Posted by MChain on January 28, 2009, at 3:07:10
In reply to Re: Long Term SSRI Use Has Destabilzed Me, posted by Connor on January 27, 2009, at 22:54:26
> I'm thankful that there are others who are going through what I am going through. There was a time when all I did was search the internet for people experiencing the symptoms I did post-ssri. I found a few reports but they were very few.
>
> What I hate more then anything is the professionals telling me it's a result of being depressed (the reason I originally went on the drugs). That is such b*llsh*t, I mean I just came off a 3 week break from school and I actually had some of the best weeks of my life. But even still, everything was much duller then it should have been. My sex drive, motivation, mental ability are consistently low no matter what mood I am in. Life has become unbearably uninteresting and I'm not sure how much longer I can take this. Every moment I'm just waiting for time to pass because I just don't know what to do, my soul has been sucked out of meConnor, it seems like we're in exactly the same situation, which is incredible to me because until now it seemed like ex-ssri users experienced everything under the sun except for my symptoms, and people even seemed to ignore my posts on message boards because of a lack of interest/experience or whatever. I too spend HOURS at a time just googling "SSRI+name a symptom" to see what popped up, and it was usually the same 5 websites and I never got any useful information.
When did you use the ssris (what age range?) and how long have you been off? I kind of feel like things are getting better (its been almost 11 months) but at the same time the cognitive fog is driving me nuts, its like my knowledge of the English language/working memory are both destroyed. I'll read newspaper articles, and though I understand the premise I'm constantly confused by words and phrases, like i'm 5 years old and learning how to read.
I know the frustration of being told your depressed every time you try to reach out to a psychiatrist, its exactly what my current pdoc is telling me, that there is no evidence to support my claim that my brain has been damaged by SSRIs. I am however starting to feel that all psych-meds may not be bad, since my current rate of recovery is incredibly slow, and I also had some kind of weird pain thing (fibromyalgia) at the same time i got depressed originally (age 12). I may give Wellbutrin a try on thursday after I see the psych but I don't know really how I should be going about my recovery, and I don't want to screw things up more.
I did find this study though that lends a little credibility to what we are saying http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/10401230490281618 but the fact that we've been off the medications for awhile already seems to perplex all the doctors. I agree with the people on paxil progress etc. in that this could be a "protracted withdrawal" but I dont feel any physical symptoms, just these psychological things like apathy, low sex-drive, and cognitive dysfunction.
In any case, just hang in there because I think we're gonna both get through this, and if you feel comfortable sharing your e-mail with me please do so. I'm m.chain@yahoo.com
poster:MChain
thread:874312
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/876704.html