LostInMarshes: in pain

[LostInMarshes]

I've now been tapering from 50mg for two months. Compared to previous taperings, I haven't really felt any withdrawal symptoms. Holding on to a highly unrealistic hope that this is permanent....

 

I'm living in a purgatory. At the end of the line. Things could get worse. But I am only a step or two away from that.

 

3 members of my inner-circle soul family, as I call them, have all told me, in one way or another, that I would rise from the ashes like a phoenix. In the future. And I know it. I feel it, and I hear it in music. But it seems like a universe away! It seems like what could happen if the world were to turn inside out.

 

This is all I'm holding on to.

 

---

 

I've a concern unrelated to my withdrawal. I'm concerned that I can't post here freely, because I am positive that a person who used to stalk and harass me has found me here, through the location thread, back when I shared my precise location. (In general, he knew I was trying to withdraw from SSRIs.) He is quite savvy with internet research and somehow found me on different places before. I've had to change my long-time phone number because of him. I bet this is the only way he can keep "tabs" on what and how I'm doing - this perverse lurking. I can't prove it, but I can "feel" him here. I don't know if should just share much less in general, or if I should create another account. I feel so uncomfortable. 

 

[brassmonkey]

Hi Storm-- it's wonderful to hear that things are going well and I love the support you seem to be getting.

 

I forwarded your concerns on to the admin. to see what they suggest. This is the second time this week we have run into a stalking situation and I don't like that our members are being made to feel uncomfortable here. Do you remember the thread and date you mentioned your location? PM me.

[LostInMarshes]

Brassmonkey, sent you a PM.

 

Question, can tapering/withdrawal from Zoloft or other SSRIs express itself as painful sore throats you think are strep throats? Like once every three months or so. And also runny nose? When it happens, I'm convinced I've caught the flu or a cold, but it's not and disappears fast. I got tested for strep throat today and it was negative!

[Rosetta]

I’m my experience, yes.  At times, it seemed that I was getting a sore throat and then it disappeared overnight.  I also very rarely had the symptoms of a true cold for weeks as is normal.  Either I didn’t have the immune response or my system knocked out the cold very quickly.  I have seen other people on this forum say the same thing — they don’t get sick when others around them do.  It’s very odd.

 

Rosetta

[LostInMarshes]

On 8/24/2021 at 6:46 PM, Rosetta said:

I’m my experience, yes.  At times, it seemed that I was getting a sore throat and then it disappeared overnight.  I also very rarely had the symptoms of a true cold for weeks as is normal.  Either I didn’t have the immune response or my system knocked out the cold very quickly.  I have seen other people on this forum say the same thing — they don’t get sick when others around them do.  It’s very odd.

 

Rosetta

 

Thanks Rosetta. I briefly read that it has something to do with histamine imbalance within the body? First time ever hearing of it

 

[LostInMarshes]

I told myself I wouldn't post as much, due to what I mentioned earlier. Until I find a solution to that problem, I'm still here... 

 

I feel like I'm really sinking, and so I'll pause tapering for a few months, until I can straighten out and improve my living space and living situation. I mean, I haven't done laundry in 5 months, which is the longest ever. I've got flat flies, house flies, and cockroaches. The inertia in this place is so bad, I come here in high spirits, promising myself I'll do something to improve my life, but instead I just...sink. I think until I make this place inviting to myself (and find a roommate), the tapering will only make it worse. A clean place and a roommate would be very beneficial. 

 

Even worse, is that I'm apparently considered the weirdest person at work (seriously weird), which is so humiliating to me. It would be funny if I was in my early twenties, but I'm not. I don't know if the isolation and my situation is damaging my social skills, or if it's something else. I was not always this way.

 

Yeah, not doing well

[ShiningLight]

Hey, hang in there. Pausing your taper sounds like a good idea. Can you afford someone to help you clean, or help you maintain it once you are able to improve it? ❤️

[LostInMarshes]

On 9/22/2021 at 11:54 PM, ShiningLight said:

Hey, hang in there. Pausing your taper sounds like a good idea. Can you afford someone to help you clean, or help you maintain it once you are able to improve it? ❤️

 

Hi ShiningLight. Thanks for message of support. I started following your main thread, as we have some psychotropics in common. :-))

I can't really afford the cleaning help, but I have two options: ask a family member I'm sort of estranged from, to help me, because he's very largely responsible for destroying my life... I could have sued him for his abuse, years ago, but alas. The other option is to do it myself and maintain it. It's easier to maintain once I have someone else living here.

 

Currently my great hope is a probiotic supplement I recently restarted. I completely forgot about a daily probiotic supplement regimen! It is what got me the emotional and mental push I needed, when I had to do something very important (finances and career) a couple of years ago. I was amazed that it actually vastly improved my mood. I haven't been taking one for about a year. So I restarted on the best probiotic I can afford.... 30 billion cfu, as opposed to the 10 million cfu I was taking previously. 

Thanks for letting me share this!

[ShiningLight]

On 10/2/2021 at 10:43 PM, Stormstrong said:

 

Hi ShiningLight. Thanks for message of support. I started following your main thread, as we have some psychotropics in common. :-))

 

Zoloft...good times good times 😆

 

I hope the probiotic helps! It's nice to have something to try that gives hope for the future. 

 

If it makes you feel better, in terms of general life neglect, housework is a struggle for me too. And I seem to have some kind of mental block about getting my car oil change. I can't seem to get it done.

Edited October 7, 2021 by ShiningLight

[LostInMarshes]

Is this a weird Zoloft thing? It's making life harder and more humiliating than it should be:

 

Every night from 9pm to about 2am, I get a burst of natural energy and mental clarity I don't have during the day.

I also take Zoloft at 11pm at night. (I've tried taking Zoloft in mornings, but it makes me too drowsy to function.)

 

I can't quite wake up in the morning because I'm so unbelievably foggy and groggy. I naturally wake up at like 10am or 11pm. Which is why I chose the evening shift at my work, but even then, I'm usually embarrassingly late. 

 

So all of this means that I don't have any desire to sleep until 2-3am.

Which further means that I can't get up at 7am like a normal human being. (Now that the season at work is slower, all closing shifts come in earlier, except for me, and it's idiotic because I'm not getting a full day's pay. 🤦‍♀️

 

Is this a Zoloft thing??? What the heck do I do?

[Rosetta]

That is odd if you take your dose at 11 pm, but the burst of energy starts at 9 pm?  Is that correct?  If so, I guess it’s not an adverse effect, but perhaps taking the dose is intensifying a natural quirk of WD?  WD does have the effect of destroying the Circadian rhythm.  Maybe Alto could be of help with the timing of your dose?
 

For the cockroaches, you need to put everything, except canned food, in the refrigerator.  Boxed foods included.  Flour, cornmeal, cereal, all if it.  You can’t leave anything out, no butter, no eggs, nothing an animal can smell.  Do you have a cat?  Cat food is a major attraction for roaches.  It goes in the refrigerator, too.  Feed the cat twice a day, and put the food away.  If you live in an apartment, your neighbor might be the problem instead of you.

 

I had the laundry problem, too, and it’s tough.  I’m not sure why, but I was afraid to do laundry.  That turned into a mere aversion, and then a mild procrastination.  WD does funny things to us.  
 

Do you have to go to a laundromat or do you have a washer and dryer on site?  If you have a machine on site, break the project up into very small baby steps.  Grab one basket full, and sort it.  The next day wash one tiny load of darks, and sort one more basket.  You can’t wait to wash until you have sorted a full load of darks.  It will never happen.  Then, the next day, wash the darks only and sort another basket.  Eventually, you will have a pile of lights that can be washed as a full load.  Wear only dark clothes because they require no stain treating.  Put the lights away for another time.

 

Ah, yes, seriously weird.  There are worse things in the world.  People are not kind are they?  Someday those people will have a serious life changing problem, and karma will not be kind.  They have no idea what it takes for you to survive.  Be proud of yourself for doing so.  You are so much stronger, more amazing, and valuable than they are with their WD free lives.  Maybe they will have an experience that changes their lives, and we will see how well they can pretend to be “normal.”

[LostInMarshes]

Hello. Just wanted to say I'm still here and alive. Still working (part-time - too few hours), somehow, and still housed, somehow. Recently resumed taper after holding for a few months, and am holding again. 

 

What's pervasive about my life right now is a sense of being a ghost, whether it's my social life at work (people look at and interact with me, but they don't really see me or desire to know me), or just walking around and feeling disconnected like I never imagined possible. Exactly like being on the outside looking in. Plus the permeating apathy. I can't make myself enrich my knowledge of this career field, at all. Even though I care about the subject matter. The apathy is so heavy, so laden. 

 

This must be the no man's land that is SSRI withdrawal. I've heard that it's unlike anything other people have never experienced before

 

Right?

[Ariel]

Hi @LostInMarshes

Congratulations on successfully tapering and holding, also working a job. No small feat. 

 

18 minutes ago, LostInMarshes said:

What's pervasive about my life right now is a sense of being a ghost, whether it's my social life at work (people look at and interact with me, but they don't really see me or desire to know me), or just walking around and feeling disconnected like I never imagined possible. Exactly like being on the outside looking in. Plus the permeating apathy. I can't make myself enrich my knowledge of this career field, at all. Even though I care about the subject matter. The apathy is so heavy, so laden. 

 

This must be the no man's land that is SSRI withdrawal. I've heard that it's unlike anything other people have never experienced before

 

Right?

 

I can relate to feeling disconnected, on the outside looking in, feeling like a ghost. 

From my own experience and what I gather reading other people's accounts this is a common experience in WD. 

 

Do you know these topics? 

Depersonalization

Apathy, anhedonia

 

The good news is that it gets better. 

Hang in there, healing is happening. 

[LostInMarshes]

Thank you so much Ariel. I need to look at those threads.

 

I've been seriously agoraphobic since late June. Working only one, two days a week. I wonder if it's connected to Roe v Wade and what feels like a worsening environment for women in the US. July is my abuse anniversary month, too. 

 

[Ariel]

Hi @LostInMarshes

It's good to hear from you. 

 

I'm sorry about the agoraphobia. It seems many of us go through that in WD. 

I've certainly had difficulties leaving the house -- never thought about it as agoraphobia -- but it can be challenging and feel insurmountable to get out the door, and feel uncomfortable being outside. 

It gets better. 

 

My sense is that it has to do with stages of healing where our brains consider it safer for us to stay indoors in familiar, safe surroundings. Like an expression of the brain's current state of (self-)trust, with the brain and nervous system responding to perceived threat level. Our bodies are only ever trying to survive and protect us.

So it makes sense, too, that if traumatic anniversaries crop up or external stressors weigh on us, this raises our physiological alert system and we become more sensitive, more on edge about everything else in daily life, too. If there is an assessment of danger and risk, our body responds and does all it can to keep us out of harm's way, incl. sending signals of: Do not go out there. 

 

I am noticing that it has been a while since you updated your drug signature. Would love to hear where you're at with your taper.

Would you mind updating your drug sig, please?

 

Sending healing vibes <3

A.

 

[LostInMarshes]

Thank you Ariel....

 

Is it not called agoraphobia? 

 

I'm still around the same dosage. Been holding for months and restarted monthly taper only three months ago. I don't know precisely what dosage I'm at (can't figure out my gram scale), but if I had to guess, I'm at 45ish mg. 

 

Today I just need to share that the only thing that gives me hope and keeps me going is the prospect of near term human extinction. For the latter, my intuition (or hope) gives me year 2050. It's profoundly comforting to me, to know that the planet knows how sick everything has gotten. Nothing that should be changing, is changing fast enough. I can't take much more of this world. Also it would release me from my pain and profound isolation, separation from nature and other humans. I can't take my life, but the earth will do it for me, and it gives me such great hope. Sometimes this is what I go to sleep thinking of, and wake up to. 

Just needed to share that

[brassmonkey]

If you can give me the following information, we can calculate what dose you are actually taking.

 

Strength of the pills as listed on the bottle.

Average weight of 10 pills.

The weight of the dose you are taking.

[LostInMarshes]

On 8/6/2022 at 11:31 AM, brassmonkey said:

If you can give me the following information, we can calculate what dose you are actually taking.

 

Strength of the pills as listed on the bottle.

Average weight of 10 pills.

The weight of the dose you are taking.

 

Thanks Brassmonkey, I'll get back to you with the weight. So nonfunctional I can't even manage to get the scale to get the weight.

 

Definitely a repeating theme in my monthly taper (that is, two weeks after I first start a new taper, because it takes a week and a half for Zoloft's half-life) - I become scared of going outside and am completely nonfunctional (except for the couple days I have to work - I force myself to go). This lasts a week or so. Isolation ground zero

 

[Ariel]

Thinking of you @LostInMarshes

Glad to see you are receiving help from brassmonkey to figure out your dose. 

Hang in there, LIM, it gets better. 

I believe in you <3

[LostInMarshes]

I don't understand what happened to me, in regards to my living space, and it terrifies me. I was watching a video I made here just about 5 years ago, and it looked so different. Much tidier. What happened? It's like after my last (horrible) roommate moved out - has it been a year or two? I lost track - I've fallen into FILTH and I can't get out. What happened? It's like I'm frozen.

 

I throw garbage (the paper kind) on the floor right next to my bed, using it as a kind of trash can (without one atm). I haven't washed the floors in what may soon be a year. I have cockroaches running over it at night. My cats walk across it, then jump into bed with me, so I have to constantly wash my hands and take showers, and sleep in the middle of the bed, where their paws are unlikely to have walked. Sometimes I have nightmares of roaches, scorpions, and of being scared. I have the cats' automatic water fountain and automatic feeder, along with their bowls of dry food, right next to the bed. Many cockoaches sleep in the crevices under or inside of these devices and come out at night to feed on the dry food and drink water. Right next to my bed. The fountain and feeder are overdue for a cleaning and I'm terrified to have anything to do with them. If I put the cats' food and all of this stuff in the kitchen, I'm afraid that the roaches will migrate over there. (I don't eat in the kitchen, anyway, because I haven't cleaned it in nearly a year, as well. Scared of it, so I eat in my bed or at the computer.) I could put the cats' food stuff in the empty room I'm not using atm, but first I need to clean it somehow. It's just a disgusting junk room with the cats nasty cat litter box. (It was supposed to be a room for a roommate, but I'm in a weird space where I can't do anything right now.) The roaches have crawled over most things I have, including books, papers, etc. I feel I will have to clean every single thing with a sanitizing cloth, because I'm afraid to touch anything. 

I need to get an exterminator in here asap, but first I need to clean everything so that he doesn't get scared. And I'm scared to take that step. I'd rather dissociate in front of a video game. 

 

I also have moths eating my clothes, and I have my clothes closet open at all times for the cats. It's a disgusting mess in there, too, and I don't recall the last time I cleaned it. I don't know how to get rid of the moths with anything non-toxic to pets. 

 

Sometimes there are bad smells coming from every room. There is no one who can help and I can't help myself and I'm scared and don't understand what is happening. I'm hoping to try out therapeutic ketamine. I'll need to take out a line of credit for it, but it may be my last hope 

 

I'm living in a house of horrors, where only the computer, bed, and shower are sometimes my means of feeling safe within my own house

[getofflex]

1 hour ago, LostInMarshes said:

I'm hoping to try out therapeutic ketamine.

I wouldn't suggest doing this.  This is a date rape drug.  Here is our thread on ketamine.  Please read it through to the end for full information. 

 

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/7981-ketamine-and-esketamine-treatment/#comment-12204

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by getofflex