Gonzo: Sertraline 50mg chaos and withdrawal

February 11

Gonzo Thanks for wishing me recovery, you have a lot of resentment for the system and that's understandable but don't let that affect you too much. Just think about what would be best for you and what it can give you relief, a distraction something you like dwelling on painful things only aggravates the situation we cannot change the past or what has happened to us do not forget it but try to give them less weight. No one will be able to give you back what was taken from you and feeling resentful doesn't help, on the contrary it tends to make things worse, this is also part of the damage caused by drugs, the more they are used, the more weight it gets, the worse it gets.

February 11

Yeah, I know. But I also needed and need validation for what I experienced in the mental health system/industry to overcome my psychiatric trauma, thankfully I got lots of validation in the past 6 months, more or less since I wrote got in Surviving Antideppresants. I just have to get over that mentality, I'm working on it, it was the only way I understood my experiences for the past 8 years, so it's difficult to change that. But validation helps a lot, it makes me feel better, relaxed, it helps to release all that inner tension, all the postraumatic stress.

February 11

Gonzo I'm talking about my experience my hatred poisoned my soul and didn't help me on the path to healing and just some advice . I'm glad to hear that you are seeing improvements in your situation this is very important for healing.

February 11

I appreciate the advice, and I agree with you.

I've not been able to relax myself for the past 8 years, since I had that crisis, when I took Sertraline I was numbed, high, disconnected, chemically deceived, confused... then withdrawal happened and my postraumatic reactions came back.

In other words, I haven't been able to reprocess my postraumatic stress, the source of my most inner tension, so I've been trapped with my trauma all these 8 years, full of inner tension, angry, sad, scared, terrified... again, because of psychiatry.

Now that I understand again my experiences and I have other people support and validation, I'm slowly being able to relax, because I'm reprocessing my unprocessed trauma/postraumatic stress.

This is the emotional chaos I couldn't understand and that Sertraline withdrawal, confusion and deception and psychiatry made me got into.

February 11

I'm facing my trauma and postraumatic reactions again, trying to tolerate them, to manage them, to accept them, to understand and give meaning to them. Psychiatric intervention made it impossible for me for the past 7 years but I feel like I'm starting to really recover again, I'm a bit less stressed lately, more relaxed, even if I'm still very sad and angry, confused and scared sometimes, now I tell to myself that these are postraumatic reactions due to all the traumatic things I went through in my life and that I have unprocessed. The meaning of these difficult experiences is in what happened to me, in my previous life experiences, not in psychiatry, psychiatry is just a shortcut for taking and abusing psychiatric drugs.

February 12

Yesterday I had a convo with a friend that also had a very bad experience in the mental health system/industry and that suffer trauma from psychiatry as well as her dysfuntional family. She told me she couldn't relax and be functional, I tried to tell her that when a person carry such an amount of trauma as she does she needs to relax to release all that inner tension or postraumatic stress before being able to functional, that she needs to recover first. Psychiatric drugs and mainstream psychology can't help her with that because it's too individualistic, simplistic and victim-blaming, so she couldn't do that. No one in the mental health system/industry could understand her struggles, they just labelled her as forever dysfunctional with those psychiatric diagnoses and heavily drugged and at the same time expected her to be functional, to work, to study, to make money, to have a normal social life... Well, surprise, it's not possible, not like that. The mental health system/industry doesn't even know how to help traumatized people to heal, it's all about being "functional", i.e. to be productive in this capitalistic society, to generate income, not about healing. To heal and reprocess traumas, to release the postraumatic stress and come back to a relaxed psychological and physical state, people need to feel understood, to make sense of their experiences, finding meaning, to have validation from others and be in a safe environment. When I mind-body is overwhelmed by trauma and stuck survival mode being "functional" it's not the most important thing to do, but to survive. She can't relax because she is still brainwashed and confused by the whole psychopath mental health system/industry that told her that she won't ever be functional, normal, healthy (because mental illnesses have no cure, no hope of recovery) and the same time put pressure on her to be so, but it never acknowledged the trauma and need to heal it before being able to be fully "functional". This psychopath capitalistic society expects people to behave like perfectly flawless machines, but we are humans, we have imperfect human needs, we get hurt, overwhelmed, etc, and need to rest before being able to be in fully working conditions again. She told me that her mind and body tell her that she need to relax but she can't because when she is not engaged in some activity, when she is not being productive, she feels guilty and ashamed, in tension, in danger. That's the capitalistic indoctrination and internalized oppression that no one sees but that made us miserable. That convo made me remember that the same thing happened to me 8 years ago, I also needed to rest to reprocess my unprocessed trauma, release my stored postraumatic stress and recover, to be fully functional, but I couldn't for the same reasons as her and the mental health system/industry made it impossible for me. Not just the mental health system/industry but the whole society doesn't acknowledge trauma, it's blind to it, so how can it be healed? It can't be. When a person is specially traumatized, overwhelmed and confused by trauma in this society he only gets blamed, stigmatized, labelled, isolated, drugged, oppressed, alienated. The moment you try to heal your own trauma, even if that means to be fully functional as a result, you also become a target, for acting "abnormal". Yeah, this society is ***** up. I told me friend that she needs to make a consciouss decision to heal, and before that can happen she need to get over the capitalistic indoctrination and contradicting messages that she has been receiving for years from the insane mental health system/industry. Luckily she left the mental health system/industry 6 months ago. To be functional is a matter of survival in this society, because to be functional means to make money, so escaping the mental health system/industry is a matter of survival for people like her. I left the mental health system/industry in october or november 2022 if I remember correctly, but the brainwashing/indoctrination still persists to this day even if it is much less intense than before.

February 12

I guess I was institutionalized in the mental health system/industry after all these years of intense psychotheraphy, psychiatric indoctrination and Sertraline deception. Sami Timi, a British psychiatrist, call this psychiatric institutionalization to fall into a psychiatric treatment trap.

Somehow a part of me still wants to believe in psychiatric promises and meaning framework as a way to solve my life problems, even if it's just a scam, a collection of opinions and lies and pseudscience. That part of me doesn't want to let it go. But I have to, to recover, the get the power back.

I wanted to share a few resources that I found useful to start getting out of this treatment and for overcome the indoctrination/brainwashing:

https://www.madinamerica.com/insane-medicine/

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

February 12

The meaning of my (difficult and painful) experiences and "psychological issues" is in what happened to me, in my life story and in my environment, not in psychiatry, its false medical diagnoses and toxic and meaningless meaning framework. Psychiatry just confused and deceived me with its lies and drug, since I was 19.

February 12

I've been more calm today than usual. I couldn't make sense of the reality of my life when my withdrawal started and since then, everything became so incredibly confusing and emotionally overwhelming, for years. I really needed to rest when I was 19-20, to reprocess all my unprocessed trauma and release all the stored postraumatic stress, to recover, to be functional, that's where my postraumatic reactions that I couldn't understand came from, my anger, my fear, my guilt, my shame, my anxiety, etc, from my traumatic past that I hadn't deal with, and they didn't make sense in the present but they made sense knowing my personal context and story. But like my friend told me the other day I couldn't rest because when I stopped being productive I started getting overwhelmed by those same emotions. At the same time I felt pressure to study, I was a student and I wanted to start fresh and ready the next academic year. Because of the psychiatric scam that I fell into because of desperation and the later psychiatric abuse and trauma I only got worse and I was never able to overcome all those issues. Years later I stopped Sertraline cold turkey and my withdrawal happened, where I suddenly reconnected with all those unprocessed and forgotten (because of Sertraline chemical deception) traumatic emotions, they overwhelmed me, psychologically and physically until I completely stopped being functional in 2022. I remember when I was 19-20 I just wanted to recover to be functional, even if I couldn't do it and I only got worse my intentions were correct. I never imagined things to go this way.

There is no meaning, real explanations and solutions in the psychiatric meaning framework/paradigm, and for years I was trapped there, trying to solve my problems in a impossible way.

I'm glad it's over now.

This toxic and limiting psychiatric meaning framework/paradigm, powerless and hopeless sick mindset is also part of the psychiatric damage, it's not enough to overcome withdrawal and stop using its toxic drugs and even leaving the mental health system/industry if you're still trapped there, recovery becomes impossible.

February 13

Just remembering 8 years ago, when I started suffering those postraumatic reactions and getting overwhelmed by them, I wanted to make sense of that difficult experience, because I needed to understand them in order to control them and be functional. I couldn't make sense of these postraumatic reactions/(emotional) flashbacks so they slowly started dominating me, I believed the alarming and catastrophic messages that they sent to me, as if my traumatic past were happening all over again, I knew that it physically wasn't, that things were different, but it felt like that, it really did, that's why the (emotional) flashbacks/postraumatic reactions were so confusing and distressing for me, so difficult to understand.

February 14

I'm remembering more things. 8 years ago I had those postraumatic reactions/(emotional) flashbacks that were telling that I was in danger. I knew I wasn't really in danger, but if felt so real, it was so distressing and confusing. I ended up believing them, then I got into an existential/meaning crisis, because I couldn't make sense of that. I asked myself, what's the meaning of life? Then I got into Internet and mainstream psychology stuff trying to answer that question. I basically wanted to control those postraumatic reactions/(emotional) flashbacks, I needed to to be functional, to be effective, to concentrate, to study, to be productive, because they weren't allowing me to do so, and in order to control them I needed to understand them, that's why I searched for meaning, to understand, to control them. Because mainstream psychology is bullsh*t and a scam and a copy paste of psychiatry I only got worse. I actually needed to overcome my unprocessed trauma, to reprocess it, to liberate my stored postraumatic stress, to do that I needed to find meaning for my difficult experiences but also external validation, that validation never happened because the mental health system/industry is extremely individualistic, deliberately ignores trauma and pathologizes postraumatic reactions and trauma itself, i.e. it says that they don't have meaning, that they lack purpose, that they're nothing more than symptoms of medical diseases that need to be erradicated, suppressed, etc. I got indoctrinated in the psychiatric toxic and meaningless meaning framework and psychologically trained to monitor my inner experiences as symptoms of said mental illnesses, to catch them and to suppress them, and I also got drugged so at the same time I really got disconnected from my trauma never being able to understand it, to give it meaning, to overcome. I never had the oportunity to do so. I even told my psychiatrist when I was involuntarily hospitalized, court ordered (arrested and incarcelated in that psychiatric ward) that I thought I had PTSD, I told him that I had nightmares, flashbacks, about the trauma, but he just ignored me, basically told me that my behaviors didn't make sense, pathologized them and that there was something wrong with me, reason why I was "dysfuntional" and in that place, then diagnosed me with OCD, he "discovered" my "illness", imposed it to me and drugged me, under coerccion, taking the pills was the only way to get out of that place. He was a ******* *******, arrogant and mediocre, the damage he caused to me still persists to this day. I think I was even lucky that "OCD" was the only thing that was "wrong" with me and not something worse, that I wasn't diagnosed with something more severe. I think I was lucky. These unprocessed trauma and postraumatic reactions, aggravated by the psychiatric trauma, oppression and alienation, came back during withdrawal and it is the chaos I was refering to, not being able to make sense of all this, it didn't make sense to me back then to feel like that, like if the trauma was happening all over again, it was very confusing and disturbing to me, overwhelming, terrifying, but it had meaning, it was logical, it made sense. The emotions that these postraumatic reactions triggered were shame, guilt, and deep anxiety, fear, terror even, I couldn't relax, I couldn't enjoy anything, because everything triggered those painful, difficult and overwhelming feelings. Now I can find that meaning, thank God, even if it is 8 years later.

I suspect the emotional issues I described here could be related to the emotional spirals that this website talks about:

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/13492-dealing-with-emotional-spirals/

February 14

Maybe these emotional spirals and "neuroemotions" are just the difficult and painful emotions, traumatic in many cases, all the shame, guilt, anxiety, fear, terror, anger, etc, and unprocessed trauma/stored traumatic stress that come back once the drug is not there anymore to numb them down, to suppress them chemically, being specially intense, overwhelming, distressing and difficult to understand when withdrawal happens.

I trained myself to detect and suppress/repress my "OCD" "symptoms", and other "mental illnesses" "symptoms", because I was very indoctrinated by the psychiatric meaning framework, it specially became a problem and an obstacle to recover for me (without me realizing it of course) when the withdrawal happened, when I was the more confused and distressed and I was looking for answers again, for meaning, in the psychiatric meaning framework, and when I got into the mental health system/industry again, trying to "treat" and "recover" from my "OCD". It was all scam.

February 14

I was also refering to this:

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/313-shame-guilt-regret-and-self-criticism/

I think the meaning framework used in these posts is too biologically focused, like psychiatry does, it's the same biomedical/technological psychiatric meaning framework, that means too simplistic, neurological reductionism, in my opinion, a poor meaning framework.

February 14

I forgot how to function without Sertraline and outside of that psychiatric toxic and meaningless meaning framework, and I forgot how to manage my postraumatic reactions, flashbacks and difficult emotions, I lost my coping skills, I forgot how to calm myself in a healthy way, how to cope with reality, how to relax and rest. I guess I'll have to learn all that all over again. I spent years trapped with my trauma, chemically deceived and feeling, thinking and believing that I had finally left it behind, it's so twisted and cruel. Luckily I didn't care about my psychiatrist opinion, I already stopped trusting her, because I felt betrayed when she told me I had to take Sertraline for the rest of my life, that I had no hope for recovery, she probably would have tried to get me on the drug again, with a higher dose or to try a different one, as they usually do, calling my withdrawal experience a "relapse". **** the mental health system/industry.

February 14

8 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

Ho dimenticato come funzionare senza la sertralina e al di fuori di quella struttura di significato psichiatrico tossico e privo di significato, e ho dimenticato come gestire le mie reazioni postraumatiche, i flashback e le emozioni difficili, ho perso le mie capacità di coping, ho dimenticato come calmarmi in modo sano, come affrontare la realtà, come rilassarsi e riposare. Immagino che dovrò imparare tutto da capo.

I too am in the same situation as you, I believe that this is attributable to the changes brought about by these drugs to the nervous system, because with the passage of time it seems to improve For now I try not to force my nervous system too much because this can make the situation worse.

February 14

Yes, checco, be patient and compassionate, it gets better, specially with understanding, validation and good advices.

February 14

@Gonzo Indeed. After 13 years on zoloft I don't know how to function without either. The strategies you had before are forgotten. No wonder you feel confused and like a stranger to yourself. Forgot how to express yourself from the inside as you were numb, the substance has done the work with feelings for you in some way. And without it there will be chaos of emotions and also old traumas will return. Realize zoloft was my ”security” but a false one that meant that I did not build myself up correctly without the influence of the substance.
Now it's little bambi on slippery ice (if you’re an adult).

February 14

14 minutes ago, Dahlia50 said:

@Gonzo Indeed. After 13 years on zoloft I don't know how to function without either. The strategies you had before are forgotten. No wonder you feel confused and like a stranger to yourself. Forgot how to express yourself from the inside as you were numb, the substance has done the work with feelings for you in some way. And without it there will be chaos of emotions and also old traumas will return. Realize zoloft was my ”security” but a false one that meant that I did not build myself up correctly without the influence of the substance.
Now it's little bambi on slippery ice (if you’re an adult).

I understand. But I can confirm that it gets better, even if it has been painfully slow for me. When I started making sense of my experiences, of what happened to me and getting over the psychiatric brainwashing the recovery process sped up. This is why for me at least the withdrawal community must get over the neurological reductionism that is stuck in in order to enrich psychiatric victims meaning frameworks and make recovery faster and easier.

Sertraline really changed my personality, I'd say it caused me to have a chemically induced personality disorder for years that blocked my personal(ity) development.

February 14

@Gonzo Good point!

February 14

I clung to the psychiatric meaning framework/paradigm so badly, since I was 19... I was desperate, in despair, I couldn't go back to those overwhelming, paralizing, extremely distressing and traumatic feelings. But instead of being helped I was brutally abused, my pre psychiatric meaning framework was dismissed, thrown to the trash, invalidated, and pathologized. I was exhausted, and I had to comply to get out of the psychiatric ward, so I did, even if I didn't do it 100% and still maintained some of my beliefs, until the withdrawal happened and I totally lost them, then what was left of my pre psychiatry meaning framework was finished. Since then the only way I had to understand my experiences has been this extremely toxic, meaningless and cult like psychiatric toxic meaning framework/paradigm, which hurt me incredibly, totally absorbing/abducting me and totally brainwashing and indoctrinating me. Even if I know now all these things, that psychiatry is a scam, my mind has difficulties changing its belief system, making sense of my experiences in a different non pathologizing way, it resists to change, which is normal, it's the way it's been working for the past 8 years and in a very intensively manner, for some periods of time I was going to two different therapists at once the same week, I was also drugged and chemically disconnected from years at the same time that all this was happening. The psychiatric indoctrination/brainwashing has been deep, I was more or less institutionalized in the mental health system/industry, and that sick mindset persists to this day even if I left the mental health system/industry in the last months of 2022, more than a year ago.

February 15

I spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix my "OCD" since January 2021, shortly after the withdrawal occurred.

I was so confused, overwhelmed by my emotions (traumatic) and reactions (post-traumatic), and I couldn't understand anything, so I started searching for meaning and answers again, to find solutions, unfortunately I made the same mistake of searching for meaning, answers and solutions in the same toxic and meaningless psychiatric meaning framework/paradigm, I still thought it was science and not a scam.

I was also trying to avoid breaking up with my "girlfriend" (not really my girlfriend, but we had some kind of romantic relationship), I didn't want to experience the pain of rejection, and I blamed myself for everything that happened between us, for the chaos that occurred when I stopped taking Sertraline cold turkey. I remember, days before stopping Sertraline cold turkey I told her I was taking these pills, she told me that I didn't need him.

She was so ignorant as well, and pretty narcissistic in my opinion, we didn't have a healthy relationship but she gave me love, sometimes, and I was in desperate need for love. I was still very traumatized for everything that happened in my life, that I couldn't overcome, and needed validation desperately.

I was very distressed. I felt that she was going to give me that validation that I needed to relax and rest, to release my postraumatic stress, that she cared about me, but it turned out she was just using me for her own needs and when I lost control over my emotions after stopping Sertraline cold turkey she started distancing herself from me, not only because of that unstability, but because she was minding her own business.

She made me feel, think and belief that she cared about me, and at the end she abandoned me, and she did it in such a traumatizing way. It was a short lived relationship but very traumatic for me. She scammed and betrayed me, just as psychiatry/psychology and Sertraline did.

Anyway, I starting getting interested in the "OCD" diagnosis in December or November 2020, when our "relationship" was going downhill like truck without brakes. Like I said I blamed myself for all the abusive stuff she did to me and that I did to her, like if everything were about me. I needed to desperately feel in control, immersed in such a chaos and confusion, that's why I self blamed for things that I had no blame in.

In the first days of January 2021 I told her that I thought that all the bad things that happened between us since September 2020 (when the withdrawal took place), was because of my "OCD", but she didn't believe me and thought I was just trying to get her attention.

I even sent her a photo of my medical records to prove it. I was so desperate to get her back, to fix things. I had no idea that the inner chaos that I was experiencing and that affected that sh*tty relationship so greatly was related to withdrawal, no one told me about it, my psychiatrist only told me about the "rebound effect", that stupid and indoctrinated psychiatrist. Then, after telling her about my "OCD" she told me that I was getting obssesed with her and that she was going to tell the police if I ever contacted her again.

She speak to me like if I was a dangerous person, a criminal, that devastated me. I still needed her for my emotional stability but I never contacted her again, even if I really wanted to, to fix the relationship. She really didn't give a **** about me, it was all about hew own needs for her.

Before this happened I never had any kind of interest in my "OCD" diagnosis, no one really explained me what "OCD" was about since I was diagnosed, I had no clue, and my "OCD" treatment was a joke, i.e. I was never treated for my "OCD".

All those things combined made me get into the "OCD" thing, which I blamed for the chaos I experienced and what happened to me with that girl, I still blamed myself because I was so confused and deeply traumatized. I wanted to fix my "OCD", to cure it, to recover, even if my previous psychiatrist told me that I had to take Sertraline for the rest of my life so no recovery for me but mentally ill forever.

Then I started collecting info, which was horrible because no one understands what "OCD" is about and "OCD" treatments are a ******* mess, being diagnosed with "OCD" is like a doom diagnosis, no one really understands it, what it's about and how to fix it, no one really make sense of obsessive compulsive behaviors, that are deeply pathologized once you get diagnosed with "OCD", everything becomes "OCD" then.

It's a ******* mess, like a psychological trap. It's an horrible diagnosis, extremely harmful and confusing. So I collected all the info I could, trying to understand this thing to fix/cure it. I tried to get treatment for it, I practiced various techniques for months, I went to various therapists, I contacted a specialized center in "OCD", etc.

But after all the energy and time I spent and lost I wasn't improving so I tried different approaches and that's how I finally got into the withdrawal community and antipsychiatry.

It's all been so crazy, insane, I didn't really have a moment to rest my mind since I was 19, maybe now I can.

February 15

Psychiatry is making everyone insane. With its drugs, causing personality disorders and detachment from reality, and with its toxic, oppressive, alienating and nihilistic meaning framework/paradigm. The whole world is going insane. Since I was arrested and involuntarily hospitalized in 2017 everything is much worse. I'm coming back to reality, as an adult, as this **** is scary, this reality is dystopic in many ways.

February 15

I want to writte about the reasons I stopped Sertraline cold turkey... First of all, I hadn't informed consent and I knew nothing about withdrawal, my psychiatrist only told me about the "rebound effect" back then, that means that the "original symptoms" could come back, but what they were? No one explained me what "OCD" was, I didn't know what it was, etc. When I decided to stop Sertraline cold turkey I had sexual issues because of side effects of the drug, I had a kind of "relationship", I thought this person, with whom I was romantically and sexually involved, was gonna help me, so I made the decision to stop cold turkey. I also felt that the act of taking the pills meant that there was something wrong with me, that it was stigmatizing and oppressive, which it definitely was. This person, my "girlfriend", also told me I didn't need to take the pills when I told her about them, she really didn't know anything about psychiatric drugs it seems but I didn't really made the decision of stop taking the pills because she said that. In 2020 I was very distressed, that's why I resumed Sertraline on my own in April 2020, during COVID lockdown, even if stopped taking it in the last months of 2019. I really needed validation, to be loved, to feel understood and safe, to rest, to reprocess my unprocessed trauma, to release my stored postraumatic stress, that I was disconnected from but not completely, it was invisible to me but at the same time I felt it at some level, I felt the need to be seen, to feel loved, and I thought she was that person, even if it was by any means perfect. I saw her as an oportunity to heal, get stronger, to mature, to move foward in my life. She knew that I had issues and I tried to be honest with her since we started hanging out. She really made me feel as if she cared about me, because of the things she told to me, how much interest she showed in me, and how she behaved, she made me feel worthy, loved, but at the end she didn't care a damn, and she left me, specially when things got difficult and ugly. I had trust issues, I told her about them, she knew them, she saw them very clearly, and I made a decision to trust her, it was a very big effort and risk for me, and a step foward, and she just treated me like **** at the end, like if I was a piece of **** stick in her shoe. It was devastating for me. I was left with a withdrawal that was totally overwhelming and I wasn't equipped to understand, no one really except for the withdrawal community and even then it falls into the same toxic neurological reductionism as psychiatry does. Since then, since she left me, shortly after the withdrawal happened, everything got worse for me, for some time I tried to be functional and engage with life, until I no longer could in 2022. I lost track of time. Everything was extremely traumatic. Why did I have to go through all this? Why me? When I was a teenager I learned to stop asking myself that question and just accept reality. If my anger got released I'd kill people. I was brutally abused, oppressed and alienated for years and years, without reason, unfairly. Since I got out of the hospital I was looking for a person that saw my struggles, understood them, helped me with them and loved me. This girl scammed me so badly, romantically speaking, she really did. I was scammed once more in my life, not even realizing it until years later. I was so confused. Life is hard and sometimes very cruel.

February 15

Psychiatric added too many more layers of trauma and dissociation to me already complex trauma, for nothing. It made me waste so much energy and time, for nothing. It made me suffer so much unnecessary pain, for nothing. And it made me stuck with my trauma for years, and for nothing, because it ignores trauma, because it pathologizes it, because it's oppressive and alienating, because it stinks.

February 15

I remember that after I got out of the psychiatric ward for the next 2-3 years I used to park my car outside of the hospital where I was locked down/incarcelated and look at the window with bars of the room where they put me in. I did that when I was taking Sertraline. I was so disconnected, later I couldn't even tell why I did that. It was to remember, to reconnect with my true identity, true emotions, true needs and true objectives, in other words, to recover the lost meaning, the meaning that psychiatry stole me. I felt the need to do that, to reconnect with myself, because I was so dettached.

The years I took Sertraline, I really lost my ability to manage my difficult and intense emotions and postraumatic reactions, how to cope with reality.

I started taking Sertraline under coerccion, it was the only way to get out of the psychiatric ward and recover my stolen freedom. But the reality is that I really was overwhelmed by my traumatic emotions and post-traumatic reactions, I even tried to find validation in that place, only to be pathologized. I was so desperate. They really gave me no other choice than the drugs to soothe myself and find relief.

February 15

I'm feeling more and more like coming out from a dream, from a emotional coma, I just don't understand reality no more.

8 years ago I got into psychiatry because I was desperately looking for meaning, but I was also searching for the truth. I thought psychiatry was science so that it had the objective truth, instead of being just a shithole of corruption and lies. How naïve I was back then.

To really start recovering I had to get over the psychiatric indoctrination/institutionalization, to deprogram my mind of its toxic and nihilistic meaning framework, but during the process I lost all meaning in my life, what was left, and now I hardly know what do with my life.

One possible symptom of withdrawal that still persists and is not getting better is tinnitus, which is very intense during all the day.

February 15

I rejected the psychiatric toxic and nihilistic meaning framework and belief system, but I hadn't anything prepared to replace it with, so I have to develop another meaning framework and belief system that is personal, meaningful and healthier, that is extremely painful, confusing, difficult and exhausting, it means grieving. The human mind doesn't like to change it's belief system and meaning framework, because they give it stability and a way to interpret reality even if it's faulty.

I really got hopeful and passionate when I took Sertraline, I thought, believed and FELT that my trauma was finally over, that I had left it behind. I was just chemically deceived and disconnected from my trauma, traumatic emotions and postraumatic reactions, high, numbed down, confused, but I didn't know. That's the medical spellbinding and placebo effect too. Until the withdrawal happened and reality slapped me in the face. It was all a cruel lie. And no one was there to helped me understand.

I finally understand and I overcame the lies, the deception, I'm in contact with reality again, and it's such a sh*tty reality that makes me wonder it's really that bad to be drugged living in Lalaland? I don't think it's that bad, if it's a personal choice, if you know the risks and if you know well reality and accept it.

The immorality is to be lied to, deceived, by psychiatry and its bullsh*t, to be oppressed and alienated, confused, exploited, scammed.

I need to rebuild my meaning framework, into a healthier, personal, meaningful and non pathologizing one, that's what I've been doing lately anyway.

February 15

22 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

I was just chemically deceived and disconnected from my trauma

Can I just say "chemically deceived" is poetry? *chef's kiss*

23 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

Until the withdrawal happened and reality slapped me in the face. It was all a cruel lie. And no one was there to helped me understand.

I finally understand and I overcame the lies, the deception, I'm in contact with reality again, and it's such a sh*tty reality that makes me wonder it's really that bad to be drugged living in Lalaland?

I don't think I could make it through tapering without cPTSD support in place. I currently see a therapist one on one and go to trauma-recovery focused groups. In the past, community support groups helped me feel less alone and learn from others farther along the trauma-recovery road. I've come to believe it's crucial to find lifelines like this when there's trauma in play and tapering starts, I seriously don't think I could have continued lowering meds without. The trauma just comes to the surface so intensely...

It's not easy, trauma-work is excruciating at times, but it does feel like I'm holding less poison inside. It was frozen and numbed for decades, and it's unthawing with a vengeance the lower the meds go. Exploring spirituality has also been helpful, but that's not for everyone.

Sending lots of hope and support your way!

February 15

At 19 I experienced a post-traumatic crisis and in my withdrawal all my post-traumatic reactions returned, because all my trauma was unprocessed, because I never was able to give meaning to it, plus these postraumatic reactions were aggravated by the trauma that psychiatry inflicted to me and from which I was completely disconnected since I started taking Sertraline in the psychiatric ward and by the traumatic experience of withdrawal himself, confusing, overwhelming, and that I experienced as a retraumatization.

I remember that when I was 19 I decided to left behind my individualistic mindset (which is pure trauma), even if it actually protected me from being oppressed and revictimized, so even if it was an adaptive mindset, because I wanted to overcome my trauma, to connect with others, to live fully and better and to be more functional, more productive, to find meaning, because I had HOPE and I believed that something better and more humane was possible, then psychiatry just arrested me and pathologized me and totally destroyed my meaning framework, my belief system, and my identity, brutally abusing me, taking away my freedom, because I was acting "abnormal".

It's all been so horrible.

February 15

4 hours ago, Gonzo said:

Ricordo che dopo essere uscito dal reparto psichiatrico per i successivi 2-3 anni parcheggiavo la macchina fuori dall'ospedale dove ero rinchiuso/incarcerato e guardavo la finestra con le sbarre della stanza dove mi avevano messo L'ho fatto mentre prendevo la sertralina. Ero così disconnesso che in seguito non riuscivo nemmeno a capire perché l'avessi fatto.

I know what you mean about behaviors that seem less than normal and make you question your mental health, many times I end up in these strange situations that don't make much sense at least to those who don't. knows this site, being so nostalgic for the past that you can't imagine a future. I can't imagine what it means to be deprived of your freedom and treated like a person without any closed right is forced to take drugs you don't want to take.The only one that has this power is psychiatry, a pseudo science that has had more failures in history only failures from lobotomy and electroshock, such power can be given to psychiatrists who don't even know the effect of the drugs they prescribe, many are still convinced today of the chemical imbalance of the brain, all those who oppose it are labeled as conspiracy theorists or flat-earthers and as a matter of human rights you cannot deprive a person of their freedom and autonomy without having committed any crime, this is barbarism.

February 15

I'm so exhausted, because getting out of this mental prison is exhausted, and the world is getting crazier each passing year, more nihilistic, more violent.

I lost all meaning in my life when I was stuck in the mental health system/industry and institutionalized, but now that I understand what happened to me and I'm connected to reality it's ******* terrifying.

There is a quote from the 2015 Mad Max film: "if you can't fix what is broken you'll go insane". For years I tried to fix/cure my mental illness/disorder, "OCD", even if psychiatry rightfully says that it doesn't have cure/fix. But I didn't accept that and I tried to do fix/cure myself. I couldn't cure/fix my "OCD" because it's not a real illness, that's why, because it's a made up disease, and it almost drove me insane.

My obsessive-compulsive behaviors were not a symptom of an invisible illness but at best a sign of trauma.

These mental health "experts" are insane.

I never commited a single crime in my life yet I was arrested and put between bars, literally, for acting "abnormal" and in the name of being "helped", I was forced to be "helped", it's atrocious, it's crazy, a society that allows this to happen is totally insane.

February 15

I couldn't process reality when the withdrawal happened, I was psychologically overwhelmed and totally confused, until very recently, and when I was drugged I was disconnected from it, living in a fake synthetic reality, in Lalaland. Time passed much faster than I felt and thought so it's really overwhelming sometimes. I understand now better what happened to me, but I don't understand life sometimes, I really don't, I get very confused and I don't know what to do.

February 15

I'm reading your thread and I'm terrified of this hospital, and my sister who advised me SSRIs many times now sees what's happening and advises a hospital for the time being so called "day" but from a day hospital it can become "closed". I'm watching TV now I think there was a mental health day featured various psychiatrists and no one talked about any risks just that they were providing help. In addition, I have been to several psychologists before and everyone (!) advised pills or said that I would be "under the care of doctors" taking pills. I think they recognized that if they said don't take it they would be exposing themselves to the fact that I would say something about it somewhere and be criticized . I don't know and I regret that psychologists chickened out of warning.

I remember my cousin took sertraline for two years and he praised it very much and encouraged me, I don't know why we are so disadvantaged by SSRI (I happened to be taking escitalopram) greetings. Unfortunately my cousin smoked cigarettes and I no longer have him from cancer.

February 15

The truth is these psychiatric drugs are "helpful" for some people, they help them to cope with a difficult reality numbing down their feelings, they give them some pleasure even if they're just high, etc. I'm not even against these drugs, but against the way they're being prescribed and abused in such a careless and idiotic way by these mediocre and ignorant doctors, evil sometimes. In my case, the biggest problem was and is the trauma I carried. Psychiatry completely ignored my trauma, even if I told the psychiatrist that diagnosed me about it, that I had flashbacks, postraumatic reactions, nightmares, trauma, that I thought I had PTSD, but he was the "expert" and decided that he just knew better than me what I had or didn't have so he didn't listen to me, ignored me and my trauma, pathologized me, my beliefs, behaviors, thoughts, diagnosed me with "OCD" and drugged me, making me impossible to overcome my trauma because I was just totally disconnected from it for years, Sertraline worked so well that I even forgot about it. So this stupidity made me suffer a lot, because of my trauma, and psychiatry reinforced it with the brutal oppression, alienation and invalidation that I experienced when I was arrested and locked down. This is the reason Sertraline was so harmful for me. Because of psychiatry toxicity.

And not only that, because I was trained in the psychiatric and nihilistic meaning framework and learned to fear my inner experiences, my feelings, my emotions, and specially my postraumatic reactions, not only I didn't understand them and I couldn't reprocess and overcome my trauma, the source of my postraumatic reactions, but now because of psychiatry I feared all that.

February 15

I fell into the psychiatric trap when I was 19 because I was in despair, very distressed, confused, overwhelmed, by my postraumatic reactions and traumatic feelings, I was immersed in a postraumatic crisis that I couldn't make sense of and I was desperately searching for meaning and looking for answers and solutions to ease my angst and for my life issues. It reminds me of how people get into cults and religion. The difference is that people can differentiate between religion and cults for the most part. Many religions claim to have the objective truth as science does but they require faith and discipline in its beliefs. Cults can be very similar to religion but they're more extreme, disempowering and very absorbing. Psychiatry is more like a cult, but it claims to be science and medicine even if it lacks medical evidence for its psychiatric diagnoses (reason why they can't be diagnosed medically) and it's actually pseudoscientific (because the DSM, the "bible" of psychiatry and the basis of its paradigm, is purely subjective and totally unreliable), and people can't see how closely related it's to a cult.

February 15

... I was struggling, and vulnerable. Psychiatry didn't help me to recover because it didn't validate my (difficult and traumatic) experiences and TRAUMA, because it was and it is just victim-blaming and neurological reductionism, a poor and toxic meaning framework, because it's too individualistic and deliberately ignores trauma, because it's just a scam, a pseudoscientific and harmful cult like belief system.

Another thing that Sertraline did to me was to take away my critical thinking, because I was apathetic in many ways, I lacked my natural passion.

Psychiatry pathologized my coping strategies, identity, and post-traumatic reactions without identifying, accepting, or validating my trauma.

Gonzo: Sertraline 50mg chaos and withdrawal

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