u/IsThereMoretoitAll

Hey PAWS people. I wanted to get this down in writing, if not to connect with others, then to at least try to remember who I was before all this. I'd love to hear who you were before all this, too, if you'll indulge me in the comments. Thank you for reading and commenting, if you do.

My name is Dylan. I'm 23, and I turn 24 in November. I grew up in a very turbulent and abusive environment my whole life. On top of that, mental illness has always been prolific on both sides of my family. When I was sixteen I started seeing a counselor at my pediatric doctor's office. No psychiatrist nor therapist ever took my insurance, so it was the best I could get. I connected with a Dr. Keith in the doctor's office. He was great. Very personable, actually seemed to care, and looked past my teenage edge to truly try to understand and help me. At the time I had started a digital journal to write down my deepest thoughts, insecurities, and struggles. I would bring it in to him to act as a bridge for information I wasn't fully comfortable speaking aloud. I'm sure he had to report everything to my pediatrician, and there was definitely things of concern inside said journal.

Soon enough, my doctor started talking medications with me. I went through a few before landing on Zoloft, though my memory is very hazy. I remember trying Lexapro, Ecitalopram, and maybe one or two others before Zoloft. I climbed up the milligram tower fast, finally landing on the highest therapeutic dose of 200mg when I was seventeen or so. I had no idea how these SSRI medications affected me. I merely assumed that it kept my brain from absorbing too much seretonin, leaving more for me to reap the benefits of having extra at my disposal. My parents never wanted me on them, but growing up in a turbulent household kept me from thinking they could be correct. So, I took the pills, and I stayed on them for six years, give or take.

I decided to start my tapering off the pills in December of 2025. I had two incidents that convinced me that I didn't want the chemical dependence anymore. I was moving into my girlfriend's apartment at the time, and during two days where I was moving a lot in, I was too tired or otherwise simply forgot to take my pills for two nights in a row. This resulted in a very scary stint of acute withdrawal. I still remember sitting in bed, the both of us getting ready to sleep for work the next day, and then it happened; I started trembling like a naked man in a tundra for seemingly no reason. My chest tightened and I had anxiety so bad that I felt like I may die. Not long after that, a friend had offered to let me smoke dabs from his rig after work one night. I had started experimenting with marijuana for a few months beforehand, so I saw no harm in trying it. Little did I know, the concentration of THC dabs are incredibly high, and I was bordering on Serotonin Syndrome for about two weeks or more after this one incident. I would wake up into intense panic attacks, completely lost my appetite, never felt truly calm, and I constantly felt like shit. After those two incidents, as well as simply wanting to be able to truly experience my life and emotions, I decided I wanted to get off them.

I spoke with my new doctor, making sure to tell her why I wanted to be off them and, to my remembrance, telling her the dose I was on and how long I was on them. She planned a standard two-month taper to get off of them, and I was excited. I thought I would finally be taking the reigns back. The acute withdrawal was very difficult, but I pushed through with the idea that I'd be okay once I got to the other side. If only I hadn't been ignorant to the true nature of how these SSRI meds worked.

My girlfriend and I had worked at the same place. It was a taco chain local to Western New York. The work sucked, but it paid well. I got paid $19.50 an hour after working there for five years, and she got paid somewhere around $21 an hour for being a shift manager. The company had forcibly transferred our general manager, Cait, who was the backbone of our location. The company was always shady and uncaring of workers, but she did very well to shield us workers from the corporate bullshit. The manager we had after was terrible. She would let morning crew leave mountains of extra work for night crew, us, and allowed the perpetuation of drama and gossip. Well, lucky for me, I was tapering off my meds during this very turbulent time at work.

Eventually, things had boiled over at work. I was at work for less than ten minutes when someone who I didn't like, he was a creep and an arrogant instigator, came up to me after I had only been off my medication for two weeks or so and forced a confrontation on me. He ended up threatening me and telling me nobody cared about my "pill shit". A few days after the incident, both myself and my girlfriend were fired from our jobs. So, on top of the onset of my PAWS, I've been dealing with the horrifying reality of facing a horrifically shoddy job market while worrying about finances constantly.

I have gotten a new job, I start on the 13th. I'll be pushing carts and shit at Target, and it's about a sixteen minute drive. I still worry horribly over finances, I worry about handling work with these awful physical and mental symptoms, and I've been in a constant existential dread over working and whether or not I'll figure things out long-term.

Sorry for the very long post. I often have a lot to say and nobody to tell it to, at least nobody that can understand. If you read through, I thank you so very much. I hope we can all stay strong, because the thoughts of giving up are constant and often overwhelming.

I say "forget" with quotes because it isn't exactly like forgetting. It's more like being unable to think of your own personal details, your past, who you are, etc. I get so lost in how awful I feel, how scared I am, and feeling like it'll never get better, that it makes it difficult to think of my past and who I was before this through the thick, unrelenting fog. I have some days where I can grasp who I am as a person, where I somewhat feel like my old self. The majority of days, however, all I see is the horrifying nature of Protracted Withdrawal and it convinces me that the good times are gone.

I lost my job a few months ago, and I'm starting at a Target just shy of twenty minutes away from home on the 13th. I often can only think about how scared I am to go back to work, how ashamed I feel for having to work at a dead-end job as a 24 year old, worrying about finances, worrying about handling the physical labor of pushing carts in the summer heat when I already feel like I can barely move, etc. I get lost thinking about how utterly doomed I feel that I can't consider friends, family, not even my girlfriend. It's so, so scary and isolating and I always feel like I'm a lost cause and that I'll never figure it out.

I used to love playing video games with friends, I haven't done so in months. I used to be musically inclined, singing and playing six instruments, now I can barely get myself to listen to music. I used to be funny, witty, analytical, and had a very active internal dialogue. I feel subhuman in a way. Can anyone else relate?

If anybody could give tips for keeping oneself as intact as possible during the waves of Protracted Withdrawal, or even working through the immense fear of things never getting better, I'd appreciate it so very much. Even if not, I'd love to know if others experience this, too. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Dylan, and I'm 23. I started taking 200mg of Sertraline (Zoloft) when I was sixteen. Following two missed doses while moving in with my girlfriend, causing horrible withdrawal, and a horrid drug interaction, I decided I wanted to live my life without the chemical dependence. I had escaped a bad, abusive home life, found the love of my life, and was more independent than ever. I wanted to be able to experience life without the numbing apathy of Antidepressants, and to feel my emotions properly.

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I spoke with my new doctor during the aftermath of my drug interaction, in which I was bordering on Serotonin Syndrome. I woke up every morning to intense panic attacks, could hardly eat any food, and was in constant, grueling discomfort. My doctor gave me a two month plan to taper off my medication. I wish I knew then that it was too quick of a taper for my situation. I tapered all the way down to 12.5mg before taking my last dose on March 17th. The immediate withdrawal was brutal, but I figured I just needed to deal with it until it ended. That was months before I even knew what Protracted Withdrawal even was.

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About a month later, my girlfriend and I both lost our jobs. We worked at the same place and made very decent money for what it was. I faced an incident where I was threatened at my work station and was told "Nobody cares about my pill shit", and days later, we both lost our jobs. I had worked there for five years, and my love worked there for three. It sucked, to say the very least, and I was still suffering greatly after getting off my pills, but I figured it was as simple as finding new work. As the days went on, I found myself experiencing very concerning symptoms. I never had energy, I stopped feeling like myself completely, I felt a constant sense of horrific dread, and I grew afraid of just about everything. It was gradual at first, but now it is absolutely debilitating.

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At the time I'm posting this, I have struggled to find work for two months now. The duo of crushing external stress with the horrible storm that constantly brews within me has left me feeling completely hopeless, doomed, and afraid of everything. I keep getting stuck on thoughts of whether or not I can handle going back to work, especially with the variables of making less money and starting completely new. Every action is a test in endurance and discipline. Every action is purely mechanical, and it takes all my energy and focus just to exist. Washing dishes, doing laundry, going shopping, etc. It takes everything I have to simply exist. I also constantly worry about the future, not knowing what to do for a solid career and feeling like I am absolutely doomed. If I didn't have my girlfriend, friends, and family, I'm not confident I wouldn't have given up by now.

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On a day-to-day basis, everything constantly feels wrong. I'm never fully present, I'm seemingly trapped in a constant dissociative state, I suffer severe anhedonia, my brain constantly tells me that it'll never get better and that I'll never feel joy again, and I fear I won't be able to handle anything I need to do, least of all return to a 40-hour work week at a place I've never been with people I've never met.

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There's a lot more I want to say, but my head is so scattered and I don't want to make this longer than it already is. I just wish there was some kind of light at the end of this tunnel. Every day is absolutely agonizing and my mind screams at me to give up every single day. I don't know what to do. Any comments are extremely appreciated. I genuinely feel like I'm in a living hell. I'm paying such a high tax for taking a medication that simply helped me stay afloat during some very tough years, and I'm scared I won't make it to the other side or that none of this will be worth it.

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Thank you so much for reading. Goodbye.