UselessSpork: Mirtazapine withdrawal, from 45 mg down to 3.9 mg

[UselessSpork]

Man its hard not to get really angry at people for giving you the whole "snap out of it" Bullsh-it. whats worse is this is coming from people who have had episodes of depression themselves... it's like... did you completely forget what its like? how can people be so useless, this is why i prefer to be by myself when i feel crappy. Granted they don't outright say "snap out of it" but it is heavily implied.. stuff like "put on a smile! it wont kill you" or "you just gotta try harder" and the worst of all "whats your deal?" im depressed you idiot.. thats my DEAL! it's like they completely forget that i am dealing with this, man people can be so dumb. for me forcing a smile or forcing trying to LOOK happy when i feel crappy just makes me feel worse... its basically torture to me. it is SO much easier to just be alone when i feel bad, there are no expectations and no obligations. and then these same people tell me "you gotta get out more".... again sorry im not really expecting a reply, im just ranting ): i rant when i feel shi-tty.

[tgirl]

Hey US,

 

I totally understand. I think people just don't know what to say, so they open there mouths and stupid **** falls out.

It's hard to take.

 

People just don't understand. Even those who have been there forget what it's like. And those are the ones that you would think you could count on the most.

 

I'm sure some of what your feeling is neuro emotions.

 

Sorry your having a rough time.

 

Tgirl

[AliG]

 U.S.

 

I think , a lot of people , a lot of the time , have trouble expressing themselves, in a meaningful way.  They go with the " tried & true"  sayings & " dittos", that have been condoned & endorsed by " society " generally, without even thinking about it fully.  I  think ,some of these people ,don't  have an " original" bone in their  body.  They just  re-cycle, what they have seen & heard, without a second thought .  They just go through the motions.  Try , if you can, not to take it , personally .  They are usually , just ignorant .

[freespirit]

US, 

 

People don't know how to respond to suffering, for the most part. Like Ali said, they tend to just repeat what's been said or done with them...it's hard not to take it personally, but it really isn't personal. 

 

When I'm in really tough places, I tend to prefer being alone. My cats don't try to talk me out of what I'm feeling! It can be challenging to weigh out when it's healthier to make the choice to stay home..and when getting out can help shift things a little. I've experienced both at different times...but when I'm more easily triggered by things, I tend to stick more with friends that will allow me to be wherever I am. 

 

This too shall pass. 

[UselessSpork]

thanks folks! I believe nearly 100% of what im feeling these days are neuro emotions tgirl.. everything up till about 3 months ago was WAAAY more tolerable.

 

Free & ali, yeah it seems to be that. people just recycling the same stupid bs memes that help nobody lol. Being around people who accept you as you are is much much better, but still.. when i feel bad enough i just wanna be alone anyways. Kitties are nice they dont require you to be smiling like a fake dumbass xD

 

One question for you guys, does having to 'fake it' make you feel alot worse? whether its faking a smile or faking being in a good mood, how does that make you feel?

i know for me if i feel bad enough, faking makes me feel so awful.. it really makes me feel worse.

[freespirit]

How are you doing US?

 

As to your question about faking it...when I'm struggling with more intense emotions, it definitely makes me feel worse when I try to cover that. However, if I'm more just flat or even irritable, it can actual help to smile or engage a bit with people. It also depends on the situation I'm in and whether other people are expecting me to be more cheerful.

[AliG]

 As usual, I agree  with Free.

Sometimes it's good , as it pushes you out of your " comfort zone", if you're " borderline".  Other times , it's just a " pain" , to be honest .  It's like you said , a few posts ago, U.S,  sometimes when you're feeling bad, nothing you do helps, no matter how hard you try.  You just have to go through it , and come out the other side, until the next time , and then " do it again".  " Rinse & repeat ".   It takes a lot out of you, for sure.  You have to just keep going , though !

 

Keep pushing forward.

 

Ali.

[UselessSpork]

Its definitely not always horrible to force it, sometimes it can push me out of the comfort zone and put me in a better mood like you said ali. but then yeah... sometimes forcing it feels awful and those are the days i choose to be alone. thanks for responding

[AliG]

 No worries !

 

I've had this tonight. Trying to put on a happy face .It's the " Pits", and really no one understands, except us .  

[tgirl]

Hey US,

Are you still holding at 1.5?

Did you stabilize?

Are you able to sleep?

 

Hope you are well,

 

Tgirl

[UselessSpork]

im sleeping fine, im not sure if im stabilized yet. last couple of days were good but today started out fine and went crappy.

Yesterday and the day before were quite good, i was able to get away with eating some sh*tty foods and it didnt effect me.

so today i was alittle bit sluggish in the brain, but thought "meh ill just eat this greasy ass cheesburger and fries anyway!" so i think that helped do me in.

I cant seem to figure out if its all food that ruins me some days or if it would have just happened anyway, even if i ate nothing... or maybe its a mixture of both.

it seems some days i can get away with eating anything and other days i simply cant.

 

yeah im still holding at 1.5

 

and yeah its true ali, thats what makes it so hard >.< people dont understand how you can be fine one day, or even an hour ago and then all of a sudden you feel terrible. i guess it never made sense to me either before i was like this. i have been on both sides of the fence.

 

 

also question for you guys. do you think its ok to nap during this time? or will it screw up my circadian rhythm further?

[Hopefull]

Hi Mitrazapine Buddy ,

 

I don't understand it either, how you can be fine, than bam , back to square 1.

It is the nature of this beast!

 

None of this makes sense to me either.

"Roll with the punches", as they say.

It will work out at the end.

Keep going.

Look on the bright side, you are down to 1.5mg.

You have done the hard work to get to that point.

I am stuck on 5mg.

I wish I was down to 1.5mg.

Best wishes, Hopefull.

[AliG]

 U.S.

 

As one who rarely sleeps, I  have found it's ok to have very short naps.  I survive on little " cat naps", occasionally of no more than about 15 minutes. 20 minutes  - Max !   Any longer , and you run the risk of definitely not sleeping, that night.( For me anyway.)  However , with this " withdrawal" business, there are never any guarantees, either way !   LOL.  

 

Ali.

[manymoretodays]

I vote yes on naps.  Early enough in the day of course.  I think our circadian rhythms are probably a bit off for awhile anyway.  

 

Also........contemplative listening.......... is good........ where one sits with their eyes closed when someone else is talking/speaking.........it can also be done with ones fingers on either side of the nose and head bowed for maximum effect............respectful, contemplative listening it appears.  Then try to offer some form of non verbal response as well.......a head bob, wry grin, etc.     Very restful for me anyway. 

[freespirit]

I've found naps to be helpful at some times, but not so at others. I went through cycles where I was napping for up to an hour, plus sleeping a full 6-7 hours at night. It can help to settle my nervous system, so I sleep better at night...but if you get too rested, it can affect the night's sleep. Shorter is probably better. I'll just listen to music or meditate sometimes in the afternoons, even if I don't fall asleep..and that seems to help me rest better at night too.

 

I understand about not being able to figure out the food thing...I can't either. Stuff just seems to be happening, and it's impossible to know what the cause is...or if there is no cause, except only the internal state of things.

[UselessSpork]

Thanks for all the responses guys man so today i had great sleep, although i didnt get quite enough and was a bit tired in the morning.. either way i felt like it was good sleep and i felt fine. But within like 10 minutes i got super anxious and agitated/ depressed? its hard to tell its more of what i like to call a "brain fire" your brain just... hurts.. it feels like you physically have something inside your head. you know you feel bad and your thoughts are bad but you cant describe it. EITHER WAY that happened, despite sleeping so well and yet the day before i had very anxious dreams and sleep.. and i woke up feeling sh*tty, but i quickly felt better after waking. these nuero emotions or whatever are completely RE-tarded!! i still feel fairly bad at the moment.. but fortunately its not as bad as it could be.

 

sorry for all the damn run on sentences >.< its hard to concentrate at the moment.

[UselessSpork]

I forgot to mention Yesterday on oct 19 in the midst of feeling horrible i decided to jog home from work and it totally deleted all the anxiety/brain fire for pretty much the rest of the day. these neuro emotions are so unpredictable, most of the time exercise only helps a bit.

 

i wished it lasted though, today i had another great sleep but shortly after waking it slowly escalated into an awful depression (at this current moment) man its so hard to stay positive.... im constantly being hammered away by this bullsh-it depression and anxiety. it seems so permanent ): it feels like i will never stabilize .. last reduction was august 4rd, and it was only 1 mg.

[UselessSpork]

I hit a wall during my taper where it got real hard really fast. so i have been holding for 2.5 months since i reduced from 1.6 mg to 1.5 mg of mirtazapine. the problem is i am just not stabilizing, infact i feel its getting harder now than when i first started holding.  prior to last taper i went from 1.9 mg to 1.6 mg and thats when i noticed it was starting to get hard out of the blue. This is very frustrating, most of my days are crap and my brain is dropping the ball so bad here.. im trying to avoid crappy foods im exercising im trying to reduce stress, i do some deep breathing sometimes. but still my stupid stubborn brain just wont stabilize.. i am having just a difficult time now as i was when i did a super fast taper a year ago and then jumped off at 4 mg.

[LexAnger]

So sorry! I know how you feel as I'm exactly the same. Beeping okish with micro taper until the recent same tiny cut, no improvement over the past month, used to take a week or so to stabilize some level but not this time.

 

Your last 2 cuts were very big, more than 20% together, I would hope you had increased from 1.6 instead of decreasing further. Have you considered increase a bit?

 

I can't go back higher dose as I had bad experience up dosing. Lots ppl got relief from up dosing though.

[UselessSpork]

at this point i figure its not so much about how much or how little of the drug im taking, i think my brain is out of wack and it doesnt really care. probably why im having just a bad time now as when i was at zero MG. it feels like the 1.5 mg im taking atm might as well not even be there. i will continue to hold though, thanks for the input

[Altostrata]

US, I merged your posts with your Intro topic. And this is why we urge you to keep your history all in one place:

 

If you go back and read your Intro topic, you can see that you've reported good days recently. It hasn't been all bad. Please read back and consider whether you're "having just a bad time now as when i was at zero MG."

 

As LexAnger said, you've taken some risks with fairly big cuts. The reason we recommend small, systematic 10% decreases is to avoid destabilizing the nervous system. You are experiencing some destabilization, in waves. Your brain is not out of whack. See The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilization if you haven't read it already.

 

If you want to rush your taper, you may have to contend with withdrawal symptoms. You could updose slightly or hold at your current dose and let your nervous system settle down. Your choice.

[UselessSpork]

Thanks alto, i made that other topic because nobody was responding here and i didnt wanna triple post. im going to just keep holding i think. anyways alto i wanted to ask you a question but i didnt wanna bother you with a PM. Is the whole idea with the slow taper to go down slow enough that your brain sort of... regrows as you reduce and once you taper off the last little amount you should be fine? if you go slow enough that is? i have this idea in my head that if i go super slow with the taper, and i finally get off the meds then i still have months and months of recovery at 0 mg. sort of like tapering is step one and being off is step 2. is this false? is the tapering if done slow enough, basically the final step? sorry if its hard to understand, im not very articulate.

[Altostrata]

That is exactly why we recommend a slow taper. It is an off-ramp. Read Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

[UselessSpork]

mkay i will read it, thanks.

[UselessSpork]

another sh*tty day ): i am getting so many of these in a row. this is getting ridiculous i feel like i need to try something. i read the link alto gave me, so if i try up dosing to 1.9 mg (what i was before i hit this wall) could that possibly help? its been at least 3 or 4 months since then though. and if i do up dose and nothing happens can i just go back down again? or am i stuck back up at 1.9 mg?

 

also i dont mean to argue Alto i really dont, but i am feeling similar to how i was when i jumped off at 4 mg. i have been keeping a journal for nearly 2 years now and i rate how bad or good each day is. the numbers are pretty similar now compared to then.

[Altostrata]

I went back and read your entire topic and saw we urged you to taper by no more than 10% many times.

 

Now you have withdrawal symptoms from tapering too fast.

 

Updosing may help. There are no guarantees. That is why we recommend being very cautious and not getting into trouble in the first place.

 

So, your choice.

[UselessSpork]

I was too confident, i thought i was doing fine and there would be no problems. i thought i could handle it.... but i was wrong. like i said in an earlier post i didnt think of recovery and tapering as the same thing. i thought you tapered and then after the taper you have a whole new bull-shi-t journey of symptoms to go through, i didnt think the recovery was built into the taper and your brain would recover around it. I can tell you exactly what my frame of mind was "if i just get this taper done quickly then i can get to recovery at 0mg sooner. i don't wanna go slowly and taper for a year and not recover at all and then once im off i have to wait ANOTHER eternity" I thought of tapering as limbo...like no recovery is taking place, almost like waiting in line for the ride. Im sure some of you think im an idiot, and thats fine, but i have had such a confusing time trying to figure out whats right and whats wrong. what works what doesn't, what seems like hocus pocus and what seems like science. The internet is filled with alot of information, and alot of it is contradictory.

 

i feel like some of you have given up on me ): trying to figure out what to do when you have a stupid naddering brain constantly second guessing everything you think isn't easy. one minute ill see something that totally makes sense, then the next minute im fuc-king dismissing it. its miserable

[Martina23]

Hello,

 

I dont think you did something wrong. I think withdrawal in general is not pleasant and if you taper or go cold turkey, you always will have some withdrawal symptoms, because you are withdrawing from drug. I think you tried already so long to stabilize, maybe you cant stabilize on the drug and will first stabilize when you are off the drug. The withdrawal symptoms you will always have until you heal, which in my opinion can be only after you are off the drug. I dont think you should updose, I think you should continue tapering and get used that going off drug brings withdrawal symptoms and try to manage these symptoms until they go away. That is my opinion.

[UselessSpork]

Hello martina

 

Did you go through a similar thing that i am currently? people have told me 2.5 months isnt that long to wait to stabilize, it seems like an eternity for me though. i dont know if i will updose or not because i dont want it to not work and be stuck at a higher dose. i dont know.... i will keep holding i think. i guess if i end up at 4 or 5 months out and there is still no improvement, ill assume i wont be able to stabilize, and go from there.  sigh...

[Martina23]

Hello, I first did c/t, it started bouncing a lot and my mother pursuaded me to go to the psychiatrist, who wanted to up the dosis and add an ssri to my meds. I refused but my mother persuaded me to go to 50 Percent of my original dose of Lyrica which I tapered of then. I havent stabilized on any dose, the system was already sensitized from c/t, I tapered off more rapidly (10 percent of original dose, not current one) and now I am suffering without. It is hard to know what is right. But you said you previously used the med only for 8 months and I cant imagine tapering which is longer than the whole use of drug. Because if the tapering is too long, in my opinion you are only longer on the drug and you said that you are the same suffering as by the c/t, so IMO this long attempt to stabilize only prolongs your suffering.

[freespirit]

US,

 

I wouldn't dwell so much on how you've done things up to this point. The confusion seems pretty common in WD.  Part of it is that we are dealing with something unique--different than any process we've been through before. A lot of us end up trying to apply ideas or methods that may have got us through other things...but they don't necessarily work in WD. It also seems to be rampant for us to think that drugs are poison and getting off is the gateway to healing.

 

So, now that you realize that healing can and does happen in tapering...how are you going to live today and the next period of time? This is partly why some of us have been harping on you to do things that have been recommended on here. Most of it people think of as symptom management, but for me, I took it seriously that I was helping my nervous system to heal while I was still on the drug...as well as after I jumped off. 

 

I find myself going back and forth on a lot of things mentally and emotionally at the moment..everything from supplements, to treatments, to where I ought to move to. When I'm in that kind of space, much as it seems horrible to do it, the thing to do is hold where I am and just ride it out. Experience has shown me in WD that jumping around at anything when things are unstable only serves to make things worse. I know it feels intolerable to just hold..or at least it does to me at times. I keep going at what's been working for me, even if it doesn't necessarily make things better in the moment. I may adjust how much time or intensity for exercise, qi gong, etc...but except for taking an occasional day off, I don't skip. For me, I feel I'm building a foundation..and it doesn't work to keep tearing that down every day or walking away from it altogether.

 

Hang in there...and keep doing some activities that are helpful, resting when you need to...ride the waves.

[UselessSpork]

Thanks for the replies guys <3

 

Martina what you wrote was exactly what i was thinking in my head for a long time. i think its the logical and rational way of looking at WD, its how i was looking at it and still sort of am looking at it now. Thats why i was so confused, how can i be doing whats right and what everyone is recommending (holding at 1.5 mg) and still be as bad as i was at 0 mg. I figure my brain was destabilized to all hell back then, and is destabilized now... and it doesnt seem to care that im on the drugs or not. i assume if i just started tapering again i probably wouldn't feel anything right away, i think down the road i would though. It seems i have a very delayed reaction to things i do during WD. I have been bouncing around between so many different ideas during this WD... im tired of it... im tired of second guessing myself. i already thought i could handle things and go fast during the taper, and since my reactions were so delayed i thought i was doing it.. i thought i was fine. but then i hit this horrible wall at 1.6 mg, i really cant afford to feel worse at the moment. ill keep holding and like i said before, if i still see zero improvement in a few more months ill consider that maybe i blew it and i wont stabilize, and the best idea would be to just get off this crap. i have also thought maybe being on the meds is making me worse... but thats a whole new ball game. i just need to stick with something for a while.

[Altostrata]

You have withdrawal symptoms from tapering too fast down to 1.5mg or wherever it is you are now. I believe I've explained this 4 or 5 times. It's perfectly logical.

 

Your choice: Updose or hold or whatever.

[UselessSpork]

Alto there is no need for hostility, it seems i turned you off or something. i know i tapered too fast now, yes i know. i was simply responding to what she said... and how what she is saying now is the thought i was struggling with. i think i explained myself pretty well about why i did what i did.. and why i tapered too fast. let us agree to disagree on what seems logical or not, but you must admit WD is confusing. i am going to give updosing some thought, either way though i am going to hold and see how it goes, just like i said.

[Hopefull]

Hi Uselessspork,

 

The whole WD can be confusing.

You are constantly second guessing your self.

It is a learning process.

 

I am still learning about this wd symptoms.

Don't think that you have been forgotten.

Yes, you tappered too fast, I probably did too.

It is what it is, you just have to deal with it.

If exercise is helping you, continue to exercise.

 

It is not easy and you didn't ask for this.

No one has.

Not sure what to advise in regards to updosing.

I honestly don't know.

At some point the s... has to hit the fan.....

I am sure that there are people who have done everything right and still experienced WDS .

We are all different and unique.

What works for some, might not work for others.

Keep going, and if things are not improving , maybe consider updosing.

 

You are doing the best that you can,

Tappering does not come with the manual.

It is really trial and error.

Best wishes, Hopefull.

[UselessSpork]

Thanks hopefull <3