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JanCarol ☼ Reboxetine first, then Lithium I’ll start with the Success Part, before I unfold the story. I am a classic poster-girl story of “Why You Should Taper.” I thought I couldn’t come off the drugs, I was convinced I was a “biological bipolar” – but by using SA’s conservative 10% or less tapering system, I hardly had any withdrawals this time, and could control my symptoms and make space for my stressors by holding. I’m a living example of why anyone should taper and hold in order to come off. And there is no such thing as too slow. I attribute my success to the SA taper, and a number of coping strategies. I got support. I had a psychologist, who was wholly supportive. I bullied my psychiatrist to do the taper “my way” instead of her way. She actually had helpful suggestions for lifestyle changes, too. I got an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, and later added an orthomolecular doctor and osteopath. I told my husband and all of my friends. I prepared for my taper. I owe so much to those who walked this path before me: AltoStrata, GiaK, Rhiannon, Petunia, BrassMonkey, MammaP, Bubble, Dalsaan, MeiMeiQuest, CymbaltaWithdrawal5600, and many more. And – to go further afield – Robert Whitaker for his excellent book, “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” and Will Hall for the “Icarus Harm Reduction Guide to Coming off Psychiatric Drugs” for showing me that it could be done, and how. And for helping me to accept that I may be different – but that different is not a medical condition. I got curious and read everything I could on the web, and learned a lot. I learned the most from SA and Beyondmeds.com. Most of what I have written as a moderator is not original – but is something I learned here or in my researches, that I applied to my life, and which I found effective. My psychiatrist resisted my desire to taper, but she told me she would support me if I put some things in place. We established a contract with my hubby, so that if I went off the rails, he would be able to get help for me. She would not taper me unless I made a commitment to take sun walks for light therapy and mood stabilization. I also eat meat and fish for mood stabilization & brain nutrition. I took up a tai chi practice and found a yoga studio which supports me. My karate mates have always supported me, even when I was too sick to participate. Meanwhile, my psychologist went to hear Robert Whitaker talk, and she came to realize how many of the cases she saw were people suffering from drug effects. She wrote glowing letters of progress to my psychiatrist, who really had no choice but to say, “Okay, I guess she’s doing well.” Nuts and bolts, I took a year to come off a low dose of reboxetine (it’s the least effective SNRI in the world, actually less effective than placebo), and another 2.5 years to come off the lithium. As I was suffering lithium toxicity (diabetes insipidus), I alternated some of my SNRI tapers with lithium tapers. I tapered 10% per month, or if while dry cutting, I had to drop by 15% (my largest taper), I would hold an extra month. I held an extra month if I had any upsets or stressors – funerals, travel, illness, bad news, etc. I held 3 months after the SNRI was gone before tapering the lithium again. My tapers were relatively symptom free. Most of my symptoms were from worry that I really was crazy – and there were mood spikes until I learned to manage my mood on my own. That’s what I should’ve learned when I got diagnosed 20 years ago. Nobody tells you that you can manage your own mood. In fact, nobody tells you that you are the only person who can manage your own mood! I greatly reduced gluten, especially wheat, and dairy. I cut the coffee way back. I start my day with protein (good for adrenals), and finish my day with carbs. I take magnesium baths whenever I feel "crunchy" and after every exercise session. I have raw food smoothies 2x a week. I take a number of supplements to manage my health without drugs. Most important: magnesium and fish oil. For mood & energy: NAC. I couldn’t take up meditation exactly, because of cult abuse in my past, but I can do tai chi and yoga, and I love breathing and mindfulness meditation. I found a great benefit to shamanic practice, because it is not worship of any foreign deity or guru, and my own inner experience is the guide to what I am learning and how I am growing. I took up creativity practices, like music, coloring, drawing, painting and writing. I took up correspondence with special people here on SA and in other places, so I could learn and grow by sharing with others. I was well supported by all of these people and practices, and I feel I have a web which will catch me if I ever fall down again. Sometimes now, I miss a practice. I might not get all the sun walks in, or I might eat wheat or dairy. But now I am well enough – I am buoyant enough – and I have enough practices – that missing one or two Jenga blocks doesn’t make the tower fall. (it also helps to not have a tall tower - our society asks too much of us, I believe, it's inhuman sometimes) When I come back, I’ll give more of my history – how crazy, abused, wild, suicidal, depressed, with unrelenting fatigue, and how I was convinced I was “bipolar.” Now, I have no diagnosis (I leave it on the medical charts so that I can refuse drugs – “No doctor, you can’t give me that, I’m bipolar!”), my body is broken from surgeries, abuse, accidents and pain. My major lasting drug effect is metabolic and autonomic dysfunction but those are compounded by surgeries, too. I still have severe delayed cycle sleep (but I always did: it is my difference), and unrelenting tinnitus. But my mental and emotional life is healthier than I’ve ever been before. I have compassion for my fellow human in a way I couldn’t before. I have passion for what I am doing, and a sense of purpose. I am driven to create, to share, to learn, to grow. I love meeting with people and listening, and feel so incredibly fortunate. I’m older and wiser than ever before, and I still have a lot of healing to do. But I am awake, alive, and grateful to be so.

Hi all, I'm 33 year old single mum and illustrator from the UK and I feel trapped on sertraline. I have been on 200mg of sertraline daily for at least 8 years, I think I started on a slightly lower dose but it was so long ago I can't be exact. I was put on it for anxiety and 'feeling detached' but I'd struggled with fast thoughts, insomnia and sleep paralysis since my teenage years. The sertaline helped but about 6 - 7 years ago I tried to taper off and I lost my mind, I made a horrible suicide attempt. Since then I've been too terrified to to try and taper off at all. But the last couple of years I've had other health issues and I've become an extreme introvert which I never was. I also cannot seem to lose weight for love nor money and I'm trying everything to just be healthier, mentally and physically but I think sertraline needs to go. Doctors in my area of the uk at the moment are absolute chaos, it's near impossible to get an appointment and they really are not interested unless it's life or death right now. I'm not sure where to go from here. I've read the 10% taper stuff here, I'm not sure I'll be able to cut my tablets down like that and I'm not sure if the length of time has just been too long and I'm a lost cause at this point. Any advice very welcome.

Hello everyone, I want to share my story and what is going on as for now, 1 month after going off duloxetine. Looking forward to any advice or warm words from you 🙏🏻 This post will be long but I hope any of you will be kind to read it. (pls note that english is not my first language and I am sorry for any mistakes). So, my history with ads as I tried to remember it is in my signature. I started at 20 yr old as I was then diagnosed with depression and anxiety and had major panic attacks. I must say that starting paroxetine at that time was life-saving for me. I stayed on it for a couple of years as I was battling depression, searching for therapies and anything that will help. For many years I took paroxetine and then venlaflaxine, was in different therapies, learned self care, found a supporting group of friends and changed my approach to life. I became very self-aware, gained a great knowledge of antidepressants, mental illnesses etc. I self-diagnosed with CPTSD and read a bunch of books which helped me more than anything before in my life. Fast forward to 2022, still on antidepressants (finally it was duloxetine 60mg for about 6 months), I ended 4 years long therapy, I started feeling really good (with only exception constant fatigue and some mild pain here and there). I decided to go off duloxetine as I felt 1. I no longer need it 2. It is actually making me worse with side effects. Of course my psychiatrists only idea was to get me off 60mg duloxetine to 30mg in a WEEK and from 30mg to 0 in a second week.. Which as you imagine ended up with me feeling like I was literally d*ing. So after 4 days of agony I came back to 30 mg and with the help of this forum ( consulted with my a doctor again) I started tapering by cutting the pill to smaller and smaller pieces, which took almost 3 months altogether. I was determined. I was feeling okay. I was so so hopeful and full of positive imaginations of living my best life after going off the meds. In the last stage I went off about 2mg to 0 in 2 weeks. The smaller the dosage was, the better I felt, and finally couple of days with ZERO duloxetine I was even happy and full of energy. And then all hell broke loose. Around 2-3rd of July 22 I was woken up at night with terrible leg pain. That pain was horrific and nothing I ever felt in my life, crying, screaming on the floor. My legs hurt from hips to ankles. After 3 days of it I drove to the hospital and got injection which helped for about 12 hours. Also it turned out at the same time my rectum prolapsed (rectal prolapse) which scared me as f*k.. It has been more than a month now and countless visits to the doctors (GP, gynie, orthopedist, neurologist, rheumatologist, gastrologist etc). I did so many blood tests and many kind of tests I don’t even remember the names of it all. I lost all my money on it. Nothing came out, nothing indicates any sickness and the doctors are hopeless. For today, I still await many more visits but already some of the doctors suggested seeing psychiatrist and taking antidepressants. Could it be the withdrawal? It is my biggest fear. I cannot imagine going back to antidepressants especially that mentally I am feeling too good for that. I am hanging in here But with every day living with this pain I am starting to loose hope and will. I have trouble with walking and climbing stairs. I cannot work and function. My legs, hips and pelvis hurt so much, some pain going now to the lower back too. I became very sensitive to sound and light and at least a couple of times a day my body kind of shakes for a minutes. If it sounds familiar to you, please contact me. Also, if you have fibromyalgia please let me know, it will be helpfull as it is one of my guesses for this situation. Thank you

jancarol-undiagnosed-off-all-bipolar-drugs G'day folks! I've only just arrived, I've read a few threads here, but not had much to say. I've been lucky, really. Because I'm not heavily medicated and never have been - I've fought that every step of the way. Likewise, I've never been hospitalized or jailed - I've fought against that every step of the way. It started in my 20's when Doc's decided that my depression would clear up better with a bit of Prozac. Just to help me "over the bump" until I had frank hallucinations, watching Bigfoot amble about in traffic and around town. Time to get off the Prozac. So I go off, and persist in an empty marriage with unfulfilling work. So the Doc's (I can't even remember which Doctors did this, it's strange because I was in a new town in Indiana, and you'd think I"d remember going to the clinic or Doc's office, but oh well) prescribe Zooloft. I get jittery and palpitations, so I go off again. Over the next 10 years, from about 25-35, I'm prescribed various antidepressants, and most of them fail. The only one to stick was Wellbutrin, but I get ahead of myself. So after these 3 month each infusions of brain chemical bursts, for 10 years, is it any wonder that when the marriage fell apart in 1995 I went full blown, psychotic mad manic? At the time I described it as if a weight that I had held on my shoulders for years and years was suddenly pulled away and I came unstuck. I was talking to bees (and making contracts with them), stalking potential lovers, stripping my clothes off in the woods so as to be "invisible," paranoid that the lights in my windows were UFO's. This was not treated by medical doctors as mania. Nor was it treated as psychosis at any time: because here is the key - even though I was mad and manic, I was LUCID. I could tell you, "This just isn't right, I need to get help." Ergo, I escaped hospitalization, and the overdrugging that happens there. This was treated with yet another antidepressant (Wellbutrin?) and antianxiety meds (likely Xanax). I met a yoga guru at about that time, and he "cleaned me up" and stabilized me but that was another abusive relationship - because now I "owed him" my life. I was on Wellbutrin for 3 years after this, but the depression just kept sinking deeper and deeper as I had sold my soul to this yogi. When I told the yogi, finally, to go away, that I would be happier without him telling me "who to be," and "how to be it," I got marginally better. At the same time I met my birthfamily, Birth Mom, birth aunt, a sister and 2 brothers. When I got the family history and heard about great-grandma hanging in the shower, and grandma finding her, and the resultant paranoia about menopause this caused....when I heard about the uncles who were chameleons and bigamists....I thought, well. Maybe I am "manic depressive" or "bipolar." So again: with lucidity and clarity I presented myself to the hospital charity system for treatment. to be continued.......