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Hi members ! I am new on this forum. I am a 25year old male . I would like to ask for help if it is possible becuse right now i am feeling very hopeless. I Have been taking 10 mg escitalopram for 1 year. i tried to quit 2 times (this was my second attempt) but it did not succeed. Before the medication i had mainly bad anxiety and bad depression too for a half year and it could be that this drug helped me (although i dont really believe in serotonin hypothesis). But i learned exposition therapy and i also thought that it was which healed my anxiety . But because when i learned this new strong mindset about exposure therapy i already started lexapro and my Psychiatrist told me that of course it was the drug so i cant say which was the main force. My first try to quit from lexapro was really bad i did a taper from 10to 5 mg within 2weeks. After that 2weeks with 2.5mg than things had gotten really REALLY bad i think worse than before the escitalopram. I reinstated at 10mg and in a week or two i was "fine again". But last time on 22. on december in 2022 i decided to wean off myself because it does not make me happy at all and causing some side effects. I read this site but in my country there is not any kind of liquid source and also i thought (foolishly) i can do a faster taper. I only wanted go down to 5mg from 10 and after if everything is OK i will wean myself completely later. I took 10 mg on day1 7.5mg on day2 for 1 week. After that 7.5mg for 1 week. Than 7.5mg and 5mg on day 1 and day2 for 1 week. At this dosage some lightheadness started with insomnia and brain fog but i continued because with some benzos and zolpidem they were managable. After that i hit the 5mg and things have gotten worse . There were depression and anxiety too but after weeks they became stronger and stronger. Yesterday after 2 months i hit the hell debilitating depression anxiety ,chills, 0apetite. I am hoping that this could be also withdrawal and not relapse because i want to live without meds and i think the lot work i did for my anxiety was myself and not the drug. Yesterday i gave it up and reinstated the original dosage 10mg and today too.. I far from good, but i am better a little bit yet. Honestly i know i a have to live with some anxiety and depression but i think i could manage that not to mention that my life needs a lot of repair too which i have to do on my own (finding a nice partner mainly) but this debilitating depression, sadness, anxiety what i got again makes me sad and tries to believe me that it was and it is all the 10mg escitalopram which helpes me not my self improovement and therapie. Sorry for the long text and the possible grammar mistakes but english is not my mother language.

I'm so happy to have found this group through a link on the UK MIND website. This is my story so far. After a few years of poor sleep leading to debilitating anxiety, at the beginning of 2000 my GP prescribed me Seroxat (Paxil) and Zopiclone 3.75mg (Lunesta). I was in such a state and so relieved to have been helped, that I took Zopiclone every night along with the Seroxat as instructed.. for six years. In the first year I gained 4 stone (56 pounds) in weight but otherwise felt well. In 2006 I went on holiday and forgot to take my Seroxat with me. Three days later it didn't occur to me that the reason I thought I was dying was my forgotten meds, but I then realised and obtained an emergency supply. This incident frightened me and as I felt well and was sleeping, I decided to stop taking Seroxat. My GP told me to 'do it gradually' over a two-week period. After starting to feel unwell having halved my dose (can't remember what I was on but it wasn't the highest or the lowest) I googled and discovered tapering. With the help of a wonderful online support group I used liquid Seroxat (the GP didn't know it was a thing) and having nevertheless been through appalling withdrawal over 18 months, I was free of it. Even having tapered by a droplet every two weeks, the withdrawal was intolerable. I lost 18 months of my life doing little else but lie on a sofa. In 2007 I presented myself, a weeping mess, at the GP's again and was offered Trimipramine, a sedating tricyclic AD (proprietary name then was Surmontil). Trimipramine was actually the answer to my prayers. It knocked me out for twelve hours at a stretch. I slept, but it dulled my mind and gave me heart arrhythmia which caused me to start a tapered withdrawal in 2017. It was going reasonably well until a GP I had never met rang me to say I had to stop taking the drug immediately as the price had sky-rocketed and the NHS could no longer prescribe it. My taper turned into a glorified cold turkey and I had every withdrawal symptom possible. My Zopiclone dose was doubled to 7.5mg and after 4 weeks I was back at the surgery, seeing a fourth different GP, who was adamant that what I needed was Mirtazapine (in spite of my protestations about its reputation for weight gain). I only took it for two weeks, I really wasn't invested in it and although I didn't really give it a fair chance, it was no help. I decided to see a psychiatrist in March 2018, who put me on Amitiyptilyne (Elavil), the thinking being that as a tricyclic had already helped me, this drug might get me out of crisis. I went from 25-75mg in a week. It didn't help my sleep or anxiety and gave me bladder issues, mainly false urinary urgency, which made my anxiety go through the roof and put a complete end to any hope of sleeping. I then did a quick cross-taper onto Escitalopram (Lexapro) going up from 2.5mg to 15mg in the three months to June 2018. Escitalopram was just wrong for me and my chronic insomnia. It was extremely stimulating, I was wired 24/7, I had tinnitus, ear and sinus pain, mania, twitching muscles, popping ears, panic, to name but a few. I did a quick cross-taper onto Venlafaxine (Effexor) 37.5mg, increasing after a week to 75mg. This drug was also stimulating. The bladder issues had gone after three months on Escitalopram, but Venlafaxine also gave me the jitters, the ENT symptoms and I couldn't sleep. I added Melatonin and CBD oil into the mix. The side-effects just worsened, I had stomach pain, digestive issues, acid reflux and my head was a sleep-deprived mess. I decided enough was enough and tapered off Venlafaxine, by myself, between September 2020 and 12 August 2022 when I took my last sliver of tablet. So I'm just approaching one year of being AD-free. I still take 7.5mg of Zopiclone nightly, but suffer from appalling insomnia and my quality of life is much-diminished from what it could be. I use CBD oil sometimes at night, melatonin, valerian. I practise slow breathing, I have had CBT and CBTi. I did a course on Vedic meditation which has helped somewhat, but I typically have 5/6 hours' sleep a night, I cry, I panic and I despair. I avoid socialising and going away from home: my sleeping is scant in my own bed, elsewhere it is an anxiety-ridden struggle. I wish that back in 2000, I had been offered CBT rather than pills, and that I could have been encouraged to use Zopiclone sparingly, occasionally. I'll never know if that could have been enough. Thank you so much if you've got to the end of this long initial post. I was planning to be brief.. I spent this morning dipping in and out of threads and have already found much to encourage and comfort.

I recently completed a 14-month taper off of 30 mg of Flurazepam in July 2023 (after more than 10 years of use) and did a quick taper off of 6.25 mg of Ambien in October 2023 (after 6 months of use). I started taking 125 mg of Trazadone to help me sleep during my Flurazepam taper. I’ve been on Trazadone for 3 years and I’d like to taper it because it’s doing nothing for sleep. It’s like an empty pill that I keep taking because if I stop taking it, I’m immediately back into sleepless nights. I need some semblance of sleep to work and support my family. I am desperately hoping to get my natural sleep back after tapering Ambien and Flurazepam this year. Is Trazadone holding back my sleep? It should be helping it but I think I’ve built a tolerance to it, plus I’m likely in benzo induced insomnia. Does anyone have any experience with being trazadone tolerance? How hard was it to taper off of trazadone?

Withdrawal Awareness: A Message to Those in Medication Withdrawal - Mad In America https://www.madinamerica.com/mia-manual/medication-withdrawal-awareness-message-psychiatric-drug-withdrawal/

Hello everyone I'm glad I found this site even if I am unable to stop using my meds due to illness and seizures. I still need all the information I can get. I have COPD and a seizure disorder both of which greatly complicate trying to stop any of my meds. I am afraid that I will suffer a seizure and stop breathing and possibly die if I suffer any serious withdrawal effects. That is why I took so long reducing my Zopiclone (1 year taper) and Trazodone (8 month taper) and I cannot bring myself to even consider stopping them. Trazodone should be relatively easy to stop but I have found this not to be true in my case. When I tried to cut the dosage lower I started to feel very sick and I could also feel a seizure coming on, so I quickly went back up 50 mg from 12.5. But at least I am stable at the reduced dosage (150mg down to 50mg). I cannot even imagine cutting down on Cymbalta without it causing serious health issues. I will be getting a CT in 3 weeks to check for brian damage from using theses meds and these results will change how I go about any of this. I know I didn't cover everything here but sometimes my brain does not work well and I can't think properly. So what things do I need to know or tell you about to discuss my issues? Amygdala