I was on Prozac for 12 years and stopped 3 years ago. I was in bad withdrawals. That subsided but my anxiety is worse than ever before I even started the meds. It's been pretty bad this year. It's hard for me to do anything. I am really thinking about going back on the meds. I just want some kind of relief. I have no life right now.
My withdrawal pattern is very odd
Month 0 - 3 = windows and waves every week
Month 4 - 6 = constant wave
Month 7- 11 = massive window, felt 80% healed
Month 12 - 18 = constant wave
I don't understand....how did I go from feeling 80% healed for for months to being stuck in a wave with no windows for 6 months now...
I thought my suffering was over bruh. I haven't seen this pattern before. What does this mean for me? All I can think of is Month 11 I got a dental cleaning done but I felt fine the next day. I hope this does not mean my healing is over bruh
Hello everyone,
*THIS IS NOT JUST ANOTHER PETITION*
The amazing Kim Witzciak recently launched a website serving as a petition for those with PSSD (and other SSRI injuries) to sign and document their experiences of harm with these medications.
It serves as a central place to show the volume of people being injured by these drugs. To convince those in power that these injuries are devastating a massive population size, deferring to Reddit groups won’t cut it/isn’t official enough. As such, this petition will be the MAIN SOURCE of reference when used to show the people we need to convince this is ruining/ending lives.
Please sign this, mention your experience and age if you can!!
We have SUCH power in numbers if we can all band together!
Wie sieht es bei euch mit arbeit aus? Seit ihr in der Lage zu arbeiten oder nicht? Ich arbeite momentan nicht denke aber darüber nach zu arbeiten so etwa 4 std am tag das problem ist nur das ich normalerweise arbeiten könnte aber wenn ich in einer welle bin dann bekomme ich angst vor der arbeit. Hmm ich weiss auch nicht
I don't know how accurate this is but I read for some people nicotine helps ease some of the withdrawls?
I'm not saying go out and buy cigarettes. I'm just curious how many people here are smokers.
Would be curious to set up some sort of questionnaire about symptoms and try to compare smokers/vapers to non smokers and see if there's any truth to the claims.
What should patients know before starting to take antidepressant drugs?
* "The brain might get used to the medicine, making it hard to stop taking it later".
* "Stopping can cause withdrawal problems that can be serious, last a long time, and sometimes be confused with relapse (return of the problems they were prescribed for)" .
* "Prescribers should make sure that patients fully understand the risks and agree to the treatment before starting the medicine".
Background : " antidepressants can cause tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal syndromes, often understated by the term 'antidepressant discontinuation syndrome.' While they do not induce craving or compulsive use, brain adaptations to these drugs can make them hard to stop, especially after long-term use. Despite growing evidence of withdrawal risks, antidepressant prescriptions and long-term use continue to increase globally. The potential duration and severity of debilitating withdrawal symptoms including akathesia, suicidality and protracted withdrawal, have been minimized. This is partly due to commercially sponsored guidelines that rely on short term clinical trial data".
https://www.ti.ubc.ca/2025/06/18/156-antidepressant-withdrawal-syndrome-update/
Dora's
Quviviq (daridorexant)
Dayvigo (Lemborexant)
Belsomra (suvorexant)
The latest sleep medication seems to be better than benzos etc. They work differently. I have heard many positive stories about it. I've even read that people can get rid of benzos because of the use of these new drugs. No medical advice. Do your own research and ask your doctor.
Did any of you guys have use this?
I need a tolerable sleepmed because i can't live like this, with no stable sleep. Please let me know and your experience and for how long you are using it now.
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.
Are there more people who feel like their entire mind (emotions + cognition) is blunted? I have such a blank mind and really miss my mental chatter. My inner monologue is heavily reduced and I barely hear it. I need to actively activate my thinking and it’s like my brain does not have networks or energy to do it.
I already got this on the meds and it was the reason I wanted to discontinue them after a very short time. I only used it 1,5 month in total but 9 months off it now… I feel like it has barely changed at all.
Also still insane head symptoms (pressure, hollow / air, concussion feeling, extreme pains, etc.).
Its really hard to trust that this will get better… it feels like I really have fried / damaged my brain, as I have also excruciating head pains almost everyday. I just feel this is all completely wrong 🥹😔… can’t understand how a human brain can even feel and act like this. Completely out of this world.
I keep doing this thing where I can’t help but feel jealous and bitter at people who were able to find information about proper tapering protocols and warnings about protracted withdrawal before doing any significant damage to their nervous systems. While I would never wish the opposite upon anyone, I just wish that I had the opportunity to go back in time and do it correctly myself. I know that it’s not a productive way of thinking, especially in this state, but can anyone else here relate to this feeling?
Seven months ago I went cold turkey on Paroxetine 20mg that I had taken daily for over 15 years. It isn’t something that I ever wanted to do, but at the time I had just lost my job and my heath insurance. My prescription ran out and my doctor wouldn’t refill it. Unfortunately, I had to choose between rent and food or paying out pocket to see a new doctor and fill the meds.
Even though I knew about acute withdrawal and had experienced the horrors of it before, I decided that I would just have to bare knuckle it until I had the means because there simply was no money for it. It’s not like I was uniformed that going cold turkey was a horrible fucking idea, but there was no other option. I did some light research but did not find anything on protracted withdrawal until that hit me like a truck later on.
When I finally got back onto my feet a few months later, I found a new doctor and was able to get my prescription again. I did research on reinstatement and still didn’t find anything on protracted withdrawal, which is what had started to set in at that point. Like many others, I just thought it was proof that I was mentally ill and needed my meds to function. I reinstated at 5mg and had an almost immediate severe adverse reaction. I couldn’t feel my body for a week and was stuck in an almost primal state of fight or flight. I have improved significantly since then, but reinstatement is now obviously out of the question and who knows how far I set myself back from doing something so idiotic.
I made all the wrong choices at every single turn and it almost cost me my life. I would rather go back in time and choose to prioritize my stupid SSRI over everything if it could have prevented this pain. You realize just how little the things you worried so much about matter once your health falls apart. The most painful part about it is that no one really cares or cares to understand. I seem functional and I thank my lucky stars that I am for the most part, but I also walk around feeling like I’m intoxicated or got hit over head with a fucking baseball bat 70% of the time.
At the end of the day, I can only blame my own ignorance for the hell that I’m now going through, but I can’t fight the envy and resentment that I feel towards those who got out either unscathed or relatively unscathed.
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.
I’m trying on my own to navigate airports and transport for a trip that I jointly booked with my sister. We have an elderly aunt that i need to see again, probably for the last time. I told my sister that I couldn’t do it alone because of withdrawal brain, and I need to rely on someone else to help. Together on the phone we booked flights and arranged to visit relatives.
The afternoon before the leaving she canceled on me. I’ve been totally abandoned to navigate this situation on my own. I’m in a busy airport waiting on a delayed flight to a city I don’t know with a brain that can’t think a lot of the time or understand what’s I’m told. I keep going in and out of panic, and I have to be normal for the relatives at the other end of flight, while staying for far too long with my aunt who doesn’t need the load of a broken person staying with her at her age.
What kind of person would do this to their sibling? Just the day before I spent a long time explaining to her what my problems are, so she’d understand why I act so out of it.
I guess this is just a rant. I hope I live through this.
Im 3 months and 10days off ami 25mg and perphenazine 2mg
I had neutral days.. Like i can say good days with a bit flat mood but functioning very well..
But lately i have like light head.. Nausea.. Mood swings and anxiety again.. It comes and goes
Im on ecitalopram for a year from now.. Im stuck and hopeless.. If anyone like me.. Everytime i feel okey i feel like baam everything went down
Do you guys sleep?
Am i the only one that have nights with no sleep at all?
Does it get better with time or is my sleep broken for live?
I’ve been on Paxil for 8 months stabilized on 37.5 cr then i decided to get off it went down to 25mg stayed a month then 12.5mg stayed 3 weeks then 0. After 4 days of no Paxil I couldn’t take the withdrawal so went back to 12.5mg I stayed 2 weeks on 12.5mg I stabilized then symptoms of anxiety and depression came back so I went up to 25mg I just entered my 4th week on 25mg I see improvements in anxiety but still have trouble should I give 25mg more time or go up to 37.5? I have appointment with my doctor next week and I know she’s going to tell me to go up to 37.5? Please help I don’t know what to do anymore!!!
I can’t tell you how much my head hurts almost everyday.
My entire brain feels sore/bruised. Like have a severe concussion and have been smashed with a baseball bat. Also so much head pressure. The pains are really excruciating and they make me pretty unfunctional.
Anyone who can relate and anything that helps? This is beyond anything I ever experienced. I’d rather have my migraines than this.
9 months off, after only 2 months use … 😔
So this surprised me. I am almost 3 years into protracted and am doing better, but still not as I was before. I have noticed that when I eat chocolate, my symptoms skyrocket. Sweating, palpitations, anxiety, etc. I understand some people have trouble with caffeine and sugar in withdrawal. But the chocolate thing was a surprise. Google and AI tells me that chocolate affects dopamine and serotonin. That explains my symptoms, I think. Does anyone else have this experience?
Hi everyone,
I’m currently tapering antidepressants and I’ve been dealing with a strange visual/cognitive symptom that’s hard to explain.
It’s not exactly that I can’t see. My eyes are open, objects are there, and I can technically see them — but it feels like my brain is not processing the visual information properly or fast enough.
The best way I can describe it:
I look at something, but it doesn’t “register” normally
it feels like I’m seeing, but my brain is delayed or disconnected
lights feel too bright or overwhelming
sometimes light feels like it “hits” me but my brain doesn’t process it properly
visual snow/static is more noticeable
increased light sensitivity / photophobia
trouble focusing visually on objects
derealization-like feeling, as if the world is visually present but mentally distant
brain fog and slower information processing
It’s especially noticeable after stimulation like screens, gaming, scrolling, stress, or overthinking. It can feel like my nervous system gets overloaded, and then vision/light/processing become weird.
Has anyone experienced this during antidepressant tapering or withdrawal?
Did it feel like a visual problem, a derealization problem, or more like brain processing lag?
Did it improve with time, holding the dose, reducing screen stimulation, or anything else?