Rosetta: cold switch May 2011 & too fast taper Feb 2017

[Sheera]

@Rosettathinking about you.  ❤️

[Rosetta]

Hi.  Thanks to everyone who has written here.  I’m not doing so well.  The dentist last week gave me adrenaline based numbing agent.  I asked him not to.  He agreed not to.  He did it anyway.  My heart started racing, and I suspected.  The man joked about my panic.  His assistant never found the device to check my heart rate.  She had no idea how to do it without a tool! I started panicking more because I knew I would be feeling what I’m feeling now.  The numbing effect lasted about 4 hours. There’s no doubt it was adrenaline based.

I’m struggling.  Insomnia. Akathisia. Tinnitus. Bowel issues.  Cortisol spikes after involuntary toxic naps.  Inability to concentrate. Obsessiveness.  Feeling very cold.  

 

Aka isn’t very strong, but it keeps coming back.  I’m lucky this isn’t worse.  It’s still very disappointing.  I’m awake now at 1:00 am, and I never fell asleep.  
 

I’m anxious in the day.  I get angry suddenly and ferociously.  I don’t want to go anywhere, but I did manage to go grocery shopping last night.  Maybe I will get better quickly.  I’m hopeful, but I have bouts of depression and feelings of wishing I had never been born or that I had died 35 years ago.  There is no SI, thank God! Not yet.

 

There is a bit of that time traveling feeling, and a lot of anger at my family for what they did to me.  A lot of sadness, too.  Lots of emotional stuff that is WD related intensity such as during a wave.

The puppy is keeping my anxiety high, too.  He whines all the time.  He jumps on us.  He’s growing like crazy.  He needs constant attention and supervision.  I just can’t do it.  He wants me, not my husband.  He very lightly bites my daughter in play, amd he grazes her with razor-sharp, puppy teeth.   He ate a pill bottle today.  Chewed the cap right off.  There was only one very old pill in the bottle, and it wasn’t something that would hurt him.  I have no idea where he got it.  He had three old bottles, but only got the cap off one.  No matter what I do, he surprises me.  It’s like having a toddler.  I do not have the energy.  
 

These two things are really setting my recovery back and menopause is there, too.  Constant hot flashes and night sweats.
 

So, that’s what’s up.  Rabe, thanks for offering your advice on estrogen.  Yes, please post it here?  Thank you. I haven’t felt much like posting.  I guess my mailbox is full, too.  I hope you are doing well, my dear, dear friend.  @Rabe

[almuPA]

Hi @Rosetta,

I am sorry to read about your setback. 

46 minutes ago, Rosetta said:

The dentist last week gave me adrenaline based numbing agent.  I asked him not to.  He agreed not to.  He did it anyway.  My heart started racing, and I suspected.  The man joked about my panic.

Doctor's lack of empathy will never stop to amaze me. I am so sorry that you had to go through that experience.

And yes, puppies are a great source of anxiety. However, if he/she stays with you long enough, the puppy phase will pass, and you will have a loyal friend that will be with you no matter what. 

I send you a big hug.

[Erell]

@Rosetta : I'm so Sorry, and angry at our doctors who forget the Hippocratic oath.

 

Meantime, I'm sending you big hugs and my support ❤

[Rabe]

😡😤 I read your post Rosetta and that dentist should be reported.  For a patient to tell ANY doctor not to administer a specific drug and then for them to do it anyway is malpractice frankly.  I never cease to be bowled over by what goes on in the medical field sometimes...SO much comes to light here.  I feel so blessed to have worked with some really wonderful doctors!  I didnt realize there were so many like this one roaming around.  Hoping at the very least you will never go back to him!

On 3/5/2021 at 3:29 AM, Rosetta said:

There is a bit of that time traveling feeling, and a lot of anger at my family for what they did to me.  A lot of sadness, too.  Lots of emotional stuff that is WD related intensity such as during a wave.

 

In that doctors office you were hurt, you were not heard, you were belittled with his laughter, and your feelings and physical reactions were dismissed.  When I think of your posts it reminds me of  similar exchanges you described with doctors after your birth who didnt hear you and the harm that caused and also to childhood events.  Do you think that your reaction now physically and mentally could be logical in that what happened at the dentist was a triggering event of past trauma that was similar?  

I hope it settles for you soon Rosetta.  What he did was wrong in SO many ways!!  I am so so sorry this happened to you!!  My heart is with you!!  Love and hugs my dear friend!!💜

 

[Erell]

Hello dear Rosetta,

 

How are you doing these days ?

I've been thinking of you, hoping you feel better and find some relief.

 

I send you hugs ☀️

[Rosetta]

Thank you, @Rabe 

Thanks @Erell

 

Life is difficult right now.

 

My husband has headaches most of the time.  He has a background headache nearly all the time, and if he bends overs, sneezes, or tries to pick something up he has severe pain in his head.  I think these are called cough headaches.  The first, young doctor told him to take Tylenol for the rest of his life.  
 

Yesterday, the neurologist prescribed Nortriptyline.  Of course, he won’t take that, and he knows he can’t take OTC pain relievers every day.  The neurologist is stumped so she prescribes an AD.  Beautiful.  Of course, she said not one word about side effects, dependency or any of the serious dangers of Nortriptyline such as as stroke, heart attack, weight gain, or disabling withdrawal.
 

 

[Rosetta]

Still waking in a panic.  Hot flashes. Cold sweats. Insomnia.

 

The days are better.  Yesterday was a good day.  I wish I could get my house in order, but yesterday I was able to cook, take a walk, be with my family without much anxiety.  It was a good day.

 

For all the misery I feel on a bad day, I know I am lucky that so many symptoms are gone.  The wreckage of my life is still here, everywhere.  It bothers me.  If I could clear it away, I know I would feel better.

 

 

[Rosetta]

Whatever the adrenaline based numbing agent did to me has not been as bad as I had feared.  It’s definitely had a negative affect.  I wasn’t worth much around here.  I couldn’t do much — cook, clean, laundry.  I just couldn’t.  I was irritated and grumpy, and anxious enough to make my family pretty unhappy.  
 

I had some suicidal thoughts when I woke up in the night.  They were easy to dismiss, but troubling.  There was increased insomnia and extreme sadness, too. The cortisol spikes in the middle of the night could have increased some.  I think so because now they are less frequent and less severe. My daughter had a project due.  That causes me intense anxiety.
 

Day before yesterday, I freaked out.  My daughter needed to go to the dentist before school.  I had forgotten.   I still cannot remember things like that.  When I wake up in the morning, my mind is worried, and I can’t focus on what needs to be done.  I can’t even remember to look at my calendar.  I’m wrapped up in bigger worries, random intrusive thoughts, and whatever huge, looming thing for which I’m trying to plan.  Appointments are very hard to keep in mind. 

I can’t stay organized in the house or in my mind.  So, we got up late.  I couldn’t find any socks, and I was very, very upset at the chaos around me, how I can’t fix it, anger that I have been reduced to this incompetent mess by Celexa and Zoloft and Xanax - none of which I ever needed.  (What I needed was a decent country in which to live where capitalism doesn’t eat people alive.)
 

That Day was classic WD anxiety mixed with a little aka of the mind.  There are clearly two different types of anxiety I experience.  One is completely irrational, all encompassing, overwhelming, impending doom type anxiety.  I call that aka of the mind.  The other feels more like normal anxiety.  Like the anxiety I had in high school.  That day, I got through the panic, made it to the dentist on time, just barely, and calmed down.

 

There have been some positive changes over the last few months.

 

I don’t have a lingering physical and mental symptoms after a scare or a stressful event the way I used to.  That is a big change.  My system doesn’t pump out those fight or flight hormones for a long time afterward.  It’s longer than it should be, but the change makes a huge difference because I don’t get the fatigue and that depleted feeling in the end either.  I had that after the dentist’s visit, but it has not continued forward as I had feared would happen.

 

I’m so relieved to be done with, or least get a long break from, the anxiety attacks that linger for nearly an hour and cause severe fatigue.

 

Every Spring, my anxiety gets worse.  I have panic attacks, and many other symptoms of WD that ramp up:cortisol spikes in the night and early morning, worried, disorganization, confusion.  This year is not too much different, but my husband says it has been less severe this year.  It usually starts in February and lasts through April.  We theorize that it has to do with the lengthening of the light.  It’s clearly a hormone issue, and I think it has to do with cortisol. The Daylight Savings Time change is very hard for me.  My symptoms get worse after that.  Maybe this week’s freak out was related to this problem.
 

There was an Day last week when I was very agitated in the evening, and I took a half dose of Benadryl before bed.  I think that was Wednesday evening, March 17.  I hope that didn’t cause the later freak out on Tuesday, March 23rd.  It seems unlikely.

 

I haven’t had bad dystonia for the past couple of weeks or so. It still happens when I read or write, but it goes away.

I’m still having restless legs in the evenings.  It’s not every night.  Sometimes, it’s worse than others, but it doesn’t keep me from falling asleep.  It takes longer to fall asleep when I have RL.  It reminds me of aka so much that it causes me mental distress every time.  I always get scared that it will build up to full blown suicidal aka, but it doesn’t.

My gut is much better.  Once a month, I have problems.  They seem to be lessening.  Even when I had a problem recently it was not as painful.  I was so surprised.  Most days, everything works normally.  I don’t drink caffeinated coffee.  I drink tea sometimes.  I still eat sugar.  I should cut that out, slowly, and see what happens.

 

I’m still having night sweats, but last night I was able to go back to sleep.  Some nights, I have to get up and watch TV.  Others, I’m up for hours and hours.  Being up all the way until dawn happens about once a month.  Last night, I read some SA threads and went back to sleep after first light.  
 

There must be many other symptoms of which I don’t have time to think.
 

I keep healing.  That’s so wonderful.  I’d like to have an organized house so that my days aren’t so hard, and I could avoid the anxiety of trying to find the things.  Maybe I should just throw it all in boxes and buy whatever I can’t find.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rosetta]

Hot flashes and night sweats while I’m sleeping have been bad lately.  I get so cold after a hot flash that it’s hard to go back to sleep.  
 

There were fewer incidences last night, but the night before I think there were at least 4 or 5!  I was distressed.  School is not in session.  So, I slept in.  I had a very anxious morning.  I could not get ready for our trip.  So, I had to delay it a day.

[gentlehermione]

On 3/25/2021 at 6:03 PM, Rosetta said:

Every Spring, my anxiety gets worse.  I have panic attacks, and many other symptoms of WD that ramp up:cortisol spikes in the night and early morning, worried, disorganization, confusion.  This year is not too much different, but my husband says it has been less severe this year.  It usually starts in February and lasts through April.  We theorize that it has to do with the lengthening of the light.  It’s clearly a hormone issue, and I think it has to do with cortisol. The Daylight Savings Time change is very hard for me.  My symptoms get worse after that.  Maybe this week’s freak out was related to this problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Rosetta

 

I experience this too and was told by one psychiatrist years ago that it was a reverse SAD. Who knows? In any case, the increase in light in spring definitely has a profound effect on me. Dealing with the cortisol spikes at night and in the early morning is probably the worst. I've learnt, over time, to perhaps cope better with the anxiety and excessive worrying.

Everyone around me welcomes spring with open arms and I just wish we could go back to fall/winter 😳

Sending you healing vibes and hoping for better days😉

[Rosetta]

Thank you, gentlehermione.  I believe it’s a part of PWS.  I have had better nights lately.  I’m sorry to hear you struggle with it, too.

 

@gentlehermione

[Rosetta]

My trip went well.  I even hiked to a waterfall from 4,000 to 5,000 feet.  I felt good every day, and I even felt excited and happy.  I always feel happier when I’m away from home, and that fact makes me sad, of course.  I slept well, I had a normal hunger pattern, and I didn’t have any meltdowns.
 

We saw so many beautiful views of Yosemite Valley, Half Dome, El Capitan, and we saw six waterfalls - Bridalveil, Yosemite, Horsetail, Vernal, and two others.  Vernal was the one to which we hiked.  We saw one across the river from Vernal Fall.  It is called Illilouette Fall.  We saw another before we reached the tunnel on the drive out of the valley.  It is near Hwy 140, and is called Wildcat Falls.

The wildflowers we saw all along our drive up and back were spectacular!  It was the perfect time of year to go.  Even some trees were in bloom, and everything was so green.

 

On our way home, we went through Sequoia Nat’l Park and saw the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree by volume in the world.  We also saw the General Grant, and we walked inside two fallen trees.  We walked through an arch cut into the side of a fallen tree, and for the other, called the Monarch tree, we walked the entire length of the trunk.  At one time, someone lived inside the tree trunk.

 

The only negative thing was on the drive home.  As I have mentioned before, if I fall asleep and I am awakened over and over again, I become very angry and agitated.  It’s not a normal anger.  It’s very harsh.  We drove home for hours and hours arriving at about 11:00 pm.  The last two hours of the trip, I fell asleep over and over again.  

When I woke up in the driveway, I felt such fury.  Trying to get into the house was difficult because I needed to clear out the cooler and take out my contacts, and just those two things were nearly impossible.  My fight or flight response was so high.  Once again, I’m reminded that I need to go to bed before I fall asleep accidentally.

 

I can’t nap in the daytime because of this malfunction of my alerting system.  Each time I fall asleep, I wake up in a panic only minutes later.  I can sleep only after about 8 pm, and I need to go to bed soon after I first start to feel sleepy.  However, I am now able to sleep until 9 or so in the morning even if I have a cortisol spike earlier.  I have not been having those the past week or two.  I have hot flashes that wake me up and chills after each, but no strong panic/fear/terror feelings.

 

Likewise, there are so many ways in which my life has improved in the last year.  Being able to take the trip is one of them.  After the trip to Spain, I spent many months unable to go anywhere because of the pandemic.  This trip was the first, and I’m glad it was successful.  We didn’t go inside restaurants or get near other people without masks.  We were outside the whole time unless we were in our own hotel room except for going to the store.  So, it was a chore to eat, and we ate a lot of snacks.  We had a refrigerator, and that helped as we were able to have fresh food.
 

I have been having dystonia off and on.  Reading and writing makes it worse.  It is still all up and down my right side, but the overall stiffness of my muscles on my left side is much better.  I can yawn and stretch in the morning.  There were years when I couldn’t yawn at all.  I didn’t have any ability to do all the involuntary things our bodies do, and I was always short of breath.  Now, I’m in very poor shape from years of being sort of locked in place by muscular issues, but I have hope that will improve.  I have balance issues that have improved, but are suddenly a problem unexpectedly.  Getting down from the steepest part of the mountain was scary for me.

 

My fibroid tumor hurts a bit sometimes.  There is a shooting pain through it occasionally.  It feels like a muscle cramp or a headache with a throbbing feeling.  I’m still having various signs of menstrual cycle activity here and there, and the fibroid is a part of that.  
 

Inflammation is an on again off again thing for me.  A few days ago, I had a sore throat on only one side of my throat, and it went away in a day.  Little things like that happen here and there.  Twinges in random places, odd swelling here or there, but my day to day life is manageable on most days.  I think my anxiety would be less if Zi could get my house in order.  Having a kid makes that such a challenge, and yet most of my joy is because of her.  
 

 

[Rosetta]

http://drglenmullen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/AS-Appendix-1.pdf

To help track symptoms.  You can print many copies or download it to an iPad and use the “mark up” function to annotate a copy and save it with a date in the name.

[Rosetta]

Night before last I woke up about 7 times with hot flashes and cold sweats.  I got up to watch tv and have a cup of warm milk.  Last night, that happened only twice. I slept rather well.  
 

Dystonia is still there if write on my phone.  Otherwise, I feel pretty good this morning.  
 

MORNING ANXIETY

The fact that I don’t have to take my child to school until 11:45 makes life much easier. I’m in a good window. Morning anxiety, if it is there to any great degree at all, is usually mild or non-existent by 11:00.  This has change my life for the better, of course.

[Rosetta]

Alcohol consumption in withdrawal
 

Unfortunately, many ADs magnify then effect of wine and any other alcohol.  We see the warnings in the inserts, we try small amounts of wine, and we see no difference.  We do not drive.  That’s precaution enough.  Or we stay overnight with friends.  We are sensible people, right? 
 

What is not mentioned often except at SA is that withdrawal from ADs (ADWD) and post-withdrawal syndrome (PWS or PAWS) magnifies the effect of alcohol a lot more.  I realize now that while I was taking Zoloft, but was unaware that I was in WD, having one glass felt like having 2 or 3.  I wish I had been aware of that at the time.  Fortunately, I never had an car accident. I always very carefully followed the advice about body weight and time for elimination from the system before I drove.  It probably wasn’t enough, I realize now, and I was just lucky.

While I was taking Zoloft, but after I unwittingly went into ADWD, one glass made me feel much better than it should have, and I couldn’t see that as a problem.  That had not happened before in the 10 years or more I had taken ADs.  I thought I was getting old or I was dehydrated or the drinks were stronger.  There were times that I thought bartenders were mixing my drinks very strong.  I even thought someone had slipped roofies into a glass one night when I became very sick and vomited.  

While I was taking Zoloft, I was much more careful about driving, but otherwise, I had drinks once a week or maybe twice, sometimes.  Sometimes, I would go for months without any alcohol. How could alcohol be a problem for me?  Now, I get it.  Any drug can act in an unexpected way in a person who is in WD from any other drug.  Any drug can set back our healing.  The drug need not be considered addictive or intoxicating, but alcohol is everywhere.  It’s the drug we are most likely to encounter.  People even pressure us into having “one glass.” Most of us are not alcoholics.  Why would we be concerned about having one glass of wine or one cocktail?

 

I put it all together only years after the cog fog lifted, and my memory of the effect of Xanax on my system helped to put it all into perspective.  SA warns us to be careful about ingesting anything but natural food in normal amounts.  SA tells us to avoid new drugs, supplements, alcohol, even too much magnesium or fish oil.  This is because our bodies are so very sensitive.  

It’s hard to wrap one’s brain around this sensitivity issue while in WD.  It seems absurd even to the healthy mind — a substance that is not one’s problem has the same effect as if it was one’s problem.  If we are not alcoholics, why is alcohol a problem post zero?  Is alcohol even a problem during a taper?  Of course, but so few of us are able to believe it.
 

My doctor did not monitor how Xanax affected me.  She prescribed it to me while I was taking Zoloft and having heightened anxiety.  This was after the cold switch from Celexa and after my Zoloft dose had been raised to over 100 mg a day.  The activation from Zoloft was too strong.  My anxiety was so bad that I asked her for some solution, but my doctor never mentioned lowering the dose. I suppose if she had, she would have thrown me into WD.  I asked for help, and she said Xanax was safer than Valium.  That’s the extent of what she told me about Xanax!
 

I think doctors should sit with a person during the first dose of a benzo and see what happens.  I was not prescribed Xanax for sleep.  I was sleeping well enough at the time.  I’m certain that being zombiefied and completely knocked out was not the plan.  I think she would have seen that as an adverse reaction.  Had she, it would have saved me a lot of misery, and my family a lot of grief.  

It was not until my cognitive functioning improved — years after I quit ADs — that I was able to see the connection between the effect Xanax had on me and the effect alcohol had when I was still taking Zoloft.  

I don’t think the doctor could have prescribed a lower dose of Xanax.  I was breaking One one mg pill into 4 pieces, and taking the smallest piece.  I would promptly fall asleep afterward.  It never occurred to me to call her and tell her that.  She didn’t say that it was not her intention to knock me out, but now I realize it could not have been.  At our appointments for new prescriptions, she never inquired about the effect. 

The doctor didn’t speak with me about 1/2 life or avoiding addiction either.  She refilled my prescriptions without much discussion.  I quit on my own because a different doctor tripled my dose in one day.  (That might have put me in the hospital, quite frankly had I taken it.) This new doctor didn’t even meet me in person.  
 

The new doctor’s PA took my bottle to the doctor and came back with orders to take 3 times as much as I had been taking on a strict schedule - once a day.  She forced me to sign a contract to take it as prescribed.  No one explained to me why, and I was furious.  I had been trying to avoid addiction by taking it as infrequently as possible.  
 

So, I quit.  I quit Xanax and Zoloft all at once.  After that, I stopped sleeping.  So, I was prescribed Trazodone, by an entirely different doctor, and I quit Traz as soon as I discovered it was an AD.

After I quit Zoloft, alcohol did not make me good.  There was a huge difference in the effect.  Enormous.  It didn’t make me feel bad immediately either.  It had very little effect, and I had stopped socializing except on rare occasions.  So, I didn’t have much occasion to drink.  I rarely drank alcohol once I stopped socializing.
 

Coffee didn’t have the same effect as it did before either; coffee made me feel great the last year or so that I took Zoloft.  Then, it did not seem to do much of anything.  However, I had to have coffee everyday, and I had a horrible headache if I didn’t have it.  One time, my husband put decaf in the caf container.  I had a headache for 6 days before I figured out that he had done that.  Previously, I might have a headache for two or three days before I didn’t need coffee any longer.
 

As for alcohol, it did not occur to me that alcohol could hurt my system because the warnings said to avoid alcohol “while” taking the drug.  I had no idea thst I was in WD not that I had been kindling my system with every glass of wine before I quit Zoloft.  I didn’t know that after I quit Zoloft I could still hurt my system by drinking it.  People would pass out glasses of wine, and I wouldn’t think about it. 

I think I felt so awful after I quit Zoloft that I could not see the difference in how an occasional glass of wine affected me very well.  I didn’t feel buzzed so how could it hurt me?  There was no immediate affect.  Well, ADs don’t make us feel buzzed either, and taking a big dose of one after withdrawal sets in can be devastating.  It’s the same with alcohol or magnesium or B vitamin complex.  The intoxication effect has nothing to do with whether there is a further destabilization of the nervous system caused by a new substance being introduced.
 

I didn’t realize I could be in ADWD while taking the AD.  If you are here reading this, you do, of course, realize that.  I hope you know that missed doses, cold switches, and updoses can trigger WD.  Even simply adding drugs can do it if the two drugs interfere with one another in the right way.

 

I didn’t know anything important about WD, but I thought I did.  I used to have clients die while they were trying to get sober.  They would die the night before they entered treatment facilities because they partied one last time.  They had abstained for a few weeks, and then they took the same dose of their drug (or a different drug or a bunch of drugs) that night.  However, they took a drug that was known for killing people (I thought! Who knows?  Maybe they took something else after being in withdrawal for a while.  It wouldn’t have to be their drug of choice.)

ADs are not very well known for accidentally killing people.  Fortunately, users of ADs don’t normally die, Accidentally, when we try to reintroduce an AD (or at least the coroner does not identify the cause as AD toxicity).  I had Xanax toxicity the very first time I took it, and it was because I was in ADWD.  I also had slight alcohol toxicity without even realizing it due to ADWD, not because I was a previous alcoholic.  This is something the general public does not hear about.
 

After entering WD, having no over-reaction to alcohol isn’t a positive occurrence either.  The alcohol is affecting your nervous system whether you feel it at the time or not, and your next wave will probably be worse because of it.
 

Perhaps if you notice that alcohol has an enhanced affect on you — makes you feel too good — this post will save you from further kindling.  If it has no immediate effect, maybe you won’t believe it is still hurting you.  It can take a few days for the reaction to occur, I believe.
 

Before I quit Zoloft, I felt so wonderful after one glass of wine.  I didn’t connect the dots at all.  I didn’t know that ADs cause WD if doses are skipped.  I simply didn’t put two and two together.  
 

After I quit Zoloft, I wasn’t able to tell the delayed reaction difference in how alcohol affected my next wave until I recovered quite a bit.  I quit drinking, of course, after I quit Zoloft, and once in a while someone would offer me a glass of wine.  Sometimes, I would drink half of it just to test it out.  It never made me feel intoxicated after I quit Zoloft, but I do think it contributed to the intensity of waves.  I can’t indicate evidence for that except a strong feeling.  
 

Regardless of what I perceived, if a person in WD needs to avoid too much magnesium, it makes sense that avoiding alcohol is a wise choice.  Unlike alcohol, magnesium had a strong effect on me, and I had to stop using it.  I often think of trying it again now that I’m better.
 

Benadryl is another substance that I’m afraid has a negative, delay effect.  I think it contributes to emotional meltdowns, akathisia and muscle tension.  I used it recently — just one pill, 1/2 a dose, because I felt very agitated and couldn’t sleep.  I’m still going through menopause.  It does knock me out.  I’m afraid Benadryl caused me to have a bad day the next day.  
 

Now, I haven’t had any alcohol at all in a very long time.  My recent experience with Adrenalin-based numbing agent at the dentist really shocked me.  (I asked the dentist not to use it, but he did.). I had a strong reaction to it.  Fortunately, the fight or flight reaction didn’t last more than a few hours, but I was very exhausted and depressed afterward.  I had more cortisol spikes in the night for a while.  I do eat sugar.  That’s my next drug to conquer.
 

My health has improved a lot in the past year.  Of course, it should have.  I have been off all ADs, Xanax and Trazodone — everything except OTC pain meds, Benadryl and that numbing shot in my mouth — for over 4 years

I really miss a glass of wine.  Someday, I hope it won’t bother me any longer, but at the moment I’m so happy to be feeling better that I don’t want to risk the next wave being worse because I had a little vino.  Maybe I’ll never be able to drink it.  

[Erell]

@Rosetta : I'm glad to read you're having progress ! I know you still have challenges, and I hope it will subside soon.

I understand very well the "nap issue" 😉

But I also see so much positive in your posts, and this nice trip is a huge thing !

Wow, I do hope you'll see tremendous progress in 2021, and hope you'll feel less stressed about your house and school.

 

I have a deep admiration for those who goes through this while living with children : you are very inspirational, and sound like an incredible mother.

And I'm not saying this just to please you : you talk about your daughter in every post you write, and we can feel how much you love her and how much you hang on for her ❤

 

And thank you for this post about alcohol : I strongly believe it is a huge subject in WD, and can only ditto all you said. Hope people will read it.

I've made mistakes myself when I was younger and drank beers while taking benzos and AD without thinking about my poor CNS.

To be honest, I don't really miss alcohol, I wanna cherish and love my body like a treasure.

 

Sending hugs ❤

[Rosetta]

Thank you, @Erell.  I know you are going through a lot right now.  Thank you for visiting my thread in the midst of that. You are such a wonderful asset here at SA.  Hold on.  It’s going to get better!

 

🦋Rosetta

[Londoner]

Hi Rosetta,

I hope you don't mind me posting on your thread. I just wanted to say that I've read about your journey and you really are an inspiration. I'm 6.5 months into withdrawal after a too fast taper from 200mg Sertraline. I'm having a very tough time but seeing that you have made it through despite experiencing many debilitating symptoms gives me courage. Wishing you continued healing. 

[Rosetta]

Two nights of poor sleep followed by last night - slept from about 10:00 pm to about 5:00 am.  Dystonia is worse than usual.  I’ve been reading and writing here too much.  Right side of head hurts, eye hurts quite a bit.   Neck, shoulder, arm, and back shoulder blade area all are very uncomfortable. Tension in hip, calf and toes.  I would like to take Tylenol, but I don’t want the mood disturbance it  might cause.  I’m not sure it does, but I’m tired of feeling upset and angry.  I just want peace.

[Mimi79]

Hi dear Rosetta,

Just popping on your thread to say hello! I hope your recent nights weren't too bad.

 

I was reading your post on the Covid-19 thread about your husband's  headaches. It reminds me that one of my friends had those kind of headaches few years ago. It was debilitating and he was more and more anxious about it. They checked for anevrysm, but finally, it was a kind of silent chronic sinusitis. When they treated it properly, his headaches vanished.

 

I hope you and your family are doing well.

 

Take care!

 

Mimi

[Rosetta]

Thank you, @Mimi79  I slept better last night.

 

You might have cracked the case!  We will see from the MRIs, but he has other symptoms of SSS!  It’s not a fun treatment, but, oh, to have an answer and cure!  That would be amazing.

[Rosetta]

Londoner,

 

You haven’t lived yet if you are 30 and you have been battling these drugs for 11 years.  There is so much out there in the world that is awe-inspiring. You can’t appreciate it because you have been sick and anhedonic from the drugs, but someday, you are going to be so grateful that you survived.  You have to, simply, believe me.  
 

You are going to come out of this in a few years with a zest for life, and you will be in your 30s!  Once you get through this, you will never make the mistake of taking a drug again.  You will stop having SI (suicidal ideation).  It’s amazing to have that disappear and stay gone.  I never thought it was possible, because I didn’t know about kindling.  I had it from the age of 15 until just a year ago.  I thought it was a part of me.  It wasn’t.  It was caused by drugs destabilizing my brain for 40 years!  You have decades of a good life ahead of you, I can promise you that.  

We are going to get you past the akathisia.  That’s a given.  It’s Hell, it’s going to come and go, but it’s not worth dying over.  It certainly seems that way when you have it, I know!  It’s the worst thing I have ever experienced, but it will end, and you will get breaks from it, and you will learn to live with it coming and going until it’s gone.  It will go away.  You can’t panic in the beginning and off yourself, ok?  That’s not fair to yourself.

SA is for going off drugs, but not just for going off drugs as quickly as possible or marching down the tapering ladder in a certain time frame that works for your body.  SA is for getting STABLE and staying that way by avoiding more drugs.  SA is for avoiding substances, whatever they are, pharmaceutical or not, that destabilize the nervous system.  Do not look at the people who are struggling to taper and feeling  awful every 30 days as embodying your fate.  They are choosing to get off their drugs because of side effects or emotional blunting.  They are on high doses.  You won’t have to do that.  
 

You are going to be on a very small dose, and you can stay there until you for feel comfortable if you are afraid to taper.  There is no big rush.  At some some you will need to taper to avoid tachyphylaxis, but not before you have been stable and had a good rest - a real rest without withdrawal symptoms.

 

I have had a lot of fun, in between crises, despite the fact that I took Celexa from 31 to 42.  I was happy even after I stabilized on Zoloft after 42, and I had great fun with my baby.  (What caused the tragedy was that Zoloft was raised over and over again.  That kindled me.  That ruined my life.  That led to Xanax and Trazodone.) 
 

Being stable on a drug is very close ton being normal — normal enough to really enjoy life.  I was stable time and time again, but I did not know that or that missing doses destabilized me.  I had no idea what was going wrong.  You will know.  You might take 2 mg or any dose upon which you stabilize for months, and be very happy.  You could taper whenever you feel ready.  Right now, getting off the drug is not the point.  Stabilizing on a very small dose is the goal.  Living well is the goal.  Don’t think about how tapering will go right now.

 

I would tell you what it is like to have child and how your suicide would tear your mother apart, but I don’t think you could grasp that concept much better than a person who has never had aka could grasp the suffering of aka.  I say that because I have been suicidal since I was 15.  I considered the idea of what my suicide would do to my grandparents, and I found the alternative worse on more than one occasion — before I had a child.

In the beginning, my SI (suicidal ideation) was caused by abuse from my mother and a very poor diet.  I moved out of my grandparents home to live with her when I was 8.  She was an anorexic, and she starved me.  I went college at 18, and there was a cafeteria, of course.  My grandfather paid for everything, so I was free, for the first time in 10 years, to eat as much as I needed.  I had an emergency appendectomy at 18, in February, and the suicidal thoughts came back intermittently — windows and waves.  I took Nortriptyline (for a week or two) when I was 19. I thought I was having SI because of trauma alone.  No one warned me about anesthesia’s long term effects.  The trycyclic AD only made my mental state worse.
 

While I stayed alive out of a sense of the harm my suicide would do to my grandparents, I often felt that if they understood my pain, really understood it, then they would not want me to suffer that way.  Somehow, I survived each of these bouts, and I kept finding a reason to go on — some hope that the future would be better.  I did this for decades.  This was before I had akathisia.  
 

After that, after I developed akathisia at the age of 47, my grandfather was gone, but had he not been, he would not have mattered.  My husband barely mattered.  He did matter, I thought about him, I cared about how losing me would affect him, but not enough.  I actually thought he would be better off.  Akathisia has the effect of making a person rationalize almost anything.  It was only my little girl’s existence that stopped me, and perhaps this was true only because I had abandonment issues. I could not rationalize taking her mother away.

So, what do you have to live for?  There must be something.  I had no idea what it was like to love a child.  It’s an otherworldly type of thing.  It’s irrational, all-consuming, and simply impossible to understand for the child.  To a child, the mother is like a god.  She exists, but exists for the child, and the child alone.  She’s not supposed to want anything but the best for her child.  The mother’s needs are irrelevant, no? They aren’t irrelevant.  That’s a myth.  It’s a cruel myth our society tells us, and it makes our mother-child relationships less rewarding, less resilient, than they should be.  
 

You need a reason to live, but living for a child is valid and living for a parent is not?  This is not about guilt or obligation or shame or responsibility.  You could live for your diabetic cat, or your one-eyed dog, or anyone or anything else who would not have the same quality of life without you.  The shelter would kill your animals after separation anxiety traumatized them for weeks.  Not acceptable.  So perhaps there are people who hold on for pets.
 

If living for your mother isn’t enough there is no shame in that.  Not all mothers are “mothers.”  I know that all too well.  I would not have stayed alive through aka for my biological mother.  That’s certain.  If you haven’t considered your mother or you have and decided you can’t hold on, I am asking you to reconsider that evaluation because I know what it is for a mother to merely contemplate the death of her child.  Every time I see a news article about a child’s death, I ache, I become fearful, I think about taking my child out of school, and never putting her in the car again, and all sorts of completely impractical things that I could do to save myself from that grief.  Saving her isn’t the focus, of course, because doing all of that would destroy her.  It’s about saving me the pain.  That sort of near-insanity is motherhood, and it doesn’t ever stop.  It will be a part of me until I’m gone.

My grandmother developed dementia when I was 16, and probably before then.  She stopped caring about me to some extent.  She loved me, of course, but she couldn’t think straight.  She had tiny strokes.  Each one took another piece of her, my true mother.  No one intervened or even knew what was happening to me.  My grandparents did not visit my house.  They didn’t have contact with my neighbors or teachers or the parents of my friends.  My teachers didn’t know my grandparents existed.  Everyone just let me starve.  There was emotional abuse constantly, too.  So, I think I felt the same sort of despair that aka brings about, but not to the same level of intensity.
 

When a person suffers aka what is best for that person, in her own mind,  is hard to parse.  At certain points, what is best for one is to end aka at all costs, period.  That point does not last throughout the entire episode.  Aka builds and builds and peaks.  It lessens ever so slowly.  The change is imperceptible, but eventually it reduces back to a survivable level.  The thing that kills is that we know it will come again, and when we feel it building, we panic.  If we don’t know that there is a solution — that there is an end, that there is a way to prevent aka from every happening again, the despair can be too much.  That solution does exist.
 

I have seen aka described as the feeling one would have when standing in the window of a burning building.  That’s exactly it.  Jumping is better, one thinks.  One must jump before the fire reaches her, right? The end result is quite undesirable, but it is the only option.  With aka the fire cannot reach you. It will threaten you, it will come toward you, endlessly, but it cannot ever reach you.  Feeling as if I was “on fire” never happened.  It was the fear, the sheer intensity of the fear, that was unbearable.  Once I learned to distract from the fear, I could endure.

 

I suppose it could be a bit like akathisia to have a child die.  I think I would re-live her death over and over again in daymares.  I do that with my cat’s disappearance, and I don’t even know that she died.  I’m afraid she was eaten by a coyote.  Well . . . this isn’t mean to shame you into living; it’s to give you a reason, not to live another year or month, but another day.  Just another DAY.  One more day for your mother.  The option will always be there.  You aren’t losing the option by delaying the way you would be by standing inside the burning building and trying to determine when your last  chance might be.  
 

There is no rush to escape the fire because the fire can’t reach you.  Only your chemical fear can reach you.  Chemical fear shouldn’t be called fear or anxiety.  It’s not fear — it’s far, far beyond fear.  There is no word for except akathisia which means “inability to sit.”  That does not even begin to cover it!!  That is what it looks like from the outside.  In any event, you have endless moments to continue living.  Take them.  Delay again, one more time.
 

As the years went on after I tried Nortriptyline, and I continued to have suicidal thoughts due to what I now know was kindling from drug after drug, thought it was an inherent illness.  I took birth control, progesterone (25 yoa), barbiturates (25, prescribed for headaches from a cracked vertebrae while in graduate school, CT’d after many months), dental numbing agents, Paxil trial (28, after my grandmother’s death), sleeping pills (28, because I tried Paxil which did not agree with me — adverse reactions — severe insomnia, alcohol, Celexa (30), opioids — short course (31, after being burned in a fire - yes!  It was not as awful as one would imagine actually.  White gas (naphtha) camping fuel IS safer than gasoline!), Zoloft (42, cold switch from 69 mg of Celexa), Xanax (46, major kindling action, possible addiction), Trazodone (46, horrible rebound effect and kindling).
 

There was no inherent illness.  There is no inherent illness for you.  There never was.  There might have been a lack of coping skills, grief, a change of life curcumstsnces that caused symptoms of depression, but there was no illness of the brain.  There was only drug (and perhaps alcohol?) damage masquerading as depression or anxiety.  That can heal, and it will. 
 

There must be something you can decide to live for, someone, perhaps.  I suppose the most obvious person should be yourself.  The you that existed before you tried an AD?  Does she deserve to grow up and have a life, perhaps?  Is there a friend? A grandmother?  A sibling?  
 

I know, from experience, that it is difficult to choose Yourself the person for whom you live.  My husband could never understand that.  He would say, “Why on Earth would you give up your one change for life?!  If there is reincarnation, then why give up now.  You will live again nonetheless.  Where do you think you will go?  What if it is the same?”  He didn’t have drug dangers to his brain.  He didn’t know that myself was worthless according to my own brain.  That was inconceivable to him.

 

Now, it get it.  Now that my brain has been free of drugs for 4 years, I completely understand his point of view.  Give yourself the chance to see life from the point of view of a person whose nervous system is normal.  You haven’t had that opportunity for nearly half of your life!  You were a child the last time you were operating normally.

 

You must wait and see what life could have been, Londoner.  You can do it; I know it seems that you can’t, but I did.   I was the most unlikely person to survive, in my opinion, but I did.

 

 

[Erell]

Thank you Rosetta for this beautiful piece. This is gold, and you are a gem ☀️

 

( @Londoner)

Edited April 14, 2021 by Erell

[Rosetta]

Thank you, @Erell

[Arthur]

@Rosetta i have been following this tread and wonder what your thoughts on taking Tylenol at night are.. it really seems to help my sleep immensely..  as like everyone here my live was turned upside down by a inadvertent cold turkey of lexapro 4 yrs ago..

thank you..

[Rosetta]

Regular strength Tylenol?  Not the kind called Tylenol PM? @Arthur

[Arthur]

Yes.. regular strenght

[Rosetta]

Well, taking it once in a while is different from taking it every night.  It can damage your stomach if taken in high doses, using it a lot taxes your kidneys, and your liver.  I’m sure there are Things we don’t know about what it does.

 

I have been avoiding it lately.  Apparently, it had an effect on depression.  It also affects our ability to empathize with others.  Those two pieces of info make me think it could kindle us.  
 

I think that if I were you I would try to find out if I had Dystonia (cervical Dystonia) or dyskinesia.  There are treatments for dystonia that don’t involve surgery.  Anesthesia is very hard on the brain.  Botox isn’t something I’m willing to try, but I would look into it if I were you.  You might decide try that before general anesthesia for a surgery.  Maybe it would not be enough.  I don’t know.

[Rosetta]

The hot flashes, night sweats and feeling sad are all strong again.  I’m feeling a lot of guilt over my cat who disappeared while we were in Spain.  I wish I had found a better way for her while we were gone.  My daughter cries over her almost daily.  It’s killing me.  I’m awake again; it’s 1:13.  I think I’ve had about 3 hot flashes so far tonight.  I’m so tired.

[Erell]

Sending huge hugs Rosetta ❤☀️

Sometimes I like to roll a cold bottle of water on my legs while having hot flashes.

Thinking of you. 

[Rosetta]

Thank you @Erell  I had at least 8 hot flashes throughout the night.  The first one included a cortisol spike.  I woke up afraid.  All the rest had ruminations and insomnia following them.  I’m feeling very low.  During the day, I can’t do much of anything.  Thanks for visiting, Erell.  I know you are struggling, too, right now.

[Rosetta]

Yesterday was much better.  The last two nights have had fewer hot flashes, more sleep and it as easier to go back to sleep.  No cortisol spike last night or this morning.  

I get my teeth cleaned today.  WD has made my gums very sensitive.  I didn’t take care of my teeth very well.  Sometimes they stop bleeding, but usually, they are swollen and bleed when I brush them.  So, I’m getting them cleaned 3 times a year now.  I’m hoping to avoid gum disease getting worse.

[Happy2Heal]

just popping in to say hi

glad to hear you're getting a bit better sleep recently. I hope that's the start of a trend!!

 

[Rosetta]

Thank you, @Happy2Heal.  Me, too.

 

So. Three nights ago I had the same very odd nausea in the middle of the night.  I have had this for years, but it’s far less common now.  It lasted for about an hour, and I was so desperate to throw up that I gagged myself.  That didn’t really work very well.  I had the panic and the sweating that I used to get when I threw up during the early days of withdrawal (meaning years and years between 2004 and 2018).  I used to think this food poisoned feeling and vomiting was related to my periods. Now, I think it was a combination of my period and WD.  This time, it was very uncomfortable and anxiety producing, but it passed.  Real food poisoning lasts for hours.

 

My daughter is sick.  Last night, she had a very bad headache.  I had to give her Tylenol.  In the morning she was fine.  Tonight, in her sleep, she is coughing.  I am very scared that she has Covid.  Other than a very slight cold and having some appetite, but not eating very much, she acts fine in terms of her physical health.  The coughing is new.  She has been crying a lot lately — mostly about our cat who disappeared when we were in Spain over a year ago.  I feel so helpless against Covid.

[Mimi79]

Can you bring her to make the Covid testing?