lbs in the first 6 months on the drug, but I had always been a skinny guy so I didn’t mind. I stayed on the 20 mg dose of Paxil for a few years, but started to get bothered by the lethargy, weight gain, and sexual dysfunction. I dropped to 10 mg without any issues, and that dosage reduction alleviated those side effects to a certain extent. During these years I met my wife, found a good stable job, and bought a house. I was mostly content, but at the same time everything was always somewhat muted. I rarely ever felt too down, but also never really experienced deep feelings of things like anticipation, excitement, joy, passion and empathy the way I used to. I almost never cried while I was on Paxil. When I was younger, I always thought I wanted children. While on Paxil, that desire completely disappeared. Looking back, I don’t think I realized what a profound effect the drug had on me while I was taking it. I think that’s part of what the drug does – it blinds a person to how much it’s changed you. This aligns with the theory of “medication spellbinding” proposed by Dr. Peter Breggin. This emotional blunting seemed to insidiously grow little by little each year I was on the drug, until by my mid-30’s I started to realize that most of my hobbies, interests, passions, and desire for social activity had gone by the wayside. I worked full-time and forced myself to exercise a few times a week, but mostly I looked forward to eating, sleeping, and watching television. I was also noticing signs of slow deterioration in my body and brain. My short term memory was getting unreliable. My vision and coordination seemed off. I was getting frequent headaches, along with unusual stiffness and pain in my neck, shoulders, and back. The years of jaw clenching triggered by Paxil was resulting in TMJ type issues. I often felt fatigued, and slept a lot. I also had some periods of bad breakthrough anxiety, so I'm not even sure it was helping much with that anymore. It seemed the drug was pooping out on me, and the drawbacks were starting to outweigh the benefits. I had also come across some articles that linked Paxil to dementia, which was very troubling to me. In November of 2019 I approached my doctor with these concerns. He recommended a switch to Prozac (fluoxetine), which he said was a more “activating” antidepressant. He told me to stop taking Paxil, wait 3 days, then start taking the Prozac. Knowing what I know now, this was negligent and reckless advice. I had been on Paxil for over a dozen years and Paxil has a short half-life, whereas Prozac takes a long time to build up in your system. Any responsible physician should be able to realize this was a recipe for disaster. I followed the instructions I was given. After about 3 days I felt tired and irritable. On the 7th day into the cold switch, the bottom fell out. It happened very suddenly. I felt an almost indescribable change occur in my brain, and I’ve never been anywhere close to the same since then. I was overcome by a chemical terror. I could barely eat and got bad diarrhea. I had significant confusion and was in a 24/7 state of DP/DR. I was unable to sleep. No matter how tired I was, when I would start to drift off my body would jolt itself awake. I scheduled an appointment with a different physician (my primary doctor wasn’t available). He was dismissive and said I probably needed to increase the dose of Prozac. This made things worse, so a few days later I scheduled a visit with yet another physician. This one was more understanding, and advised that I go back onto the Paxil right away at a slightly higher dose than what I had been on. So, about two weeks after my last dose of Paxil, I reinstated at 15 mg. I was hoping I would go back to normal in short order, but that’s not what happened. It took several weeks before I got any type of symptom relief, and even when I did it was only partial relief. My brain felt like it had been totally fried. I carried on with the reinstatement for a few more months without noticing any more improvement. It was (and still is) like being trapped in a nightmare that you can’t escape from. None of it made any sense and I had no idea what was happening to me. Nobody could tell me what was wrong other than saying it was just my anxiety. But I knew that wasn’t the case. This is not how any natural anxiety feels. I didn’t even know it was possible for a human being to feel this way. It felt like I had suffered a severe chemical injury to my brain and nervous system, but then why was every doctor saying that wasn’t possible? Why did every mainstream web article say antidepressant withdrawal was mild, self-limiting, and only lasted a couple weeks? My experience was not matching up with this. Why had I never heard of this happening to anyone else when millions of people take these drugs? Why was this seemingly only happening to me? I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, living in an alternate reality than everyone else. Eventually I determined that Paxil simply wasn’t working for me any more, and in fact might be harming me. So I decided to try “tapering” off this time, in hopes that the results would be different than the previous cold switch attempt. The advice I found on conventional medical websites indicated an SSRI taper could be done over the span of a few weeks. So I reduced the dosage each week over the span of one month – 10 mg for a week, then 7.5 mg, then 5 mg, then 2.5 mg before stopping. Since I was already in pretty severe protracted withdrawal, I actually didn’t notice many changes (positive or negative) during this short taper period. With the medication now out of my system, I was hoping I would start seeing some improvements in my condition, but that didn’t happen. After 8 weeks off all meds, I went to yet another doctor. This one prescribed Cymbalta (duloxetine). I took 2 doses and had a horrible reaction. I wasn’t able to sleep at all both nights so I stopped taking it immediately. I was then prescribed Lexapro (escitalopram) which I was forced myself to stick with for around 10 days before having to stop that drug as well. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to try reinstating Paxil one last time in hopes I could somehow stabilize. I started at 5 mg for several weeks, but didn’t notice any improvement, so I upped the dose to 10 mg. At this point I developed akathisia. I could not sit still and it felt like I was being tortured. I went four consecutive nights without sleeping. I would lay in bed all night, wide awake in terror, and as soon as the sun would come up I’d go outside and walk around the neighborhood attempting to suppress the agonizing sensations in my body. I couldn’t eat anything. I lost about 20 lbs in the span of a few weeks. So back to the doctor I went. I had my wife come with me this time, to vouch for how abnormal all of this was for me. Merely months prior, I had been a normal, functional, stable person. Only after all of their drug switches/experimentation had I fallen into such a horrific state. Surely they’d now be able to realize that I had clearly been harmed by the drugs, and then they’d be able to offer some solution. Wrong. I was instead told that what had occurred was actually an unmasking of bipolar disorder. They tried to prescribe me the antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine) and referred me to a psychiatrist. I declined these options, and finally realized I was completely on my own. The medical safety net I’d always counted on was nothing but an illusion. At that point, I decided I had no options but to quit all medications and let the chips fall where they may. It was also around this time that I found Surviving Antidepressants and other similar websites, and began to finally piece together what had happened to me. While it was nice to finally have some answers and realize that I wasn’t alone, a lot of what I saw was terrifying. Countless stories of people who had been suffering for years. Some for a decade or even longer. Not many stories of recovery. Shortly after stopping Paxil for the final time in August of 2020, the intensity of the akathisia diminished somewhat, although strong remnants of the feeling still persist to this day. My appetite also returned, and I was able to start getting some sleep again, although it remains broken and un-restorative. About 3 months after stopping all medications, I suddenly developed severe urinary problems. One afternoon I went to the bathroom, just like I had thousands of times before. But this time when I finished it still felt like I needed to go. This quickly turned into a strong urge to urinate 24 hours a day, pain in my pelvic area and urethra, and difficulty fully emptying my bladder. I went to urologists and tried overactive bladder medications which did not help. Physical therapy did not help much either. At its worst, this condition was so horrible that I thought I would have no choice but to take my own life to escape the horrible sensations. It was on par with akathisia in terms of how unbearable it was. The worst of this issue lasted around 6 months before it settled down a bit to a more tolerable level and I started learning how to live with it. However, my urinary functioning never returned anywhere close to normal. It remains a very distressing and painful issue, and contributes a lot to my inability to get quality sleep. Below is a list of the other chronic symptoms I developed since this living nightmare started. Some of them improved shortly after ceasing all medications, but many of them have not improved much if at all. Severe Headaches Head & Eye Pressure Dizziness / Perceptual Distortions Vision Problems / Dry Eyes Sensitivity to Light & Sound Fear / Panic / Anxiety Akathisia / Inner Restlessness Intolerance to Stress / Overstimulation Depression / Anhedonia Suicidal Urges / Desire to Die Insomnia / Poor Sleep Quality Drowsiness / Fatigue Depersonalization / Derealization Cognitive Impairment / Memory Problems Ringing Tinnitus Jaw Tension / Pain Neck & Shoulder Tension / Pain Back Pain Tailbone Pain Body Aches / Muscle Burning Tingling / Numbness / Paresthesia Temperature Regulation Issues Frequent Urination / Nocturia Bladder & Pelvic Pain I’ve been to many primary care doctors, urologists, physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and eventually a neurologist. I’ve had many tests done, all of which revealed nothing. The neurologist visit was the most disappointing of all. I think based on the notes from my previous doctors, she had already predetermined it was all in my head before the appointment even began. I outlined my symptoms and when she pressed me to explain when they started and what I think might have caused them, she became dismissive and antagonistic. She said the drugs don't cause any lasting dysfunction, and emphatically defended the cold switch recommended by my doctor as “medically acceptable.” Protecting the status quo and defending their profession from any criticism or liability seems to be of far more importance to most doctors than the actual well-being of patients. At my urging, she agreed to order an MRI of my head and neck which didn’t show anything abnormal. When I mentioned how my debilitating symptoms often made work very challenging, she condescendingly stated, “You need to keep working. I don’t care if you have to take a job on the graveyard shift.” Her parting advice to me was to exercise harder (“work out until you drop if that's what it takes” were her exact words). I couldn’t believe this was all that a neurologist was able to offer me. I consider myself fortunate to have my wife and family by my side throughout this horrific ordeal. My wife has been amazing and has stood by me without wavering. My family has been supportive and understanding as well. It took a bit for all of them to come around to the idea that I had been harmed by a prescription drug, and that it was not just a psychological issue as the doctors were claiming. But having known me before all of this and seeing the bizarre constellation of symptoms, they now seem to understand and accept that the drugs caused some type of injury to my nervous system. While nobody could ever truly understand what it’s like to suffer this type of iatrogenic damage, it is still comforting to be believed by the people you care about. I know not everyone is so lucky. I have somehow been able to stay employed throughout all of this. The COVID pandemic gave me a lot of cover to hide my illness, since I was able to work from home and avoid most social interactions for a while. I’m now back in the office two days per week which is a challenge, but it can also serve as a distraction and I have been able to white knuckle through it most days. Many things that used to be simple and easy (driving, going to the grocery store, social gatherings, traveling anywhere, following step-by-step instructions, physical exertion, etc.) remain very difficult and I can only do things for short periods of time before I need rest. I still try to force myself to do these things when I’m able to. I don’t really get any joy or satisfaction from them, but I try anyway so that I can spend time with my wife and because it might be beneficial to me in some way I don’t yet realize. For the same reason, I also try to walk each day and do light exercise a few times per week. Every day for me is a battle of enduring substantial physical pain and mental suffering before a brief respite of restless sleep. The mornings start with a cortisol-type early awakening, mixed with what feels like a terrible hangover. It feels as though I have been in a car wreck and drugged with both sedatives and stimulants at the same time. I have persistent head and neck pain that is not resolved by any type of treatment. I often wonder if the drugs really could have caused all of this, or if I have developed some other unrecognized chronic illness. I never fathomed torture this surreal and relentless was even possible as part of the human experience. Within the community of people who have been harmed by psychiatric drugs, the mantra is that we will all heal. In the early going I tried to have faith in that sentiment, even though I intuitively felt like I had suffered irreversible neurological damage. I had always planned to wait until I was feeling much better to share my story. I told myself when I recovered, I’d dedicate myself to spreading hope and helping other people get through this. Unfortunately, I no longer believe I’m going to heal or recover in any meaningful way. I haven’t noticed any significant healing trajectory in myself over the 3 years that I’ve been off the meds. I more or less feel the same as I felt 12 months ago, 18 months ago, etc. I’ve also seen far too many testimonies of people who suffer indefinitely for years and years, and by comparison there are not many stories of complete recovery. My biggest regret is ever touching a psychiatric drug. My second biggest regret is following my doctor's instructions to abruptly stop. These seemingly innocuous decisions ruined my life. So many of us in this situation always tried to make smart and responsible decisions with our lives. We stayed away from dangerous and risky things like hard recreational drugs. It's such a cruel irony to then be damaged by a doctor-prescribed medication that we were told was safe and beneficial to our health. In my opinion, it is a fate worse than death. I feel as though the unique thing that makes us human is already dead and gone in me. It seems many of us in this situation are just extremely unlucky individuals. For whatever reason, our bodies had a strange (and relatively rare) neurotoxic response to starting or stopping these drugs, and it left many of us disabled with little to no quality of life. I wish I had been properly warned of these risks by my doctor. Had I received informed consent, I never would have chosen to take these drugs. I would like to make a special point of thanking all of the volunteers who help run this support forum and others like it. It’s very unfortunate that many of us don’t find this critical information until it’s too late and the damage has been done. If anything changes for me, I will make sure to provide updates. Please know that everyone affected by this horrific affliction is always in my thoughts, and I wish all of us the best.

Back in 2014 I was prescribed Wellbutrin for depression. Then anxiety and insomnia developed and by the following year I was taking buspar, lexapro and hydroxyzine also. My psychiatrists mismanaged the situation badly by continually adding medications, and increasing dosages. In early 2018, the anxiety and depression began worsening. So I ended up tapering off of lexapro and added pristiq between roughly march-April of 2018. I should add I was also abusing benzodiazepines off and on between 2015 & 2018 (not prescribed). I quit doing that in July 2018 because I became tired of the withdrawal symptoms and extra anxiety that came with it. My heart rate/bp became consistently very high following cessation of the benzos so my doctor thought it would be a good idea to prescribe me clonidine and metoprolol. Which rounds out the six drug cocktail I was on until early 2022. Between 2018-2022, the cocktail stopped helping and eventually made everything worse. I went to see a new primary care doctor early 2022 who said I was on too many things and to taper off some of them. I agreed. Knowing what I now know, I stupidly tapered off of Buspar, wellbutrin, hydroxyzine, clonidine and pristiq in that order in a matter of 4-5 months. At the time I figured it would be best to just get off of everything and start over fresh. I assumed the initial withdrawal would be awful, which it was, although I was still somehow able to function. I also assumed it would take my brain some time to readjust/recalibrate after years of taking these medications. But I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought I’d be largely out of the woods after the acute withdrawal but boy was I wrong. In October 2022, about 1 month following the acute withdrawal I was hit with the most severe anxiety I’ve ever felt. Like waves of electricity surging through my body and a feeling of essentially panic. I also developed severe fatigue, depression worsened, I began having aches and pains throughout my body & severe digestive issues. Also hypersensitivity to just about any medication or supplement. For example I tried reinstating lexapro and buspar but I had a severe paradoxical reaction to both. I had to withdraw from college and quit my job because I couldn’t function. After further research I concluded I was dealing with post acute withdrawal. Exercise & getting out in the sun seems to be the only thing that’s somewhat helpful and I was able to increase my activity over the following months to where I was walking 7+ miles per day often on the golf course between May & September 2023. The anxiety however has just worsened consistently since October 2022. My body has taken a beating too because of it. I’m so worn out. I am back to walking 4 or so miles per day outside but it’s getting difficult. It seems like I initially took a big step back (start of post acute withdrawal), then a couple steps forward, but things have only gotten worse & worse for the last several months. I don’t really know what to do at this point. I’ve spent a lot of money on doctors, brain scans, therapy ect but it’s all been useless for this condition. It feels as though I’m out of options and will just have to try to wait this out until my brain eventually heals.

I have been off Sertraline for over four months now, after having been on it for about 3 and half years. Previous 4 years or so I had been on other medications. Is diffcult to comprehend and explain in words all that is going on, but my whole psyche has been completely overturned in these years, and I do not know to what extent the various medications have caused me this. I suffer from the severest OCD,and anxiety, and now I think depression, and sheer terror at all my subsconscious thoughts which have completely taken over my whole mind. I have been imprisoned and castigated in my own mind. It is beyond explanation what is occuring on a millisecond basis. I seem to have entered some moral vortex, whereby I feel as if I am always doing wrong. Constantly confronted with "Heaven and Hell". Constantly feeling compelled to undo things, which for example I have written like here. Damned if I do or if I don't , this doesnt explain 1% of what is going on. It has brought into the fore the reason for everything and existence. I really have no idea what is going on, terrifies me the idea that no-one can have any idea of what is going on in my head. Yet on the other hand everybody is in my head, I don't know who is in my head and who isn't. Everything I say in my head is being judged. I will not go any further for now as I am terrified of writing, and also it may not be entirely pertinent to the subject. Unfortunately it only comforts me to a certain extent to know that others are experiencing their own hell, and I feel guilty in turn for the fact "that others suffering should comfort me', as I have entered some abstract Universe which seems to have its own laws. the ridiculous thing is that in the end what seems "right and wrong" seems to be determined by feeling and not some sort of formula, and I feel guilty in turn for thinking that, and also "convinced" on the one hand that it should be formulated and on the other "know" that it isn't. One of the main reasons for writing this post was the guilt and fear of punishment, or fear of damning others, especially close ones for benefitting from reading others stories and not contributing my own. To clarify alot of this stuf was going on when I was still on the Sertraline, and perhaps, in a different way when I was on other medication, difference now is that I am that so much more fragile.

Hello SA Community, I am new to the site, but have been reading a lot of info here over the past 2 1/2 years. I am in a bad place... I was on 20 mg Prozac for many years, and was told by a Dr. in Feb 2018 that I could just "stop it". Well... I crashed bad. I didn't know what was happening, and over the next year and half, I was given over 22 different meds (including back on Prozac and numerous AD's, benzos, sleeping pills, BP meds, mood stabilizers, and lastly, an antipsychotic). I deteriorated more and more and finally decided to get off everything. I am down to my last 5 mg of Prozac. I have suffered very much - my biggest symptoms have been horrible insomnia, dark depression, intense anxiety among others. I haven't had but a couple of days of windows in the past year. I am just losing hope. Will I get better? I am holding at 5 mg for a long time (just reduced 2 weeks ago). I think I did EVERYTHING wrong.... Thank you.

Hello. My name is A and up until 2007, I was a happy well adjusted individual (loving, caring and with a huge amount of empathy for others) with a young family, who was very content with life. Due to an situation at work, I became anxious, and this anxiety did not subside. I visited my doctor, who immediately prescribed Citalopram (Citalex) - will hereafter refer to as C). My doctor did not suggest getting off these as soon as possible, instead recommending I stay on them in case I had a relapse (do they recommend cancer drugs to patients in remission). The possible consequences of this course of action were never explained to me. I have been on them pretty much ever since (and when they were working they worked fine), but I have had several attempts to get off them, with no success. I instead became depressed and was put back onto C. My most recent attempt was in mid-December 2016, and initially things appeared to be going OK, in that is I was functioning as would be expected, but without the medication. Unfortunately, my mood deteriorated. I was again signed off sick from work, and despite a further prescription of C (which I have discovered I can now not tolerate - instead it gave me severe headaches and made me confused) I am now totally anhedonic. The question I would like replies to address is whether this state is likely to be permanent, and if so, how do those in a similar sad situation cope with never feeling any pleasure whatsoever. I know I love my family, but there is no "warm fuzzy" feeling inside, just this deadness, whereas before there was love and empathy. What do other forum members feel has been the cause of their depression - life in general (with its ups and downs) or the fact that they have been on an antidepressant for a long time without which, ultimately, their body could not function, i.e. it was the drug itself that led to a depressive state?