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Are you feeling desperate or suicidal? Sadly, many of us have felt that we simply cannot carry on. Most of us here have been in that situation, some as a side effect of medication and others from withdrawal. It is a feeling that is all consuming and taunts us day and night. We are all deeply saddened to see a fellow member feeling so low and being powerless to help. We are not professionals and not equipped to offer the support and guidance that is needed, but are here to offer understanding and empathy. What you are feeling is real, it is devastating and it hurts, but it will get better. In the meantime it is important that you talk to someone. Talking about your feelings will help you to deal with them. There are many agencies that have helplines dedicated to helping people who are suicidal and I am going to post links to some organisations that can offer the support that we can't. Talking helps us to put things into perspective and release some of the tension, especially when no-one seems to understand or believe what we are going through. If you are religious then maybe someone at your church will understand and listen without judgement. I have found helplines extremely helpful in the past, sometimes talking to a stranger who doesn't know you is easier. They have no preconceptions and do not judge you, simply listen as you pour out your heart. If the feelings are overwhelming then call the emergency room, or accident and emergency department of your local hospital. We at SA care about you very much and want to see you get better, it is devastating for all of us when someone cannot take any more and wish we could do more but we are limited in what we can offer. Please tell us how you are feeling, but please understand how it is for us when someone says they are going to end their life and not come back. We do not want to lose you, we want you to get better. - This is an excellent page written by Martha Ainsworth, please take a few minutes to read it, I couldn't find the words that she has used beautifully, and I feel those words are meant for all of us here. I couldn't copy and paste because of copyright but have permission to link to the piece. http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ - A list of helplines throughout the world http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html - The Crisis Text Line (US only) http://www.crisistextline.org/how-it-works/ Text START to 741-741 - Suicide and Crisis LifeLine (US Only) call or text 988 - In the UK, Maytree is an organisation offering respite for people who are suicidal. It is not a hospital or medical facility so they would not be offering drugs. It is free of charge. There are criteria to meet but I don't know what they are at present. http://www.maytree.org.uk/index.php - A piece from the blog Beyond Meds http://beyondmeds.com/2012/09/10/suicide-prevention/ Please share experiences here and how you overcame this awful compulsion. It may give hope to others who are now going through the same nightmare. If anyone knows of help and support in their country, please add the details to this thread. From getselfhelp.co.uk: Suicidal: Crisis Management Plan Suicidal: Safety Plan Suicidal: Safety Plan Cards Suicidal Thoughts: Coping with

I came across this. It is wonderful. http://psychrights.org/articles/newdrugsnewproblems.htm

Hi been battling with depression since my early 20's and now 45. Initially I would get what I consider now minor bouts of SAD which I regret starting meds for. If I could go back in time like so many here I'd totally never start. Anyways throughout my 20's depression and anxiety were mild until my mid thirties. In 2011 I started to get panic attack at works and thing got worse until I could barely leave my house. I was ok though alll things considered as I could work from home and get food delivered to my nyc apt. Instead of trying to let it pass I decided to go on mirtazapine which after a couple days gave me total insomnia. My psychiatrist swore to me it was my illness and not the mirtazapine as its supposed to help sleep. Until that moment in life I never experienced insomnia at all nor did I have suicidal ideation. However after 3 months of almost no sleep with heavy benzo/z-drug usage included I was ready to take my life and to this day I have PTSD over the whole episode. Thankfully I stopped seeing that doc and stopped taking my mirtazapine. In 10 days I could sleep very well but i was still on paxil and slowly tapered the benzos till I was off. From that point I was told it wasn't worth it for me to come off SSRIs anymore so I didn't for years until 2017 when I just felt I could do without so i did. Everything seemed fine for many months but then I went to mexico and got a stomach bug. I should have just let it be but I took flagyl and ver the next couple months I was alright but i kept waking up earlier than usual etc (i believe the flagyl did it). 2018 I decided fine lets do the paxil again but this time it gives total insomnia. I stop it but its too late I can't sleep and I need to work. My PTSD from not sleeping in 2011 comes back and i'm taking a bit of kloopin to drift off at night. In a couple weeks i'm hooked. Doctor gives me trazadone which helps and i'm back on paxil with klonopin until the paxil hopefully helps. It does six months later once I reach a high dose and i taper of klonopin and trazodone. Sorry for dragging this out but I'm not sure what else to put here. 2021 now on lexapro because paxil raises my liver enzymes. Feel fine and sleep fine. April go in for first covid shot moderna. A few weeks later I can't sleep without trazadone and lexapro seems to be causing anxiety all of a sudden (this is the first time I had problems with sleep while on an SSRI). Please understand I am not anti-vax and in fact am very for it however I believe it is what triggered the episode I am in which has taken over nine month now. Anyways I switched to paxil until last month when it began making anxiety worse and now on 100mg luvox + 150-200mg trazodone. Sleeping but lightly with lots of dreams and having bouts of anxiety during the day with lots of suicidal ideation as I feel SSRIS can't help me anymore. This makes feel like I'm at a crossroads in my life. Do I start taking benzos again knowing that if th SSRIs don't work I will never come off and eventually kill myself once tolerance set in which it always does (I know I would, I want to do it now and I'm not going through benzo withdrawal). Or I dunno just stop taking luvox and trazodone and brace myself for hell now? Will I ever sleep again? I know my PTSD about not sleeping will kick in and everything will be so much worse. Will I come out on the other side or will I have anxiety and insomnia for life? (which would pretty much cause me to go back to scenario one above and inevitably lead to suicide. ) I know lots of catastrophizing here and other cognitive distortions but thats alI I feel right now. I didn't take my luvox today and don't know if I'll be able to skip my trazodone tonight. Words of encouragement would be appreciated. Feel like these are the last few weeks of my life. 1998: 4 months paxil for SAD1999: 4 months paxil for SAD2000: 3 months paxil for SAD2001-2010: On and off PAXIL, Lexapro for depression flareups but very inconsistent use.2011: Went on mirtazapine, 80 mg paxil, 2 mg klonopin.2012: tapered off mitazapine and klonopin once paxil helped.2013-2017: 10-20mg paxil or 10mg lexapromid 2017:off lexapro2018: reinstated 20mg Paxil, .75 klonopin, 150 trazodone2019: tapered off klonopin and trazodone, switched to 50mg luvox2020: switched to 10 mg lexapro2021: switched to 40 mg paxil, added 150mg trazodone

I quick-tapered fluvoxamine (Luvox) a couple of months ago. I started in 2017 with 50 mg and worked my way to 100mg. I stayed on 100mg until may 2020, but during the pandemic I got through a rough break-up and was put on 200 and 300mg after a couple of weeks. However, due to overbooking of psychiatrists and the end of my medical coverage I decided to (foolishly I know) quick taper (more of a CT now that I think about it) the med. I went back to 200mg (supervised at first) but then lowered to 150 (after 2 weeks) 100 (for a month) and 50 (for 2 weeks). I got the usual withdrawal symptoms (electric shock sensation, depersonalization, and light head are the main ones I remember) but continued with my life. Everything seemed normal but it has been two times (different ocassions) that I have woken up and I just can't speak, it feels like I want to say something but I can't find the appropriate words for it. A quick google search led me to link my overall symtoms to stopping Fluvoxamine.

I had been suffering from insomnia for 6 months and went to the Drs who decided that it was depression rather than just insomnia. In my niavity I took the 10mgs for 8 days. Within those eight days, I completely changed. I stopped sleeping, I couldn't eat and had crazed anxiety I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Plus all these thoughts entered my head that were never there before. I lost all comfort in my own company, which had never been a problem I had spent 9months on my own. Over the last 3 months it has got progressively worse, to the point of feeling suicidal. How can a drug have such an effect and has anyone been able to come out of the otherside? I have now been prescribed trazodone but don't really want to take it, but am scared I have run out of options.

Hi, I am 24. I quit my job and moved home last year because of being severely depressed and suicidal. I had another suicidal depressive episode when I was 14, but I have basically always been some degree of depressed. My depression has to do with my isolation and low self esteem. I havent tried meds ever until over the past year. I am currently on 225mg of Effexor and 15mg of remeron, but I also tried wellbutrin and prozac briefly and was on olanzapine for a while. Literally nothing has helped except mess me up even more. I am just making an account to learn more, I am not ready to taper yet because I am still very unstable and I am scared I might hurt myself. I also am not fully educated on whether meds are good or bad, whether I need them, etc. I definitely lean strongly towards them being b******t. But I am not very smart, so I dont understand it well enough to know for sure, and I want to be open minded for now. At this point, I just feel so disconnected from it all, I've lost my desires/goals in life, I feel less emotion, I dont even try to socialize, I have no faith in my abilities, little hope that Ill ever get better, I dont believe love exists, I dont think I can ever be happy, have friends or self esteem or ever be a normal functioning member of society again. I am really scared by it all, I am still unemployed, I was going to go back to college but I've cancelled that now too. I have my older sibling who is a great support and my parents too. I got a dog a month ago, and wow it has helped wayyyy more than anything. I love her so much, I take really good care of her, we go on so many adventures, she forces me to wake in the morning, to have a routine, to get fresh air, to clear my mind, to get exercise, to talk to people, to see new places. I used to constantly feel empty and pointless, especially when alone and idle, I would ruminate. But now, instead of ruminating, I try to spend that time with my dog instead, I also feel significantly less lonely and somehow time with her doesn't feel pointless and meaningless. She is 7 and has never had an owner or a chance to be a dog and play etc. Ive taught her how to swim, I am very patient with her, shes so calm and well behaved, I am teaching her many commands and she learns them fast. I cant even imagine life without her now. Currently, my plan is to look for a job, even a sh*tty part time job because I need money, a routine would be good and it would give me more purpose and fill time and I would talk to more people besides just my parents. So thats a good starting point I think, after that, I want to exercise more and I want to take Spanish lessons (but its expensive). I need a good way to make friends, but its hard and my low self esteem makes it near impossible. I also have the issue of not knowing what my sexuality is, so that prevents dating as well, but low self esteem is the most significant obstacle. Once I am more stable, I am considering getting off these meds but I am scared that I can never get off them now. And its not even like they are helping me at all, maybe the Effexor does some emotional blunting but I don't consider that progress if its just making me less empathetic and less able to be happy. Prior to meds, the emotional pain was very unbearable though. Anyways, nice to meet you. Thank you!

I quit Lexapro and 3 weeks later i simply stopped sleeping. It has been 4 months now and I have insomnia every day unless i take benzos. I have tried trazodone, zolpidem, CBTI and lithium. nothing works and i am getting more and more suicidal. i litterally have to stay on benzos otherwise i will be consumed by obcessive thoughts of death. I cannot go on like this any longer. Has anyone ever had this experience? will it ever stop?

I've been taking seroquel for PTSD for two years. I was taking 600 mg XR a day. In addition to this, I was taking a diabetes drug - metformin - to stop the outrageous hunger caused by seroquel. I've had a flare up of my eating disorder and decided that come hell or high water that I must get off the seroquel. Taking the combination of 600mg XR seroquel and 2000mg XR metformin, I managed to drop my weight down from a disgusting 72kg to a more tolerable 57kg (I'm 155cms tall) and stopped losing weight. No matter how much I restrict or exercise, I can't lose weight and haven't lost anything at all for 2 months. I did some research and decided to move across to Prazosin because it's also an alpha 1 adrenergic receptor antagonist like seroquel, but it's not sedating and doesn't cause you to gain weight or get metabolic syndrome either. So while I'm titrating up Prazosin at 2mg a day until I get to a dose of 30mg a day (I'm currently at 25 mg). But I've been simultaneously reducing my seroquel by 50mg a day - or I was until I completely lost my patience and remembering what my psychiatrist said about seroquel tapering, I started dropping my dose by 100mg every 5 days. For the most part, everything's been totally fine, except for a few days of insomnia. Now that I've gone from 50mg XR to 0, it's hit the fan and I can't sleep. Like I can be tired and feel physically relaxed but my brain won't stop thinking and over thinking and I can't fall asleep no matter what I do. I generally pass out at about 5 am and sleep until maybe 9 am, if I'm lucky. Until the prazosin was titrated to above 20mg a day, I was completely and irrationally suicidal and had to take all of my medications to my pastor and ask him to look after them because I was convinced that I'd overdose on them. I rang my psychiatrist and his only advice was to keep on with the seroquel and I absolutely refuse to do this. I feel like if I do that I'll a] never get off it and b] never lose any more weight. Will this insomnia go away? Or will I need to get an alternate drug to make me sleep until the seroquel is out of my system and my brain has adjusted? I just don't know what to do. University starts back in a week and I have to sleep if I expect to study. If I can't study, I can't eat because I'll lose my merit scholarship. IDK what to do. Anyone got any ideas, advice, help?

Greetings all. This is my very first post by the way. I have been reading a lot of the posts on this site and there is a wealth of information regarding tapering. However, what I would really like to know is why should I taper at all? I am currently taking the following drugs daily 187.5mg venlafaxine 150mg pregabalin (Lyrica) 2mg risperidone Sometime I take zopiclone to sleep but most nights I don't need it. I don't drink alcohol or take any other substances. I meditate and I eat reasonably well. I get moderate exercise. I am enjoying my work and in general I am feeling well. I was very ill in 2008 requiring hospitalisation though. The diagnosis was psychotic depression. I had a relapse in 2012 and I made a suicide attempt at that point. Since 2012 I have been reasonably well and I am getting better all the time. I can suffer from anxiety at times but it's very manageable. Sometimes I feel a little depressed but who doesn't. I have managed to taper the venlafaxine down to the current dose myself. I was taking 300mg not so long ago. Tomorrow I plan to taper it another 10%. I see a psychiatrist regularly and I told him that I was tapering. He just wrote my a prescription for the new dose. I will be back to see him next week. To be honest, I would like to be eventually free of these meds entirely but I worry that I may have a relapse of some sort if I stop taking them altogether. So far the tapering has been going well though. I keep a diary to monitor my mood and there has been no significant change since I started reducing the venlafaxine. I just don't know though. I feel as if I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I want to be free of the drugs but perhaps they are keeping me well? But, in the long term, from what I have been reading they could be doing permanent harm. I just don't know. Please advise

aunton, Massachusetts (CNN)A woman on trial for urging her boyfriend to kill himself was delusional after becoming "involuntarily intoxicated" by antidepressants, a psychiatrist said Monday. Michelle Carter "was unable to form intent" after switching to a new prescription drug only weeks before her boyfriend committed suicide in July 2014, Dr. Peter Breggin testified. She even texted his phone for weeks after he died, Breggin said. More here: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/12/health/text-message-suicide-trial/index.html

If you had a loved one who died of overdose after trying and failing to get treatment, I would like to talk to you. I am a free-lance writer specializing in medical harm. Here is a link to my writer's website, with links to all my writing on the web: http://patrickhahn5.wixsite.com/meliponula

Not sure if anyone has posted about this so thought I'd add it just in case it hasn't. Dr Yolande Lucire is the researcher who tested Shane's blood (the son of Irish mental health campaigner, Leonie Fennell). Copied and pasted in case it disappears but here is the link: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/pysch-drug-link-to-violent-episodes-analysed-400571.html ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Friday, May 20, 2016 Jennifer Hough Forensic testing of blood can now determine if anti- depressants were the cause of violent behaviour, including murder or suicide, new research has found. Forensic testing of blood can now determine if anti- depressants were the cause of violent behaviour, including murder or suicide, new research has found. Genetic variations in metabolism affect how different people react to anti-depressants, and now medical examiners say they can identify those variations, and use the evidence to “potentially absolve people charged with homicide”, and explain why they acted like they did. The research, published recently in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, was carried out by a medical specialist, a forensic psychiatrist and a pharmacogeneticist. It looks specifically at three cases where people with no previous diagnosis, who were prescribed antidepressants for stress-related issues, ended up killing others, with two attempting suicide. “An out-of-character unmotivated homicide or suicide by a person taking medication might be chemically induced and involuntary. The capacity to use frontal lobe functions and control behaviour can be impaired by brain toxicity,” the paper states. “None improved on medication, and no prescriber recognised complaints as adverse drug reactions or was aware of impending danger.” The researchers took accounts of restlessness, akathisia (a state of severe restlessness associated with thoughts of death and violence), confusion, delirium, euphoria, extreme anxiety, obsessive preoccupation with aggression, and incomplete recall of events. “Weird impulses to kill were acted on without warning. On recovery, all recognised their actions to be out of character, and their beliefs and behaviours horrified them,” the paper notes. The research concludes that the “medicalisation of common human distress” has resulted in a very large number of people getting medication that may do more harm than good by causing “suicides and homicides and the mental states that lead up to them”. Irish mental health campaigner Leonie Fennell, whose son Shane was prescribed anti-depressants and soon afterwards killed himself and another person, said she has been aware of this evolving science for some years, and has had Shane’s blood tested in Australia. The researcher who tested Shane’s blood, Dr Yolande Lucire, is one of the papers’ authors. She cited his case in another research project she carried out in 2011. Dr Lucire noted Shane was initially prescribed a double dose of the common SSRI anti-depressant, citalopram. Five days later he overdosed on the tablets, and two days later he told his doctor, who then restarted him on a lower dose of the anti-depressant. “He immediately became violently akathisic, unable to stay in one place, moving constantly between the houses of friends, unable to sit and have a conversation. According to his mother, communicating with him was like ‘talking to a brick wall’. His friends reported that, immediately after taking citalopram, he became agitated, emotional, irrational, and aggressive. His brother saw him throw a mobile phone, destroying it, with trivial, if any provocation,” Lucire writes. Post-mortem toxicology of blood revealed levels of citalopram of about 30 times the therapeutic level. Dr Lucire, a forensic psychiatrist who specialises in adverse drug reactions to psychiatric drugs, said in her experience patients do not need the drugs they are being prescribed. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.madinamerica.com/2016/05/the-fda-is-hiding-reports-linking-psych-drugs-to-homicides/ www.study329.org for paxil references http://antidepaware.co.uk/homicides The top article is the most recent. I am so, so glad, I did not follow through the urge to drown my own baby 20 years ago. I had a horrific reaction to one damn valium, sent to a psych establishment, and after three weeks, of them trying to wean me off all the crap they put me on, when they realised it was an adverse drug reaction, I had my baby in the bath with me in Mother and Baby ward, and a sudden, unexplained urge to blame him for everything and drown him. SEEMS PEOPLE HAVE FOLLOWED THROUGH ON THESE THINGS, ALL CAUSED BY THE HORROR DRUGS prescribed from Chantix, to stop smoking, Oxycontin, a pain pill, Vyvanse, to lose weight, people dont even know they are also psych drugs. As for all the poisons we are trying to get off of in this group, think we all know the horrors AD use and all their minions (lithium, MAOIs, anti-psychotics, anti epileptics, SSRIs SRNIs, etc) we all know how horrible they are. As for mothers murdering their own babies, or fathers driving into rivers with children still strapped in their seats, or the lady who did that in USA, and is serving a life sentence, yes all caused by the damn pills.

http://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/legal-journal-says-antidepressants-can-cause-violence-and-suicide/ Legal Journal Says Antidepressants Can Cause Violence and Suicide April 18, 2016 Antidepressants have been reported to cause a state called “akathisia,” where people feel extremely agitated and restless and may become preoccupied with thoughts of violence. In a new article, to be published in the latest issue of the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, researchers investigate the role of antidepressants in three recent murders. The researchers, a medical specialist and a forensic psychiatrist and pharmacogeneticist, suggest that tests may be done to assess the role of antidepressant toxicity in violent events that may affect legal determinations, potentially even absolving people charged with homicide. The “new generation” antidepressants, SSRIs and SNRIs, appeared in the 1980s but, according to the reviewers, “their adverse effects and clinical trial data have not been fully disclosed.” In 2004, the FDA published a public health advisory warning of worsening depression and suicidality in some patients being treated with antidepressants. In 2007, a Black Box suicide warning was extended from just teenagers and suggested monitoring all patients up to age 24 for anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, hostility, impulsivity, and akathisia. Recent findings show an increased risk for violent crime in young adults taking antidepressants and a groundbreaking reanalysis of the infamous Study 329 on the effects of Paxil on teens found a heightened risk for suicide that was not initially disclosed by the drug companies. The authors report that genetic variations in metabolism affect how individuals react to antidepressants and that research indicated that “ultra-rapid metabolizers” may be at an increased risk for changes in behavior. More at above link...

Congress Proposes Research on the Link Between Psychiatric Drugs and Suicide By Chuck Ruby, PhD Featured Blogs March 30, 2016 Congressman David Jolly (FL-13) has recently introduced the Veteran Suicide Prevention Act (H.R. 4640). The bill calls for the VA to study veteran suicides over the past five years and to determine what extent psychiatric drugs are implicated in those suicides. The International Society of Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) has long been concerned about this issue, and more broadly, how our veterans and military members suffering from the horrors of war and other traumatic experiences are being treated. I sent letters of support to Mr. Jolly’s office, offering ISEPP’s assistance in any way possible. In 2012, ISEPP launched “Operation Speak Up” (OSU) as a response to the alarmingly high suicide rate of veterans. The name signifies our desire to help veterans speak up, rather than being shut up with psychiatric drugs. Although it started as an effort to encourage Congress to consider a non-medical model approach to helping those suffering from trauma, it quickly turned into a grassroots and consumer focused endeavor from the ground up under the leadership of our OSU Director, Mary Vieten, Ph.D., ABPP, U.S. Naval Reserve Commander. Mary has since made great strides in partnering with Melwood, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people with disabilities in the greater Washington DC area. Together with Melwood’s support and funding, Mary has created a program called TOHIDU (a Cherokee word meaning “peace of mind, body, and spirit”) as a wonderful alternative to conventional treatment. You can see more about TOHIDU here. Mr. Jolly’s bill will be the first to establish congressional oversight of this alarming problem of using psychiatric drugs shotgun style to quiet the screams of trauma. Despite the increasing concerns of the deleterious effects of psychiatric drugs, they continue to be the mainstay form of treatment within the VA and Defense Department, as they are on the outside. This has to change.The extant research makes it abundantly clear that psychiatric drugs do not correct chemical imbalances. It would be better said that they cause chemical imbalances. They artificially alter brain chemistry in ways that are not clearly understood, and that numb important emotions that signal meaningful issues in our lives. The brain tries to counteract their effect by making changes in how neurotransmitters are used. The person experiences these changes in very agonizing ways, the most worrisome is called “akathisia,” or a state of agitation, restlessness, and a terrible sense of not feeling welcome in one’s own skin. This can lead to unpredictable irritability and violent behavior, including violence toward oneself. To read more on this, see ISEPP’s White Paper. More here: http://www.madinamerica.com/2016/03/congress-proposes-research-on-the-link-between-psychiatric-drugs-and-suicide/ Also on that page is information about how to contact Congress to express your support for this bill. It would be a great idea to also encourage them to investigate the suicide-drug link in other populations too!

Psychiatrist Dr. Colin Ross, M.D. discusses the truth about side effects with common psychiatric drugs including antipsychotic medications, antidepressants and others.

An essential video of a court hearing that happened that officially lets the cat out of the bag about how Eli Lilly hid the negative results of pre test results on Prozac. The hearing was related to how american solders had flipped out as a direct result of using SSRI type medications. It also explains how these type of 'medications' are causing people to commit suicide, murder other people. Dr.Breggin is a Psychiatrist who's published many books on the bad aspects of psychiatric drug use & has a site that is also essential reading for anyone interested in the subject www.breggin.com A must for anyone who hasn't already seen it.. enjoy (20mins) http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=286