LostInMarshes: in pain

[nz11]

What do you mean noone will read this you have a 1:17, post: views ratio that sounds pretty good return on investment to me. 

Not only that it appears that every time you post a moderator replies. That's more than most.  

 

 HNY

Anyone

[RachelSusan]

Hi Stormstrong,

 

I am reading your post, in fact I am now following you. The boyfriend thing is very painful, especially this time of year. I am so sorry you are going through this. 

 

If you do end up spending New Year's Eve alone is it possible to view it as time to yourself, a time to rest and regenerate before starting a new year? Can you plan your evening now? Maybe plan to watch a movie?  A little ice cream?  Do you have a back-up plan in case you find yourself getting more depressed? A relative you can call if need be? Don't be shy about reaching our for help in the real world if you need it.  This is a difficult time of year for many people, you are not alone. Take good care of yourself.

 

It looks like you are down to 90 mg of Zoloft as of September. Congrats on hard work.

 

Glad to hear you have a therapist you like, that's fantastic.

 

Rachel

[savinggrace]

Stormstrong,

 

i hear you you and I care. I am going to sign up to follow you so you know someone is reading. 

 

Your boyfriend is just like so many other people (most actually) that have a huge misunderstanding about how little control we have over these drugs no matter how how we try. As far as your intellectual capability, it is clear that your brain is working just fine as you were able to (painfully) separate from someone who is actually hurting you with those kinds of beliefs and messages. I only have few people left in my life that will tolerate and accept me for who I am and how I have to live to just survive. 

 

I know  how lonely it is. It is New Year’s Eve. No day is different for me. Just another day, and then another night to get through. I feel sad all the time at how life has passed me by. I am 63 and will likely never be free of these drugs and/or withdrawal. I live for little things; just moments of joy...they are fleeting but still happen. It’s what I have to accept. You are young. You have time to fully recover and live life fully again. 

 

I am on my phone but when I get to my computer I will read your thread so maybe I can dialog more with you. 

 

Several people have heard you!  Keep writing...you never know when someone will come across your messages and respond. 

 

I hooe you get get through this evening all right. Maybe you can indulge in something that will do no harm but help you escape from lonely thoughts. 

 

Grace

 

 

[SkyBlue]

On 12/31/2017 at 2:31 AM, brassmonkey said:

The best revenge would be to prove him wrong, make a complete recovery and then move on without him.  

That's awesome, Brass. I agree! 

Storm, I'm sorry to hear you're having a tough time. It's concerning that you're using the "shaving" method for Zoloft--it can seem like a good idea but can actually be really problematic. Please be careful.

[LostInMarshes]

I tend to withdraw and isolate... disappear for stretches of time. For the past month I've had a daily online gaming addiction - my gateway to a community of sorts, daily interaction, plus I've designed a really beautiful place. Creativity doesn't come easily right now, and to have poured so much of myself into designing something that others find beautiful - feels good and almost like an accomplishment. My therapist is not at all thrilled about it. But it's gotten me through the past month.

 

I was completely wrong about my boyfriend's reaction. He reiterated over and over that he did not mean to do that. It was just the perfect storm and my PTSD flared up over nothing. He's been checking up on me, nearly daily, still. Been my constant source of sunshine and hope. He's treating me on Sunday to my Bday (it was today - I'm 38 - but he was busy).

 

I was thinking, while walking outside on a short errand, my body almost hunched over from loneliness and isolation... How incredibly sick this world must be. Because I did everything right. I followed my heart, have been true to myself over all else, followed my own drum, never hurt anyone deliberately, have been an honest person, and have honored my high sensitivity. Me being trapped where I am, nearly disabled, mute, nearly friendless and without family, without work. This world has really done a number on me. I'm nearly dead. While those that are zombified, live fully - at least from the outside. It's mind numbing, how truly diseased this world must be.

[LostInMarshes]

**** I hate everyone. I hate this world.

[RachelSusan]

I'm sorry you are in pain. I am relieved that your boy friend is there for you.

Rachel

[LostInMarshes]

DrugfreeProf, I hope to soon get to a place where interacting is not exhausting...

 

and that this crisis period (a painful Complex PTSD emotional trigger) is over very very very soon... so I can stop feeling like a walking wound... like I'm 100 times lonelier than I ALREADY am. I want to cry and cry and cry, and no one will ever hold me while I do.  The rug has been swept from under me. I feel like the world is ending. It has not much to do with my withdrawal, which is going well. I just have nowhere else to go. The pain is so ******* great.

 

I've had to say goodbye to people I love, all the time, since I turned 13. So every time it happens, I'm thrown into this abyss and I do not know how to cope. It would be easier if I drank alcohol, or smoked, or used substances. But I can't. I feel SOOOOO alone.

 

My sweet roommate of almost 4 years is moving, on good terms. I've grown to love her. She's not holding her breath on us seeing each other very soon, because she's tried in the past to get me to join her on social outings (I'm a hermit), but I always declined (social apathy caused by these drugs!!). Basically, she's saying goodbye. I don't know how much my therapist will help me. I don't know if she has the proper qualifications.

 

I felt even worse after going to this Discord chat server called Gamers Fighting Depression, and finding out that I'm like the oldest person there. And feeling EVEN lonelier because I wanted to fit in. The fact is I'm now very, very old. I'm nearly 40.

 

(Good news is everything else is okay. My boyfriend is my bestest friend (it was time to stop the romantic part of it, as the "in love" part is absolutely gone). He's still here for me through thick and thin.)

 

If I were to scream right now, my screams and howls would reach up to the moon. They would be so loud and deafening.

[LostInMarshes]

Okay, so now I have only Zoloft left to worry about! And my destroyed digestive system and etc.

[LostInMarshes]

I feel so very sad... thinking of mostly everyone I've ever known, moving up in life, achieving things... I'm in the same place as I ever was, at least from the outside looking in. Thinking of The One That Got Away (my Twin Flame, in fact)... he found himself a very competent woman, good at everything she does - just like he wanted. To me he will always be The One, which is why I can't be friends with him. He recently wrote me to explain why he had to let me go back then, which broke his heart to do. One of the reasons was because my development has been negatively affected by the trauma in my life (and by the psych drugs, I'm sure), so it was too painful for him...

 

Thinking of why I named this post "In Pain", back when I first posted this thread. I must have been in some kind of pain.

[LostInMarshes]

I know that it's colossally hard for me to make friends and to interact, but is anyone reading this, at all? I do wish there were more options available, other than a forum. Being anonymous is a very lonely place to be.

[LostInMarshes]

Having a stressful time looking for a new roommate. I think I come off as creepy in first meetup interviews with them. Due to spending so much time alone, I have trouble putting sentences together. Not only that, I'm incredibly tense. And my energy becomes dense. Maybe to protect myself and my space, due to traumatic experiences living with others (my recent good experience didn't seem to make a dent in all that trauma and body memories). I'm so not myself. I just study the other person and look at them until it makes them uncomfortable, I think. Or fidget here and there. They think I have something to hide. God, I'm so ashamed. I wish I was open to rooming with males, as it's easier to communicate with them, but I'm not. Met a couple recently, out of curiosity, and the energy between us was so great. My friend was there, so helped me to relax. But then I decided that a heterosexual male in the equation wouldn't work.

God help me. Am I really that creepy? This is exhausting. I need a whole day to recuperate just from one meeting. All that these meetings do is make me feel ashamed.

[LostInMarshes]

I'm using a spreadsheet I got from a good tapering Facebook group. Even if I go at "maximum" speed, which is 10% for 30 days (my current dose is 85mg of Zoloft - which is the only drug I have left to withdraw from), I'll be done in the year of 2025, when I'll be 45. Six or more years of tapering? This is such bullsh*t and I'm angry. Society will likely collapse by then and the planet won't be habitable

[bubbles]

Yeah, me too. I'm now on 6mg of sertraline after close to 4.5 years of tapering from 100mg. I'm looking at a further 2-1/4 years. Not impressed. It's currently 4.5 years so I'll be nearly 7 years by the time I'm done. I have generally been going slower and had bigger breaks along the way when I've needed them, but even so...

[ChessieCat]

This is SA's taper calculator:  Tapering Calculator - Online

 

I've entered your starting dose and today's day and reducing 10% every 28 days you would be at 1.02mg 23rd January 2022.  If you reduced every 30 days it would be 1.02 17th April 2022.

 

It's taken me 3 years to get from 75mg to 6mg but I did do a 3 month and a 7 week hold.  My estimate is that it's going to take about another 2 years.  However, I'd rather do it slowly and keep withdrawal symptoms to a minimum.

 

And to stay positive about it I remind myself about how much I have already reduced by.  You've already got off 2 or is it 3? drugs.  That

s fantastic.  You've already reduced your drug load by a huge amount.

[brassmonkey]

Doing a safe taper is a very frustratingly slow process. My taper from 40mgai took five and a half years.  This isn't to say that you'll be suffering heavy symptoms the entire time though. Many people find that when they reach the lower levels, below 2mgai,  the symptom load really starts to drop off and their lives take a good turn toward normal.  This is much preferable to the alternatives.  If you were to CT right now it's more than likely that you would be suffering intense symptoms for several years longer that the time it would take to do a slow controlled taper.  We have many, many examples of this right here among our members.  It's always better to look at how far you've come, which as CC pointed out is a very long ways, than to be depressed over how far you still have to go.  You're doing great, just keep it up.

 

Brassmonkey

[Altostrata]

Hey, Stormstrong, how are you doing?

[bubbles]

On 11/5/2018 at 3:01 AM, brassmonkey said:

Doing a safe taper is a very frustratingly slow process. My taper from 40mgai took five and a half years.  This isn't to say that you'll be suffering heavy symptoms the entire time though. Many people find that when they reach the lower levels, below 2mgai,  the symptom load really starts to drop off and their lives take a good turn toward normal.

 

For me the side effect load has diminished over time as I have reduced my sertraline dose and it has been noticeable all the way down. At 6mg I'd say I'm side effect free. It may be that there are further improvements to make as I get to/below 2mg, but it's hard to imagine them at this point.

[LostInMarshes]

Hello. I am still here. Never stopped tapering. Just horrible social apathy, as usual - hard making friends, hard socializing, isolation comes effortlessly. No problems with tapering, so far, and I'm off all other drugs including Trazodone. The fact that I've been able to come off all the other drugs with zero problems, is greatly encouraging to me.

 

I'm perplexed why I'm still at 85ish mg of Zoloft. It wasn't until one of my recent psychiatrists (high turnover at the therapy center) looked at my history and said that I've been on this dose for a few months now, that I was taken aback. I was sure that I've been slowly tapering DOWN. But I've stayed at the same dose for a few months???? How's that possible? Did I enter a twilight zone, or something?

 

I'm having good results with my vocational rehab program, and have done really well there, though I was absent a bit more than I should have. Next step is an internship I already have lined up. Before the internship I'm taking a month, or so, of medical leave - to go through intake and start therapy at this place I've had success with in the past. I need that support, to ensure that I don't miss a single day. Anyway, now that I'm staying home again, I've fallen back into my gaming addiction habit. It's a horrible inner demon that plagues me, when I miss wilderness to explore, boundless nature, social interaction, and meaning in my life..........

[LostInMarshes]

yes, still here. got a great new therapist for extra support, so that will help. and a retired psychiatrist that didn't even ask me why I was tapering from zoloft. he simply wrote the script without asking anything else.

 

planning to go into my internship on the 15th. I can't stay home any more. I think this was horrid for my "mental" health, and a gentle reminder that I cannot go backwards in this regard. I need to keep moving forwards, lest I sink into profound shadows. this morning I laughed to myself at something my cat did, and it was such a disturbing laugh, like my brain turned itself inside out. the laugh of a mentally disturbed person. It terrified me. and this evening I've got an all-pervasive fear and wanting to scream and cry at the same time. and no clue why. I just feel so lonely in this world

 

somehow I got a decent roommate, after all, and she's been here a few months already. I've got the only walk-in closet that's in the apartment (a small one), and it's got clothes thrown all over and in piles. it's been this way for years and years and years. I'm mortified by what she thinks of me

[LostInMarshes]

Neuro-fear and neuro-aloneness

 

I'm torn apart each and every day

By a desire to give to this world, to create;

This ghost of a desire...

at least I'm heading in the right direction, as this desire wasn't there prior to my withdrawing, but

I walk away from each day feeling empty and full of sand....

Still so comatose, it's painful.

 

Then, the abject feeling of loneliness that cuts through me like a knife,

I feel unheard, unseen, unknown,

Cut off,

Morose

 

Someone kind sent me a private message on social media, with gentle words expressing that they understand my loneliness, and wish to reach out.

It is so bad that

I have not even responded back :,( :,( :,( :,(

 

Unseen

unheard

unknown

Cut off

 

[herod]

Stormstrong, try the following exercise:

 

Sitting in a chair, bring out your chest and reach out with both arms as high as you can. Clench your fists and tense your muscles. Watch your posture for the day: research shows it does help a bit, and every little bit helps for people like us.

 

I believe in you. You WILL heal. We all will.

[LostInMarshes]

On 4/6/2019 at 10:00 PM, herod said:

Stormstrong, try the following exercise:

 

Sitting in a chair, bring out your chest and reach out with both arms as high as you can. Clench your fists and tense your muscles. Watch your posture for the day: research shows it does help a bit, and every little bit helps for people like us.

 

I believe in you. You WILL heal. We all will.

 

Hi Herod

Thank you for coming by

I admire how your signature is short, succinct, and to the point. Mine looks like a train wreck

Good of you to pass this tip to me. Every little bit tip helps, indeed.

I see that you are in/from Iceland! I was just eating skyr a minute ago. Do you like skyr? And actually for my last assignment in my vocational rehabilitation pet care program, where you pick three animals from any country and write about them, I picked Iceland. I researched Icelandic sheep, horses, and dogs. Beautiful animals you've got over there.

 

And thank you for believing in me and in everyone on this site. I should add this.... I actually KNOW I will heal. A miracle will happen. I can feel it in my bones, that I will be one of those who will heal and be reborn like a phoenix. Pug's "Your miracle is coming, hang on!" jumps out at me like a whisper from the universe.

 

This may be off-topic, but one of the top three reasons I'm coming off Zoloft (1. To process grief, 2. To get in touch with my creativity) is 3. Because I have an appointment with Ayahuasca (Pachamama). Her spirit has been calling me since the age of 17 (I'm 39 now), and I can feel that she is insistent that we meet, once I'm completely off, to do an enormous deep inner cleansing. This is not something I'd recommend to anyone, unless they felt it deeply and firmly in their gut, and had the necessary preparation and respect for it. Otherwise it can do incredible damage. I just know it's the right path for me, and it will happen, somehow. She will make it happen - as close to her source as possible (in South America) and with authentic and trained shamans. I just wanted to share that I feel very taken care of, by the universe, and that I am enthused by the future.

 

[herod]

I don't think your signature looks bad 🙂 it contains all the changes to your dosage. My history is just shorter and I went cold turkey 😞

 

I like skyr... with sugar! It's a challenge to eat skyr without it.

 

Ohh I'm glad you're interested in my country 😄 I've always thought our horses were comically small. But I like our dogs, I think their curly tails are cute.

 

I am quite the spiritual person myself. Have you seen Mooji on YouTube? 😄 It helps greatly to rely on a higher power. I imagine there's a good reason for why AA requires believing in a higher power.

 

A distant dream of mine is to live in a big city like NYC... can't imagine what it's like to live in a city of 8 million.

 

 

[LostInMarshes]

Nyc is a challenge. I haven't seen Mooji yet, but will look into him/her, thanks. A funny thing I read about your Icelandic sheep is that "they can be found anywhere in Iceland, except on the glaciers".

[LostInMarshes]

Can I post here something that is not related to my healing, though it's related to how the healing journey has made me see everything in this world. I feel like I'm one of the very few people in this world that has such a view on this particular issue, and it makes me feel so isolated. The issue is that of the murder of Selena Quintanilla Perez. She means a lot to me, mainly because it was my mother that made me take notice of her... and her beauty, exuberance, life-giving fire, joy and purity, I feel, represents the beauty and warmth that were the best times my mother and I had. And her death marked the ending of my "mother". Which is a long and heavy topic, that I'd like to touch on, another time....

 

I'm more in touch with my high sensitivity, intuition, spirituality these days, so maybe it's no wonder that in this period, around the time of Selena's birth and death, 22 years later, I'm suddenly thinking of her intensely.

 

I feel that what happened represents an opportunity for this world to heal itself. Via a simple question, "Why did this happen?" Why have so few, if anyone, dared to even ask this question?? Why settle at "well, there are just sick and evil people in this world"? I go deep. It's very simple, though. Why would we get this gift of a person, that represents pure love, beauty, kindness, and the noblest things that a human being can be - a High Priestess of Love, for all we know - and then have it be murdered in cold blood, before it could truly bloom?

 

Because this should act as a mirror of our world, to us. And what this mirror reveals is that our world is incredibly diseased.

What kind of a world do we live in, in which the Highest love, beauty, and joy cannot exist before violence destroys it?

Her murderer is not evil. Nobody is born evil. Then what made her do such a thing? Her childhood. And what happened in her childhood? What happens in other people's childhoods? Insanity is what happens.

This would have lead us to understand why murder exists, in the first place. This would have revealed a pathological societal wound of gigantic proportions. I believe that this is why this happened. To heal our world.

 

I firmly believe that the enormous, gut-wrenching waves of shock and horror that reverberate after such events exist to make us ask the question Why. They serve to remind us that everything is interconnected.

 

But all the comments I read never go so deep. People are content with walking around blind. I don't understand it. For this reason, I feel that there is no hope for our species.

[FarmGirlWorks]

On 4/7/2019 at 7:55 PM, Stormstrong said:

This may be off-topic, but one of the top three reasons I'm coming off Zoloft (1. To process grief, 2. To get in touch with my creativity) is 3. Because I have an appointment with Ayahuasca (Pachamama). Her spirit has been calling me since the age of 17 (I'm 39 now), and I can feel that she is insistent that we meet, once I'm completely off, to do an enormous deep inner cleansing. This is not something I'd recommend to anyone, unless they felt it deeply and firmly in their gut, and had the necessary preparation and respect for it. Otherwise it can do incredible damage. I just know it's the right path for me, and it will happen, somehow. She will make it happen - as close to her source as possible (in South America) and with authentic and trained shamans. I just wanted to share that I feel very taken care of, by the universe, and that I am enthused by the future.

Please please wait until you have FULLY recovered before doing this. I did a 6-week-taper of zoloft to do aya a second time (first time was pre-zoloft) and, while it was epiphanic, totally not worth the WD hell that has now ensued for 2 years. Of course, knowing my personality, I might have CT'd anyways. But aya is incredibly powerful and not to be taken while tapering/recovering. Two cents.

 

btw, your reasons for coming off that shite are solid. I can see how it affected my creativity directly (I was a graphic artist). When, after 12 months off, I first got a creative thought -- a flash -- I began to cry. You can do it and it is worth it. Just take your time.

[ChessieCat]

2 hours ago, Stormstrong said:

Topic title:  Weeping devastates the psyche?

 

Does anyone else experience this?

 

Crying is hard for me and is not spontaneous (I attribute this to Zoloft), but when it finally gushes forth, such as last night after watching a tragedy film, I'm in that mode for a day or two afterwards. I'm a crumpled, weeping mess, my insides - inflamed by utter devastation. It's like crying, in the first place, is bad for my "mental health".

 

Is this a neuro reaction? Doesn't seem organic to me

 

 

I've moved your post to an existing topic:  deep-emotional-pain-and-crying-spells-spontaneous-weeping

 

[LostInMarshes]

On 4/11/2019 at 1:27 AM, FarmGirlWorks said:

Please please wait until you have FULLY recovered before doing this. I did a 6-week-taper of zoloft to do aya a second time (first time was pre-zoloft) and, while it was epiphanic, totally not worth the WD hell that has now ensued for 2 years. Of course, knowing my personality, I might have CT'd anyways. But aya is incredibly powerful and not to be taken while tapering/recovering. Two cents.

 

btw, your reasons for coming off that shite are solid. I can see how it affected my creativity directly (I was a graphic artist). When, after 12 months off, I first got a creative thought -- a flash -- I began to cry. You can do it and it is worth it. Just take your time.

 

Hi FarmGirlWorks. Thank you for the concern and for sharing. I'm absolutely not planning to do anything rash or sudden. And aya contraindications include SSRIs, so I'm aware of that. Just taking my time.

 

On 4/13/2019 at 6:26 PM, ChessieCat said:

 

I've moved your post to an existing topic:  deep-emotional-pain-and-crying-spells-spontaneous-weeping

 

 

Thanks ChessieCat

[LostInMarshes]

Needing to vent about family of origin.

My father encouraged me to join this messenger app, because my relatives created a chat group on it, making it real easy to keep in touch.They're all overseas in my country of origin, and I haven't seen them for years. I'm isolated in that sense. Also isolated in the sense that besides my father (who lives in another state, which is good for my sanity), I don't interact with my "kind", though my soul screams to be in touch with my culture, and it's very painful to deny myself that. I feel I have to protect myself from their insensitive comments, when they learn that I'm childfree because I want to be, that I'm not good at cleaning, that I'm estranged from my family, my unique views on the world, my underachiever status, my iatrogenic illness, and many other things. I'm very sensitive to all of that, and can't change it.

 

I was a little excited to start to be in touch with them, but then cursed out when I realized what I got myself into. He's in the group, reading every word. He knows when I don't respond right away, and calls me on the phone about it. That's the 1st cause of stress.

2nd cause of stress is having to be very cautious with how I respond to their questions of what I am doing with my life, etc, etc. They already know I'm "lagging behind in life", my father especially, though he tries to hide his disappointment in me from them, I'm sure they can pick up on it, and it causes me to feel much shame.

3rd cause of stress - I cannot be myself.

4th: being cognizant of how they all revere my father, while I am the only one, besides my stepmother, that knows about the crime he committed against me as a child.  I have promised myself that one day, when he has departed this world, I will let all of them know. They will turn away from me, and so me, having estranged myself from them, will make their turning away easier to bear.

 

I have to be on guard with every word. What if they don't deserve me? What if that much is true? So much that they don't know.

[LostInMarshes]

for me, neuro loneliness is that which makes this iatrogenic suffering the worst... no family that brings me joy, not pain and stress (except my cats?)... I truly feel without family... no siblings... not married, and not dating until I'm healed...and making friends is very difficult... I feel utterly, utterly alone.

[bheb]

Hey Stormstrong, I can't relate to the cultural aspect but I definitely relate to feeling the stress of having to keep up with expectations, when people don't view your condition as legitimate...and the ensuing loneliness.

 

It must be so painful to be alienated from your culture too...since family is your only link and that's complicated by stuff with your father (I'm sorry for whatever childhood trauma you've been through too). 

[LostInMarshes]

Hi bheb,

thank You for your words of support. They felt like a gentle hug.

[LostInMarshes]

how do I reframe my current life, when looking at it through the lens of well-off relatives?

from where I sit, I'm a barely functional lump of pretty flesh with no money of my own and a burden to a family member who has been supporting me financially. especially for my age (almost forty), I'm an embarrassing underachiever. my relatives are normal. I'm not. my life has been so very hard with incessant suffering, until recently.

 

Dr. Kelly Brogan says, here, that we are beacons and visionaries, in fact. that when we heal, our light is blinding.....

[LostInMarshes]

does anyone know if there is a pill or herb I can consume that will stretch the time it takes for me to get really depressed from lack of human touch (one and a half week) to maybe 4 or 8 weeks? I need a hug every 2 weeks or less. I'd hire an escort to do it, but don't have money. A pill or herb would be great

 

[RichT]

9 minutes ago, Stormstrong said:

does anyone know if there is a pill or herb I can consume that will stretch the time it takes for me to get really depressed from lack of human touch (one and a half week) to maybe 4 or 8 weeks? I need a hug every 2 weeks or less. I'd hire an escort to do it, but don't have money. A pill or herb would be great

 

 

Hi Stormstrong, so sorry to hear of your loneliness. That’s a familiar place for me too. I know the coldness and emptiness of it.

 

Here seems to be a good place to share how you’re feeling. I bet a lot of people here know what you’re going through.

 

I Don’t know of any pills or herbs that reduce loneliness. People are researching this though, so maybe in the future!.

 

sending you warm wishes 

 

R