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Hi! I found this website when googling around and reading articles about how to taper off your antidepressants, mainly because I have tried several times (gotta be around 5 or 6 times by now), but I have failed miserably time and time again. Here goes my sad little life-story (I will try to keep it as short as possible but suspect I will not succeed). So, I have always been a pretty depressed and sad person, even as a kid, due to low self-esteem, being very sensitive, et.c. I think you get the picture. Anyway, my perfectionistic, self-hating and insecure personality led me to developing crippling OCD during a stressful job I had three years ago. It was the type of OCD that is called Pure Obsessional OCD, or in more understable terms; obsessive rumination, 24/7, everyday. It is like living through hell everyday, or at least that's how it is for me. Anyway, my OCD which was filled with horrible images and thoughts that I, unknowingly and in total panic-mode, tried to fight (which of course made them a million times worse). This led to me, six months later, quitting my job out of necessity (I was all but fallen apart completely emotionally), and telling a relative that I had to be driven to the psychiatric emergency ward. There, they took me in for two weeks, immediately starting to give me Fluoxetine. Fast forward, I get home, my mind's a complete fog and a lot of the horrible images and thoughts luckily shut off, which was exactly what I needed (and still need). It was a scaring yet necessary feeling for me if I wanted to even survive and not take any desperate measures to get away from my own mind (aka suicide). Right from the get go of my Fluoxetine-dosage, I was struck by insomnia. Of course, a month later or so when I met a new doctor, I was prescribed an evening pill to be able to sleep. In Sweden it is called Mianzerin, but I'm not sure as to what the English term for the same medicine is. So from that day on, I've been on 30 mg Fluoxetine, 10 mg Mianzerin. The doctor wanted me to take an even higher dose of Mianzerin when my insomnia didn't dissappear right away (of course, that's what doctors want, as rushed and unthought of medication as possible), but I refused a higher dose, and I'm happy that I did that because a couple of days later I started being able to sleep again. Now, the sad part is, that Mianzerin made me instead having to sleep waaay more to feel satisfied waking up (which still doesn't do the trick, no matter for how long I sleep). I'm always tired from this medicine, and the sleep that I have been getting for the last couple of years on these medications have not been even anything close to as satisfying and recharging as a normal, pre-drug, sleep session was. Of course, when I try to explain this sort of ungraspable change in my sleep-feelings, no one of my friends and family understand what I mean. It always seems like they're thinking; "Well, you sleep a good amount of hours right, so that means you're getting a good sleep, right?" Nothing could be farther away from the truth. This message became, as I had suspected, a bit longer than I had meant for it to be, but to try to sum things up; My side-effects on 30 mg Fluoxetine + 10 mg Mianzerin: 1. Worse quality of my sleep. Never feeling like I've slept enough. 2. Much higher need of sleeping (because of the Mianzerin). It has, these last couple of years, been almost completely impossible for me to get up early in the mornings. If I set my alarm too early, I either shut it off without even remembering having done it, or I wake up hung-over, almost paralyzed, and insanely tired, from the Mianzerin, making it close to impossible to not just go back to sleep again. If it is something really important that happens in the morning, an appointment or something, I can sometimes force myself to sort of float up through the Mianzerin-fog by immediately reaching for my laptop which I have right next to the bed. Staring at the bright screen for a period of time usually works. But to get as far as that is sometimes impossible, and I've missed out on a number of my university lectures because I could just not muster up the energy to get up in time for school. 3. Night time sweats. These have fortunately become less and less frequent with time. When I first started taking Mianzerin it was every night, now it's only every once in a while (for example, last night I woke up covered in sweat again). 4. Impaired eyesight, in the sense that I have a really hard time reading books for long times (and, on many days, even a whole single page if the textfont and size doesn't fit my broken eyes). This has made it a necessity for me to take a break from my University-studies, which I really didn't want to do, but I just couldn't keep up with school when we got assignments like "oh, read these 35 pages as preparation for the next lecture, would you?". I think my eyesight-problems stems from the fact that my medications makes my eyes insanely dry. I have tried regular eyedrops as suggested by my optician, but they didn't do any difference at all. 5. I also believe that it has worsened my pre-existent IBS and anal leakage (sry for the yukky details), which then of course makes my social anxiety even worse, which leads to more isolation (I haven't seen any old friends for over a year now), which of course leads to more depression. I am aware however that my worsening of my stomach problems doesn't necessarily have had to become worse because of my medications, since they were there pre-drugs, but since I started taking these drugs I've been walking around in my tired zombie-mode which means very little physical activity or any activites at all that doesn't involve sitting in front of the computer and staring at meaningless youtube-videos. This, I believe, is why my IBS/leakage-problems have skyrocketed in the last couple of years. Inactivity and tiredness is not a healthy living imho. So, reading this, you might ask yourself, "Why the hell wouldn't you taper off your drugs? It makes your life so much worse!" Basic answer: I can't. About five days/a week or so after starting to tapering off with a 10 mg-decrease (which I have now from this message board learned is a way to big cut-down if you're sensitive to it), I get extremely low, my OCD starts once more to attack me more fervently and convincingly (it's always there even on my meds, but it becomes so much worse again), and last time I tried these huge decrease at once I woke up one day feeling totally, utterly; empty, cold, hateful, mean, hopeless, sad, everything bad that you can feel just came over me at once, like a dark cloud, and I rushed home from my morning walk and immediately gulped down that extra 10 mg of fluoxetine again. The sad part is, that besides all the side effects from my drugs, I had been having a couple of really good weeks prior to my dosage-lowering, which is why I, in my desperate attempt to get back to the "real" me, rushed to the conclusion that I was ready to start trying to taper off once again. Ever since that horrifying morning, I have not been able to get back to the good state that I was in prior to it. But, since my wish to get rid of these drugs is so huge, I tried once more a couple of days later after this morning to taper off, but this time after having read that a 10%-lowering was more sensible and should work better if you're sensitive. Again, this didn't work, and I failed after five days or so once more. Now, I'm back at my regular dose, stuck in my unhappy zombie-mode again, a mode that at least keeps my OCD from getting uncontrollable and the bad voices in my head to become so strong and convincingly once more, and my depression to lead me to the poisoned water of suicide. I realize, with a great unhappiness, that I'm definitely not ready for the moment to try to taper off, since I live in miserable isolation from people and the rest of the world (how I could even think it would work to taper off when I basically spend all my days devoid from friends or any social activities is beyond me). At the same time, I feel like I'm sort of caught in an incredibly irritating and heartbreaking paradox. It goes like this; I can't begin my tapering off until I have achieved a happy, fulfilling, and rock-steady life filled with normal and joyous social activities and hope for life, et.c., but I feel like I have such a hard time moving towards that goal because of my drugs and the way that they make me a tired, lethargic zombie that just lets the days pass without having the energy to do anything about it. This paradox makes me so frustrated I want to tear my own hair out haha. I can't get healthy on my drugs, but I can't quit my drugs because I'm not healthy enough. I guess that's what they call a moment 22? End note: Woooow, this became so much longer than I had expected, it was just suppose to be a little introduction haha. Well, what can you do, I applaud those of you who have the willpower to at least skim through it. Now you know how my life situation is. I am not tapering off my meds right now, but I hope to be sometime in the distant future (although that seems extremely distant and impossible right now). I just was happy to find a message board filled with others who seem to have encountered similar problems, and who are too, just like me, struggling to put one foot in front of the other and maybe (hopefully!) transform from being in a constant survivor-mode, to actually starting to enjoy and experience a "normal", happy and fulfilling life. PS. I apologize for any spelling-errors or weird and incomprehensible usage of words. I'm from Sweden, so my English has it flaws. PPS. I forgot to mention that I see a psychiatrist on a regular basis, just thought you guys should know so that I can spare you the obvious suggestion of me going to one haha.