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Hello everyone I apologize if I don’t write so good I hope I made sense in my writing , English is not my main language … I was at the emergency room last month i. The middle of May due to panic attacks and they refer me to a mental clinic and when I was there last month I had no choice that to take the meds that they were giving me first lexapro 10mg with klonopin I don’t know the mg that was on my first day. on my second day the give me lexapro 10mg and gabapentin 3 times a day I don’t know the mg but it was 1 big pill of gabapentin and the nurse keep giving me the same doses of lexapro and gabapentin for the following week then After that 1 week I got discharged and when I was at home I only took lexapro for 2 more days the I stop cold turkey because of the awful side effects like racing heart ,brain fog ,increased anxiety and insomnia I didn’t sleep at all those 2 days ,,and then like 5 days after I quit I started experiencing weird feelings in my throat(feels very very very dry all the way to my stomach) it’s really hard for me to sleep now I keep waking up with this weird sensation and I have it all day but is more uncomfortable at night also my nose feels kinda dry as well I been having weird stools very soft but the main issue is the feeling of dryness that I feel in the throat I feel like is hard for me to breathe even though I went to ER again recently to see what is going on and they told me my oxigen levels are perfect they check my lungs and they are fine idk what to do i don’t know if I will feel better I regret so much that I took those meds because I feel worse now after I took it than before … oh and also I have slightly head pressure specially in the nights … I had ringing in my right ear the very first days that I stopped taking those meds and it seems like the ringing of ear has been fading .. I forgot to mention that the 3 days after of me stopped the med I was waking up with chills and sweating but I was feeling a little bit cold …I been searching if someone have similar issue as me of this weird dry feeling in the digestive track and throat after stopping lexapro but I haven’t found anything and I’m scared because I only took those meds for just a short period of time I don’t know if a person can experience withdrawal when they only took a few doses it’s been 3 weeks now that I’m feeling this way I stopped taking lexapro on May 26 and this weird symptom started like 5 days after = ( I feel so hopeless

This was from the notes I kept on my Iphone about my progress. Lexapro/ escitalopram -Started taking in beginning of 2017 when got out of bad situation and was trying to get back into things it did help… for a while -Early 2020 Attempted to cut cold turkey was terrible, had brain shocks, severe depression, barely able to function. My doctor told me there would be no withdrawal. -2020 around September attempted 1 month taper from 20 mg to 0 mg according to old data that “doctors” go off of. After attempting this and having similar effects to quitting cold turkey I found a forum Survivingantidepressants.org, when I started reading I realized all these people went through the same **** I did. -August 2021 went to 20mg to 10 mg stabilized in October 2021, no major side effects besides energy levels -December 2021 went from 10 mg to 5 mg, stabilized in February, again mostly just energy levels affected. -May 2022 went from 5 mg to 2.5 mg, feel good and happy, want to cut down to less -June 2022 went from 2.5 mg to nibbling on less everyday. 6/14/22 attempting to stop taking it all together. First week my sleep sucked but my happiness level started to skyrocket. 6/23/22 went to electric forest with a new outlook and positive attitude. July 2022, I’ve never been happier, have felt no negative side effects from quitting, sleep is a little bit harder off the drug but overall I feel alive again. FREE :)))) My Taper off of Klonopin was less severe but still took about 9 months of steady decreasing in dosage until I was able to kick it. Was only on .5 Mg Dropped to .25 MG last year around October Dropped to .125 Mg around Jan 2022 Leading up to June I was nibbling less and less of it until I was almost to nothing June 2022 I quit I love all you beautiful people for sharing your stories and messages. I hope you have success with your journey, sending hope and love to you all.

I suffer from mental and emotional dullness after using depression and delirium medications, so that I used intermittently and for a short period of time, ecitalopram and arpiprazole. I do not feel the same as my previous feelings. Please help me from someone who has experience on how to get rid of these symptoms, especially the problem of concentration and forgetfulness. Thank you very much.

Hello guys I'm new here and my English language is a bit bad but i will try my best to explain pls stay tuned 🥺 ..... I was suffering from anxiety which is kinda severe at first only social anxiety and moderate depression it all started when i was around 13 years old i just couldn't take any bad word or anything i may see it bad or not appropriate to say so if i here bad word or someone makes jokes about me or anything like that i enter a severe depression/anxiety state for 3 days and then it resolve . I return normal after 3 days and ....i cand handle being with ppl i get anxious and shy and get low confidence and like so .... ..... HOW IT ALL STARTED! ..... when i entered 24 i tried to cure myself so i went to a therapist then i was put on multiple drugs changing for 1 year with no significant effect on my overall health until the day i tried ecitalopram i really felt great everything was ok and i gained my life back and more i was so happy and enjoying but after 6 months i quited cold turkey and...... HELL OPENED THE DOORS!. Panic attack and anxiety and severe depression like hell i couldn't handle this until i contacted my physician and returned to another med (zoloft) i was kinda better but not good no panic attacks then after 3 months on it i tried to get off of it so i took 25 mg down from 50 mg for 1 week and then i dropped it i suffered withdrawal at first and then after a few weeks i was good and getting better my motivation returned and i was like a day good and a day not really but getting slightly better day after day but i suffered fear from dark with low confidence but i was feeling better .. THEN.... i married my girl and after a while i was hard with her like focusing on the minor things so i decided i need to return to my medication to help me with this thing but then everything was bad i was so depressed and so anxious for 2 months with returning to ecitalopram then i moved to prozac and i was a little better with it but still not feeling good so i decided again to quite so i dii like zoloft 1 week 20 mg down from 40 mg and then dropped it . WHAT'S ABOUT NOW. at first i was good first weeks then i entered in severe depression anxiety state then it got lifted a lil bit my anxiety is better then when returned to ecitalopram or prozac but i feel low self-esteem and excessive thinking and and i think I'm recovering but Very slowly like I'm feeling like the old me when i was so anxious when i hear anything about me and i feel like I'm having weak personality but zero motivation and sometimes i feel so sad not like when i dropped my zoloft after few weeks my motivation returned no its different 😧! SO GUYYS WHAT SHOULD I DO?!. sometimes i think about returning to the meds and sometimes I'm afraid of going back to my old self when i was triggered by anything into depression anxiety cycle I'm really confused and i don't know what to do? 5 months without the meds !

Hello Everyone! I feel like I am joining this community as part of the "last mile" of my journey to finally kick these SSRI in the teeth and I am excited to share and interact with everyone. At the same time, I'm incredibly scared as my support system (excluding my wife) doesn't believe that I should be off meds. I am from a family of physicians and my psychiatrist is very stuck in the "chemical imbalance" theory, as is my family. Yup... just like everyone else I started getting medicated as a kid as part of the ADHD brigade, and then I was diagnosed with OCD (while taking ritalin of course). I am sure I took a bunch of SSRI as part of my regiment, but I don't remember specifics. ADHD faded away (or wasn't really there to start with) as I stopped believing it was a problem. And at about 21, anxiety started to fade in. Over the past 15 years (36 now), I've been on viibryd, zoloft , lexapro, and now trintelix. Interestingly, I never did truly feel like I had the anxiety kicked. The biggest problem for me with the SSRIs has been anhedonia, lack of emotion, and loss of libido. After a time, these became untenable in my marriage -- and life just was not that fun... and at the time I was on 200Mg of Zoloft. I figured it was time to look for a change. I never really tried to change the underlying behaviors causing anxiety -- I mean I did CBT, Meditation, etc, but really never got into the deeper stuff. I never really realized that meds might not be a long term fix. So my psychiatrist thought we would taper off and switch to something else. And so I tapered off of 200Mg of Zoloft successfully, and said no more SSRIs. It took 8 months to get off of Zoloft, and I was doing really well for about 5 months with really no issues. And then COVID hit. And then I had to move. Then my job became incredibly lonely. Specifically my wife and I are both starting businesses so there is a ton of stress there. So I started panicking, and not sleeping, and just having general anxiety. But at that point, I had made a choice to never be reliant on the SSRI, and I still have that resolve. This time I starred taking a dose of Trintelix with the purpose of learning how to deal with my anxiety. That was about 4.5 months ago. Of course my psych has tried to push it up and up. Which I went along with and made me miserable. At one point I was at 15mg. So I've dropped it down to 5mg which is the minimum dose. And here I am for the last 1.5 months. At the same time I've been on Trintelix, I've been working through a program called "Unwinding Anxiety" which is a program by a MD/PHD psychiatrist named Judson Brewer and have had tremendous results. After all 5Mg of Trintellix is supposed to be subclinical, right? I've had 3, 4, and 5 day windows -- and many days I have windows of many hours. This while things really haven't resolved that completely --- - wife still starting her business and pre-revenue - savings is going down - getting my business on track - COVID - US election craziness So here I am on that last 5Mg of Trintellix. Sex drive is gone. I do have emotions and feelings. Couple things I could use some thoughts on if anyone would be so kind to weigh in: 1. I've been in a bit of a panic the past few days. I've been sick (physically) and anxiety kicks up then. I've read part of Unhinged and a few chapters of Anatomy of an Epidemic. One of the scariest idea is that these SSRI's do actually work. What if they do, and I have altered my brain chemistry enough that I can't do more than 5-6 moths without them anymore. The Anatomy book might refute this idea or I might missed a central point. But anyone else been scared by that too? 2. Has anyone felt like Anxiety and self improvement has become a major part of their identity? As my mind quiets down, I get really scared and don't know where to go with it. Almost don't know who I am without the anxiety/meds. Thanks! -paradine7