Gonzo: Sertraline 50mg chaos and withdrawal

[Gonzo]

A week or two ago I hit the three year mark since my withdrawal started, it was a very important date for me.

 

I took Sertraline 50mg for 3+ years, totally unaware of what I was really doing, without informed consent, and it's something that I don't want to do ever again. It didn't help me to solve any of my life issues. It only made everything worse for me.

 

I think my Sertraline withdrawal actually started in the last months of 2019, but because I resumed Sertraline in April 2020 and other circumstances such as COVID-19 lockdown I consider the starting point of my withdrawal in August 2020.

 

I really think that there is one crucial aspects of withdrawal that people don't usually talk about: traumatic and difficult emotions.

 

It's known that a large percent of mental health services users are people suffering trauma. That means that they carry traumatic stress and traumatic emotions, which is emotional pain that nobody wants to feel so the natural reaction is to try to run away from it, to suppress it, etc.

 

When people take psychiatric drugs, they disconnect from that emotional pain. Psychiatric drugs don't fix any chemical imbalance, and it has been known for decades at this point. They are just psychoactive drugs that numb the pain altering your brain chemistry and emotions, feelings, behaviors, etc, so you can find relief but they also can make you disconnect from reality, being chemically numbed/altered, in an abnormal mental and emotional state.

 

So when we stop taking the pills, specially when not done properly, the pain, all the chemically and psychologically reppressed traumatic and difficult emotions come back, stronger than ever, specially because after being emotionally disconnected for years we have lost the tolerance and coping skills to manage all that, if we ever had those skills, and some people definitely had those before taking the pills.

 

The pain never went away, even more if its cause was never addressed, it always had been there, we just disconnected from it, we found psychological relief and lowered down our psychological defences thinking that it was gone but it never was. This what psychiatry calls in their ignorance or malevolence "rebound effect" or the returning of the "symptoms".

 

The pain, although painful, it's necessary too. It tells you that something is wrong in your life, past or present, and that you need to deal with it. It tells what your real needs are, and those needs guide you towards your real identity.

 

This is what happened to me, and it took 2+ years to realize all this. So I've spent 6.5 years of my life been chemically disconnected from the emotional reality of my life, my real needs and my real identity, or emotionally overwhelmed by my traumatic emotions and difficult feelings.

 

I'm still in recovery, but I consider my withdrawal over now. I'm just dealing with my longstanding life issues.

 

Edited March 13 by Erimus
Replaced 0.50mg with 50mg, and 0.25mg with 25mg

[Gonzo]

I can't edit my post for some reason. I wanting do add that my August 2020 withdrawal was cold turkey. I knew very very briefly about something called "rebound effect", because my psychiatrist told me about it and that it's the return of symptoms. That's all I knew. There were some agravating factors during my withdrawal. First of all, I lived with my abusive parents. Second, when my withdrawal started I had a narcissistic type romantic relationship, that actually played a big role in me deciding to stop taking the pills, counting on this person support, but I never had that support and I was totally unprepared for withdrawal. Third, during 2021 and 2022 I experienced crazy making situations with my abusive parents, I also went to therapy during those years which made me even more confused about everything and at the end it just made everything worse for me, my therapist never had any kind of interest for my psychiatric drug history and I didn't know back then anything about them either. So, I think everything mixed together made everything much more worse for me. I also got drunk a few times and that could have delayed my recovery. The worst part of all was the terror feelings that I have been experiencing since August 2020. I did feel those feelings before but I was disconnected, being chemically numbed. I couldn't name the feelings, I was so overwhelmed during too much time. I'm still dealing with those feelings, that is a very deep and acute anxiety, not normal anxiety, my body reacts teasing my muscles and all that, but this is something that I was experiencing just before I took Sertraline in 2017, and now I'm facing all that for the first time in my life, step by step.

[Altostrata]

Hello, @Gonzo have all your withdrawal symptoms gone away? How's your sleep?

[Gonzo]

Hi @Altostrata, I have one physical symptom and is tinnitus, I also have lots of muscle tension, but for me is more related to longstanding emotional problems. Before I took Sertraline back in 2017, I was dealing with extremely difficult emotions, traumatic feelings, those are back, and I'm facing them. Reppressed anger is the worst emotion that I'm facing at the moment.

 

I sleep 7-8 hours a day, but my sleep patterns are not good.

[zma1]

Thanks for sharing @Gonzo. One therapy that helped me quite a bit was EMDR. It is specific to helping trauma. More so in adults with trauma but also can help if trauma started in childhood or w CPTSD. It also was relatively fast. In about 3 months (going once per week) I felt like I wasn’t in as much of a hyper vigilance mode. Look into it if you haven’t already😊 Best of luck to you ❤️

[Gonzo]

Thanks for the suggestion @zma1, but to be honest I had very bad experiences with psychotheraphy and only thinking about it makes me feel angst. Glad it worked for you tho!

[Altostrata]

@Gonzo how have your symptoms changed in the last 6 months?

 

17 hours ago, Gonzo said:

I have one physical symptom and is tinnitus, I also have lots of muscle tension, but for me is more related to longstanding emotional problems.

 

Are these symptoms better or worse at particular times of day?

[Gonzo]

The last 6 months have been and emotional hell, the emotional chaos has been my main issue for the last 3 years. I was finally able to reconnect with my overwhelming feelings, because I was totally disconnected from the emotional reality of my life and I could not understand none of my feelings, not even name them. To be honest, I always had had problems with that, but during withdrawal it was crazy. So now I feel connected with my values again, because when my emotions were chemically reppressed and I was disconnected I lost those. I feel like I'm much more myself again, even if that means suffering because my life sucks.

 

My tinnitus is more noticeable during the night or when there is silence, I think it's pretty much the same all the day. During the night when I'm supposed to be more relaxed is when I notice more my muscle tension.

[Altostrata]

How has the muscle tension changed since you went off sertraline in August 2020? Is it painful?

[Gonzo]

I don't remember, my memory of these 3 years is foggy, because of said emotional chaos, but it's not painful. It's like a fight response. I'm very very very angry these days, extremely angry. I think it's mostly related to reppressed anger and I'm reconnecting with that again, so I'm trying to be mindful about how my body reacts to identify my anger and to calm my body and mind.

 

But I was extremely angry before I took Sertraline so that's why I don't think it's related to withdrawal.

[Altostrata]

16 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

But I was extremely angry before I took Sertraline so that's why I don't think it's related to withdrawal.

 

Did you have this muscle tension?

 

Muscle tension can accompany anger but not all anger is accompanied by muscle tension.

[Gonzo]

I probably did, yeah. But I'm not sure about it, maybe like 60% sure.

[Altostrata]

Hello, @Gonzo I moved your recent posts here.

 

I think you've come a long way but not quite a success story yet. Muscle tension is a very common withdrawal symptom. Often people clench or grind their teeth, too. Do you do this?

 

Congratulations on working on the emotional problems that led you to antidepressants. 

[Gonzo]

Yes, I clench my teeth many times during the day, I definitley feel a lot of inner tension, I'm trying to be mindful about it, as much as I can, so I can calm myself better. I honestly think it's not related to withdrawal, because I realized how much anger I had all my life, many bad things that I did were because of said reppressed anger, I couldn't even name the feeling, that's how disconnected I was, so when I took Sertraline the disconnection became even worse but the anger never went away and I desperately needed to deal with it but it seems nobody noticed it either and nobody helped me with it.

 

I understand, because I'm not recovered yet.

 

Please, if you think this is related to withdrawal let me know.

 

Another symptom that I still have is obsessive-compulsive earworms, but it's getting better now that I'm facing my traumatic emotions.

 

I was very paranoid specially in 2022, because withdrawal, reppressed anger and family events. I had been dealing with suspicious thoughts most of my life, which I think it's related to reppressed anger, projecting it.

[Altostrata]

Bruxism can contribute to tinnitus. See 

 

Facial tics, jaw, tongue muscle tension and pain, bruxism, teeth clenching, TMJ 

[Gonzo]

I didn't know that...... It could be related to withdrawal, I'll keep it in mind. Maybe it's not over yet..... It hurts to think that.

 

Thanks for the the info @Altostrata.

 

At least I reached my core emotional issues.

[Gonzo]

In case anyone is thinking about having anger issues too, I read this article and I found it very helpful:

https://eggshelltherapy.com/repressed-anger/

 

I also have a psychiatric diagnosis of OCD, I'm strongly against psychiatric diagnoses for multiple reasons but if anyone here has a diagnosis of OCD/OC behaviors and would like to get rid of them, this is a good starting point (it's related to reppressed emotions too):

https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/malans-model-of-ocd/

 

I'm a huge fan of the Power Threat Meaning Framework, it helped me tremendously:

https://www.bps.org.uk/member-networks/division-clinical-psychology/power-threat-meaning-framework

 

Finally, there is a theory about personal development that I really like too. It's called the Theory of Positive Desintegration by Kazimierz Dabrowski. It's not for everybody, but it has a different perspective on things than can be helpful for some.

[Gonzo]

I have been monitoring more closely my jaw tension and all that. I think it's mostly if not all related to my psychological anger. I've been trying to calm myself anytime I notice that I'm tense in my body, through my jaw, muscle tension, etc, then the tension go mostly away. I have a huge amount of reppressed anger as I said before. I'm focusing in this anger as much as I can, trying to learn about it, to notice it, to tolerate it, to process it and to calm myself. It's not only reppressed anger, it's hate too, which I think it's pretty much reppressed anger anyway. I'll keep monitoring my inner tension to see if it gets better or worse through the next days. My obsessive-compulsive earworms are getting better too now that I'm working on my anger, the same can be said for my obsessive-compulsive rumination, another symptom that I had. Paranoia is getting a bit better, I think it has a lot to do with the same reppressed anger and hate. Very difficult emotions. I wish I could talk to some therapist or somebody that knew about these overwhelming emotions, but I don't trust mental health workers anymore. I have a lot of ups and downs, sometimes I feel extremely deppressed and even have suicide thoughts, but I always keep going foward, and find new perspectives and learnings.

[Altostrata]

Suggest you also get a bite guard.

[Gonzo]

I don't have that issue. Since I started noticing and managing better my anger and hate I'm more relaxed, I'm also more deppressed. I think there is a lot of fear and sadness behind my anger and hate. This is an emotional introsprection excercise that I never did before in my life.

[Gonzo]

@Altostrata was probably right delaying my recovery story. This night I'm feeling a peace that I haven't felt in years, even if I still have bad anxiety. I think when I stopped Sertraline cold turkey I experienced neuro-emotions, for me, they were my psychologically reppressed traumatic emotions that also were chemically reppressed, and they came back roaring, so much that they basically emotionally hijacked me, because I had been too many years disconnected from those emotions, specially due to Sertraline, and I lost all tolerance for emotional suffering and I lost my coping skills. 3 years later, I'm still emotionally hijacked and my life is completely paralized. My emotions were a huge amount and overwhelming anxiety, shame, guilt, rage, terror, hate, paranoia. All mixed together, I lost all mental and emotional stability. I guess my nervous system was really messed up, and still is. It was crazy, the emotional suffering, I couldn't even name them, to be honest, I already had big problems identifying my emotions but this was something different. I never experienced something like that in my life before withdrawal. I think overall I did pretty good managing it. I also had luck meeting new friends that helped me tremendously this 2023 summer. I want to writte this to note this window.

 

I also think it's extremely important in many cases to take distance from the psychiatric model of mental health in order to have good mental health and recover. They can be extremely damaging, a mental prision. Not only because it can led to a life of chronic and unnecessary psychiatric drug use, side effects and withdrawal, but because they can make adopt a disempowering, hopelessness and pathological ill identity when you actually aren't. It can also led you to a pathological approach to emotional suffering, because psychiatry pathologize emotional suffering, which is extremely toxic and pathological. It can make you loss all tolerance for emotional suffering, and suffering is a big part of life. And in the case of withdrawal, it's the worst, no words needed. I have a psychiatric diagnosis of OCD, which is totally useless, never helped me, and made me fear myself, my emotions, my mental and emotional intensity, my thoughts, my coping strategies and internal experience. It also made me blame myself for my own suffering and suffered abuse (because I have OCD, because something is wrong with me) instead of blaming my oppressive and alienating environment for the suffering it caused me. Pychiatric diagnoses can be very victim-blaming and alienating.

 

Power Threat Meaning Framework is the way to go.

 

[Onmyway]

I liked your OCD links @Gonzo. I find IFS therapy intuitive and its way of dealing with anger quite interesting. You don't have to buy into it but I like this video.

[Gonzo]

3 hours ago, Onmyway said:

I liked your OCD links @Gonzo. I find IFS therapy intuitive and its way of dealing with anger quite interesting. You don't have to buy into it but I like this video.

What video? I don't know very much about IFS, to be honest. But I appreciate how it dwell into nasty family business when other therapies just ignore it completely. Families have an extremely important role in mental health, so.

[Onmyway]

Have a look at the video, it may help put things into perspective with the anger.

 

[Gonzo]

Sorry, I think I don't understand you. What video are you talking about? I can't see any link or whatever.

 

This anger of mine, I think it's more related to hate. I realized that I carried this hate for most of my life, if not all. I neglected it and disconnected from it when I took Sertraline one way or another, chemically, psychologically, even if it was still there and affecting me, so when I stopped Sertraline cold turkey it came back suddenly and roaring. I tried to control it as best as I knew and could but it was very strong. It dominated me. I learnt very recently about this psychoanalysis concept called identification with the aggressor, which 100% applies to me, even if I hate it with all my soul. So I'm trying to learn how to process and deal with this hate of mine, to find inner peace, to have better relationships and to function better in society. It has been very hard. Any advice would be wellcomed.

 

I also think this has nothing to do with withdrawal because I felt like this for many many years, it's pure hate, I hate myself, others, my family, the world. It's crazy. I guess this is the first time I'm facing it directly and it's overwhelming.

 

(Can any admin delete my previous comment? I can't do it and fix it myself.)

[Onmyway]

Hi Gonzo, sorry somehow didn't paste correctly. this is the video I like. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hP1PHfFx04&t=2s

 

[Gonzo]

I'll take a look, thanks for sharing.

[Gonzo]

Not much has happened these days. But I was able to manage better my anger and hate, I learnt where it comes from. All the bad things that happened to me, all the abuse that I endured, inside and outside of my family, and psychiatric abuse, I internalized it, it's called identification with the aggressor in psychoanalysis. Because nobody protected me, I blamed myself, to feel some sense of control, even if it was not my fault. With guilt came shame, meaning that what happened to me happened because I did X or Y thing, because there was something wrong with me, and you hate that the same way your oppressors hated it, you hate yourself, so if I change myself, or do Z thing, I could/can avoid the abuse. It's a survival mechanism. This is what I believe trauma is about. I was very traumatized when I was 19 years old, I carried a lot guilt, shame, fear, anger and hate, and psychiatry only reinforced all of it at the same time that it forced me to disconnect from that emotional reality with Sertraline, and to be honest I also needed and wanted some emotional relief because the pain was overwhelming at that point. So I'm trying to accept that what happened to me wasn't my fault, that I'm not the one to blame, but the oppresive and alienating environment that abused me, which is very scary and painful, means that I was powerless, defenseless, that I couldn't do anything to avoid it. I've been blaming and shaming myself for so long. It's been rough days.

[Gonzo]

I'm slowly coming to terms with what happened to me these last years, even before. I realized I was powerless, much more than I thought, through, before and after psychiatric abuse. I had been very fortunate to meet great people that helped gain lots of insights. I still have moments where I'm extremely angry, sad, confused, ashamed, etc, mostly I keep them to myself, I don't express those emotions. But I'm trying to win this fight and I'm slowly recovering my understanding, my values and beliefs.

 

Sertraline and psychiatry, together with my crazy family, made me loose most of my personal values and beliefs, because I was forced to reject them and adjust to my oppresive relational environment, powerless, defenseless, blamed. They made me behave like a narcissist, careless, insensitive.

 

I read this document, part of the Power Threat Meaning Framework:

https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-02/PTMF Pattern - Social Inequality.pdf

 

It really is a psychological war, and we are under heavy pressure from society, all of us. We are all in this together. The people that psychiatry harmed the most are the people that are more oppressed and alienated sadly. So they have to fight harder and be more intelligent than anyone else to find the path, alone, because help is not coming in many cases.

 

But many difficult, painful, traumatic and conflicting emotions that psychiatry blame on us and our brains, giving or even forcing us drugs to suppress them, they don't have their causes in ourselves, but in society and its oppresive and alienating values, it's all in our environments, and it's really ***** up.

 

One extremely important thing that Internet help me to see when I looked for understanding, validation and support was to realize how many people are suffering all around the world, because of the same reasons: our type of society and its oppresive and alienating narcissistic values. We have to overcome that toxic, oppresive and alienating mindset and system of values and beliefs, the adoctrination, to truly find ourselves and be free, to find some inner peace.

 

These realizations made me feel some much needed emotional relief and be more compassionate about things.

 

I hope my story and thoughts can be helpful for others.

 

[Gonzo]

Just sharing an amazing document from the PTMF:

 

https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-02/PTMF Pattern - Social Inequality.pdf

[Gonzo]

This is probably the last time I'm going to update my mental and emotional state. I've been learning about internalized oppression, and everything is starting coming together for me. I've always have felt oppressed and alienated, in my family and outside of it, I always felt the need to suppress and hide myself from others, like I couldn't be myself, to protect myself, because I didn't fit. All this in my oppresive and alienating environment, that's how I perceived it, because it very much likely was like that. I internalized all this oppression, and it blew up when I was 19 and 24, more recently too. When I took Sertraline maybe the self-containment (internalized/self oppression) was easier and less painful, because I was chemically disconnected from the painful, oppresive and alienating emotional reality of my life, but when I stopped taking the drug cold turkey everything came back stronger than ever, all the reppressed self and chemically and psychologically reppressed emotions: anger, hatred, sadness, shame, guilt, etc. I was totally unprepared to face all that. It's like the self-containment wasn't possible anymore because of the screaming inner pain, not being silenced anymore. I had to reppress all that to adapt and survive in my environment, no doubt about it, that's why the internalized oppression and its emotions. So I guess I'm now in a new chapter of my life, trying to discover who I really am, because I have no idea, not anymore, I'm very lost. At the same time I see my path foward clearer, so that's good, and it's because I suffered. I learnt that when I suffer, I know what I really need, and what I really need is what I really am. These last 3 years of my life have been insane, it's like I disconnected from reality, now I'm closer to 30 and it's hard for me to believe because the last time I was "aware" I was 23-24 or less.

[Gonzo]

I was talking to a friend about my involuntary commitment to a psychiatric ward when I was 20, in 2017. It was very traumatic, violent, even if I wasn't violent during the whole process. I was arrested and my freedom and autonomy removed, like a convict. There wasn't even medical reasons for that. When that happened, I dissociated, to survive that situation and oppression, I submitted, fawned (trauma/stress response). I did what I had to do to. It was there when I started taking Sertraline, at a low dose, 25mg, before being increased to 50mg after getting out. I think that when I stopped taking Sertraline in August 2020 I reconnected with the terror and powerlessness that I felt when I was involuntary commited, and with the internalized oppression of my whole life and its difficult emotions, which psychiatry only reinforced with its "treatments". I disconnected from all that psychologically and chemically when I was involuntary commited, and of course it didn't make sense to feel all that in 2020, and was overwhelming. That internalized oppression was unbearable in 2020 and in 2015-2017, like an inner tension that I didn't want and couldn't stand any longer, too much internal pressure, I needed to free myself from all that. That's why I think all this experience has been so overwhelming for me. It's really impressive how powerful these drugs can be even at "lower" doses.

Edited March 13 by Erimus
Replaced 0.50mg with 50mg, and 0.25mg with 25mg

[Gonzo]

Well, here I am again. My life is overall the same, I'm what psychiatry calls "low functioning". I've been learning about free will and individualism, some of the foundations of Western society. And I also have been able to understand better my suffering and its causes. I strongly recommend learning how guilt, shame, responsability and blame it's connected to emotional suffering and free will/individualism, which actually is basically triumphalism, egocentrism and narcissism in my opinion, the belief that you have control over things that you don't really control, a belief very much connected with trauma. Basically, when bad things happen and good things happen, it's because of you. In reality not much effort is needed to prove that that's not how the world actually works, but it's a convenient lie and belief (that psychiatry and mainstream Western psychology defends), without it, our society would collapse in many ways. If you are "high functioning" and successful by Western society standards, you better belief you are one of the choosen ones, superior, but if you don't, I suggest rejecting all that crap, it can take you all the way down, as it happened with many of us. It's connected with our liberal capitalism economic system too. I don't have much more to say about Sertraline or antideppresants, I already said multiple times all I thought. I don't think I'm in withdrawal, I'm just rewritting the story of my life, rebuilding my own narrative, that psychiatry took power over and corrupted.

[Gonzo]

Last post of the year. I'm still "low functioning" but my mind is much more clearer than any of the years before when I took Sertraline or during withdrawal. I feel much more connected to myself and consciouss. My experience is not only about withdrawal, is mostly about trauma. I can see now clearly that when I was 19-20 I tried to make sense of my whole life, my suffering of my trauma, I was looking for meaning and purpose. It was a difficult time, I felt lots of pressure to be high functioning but I was traumatized and suffering PTS symptoms, that I tried to fix, then I got into the rabbit hole of psychology and ended up more confused than before, still suffering heavy emotional flashbacks that I wasn't able to cope with and got worse due to isolating myself for a year and half. Then the involuntary commitment to a psychiatric ward happened, staying there for a month. The whole event was some kind of quarter life/identity/existential/meaning crisis, I tried my best to overcome it, and it was mostly about unaddressed trauma. Sadly, instead of acknowledging my trauma psychiatry completely ignored and invalidated it at the same time and pathologized my behaviors, emotions, thoughts and identity, as if they didn't make sense and were illogical, and drugged me without informed consent. I didn't know anything about Sertraline and how it was affecting my behaviors. For the 3.5 years that I took it I was at least half of that time in an artificial, chemically induced euphoric psychological state that I wasn't able to identify, suffering medical spellbinding, not properly supervised by my psychiatrist and family and not informed about what I needed to know. That drug induced psychological state made me falsely think, feel and belief that my trauma was finally behind of me, when in fact it was still unaddressed, intact. It was a trick, a deception, and to be honest, I always had the feeling that something wasn't quite right but couldn't tell what it was exactly what it was: it was the trauma, being there, just in front of me, but at the same time invisible. I was so emotionally disconnected from it, so much that I even forgot that it was there and why I took Sertraline in the first place. I did take it because of trauma, I wanted to let it behind once for all so I could continue with my life with no more psychological "obstacles", at first I tried to face it as best as I could, to understand it, to give it meaning and feel some sense of control over it, then when I was hospitalized and gaslighted I lost all hope of being able to do so, I disconnected from my trauma psychologically, to survive that experience when I was trapped there and got out, and chemically, when I took the drug. And when I disconnected from my trauma I lost all meaning, everything stopped making sense to me. I lived for the next years, drugged, a meaningless life, because it had not real purpose for me, even if I had better "functioning", but I didn't feel it until withdrawal, because that synthetic euphoria confused me for years, and even during withdrawal I couldn't understand anything, I was extremely confused, but in reality I just reconnected with my trauma and traumatic feelings. I just wasn't ready for that, those feelings were equal or more intense than when I was 19-20 years old, and of course it overwhelmed me. All this experience has been crazy, very painful and extremely difficult to understand, it was already very confusing and difficult to understand before getting arrested and incarcelated by psychiatry, but when that happened everything became much, much worse and difficult to make sense for me. Psychiatry and the mental health system overall only added more layers to my already complex trauma. I was also in a treatment trap for years, since I got out of the hospital, with psychotheraphy and/or psychiatric drugs, I was able to finally get out of that by myself, being institutionalized after so many years of different, oppresive, alienating and useless "treatments". I'm happy that places like these exist on the Internet, they're much needed.

[Onmyway]

Hi @Gonzo

it is great that you are recognizing and finding meaning in your experiences. I am hoping that you are doing this with a lot of kindness to yourself. May these insights lead you to finding your power while healing from these experiences. 

OMW

Happy New Year!

[Gonzo]

Thanks @Onmyway, these years have been extremely confusing, and specially the last 3 years have been very exhausting, but I'm finally getting out of the fog, slowly.

 

Happy new year.