Mdawg: 13 years of fluvoxamine and others

[Ariel]

@Mdawg

 

22 minutes ago, Mdawg said:

Thank you, I would love some recommendations.  Although I have been purposefully cleansing my life of convenient distractions/entertainment.  I wasted so many years under the fog and pursuing constant distraction, and the fog encouraged and pushed the consumption of distraction.  So now I am sitting with my thoughts and being at every moment, because I have consumed enough distractions already for one lifetime.  Although at night before bed I will watch relaxing and or meditative and or educational things.

 

Aspirational, for sure. You're doing such amazing work!

 

There's a show I love called "The Leftovers". It ran for three seasons and originally aired on HBO (not sure what you have access to). It's beautiful, strange, meditative, profound, often eerie. Covers a lot of thematic ground, but grief is a biggie. How we navigate loss and circumstances beyond our control, how we make and seek meaning. Loaded with brilliant writing, acting, etc. 

 

That recommendation is on the serious side. Preferences are so individual. If you decide to check it out, let me know whether you do or don't like it and I can follow up accordingly (at your service). Also let me know if you'd prefer a comedy recommendation instead.

 

Please be mindful in regards to potentially sensitive WD nervous system (insert all the trigger warnings), take care to monitor for adverse reactions  (I trust you're good at this, just have to say it for my own peace of mind, too, as well as for posterity). "The Leftovers" is okay for me but WD-safe entertainment is individual and can mean different content for different people.

 

[DazzlingCold]

21 hours ago, Mdawg said:

Thank you, I would love some recommendations.  Although I have been purposefully cleansing my life of convenient distractions/entertainment.  I wasted so many years under the fog and pursuing constant distraction, and the fog encouraged and pushed the consumption of distraction.  So now I am sitting with my thoughts and being at every moment, because I have consumed enough distractions already for one lifetime.  Although at night before bed I will watch relaxing and or meditative and or educational things.

Yesss!

[Mdawg]

22 hours ago, Ariel said:

@Mdawg

 

 

Aspirational, for sure. You're doing such amazing work!

 

There's a show I love called "The Leftovers". It ran for three seasons and originally aired on HBO (not sure what you have access to). It's beautiful, strange, meditative, profound, often eerie. Covers a lot of thematic ground, but grief is a biggie. How we navigate loss and circumstances beyond our control, how we make and seek meaning. Loaded with brilliant writing, acting, etc. 

 

That recommendation is on the serious side. Preferences are so individual. If you decide to check it out, let me know whether you do or don't like it and I can follow up accordingly (at your service). Also let me know if you'd prefer a comedy recommendation instead.

 

Please be mindful in regards to potentially sensitive WD nervous system (insert all the trigger warnings), take care to monitor for adverse reactions  (I trust you're good at this, just have to say it for my own peace of mind, too, as well as for posterity). "The Leftovers" is okay for me but WD-safe entertainment is individual and can mean different content for different people.

 

Thank you ! I do prefer comedy these days, there is enough seriousness to go around lol

[Ariel]

@Mdawg

 

9 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I do prefer comedy these days, there is enough seriousness to go around lol

 

I hear you <3

 

Okay to PM ? 

 

 

[Mdawg]

18 minutes ago, Ariel said:

@Mdawg

 

 

I hear you ❤️

 

Okay to PM ? 

 

 

Yeah!

[Mdawg]

I’ve been pressuring myself/feeling/internalizing/acknowledging reality’s outside pressure to find some type of employment.  I have been unemployed for two years now (with one month long attempt at being an after school yoga teacher for kids in public schools in the city during withdrawal which triggered daily suicidal thoughts and feelings and my work was appreciated by no one, not the kids who hated sitting still and did not have an interest in yoga (understandably) not the other teachers since I was traveling to a different school each day of the week and they would barely acknowledge me at each one( not their fault I was just not party of a team at any place) and most of all, my work was not appreciated by me because this was when I was still on the full dose of Wellbutrin and had recently too fast tapered to 12.5 mg Fluvoxamine and then updosed back to 25… I had done my yoga teacher training while in withdrawal as well, and prior to that I had never really shown much interest in yoga, so I was a sh*tty yoga teacher 😂😂

 

Now I’m noticing that I get the drive to look for jobs when I’m feeling motivated and l good, which is inevitably after spending a day doing my favorite things of something creative/helping out a friend and then swimming and walking/exercising.  I notice that on the drugs, I could not find it in me to care as much as I wanted to about people, love and creativity… I cared more about shallow things, distractions and traveling to far-off places with no intention of returning or living past a certain unspecified and goofy point in the future.  I could not care about the future, because the drugs didn’t want me to have one.  Now, I do care about the future.  A lot. It’s painful and optimistic.  I feel a newfound and old familiar childlike excitement about people, love and creativity, the idea of being part of a team in service to others really makes me feel tingly inside.  I just don’t quite know how to access that situation yet, or better when to seek it out… I am still riding out withdrawal, and I don’t have my drivers license yet… and I haven’t finished my BS in environmental conservation yet (I dropped out after completing about 3 out of 4 years worth of classes).  My first priority is driver’s license, because most jobs require that, and feeling mobile I’m told and I imagine would bring a sense of freedom… despite years of built up terror about the idea of me operating heavy machinery, behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, with all the subtle rules and regulations and abundant room for error… with my shaky hands… you get the idea.  Nighttime anxiety/hopefulness/anxiety.

[Ariel]

@Mdawg

 

You're doing such beautiful work noticing things <3

 

1 hour ago, Mdawg said:

I’ve been pressuring myself/feeling/internalizing/acknowledging reality’s outside pressure to find some type of employment.

1 hour ago, Mdawg said:

Now I’m noticing that I get the drive to look for jobs when I’m feeling motivated

1 hour ago, Mdawg said:

Now, I do care about the future.  A lot. It’s painful and optimistic.  I feel a newfound and old familiar childlike excitement about people, love and creativity, the idea of being part of a team in service to others really makes me feel tingly inside.  I just don’t quite know how to access that situation yet, or better when to seek it out…

 

There is so much to this healing process that is about noticing what comes up and sitting with it (and sitting with it and sitting with it) and observing what happens.

 

I can really relate to the experience of suddenly caring about the future whereas I hadn't before. I love this:

"Now, I do care about the future. A lot. It's painful and optimistic." 

That's so perfect. Thank you. 

 

It was really intense for me in the early WD years (it has since shifted), I was feeling impulses and ideas and motivation and just the mere fact of experiencing such drives was new and revelatory. I learned that while the content of thoughts and feelings and ideas was sometimes interesting mostly what felt significant was the experience of caring, wanting, dreaming -- these felt new to me, and precious. I didn't quite know what to do with the embodied experience of impetus. Sometimes it felt like, oh sh*t turns out i'm a visionary, well noblesse oblige, which could lead to feeling pressure and urgency and performance anxiety and perfectionism (among other things). Sometimes it was a bit more mournful, like, wait a minute, is this how other people have been feeling this whole time??  (and many other thoughts, feelings, reactions around my new experience)

 

Sometimes the experience of drive, or what might perhaps generally be categorized as "life force", was rapidly translated into behavioral urges and urgency. I found myself acting on fleeting thoughts and feelings because I didn't understand that they were just more or less random signals whirring and whizzing by, they weren't that important or substantial, it was just overwhelming and exotic to have them at all and I felt like that meant I had to honor that somehow. In addition, because I suddenly cared about my life and was slammed with an awareness of having limited time on earth and actually caring how that time was spent, it was easy for excitement to tip over into a tizzy of activity (for the first time ever I began to understand how so many people keep busy as a tactic to outrun/outsmart their own mortality; for the first time I had glimpses of what fear of death can look like; it was so surprising to me that this side of the human experience exists, as I was used to for so long having welcomed and longed for death).

 

It's been a process of learning more about the innate creativity of our being and how to live with an inner life, how to constructively contain and navigate and express the complex aliveness of embodied experience in interaction with the world. It's still a process for me, I don't know what I'm doing at all (a whole lot of nothing these days), and it changes all the time along with the fluctuations of WD and my response to those changes. I'm in a very different place now than I was in those early years, for better and for worse, but the practice is essentially the same. Noticing, sitting with, waiting, observing; over and over and over and over again. 

 

I still don't feel like I can accurately gauge my capacity, what's too much and what's too little, when to take on more outer-world challenges and when to hold back. I try things out and fail at attempts more often than not, and sometimes I do manage. I keep making discoveries and trying to course-correct along the way and not attach too much to outcome, as everything is in WD-flux and I find that instability challenging in and of itself. I also try to find ways to enjoy the phenomenon of receiving those insights, the gifts of a moment here, a moment there (sometimes I call them "one-thought windows"), glimpses into caring, wanting, desiring to connect to the world and be in it; what I've found for myself is that for now, what works best is mostly savoring what that feels like, being with the emotional experience as long as it lasts, and when it passes holding it as close or far as needed. I'm practicing trust that these motivation/life-force feelings (there aren't a lot of them these days) will organically come and go, like spores on the wind. At some point when the time is right they will return and return again and when the conditions are right the seeds will plant and germinate and take root and sprout... 

 

This is a whole lot about me and my experience in response to your wonderful post. What I'm trying to get at, I think, is really just to say:

a) I can relate to what you've written, and thank you for expressing this and sharing it; 

b) you have time.

c) especially b)

 

When the time comes for taking action and putting things in motion, you will know. 

 

It won't necessarily happen all at once -- everything is already happening all the time; though this is not how we usually consciously experience it -- it won't necessarily feel like one, continuous smooth move. 

 

You will know what you need to know when you need to know it, and you will have the capacity to respond as called. 

 

You are so good at noticing what comes up and doing this delicate, intricate work of engaging with and getting to know and befriending yourself. And it's awesome that you're rooting within and as that happens I think we naturally also feel strengthened in that grounding to reach more outwards and extend into the world. None of that is static, it's an ongoing exchange between one and the other, oscillating in communication and dance. We are being breathed, we are being born(e). The funny, fiddly bit is sometimes (to me) commuting from the more exalted, ecstatic, ethereal, boundless experience of being in the world to the very bounded, practical material reality of, I need to learn to drive and get my driver's license (which, by the way, I still haven't!). That can feel like a heady, unwieldy trip and I am perpetually disoriented in the transition, finding it so hard to integrate inner and outer or switch back and forth between them. I guess it's a practice like everything else. 

 

Sorry to freestyle so shamelessly in your thread, I'm out-rambling myself.

 

Thank you for posting about your experience, it's so enlightening and inspiring to read about your process and makes me reflect on elements of my own, past and present. I appreciate you. 

 

[Mdawg]

9 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I’ve been pressuring myself/feeling/internalizing/acknowledging reality’s outside pressure to find some type of employment.  I have been unemployed for two years now (with one month long attempt at being an after school yoga teacher for kids in public schools in the city during withdrawal which triggered daily suicidal thoughts and feelings and my work was appreciated by no one, not the kids who hated sitting still and did not have an interest in yoga (understandably) not the other teachers since I was traveling to a different school each day of the week and they would barely acknowledge me at each one( not their fault I was just not party of a team at any place) and most of all, my work was not appreciated by me because this was when I was still on the full dose of Wellbutrin and had recently too fast tapered to 12.5 mg Fluvoxamine and then updosed back to 25… I had done my yoga teacher training while in withdrawal as well, and prior to that I had never really shown much interest in yoga, so I was a sh*tty yoga teacher 😂😂

 

Now I’m noticing that I get the drive to look for jobs when I’m feeling motivated and l good, which is inevitably after spending a day doing my favorite things of something creative/helping out a friend and then swimming and walking/exercising.  I notice that on the drugs, I could not find it in me to care as much as I wanted to about people, love and creativity… I cared more about shallow things, distractions and traveling to far-off places with no intention of returning or living past a certain unspecified and goofy point in the future.  I could not care about the future, because the drugs didn’t want me to have one.  Now, I do care about the future.  A lot. It’s painful and optimistic.  I feel a newfound and old familiar childlike excitement about people, love and creativity, the idea of being part of a team in service to others really makes me feel tingly inside.  I just don’t quite know how to access that situation yet, or better when to seek it out… I am still riding out withdrawal, and I don’t have my drivers license yet… and I haven’t finished my BS in environmental conservation yet (I dropped out after completing about 3 out of 4 years worth of classes).  My first priority is driver’s license, because most jobs require that, and feeling mobile I’m told and I imagine would bring a sense of freedom… despite years of built up terror about the idea of me operating heavy machinery, behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, with all the subtle rules and regulations and abundant room for error… with my shaky hands… you get the idea.  Nighttime anxiety/hopefulness/anxiety.

I meant to say “foggy” not goofy 😂😂😂

[Ariel]

9 minutes ago, Mdawg said:

I meant to say “foggy” not goofy 😂😂😂

 

Oh but I *love* "goofy", I noticed that and thought, "brilliant word choice"!

 

10 minutes ago, Mdawg said:

I cared more about shallow things, distractions and traveling to far-off places with no intention of returning or living past a certain unspecified and goofy point in the future.

 

"a certain unspecified and goofy point in the future" is perfect!

[Mdawg]

8 hours ago, Ariel said:

@Mdawg

 

You're doing such beautiful work noticing things ❤️

 

 

There is so much to this healing process that is about noticing what comes up and sitting with it (and sitting with it and sitting with it) and observing what happens.

 

I can really relate to the experience of suddenly caring about the future whereas I hadn't before. I love this:

"Now, I do care about the future. A lot. It's painful and optimistic." 

That's so perfect. Thank you. 

 

It was really intense for me in the early WD years (it has since shifted), I was feeling impulses and ideas and motivation and just the mere fact of experiencing such drives was new and revelatory. I learned that while the content of thoughts and feelings and ideas was sometimes interesting mostly what felt significant was the experience of caring, wanting, dreaming -- these felt new to me, and precious. I didn't quite know what to do with the embodied experience of impetus. Sometimes it felt like, oh sh*t turns out i'm a visionary, well noblesse oblige, which could lead to feeling pressure and urgency and performance anxiety and perfectionism (among other things). Sometimes it was a bit more mournful, like, wait a minute, is this how other people have been feeling this whole time??  (and many other thoughts, feelings, reactions around my new experience)

 

Sometimes the experience of drive, or what might perhaps generally be categorized as "life force", was rapidly translated into behavioral urges and urgency. I found myself acting on fleeting thoughts and feelings because I didn't understand that they were just more or less random signals whirring and whizzing by, they weren't that important or substantial, it was just overwhelming and exotic to have them at all and I felt like that meant I had to honor that somehow. In addition, because I suddenly cared about my life and was slammed with an awareness of having limited time on earth and actually caring how that time was spent, it was easy for excitement to tip over into a tizzy of activity (for the first time ever I began to understand how so many people keep busy as a tactic to outrun/outsmart their own mortality; for the first time I had glimpses of what fear of death can look like; it was so surprising to me that this side of the human experience exists, as I was used to for so long having welcomed and longed for death).

 

It's been a process of learning more about the innate creativity of our being and how to live with an inner life, how to constructively contain and navigate and express the complex aliveness of embodied experience in interaction with the world. It's still a process for me, I don't know what I'm doing at all (a whole lot of nothing these days), and it changes all the time along with the fluctuations of WD and my response to those changes. I'm in a very different place now than I was in those early years, for better and for worse, but the practice is essentially the same. Noticing, sitting with, waiting, observing; over and over and over and over again. 

 

I still don't feel like I can accurately gauge my capacity, what's too much and what's too little, when to take on more outer-world challenges and when to hold back. I try things out and fail at attempts more often than not, and sometimes I do manage. I keep making discoveries and trying to course-correct along the way and not attach too much to outcome, as everything is in WD-flux and I find that instability challenging in and of itself. I also try to find ways to enjoy the phenomenon of receiving those insights, the gifts of a moment here, a moment there (sometimes I call them "one-thought windows"), glimpses into caring, wanting, desiring to connect to the world and be in it; what I've found for myself is that for now, what works best is mostly savoring what that feels like, being with the emotional experience as long as it lasts, and when it passes holding it as close or far as needed. I'm practicing trust that these motivation/life-force feelings (there aren't a lot of them these days) will organically come and go, like spores on the wind. At some point when the time is right they will return and return again and when the conditions are right the seeds will plant and germinate and take root and sprout... 

 

This is a whole lot about me and my experience in response to your wonderful post. What I'm trying to get at, I think, is really just to say:

a) I can relate to what you've written, and thank you for expressing this and sharing it; 

b) you have time.

c) especially b)

 

When the time comes for taking action and putting things in motion, you will know. 

 

It won't necessarily happen all at once -- everything is already happening all the time; though this is not how we usually consciously experience it -- it won't necessarily feel like one, continuous smooth move. 

 

You will know what you need to know when you need to know it, and you will have the capacity to respond as called. 

 

You are so good at noticing what comes up and doing this delicate, intricate work of engaging with and getting to know and befriending yourself. And it's awesome that you're rooting within and as that happens I think we naturally also feel strengthened in that grounding to reach more outwards and extend into the world. None of that is static, it's an ongoing exchange between one and the other, oscillating in communication and dance. We are being breathed, we are being born(e). The funny, fiddly bit is sometimes (to me) commuting from the more exalted, ecstatic, ethereal, boundless experience of being in the world to the very bounded, practical material reality of, I need to learn to drive and get my driver's license (which, by the way, I still haven't!). That can feel like a heady, unwieldy trip and I am perpetually disoriented in the transition, finding it so hard to integrate inner and outer or switch back and forth between them. I guess it's a practice like everything else. 

 

Sorry to freestyle so shamelessly in your thread, I'm out-rambling myself.

 

Thank you for posting about your experience, it's so enlightening and inspiring to read about your process and makes me reflect on elements of my own, past and present. I appreciate you. 

 

Thank you for sharing I am just glad to know I’m not the only one who feels this way… the part about “wait a minute, is this how other people have been feeling this whole time “ really hit me hard a couple months ago and continues to be present in my conciousness whenever I am around people or think about people I’ve admired in the past for how they are capable of functioning…. Hate the word functioning 

also hate cell phones and cars and wish I could go back in time to pre-human earth and experience the “natural state of things”… so yeah 

[Mdawg]

6 minutes ago, Ariel said:

 

Oh but I *love* "goofy", I noticed that and thought, "brilliant word choice"!

 

 

"a certain unspecified and goofy point in the future" is perfect!

You’re right 😂

[Ariel]

the word "goofy" is definitely underused, thank you for surfacing it. brings me joy <3

also, the word "goofy" reminds me of the word "doofus", which reminds me of the hipster doofus episode of "Seinfeld", which makes me laugh, so... all good in the associative multiverse 

[Mdawg]

Sensitive, caring people, born unwillingly into a messed up world.  The world is designed for people who can’t feel, who care most about money.  And when we became distraught at the awareness of a world that could not meet our human needs, we were drugged to match the unfeeling.  Create a world where only the arrogant and unfeeling thrive, and drug the others as soon as they become aware of the situation.  No wonder capitalism thrives, no wonder the environment continues to be destroyed.  No wonder the world is full of suffering, and yet has not changed.

[Ariel]

@Mdawg

Do you know Alan Watts? 

His youtube videos/talks are very soothing. 

Maybe you'd like them. 

 

 

[Mdawg]

So as a kid, I was “brilliant “ in some ways.  I was the type of kid where the teachers whisper to each other, to my parents, and give extra tests and a separate program for students who excel and are bored by the standard curriculum.  This was in elementary school.  In 5th grade I started showing signs of OCD, because I needed control, I was ready to have control over my life and didn’t have it.  I had an extremely controlling mother.  Then the summer after 5th grade, the first drugs happened, and the rest is history.  Someone in the lost years thread said that functioning on the drugs is like going through life with your hands tied behind your back.  That is exactly what happened.  The drugs made me have to work twice as hard for mediocre results, when before them I was effortlessly excellent.  Of course, things happen in adolescence, people change, who knows.  There is a definite loss of potential, my potential was stolen from me.  I have a feeling that it was not necessarily by accident, either, because at my most brilliant, I cared deeply about climate change, and wanted to “save the world “.  I was an idealist because of being a child, yes, but as the drugs eroded my brain, I remember my care and most of all, my grounded determination, dissipating.  I was lifted away from myself, conveniently separated slowly and insidiously from my power.  Over many years I dissociated, unable to care about anything.  Therefore, unable to do anything.  I became unaware, and so I lost response-ability.

Now, I feel my life-force has been drained by this.  My life force could have been used for such change , but it was like a delicate balloon that was slowly drained.  Now I suppose I am patching up the hole, before I can re-inflate myself.  I hope that there is still a chance to have an impact after that.

[Shep]

16 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I hope that there is still a chance to have an impact after that.

 

The people I admire the most have been those who've survived great adversity. That is a commonality shared by many people who go on to do great things. 

 

 

[Mdawg]

Just for my records a symptom update:

 

I finished fast tapering off THC over 2 months ago, probably 3 months ago. I do micro doses of dry herb vape CBD once a week max, avoiding ingestion to spare my liver from extra work.

 

Ive been on only 25 mg Fluvoxamine divided in 2 doses taken morning and night, for a while, since I got off Wellbutrin at the end of January.  I think the pain-killing properties of THC may have been covering up some symptoms, and/or it’s windows and waves coming and going.  For a while I felt mentally quite unstable and anxious, which prompted me to stop THC altogether, since my rib had healed and I didn’t need the strong pain relief anymore.  After that I gradually stabilized more as the THC left my system.  During this time I also made several aforementioned dietary changes which made just as much difference as a drug change.  Then about a month ago I was exposed to Covid and had to quarantine.  Thankfully I did not get it, but the quarantine (unable to swim at the pool or use the gym) combined with Covid anxiety totally destabilized me again.  Unfortunately I also happened to have a psychiatrist appointment during that quarantine, and I was too mentally weak to fend off his efforts to convince me that withdrawal didn’t exist and this was just me and I am ***** up (even though he has for the most part only known me through 15 minute visits every 5 months for the past 6 years aka only while on drugs).  Suffering as I was without my exercise, I convinced myself that I needed an updose.  I told my psychiatrist that I wanted extended release from a compounding pharmacy that was no more than 28 mg, since I am currently on a total of 25, believing that it would actually be an appropriately slow release.  I expected him to aim in the middle and suggest 26 or 27 but of course he went straight for the 28 and sent it right to the pharmacy.  Already afraid of him from previous gaslighting and in a weakened state, I did not argue and just hoped for the best.  It ended up costing $90 for 30 days of 28 mg extended release capsules, I took just 1, and it completely smacked me in the face.  I was floated away completely on a horrific wave of Fluvoxamine.  It was enlightening because it showed me just how ******* sedated out of my body I have been for 14 years, starting when I was only 14. Fluvoxamine is stronger than an opioid.  I cried for like 12 hours because I was unable to reach myself.  It felt like I had been finally standing on solid ground and was suddenly catapulted back into deep black water where I could not see the bottom and was barely keeping my head above the surface.

I was able to temporarily calm down that night by watching calming underwater videos on YouTube, and then the following day I cried more about being unable to reach myself, went for a nature walk with my dad, and felt like a completely different person unable to communicate with him.  I looked at the houses passing by outside the car as we were driving, and I felt like I was underwater with the dim light and sense of slow motion.  Like I was stuck inside jello, while having to move through life just like everyone else.  That evening I went to the pool, and I noticed that when I put my Freediving noseclip lanyard around my neck and let it go, as the large plastic clip bounced against my upper abdomen, it felt not there. I could not feel my abdomen.  I was so used to finally being able to feel my whole body, and suddenly it was numb again.  Not numb in the warm and fuzzy way induced by marijuana or opioids; numb in the way of when you’re sitting in a certain position too long and then there is suddenly no blood flowing to your leg.  The scariest type of numb.  I had to work twice as hard to swim way slower than I normally could.  I was sedated.

 

That was about a month ago and I went right back to what I had been doing.  Things were somewhat unstable for a week afterwards, then they evened out.

 

However, I’ve noticed some fairly new symptoms that I have sort of had before but they have become more pronounced.  I’m not sure exactly what it’s called but I’d describe it as a distinct twingeing, tickling, burning in the peripheral inside of my wrist to fingers, same in my foot, sometimes face, neck/shoulder and scalp, sometimes arm, mostly on the right side but sometimes on the left also.  I can generally feel more with the right side of my body; it feels like the right side of my body is more innervated I guess because I’m right-handed.  Accompanied by severe restlessness, restless legs.  It seems to at least temporarily improve when I use those parts of my body to exercise.  

Also noticed muscle weakness especially in my right hand; sometimes I am holding something and my hand just relaxes and I drop the thing.  Like my right hand is just tired of this ****.  It needs a break.

Sometimes all of my muscles twinge especially in my arms, they feel weak and cramping like they also don’t want to do anything.  Oh and HEAT INTOLERANCE.  That’s been the ever-present one throughout all my tapering.
 

In terms of mental symptoms I’ve become a lot more sensitive: I cry easily, I actually possess natural easy EMPATHY and don’t have to grit my teeth and strain to imagine it, and I feel offended and panicked by the slightest negative-skewing body language, facial expression or remark. I’m not as concerned about the mental symptoms because I now remember them from before when I was cold turkeyed off Prozac and then Zoloft a year apart… and of course at the time I was blamed for the ensuing destruction.  I now laugh in the face of these mental symptoms, with sarcastic respect for them, as they are now welcome after so many years of nothingness.  I’m sure learning to deal with these growing emotions are what Chessiecat was referring to about learning “basic life skills “ since I didn’t get a chance to grow up along with my own brain.  I’ve been appropriately grieving and feeling the pain and the net result has felt altogether quite soothing.

 

Also I’ve been keeping a mental food journal and omitting anything that increases my suffering.  I absolutely cannot stray from my new aforementioned diet or else my body becomes red and inflamed, my stomach and intestines hurt, my muscles cramp, my bones ache, my breathing becomes ragged, my internal organs become outlined with nerves and my head becomes cloudy and my thoughts become poisonous.  Easier to just find what works and stick with it, anyway.  Fewer choices = simpler decisions.

 

I can feel my face now, a distinct feeling especially in my nose.  I’m now constantly aware of the bridge of my nose.  It doesn’t help that along with this I’ve also become aware that I have a severely deviated septum, to the point that I cannot breathe normally out of my left nostril unless I literally hold it open.  I consulted with an ENT about this and they said that “if it’s liveable” I shouldn’t get surgery because “I have thin skin” so any displaced cartilage or internal scarring might show and I would then have an “aesthetic problem “.  I guess beauty really is more important than breathing, even for doctors.  I neglected to inform him about only recently becoming aware of my face.  He told me to seek out a second opinion if I want because “everyone has their own way of doing things”.  Another lovely reminder that doctors are flawed and quirky human beings.

 

I also notice that I tend to sleep inevitably mostly on my left side because of the deviation, and I have been doing that my whole life, without noticing.  Now I feel a crackly pain in my left hip, and my left shoulder is slightly higher than my right… my entire body compensated for the position.  I’m now doing my best to correct that.  It just goes to show how important it is to be neurologically aware of one’s entire body.

 

It’s funny, I remember now how it was when I first started Fluvoxamine at 14. It felt like I was floating above my body, barely able to feel it but still able to control it.  On top of that I was filled with burning white-hot energy that I could not grasp or control.  I ended up releasing it as best I could by running around in circles for hours in my neighborhood, barefoot (because why take the time to put on shoes if you already can’t feel your feet).  In a way, those first doses made me ecstatic.  I was started on a half then a whole 50 mg tablet per day.  I also did handstands repetitively in my house.  I have no idea how my parents passed this off as normal behavior, but I suppose it was preferable to the overt withdrawal that preceded it from being cold turkeyed off 2 drugs in the first 2 years of middle school.  As the dose was raised though, I became somewhat less active and more depressed.  And/or my body acclimated to the drug.

I’ve noticed that eating meat of any kind is the absolute worst thing for inflammation/histamine intolerance.  I’ve been trying to seek out anti-inflammatory foods since Fluvoxamine has powerful artificial anti-inflammatory properties as demonstrated by its experimentation as an acute Covid treatment… or whatever.

[Mdawg]

Does anyone have any video/ online game recommendations? The last time I played a video game was before I went on Fluvoxamine, besides Design Home which is a phone game that is very simple.  My brain loved video games as a kid/tween.  My brain needs stimulation now, so just wondering. I used to love the Sims, now with DP/DR I look at people out in public and it reminds me of the sims 😂

[Ariel]

Hi @Mdawg

My heart goes out to you for what you're going through. 

Sending you a big hug <3

 

8 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I’m not sure exactly what it’s called but I’d describe it as a distinct twingeing, tickling, burning in the peripheral inside of my wrist to fingers, same in my foot, sometimes face, neck/shoulder and scalp, sometimes arm,

8 hours ago, Mdawg said:

Also noticed muscle weakness especially in my right hand; sometimes I am holding something and my hand just relaxes and I drop the thing.

8 hours ago, Mdawg said:

In terms of mental symptoms I’ve become a lot more sensitive: I cry easily, I actually possess natural easy EMPATHY and don’t have to grit my teeth and strain to imagine it, and I feel offended and panicked by the slightest negative-skewing body language, facial expression or remark.

 

I can relate to all of these, have experienced similar. 

It gets better <3

 

8 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I also notice that I tend to sleep inevitably mostly on my left side because of the deviation, and I have been doing that my whole life, without noticing.  Now I feel a crackly pain in my left hip, and my left shoulder is slightly higher than my right… my entire body compensated for the position.  I’m now doing my best to correct that.  It just goes to show how important it is to be neurologically aware of one’s entire body.

 

The first couple of years I developed a preoccupation with asymmetry I felt in my body. I think because I'd become so hypersensitive, every little difference between right and left sides felt like a glaring anomaly. I was learning how to be in my body and feeling so many novel, unusual sensations. In hindsight there was an element of neuro-anxiety involved as I would sometimes fixate. 

 

If I could speak to my past self I'd advise them not to worry about it. The body is largely self-correcting. Also the sensations we feel in our bodies during WD are probably far more indicative of hypersensitivity and nerve regeneration/reconnection than they are of any actual problem (barring extremes that require medical attention). Acknowledge - Accept - Float (AAF) works well for the disconcerting sensory stuff, I've found. Also, cold water (bathing, plunges, showers, face in bowl of ice-water). In my experience, cold water also helps with body temperature regulation. 

 

One more thing I learned in the early years. When it comes to exercise and working out, all varieties incl. yoga, the post-exertion rest phase is crucial. Savasana is vital to healing and neurological learning. Duration at least ⅓ of the total active exertion time (preferably longer), e.g. if one has worked out for 1 hour, savasana for minimum 20 minutes. Doesn't have to be complete immobile stillness. Make yourself comfortable with props, change positions along the way as needed. Just try to practice implementing that savasana-style interval of total rest and non-activity at the end of any bout of effort (btw this also goes for a taxing trip to the supermarket, or any sort of activity that feels like effort, exertion, stress).

 

8 hours ago, Mdawg said:

Also I’ve been keeping a mental food journal and omitting anything that increases my suffering.  I absolutely cannot stray from my new aforementioned diet or else my body becomes red and inflamed, my stomach and intestines hurt, my muscles cramp, my bones ache, my breathing becomes ragged, my internal organs become outlined with nerves and my head becomes cloudy and my thoughts become poisonous.  Easier to just find what works and stick with it, anyway.  Fewer choices = simpler decisions.

 

I hear you on this, too. 

What I eat and how my gut reacts can have a definitive impact on whether or not my sleep is decent vs. sending me into a wave. 

 

Thank you for sharing your notes, M. It's very helpful to read and reflect. 

Peace and healing vibes <3

 

[Mdawg]

8 hours ago, Ariel said:

Hi @Mdawg

My heart goes out to you for what you're going through. 

Sending you a big hug ❤️

 

 

I can relate to all of these, have experienced similar. 

It gets better ❤️

 

 

The first couple of years I developed a preoccupation with asymmetry I felt in my body. I think because I'd become so hypersensitive, every little difference between right and left sides felt like a glaring anomaly. I was learning how to be in my body and feeling so many novel, unusual sensations. In hindsight there was an element of neuro-anxiety involved as I would sometimes fixate. 

 

If I could speak to my past self I'd advise them not to worry about it. The body is largely self-correcting. Also the sensations we feel in our bodies during WD are probably far more indicative of hypersensitivity and nerve regeneration/reconnection than they are of any actual problem (barring extremes that require medical attention). Acknowledge - Accept - Float (AAF) works well for the disconcerting sensory stuff, I've found. Also, cold water (bathing, plunges, showers, face in bowl of ice-water). In my experience, cold water also helps with body temperature regulation. 

 

One more thing I learned in the early years. When it comes to exercise and working out, all varieties incl. yoga, the post-exertion rest phase is crucial. Savasana is vital to healing and neurological learning. Duration at least ⅓ of the total active exertion time (preferably longer), e.g. if one has worked out for 1 hour, savasana for minimum 20 minutes. Doesn't have to be complete immobile stillness. Make yourself comfortable with props, change positions along the way as needed. Just try to practice implementing that savasana-style interval of total rest and non-activity at the end of any bout of effort (btw this also goes for a taxing trip to the supermarket, or any sort of activity that feels like effort, exertion, stress).

 

 

I hear you on this, too. 

What I eat and how my gut reacts can have a definitive impact on whether or not my sleep is decent vs. sending me into a wave. 

 

Thank you for sharing your notes, M. It's very helpful to read and reflect. 

Peace and healing vibes ❤️

 

Thank you for your tips, I feel very relieved 🌳💜

[DazzlingCold]

16 hours ago, Mdawg said:

Just for my records a symptom update:

 

I finished fast tapering off THC over 2 months ago, probably 3 months ago. I do micro doses of dry herb vape CBD once a week max, avoiding ingestion to spare my liver from extra work.

 

Ive been on only 25 mg Fluvoxamine divided in 2 doses taken morning and night, for a while, since I got off Wellbutrin at the end of January.  I think the pain-killing properties of THC may have been covering up some symptoms, and/or it’s windows and waves coming and going.  For a while I felt mentally quite unstable and anxious, which prompted me to stop THC altogether, since my rib had healed and I didn’t need the strong pain relief anymore.  After that I gradually stabilized more as the THC left my system.  During this time I also made several aforementioned dietary changes which made just as much difference as a drug change.  Then about a month ago I was exposed to Covid and had to quarantine.  Thankfully I did not get it, but the quarantine (unable to swim at the pool or use the gym) combined with Covid anxiety totally destabilized me again.  Unfortunately I also happened to have a psychiatrist appointment during that quarantine, and I was too mentally weak to fend off his efforts to convince me that withdrawal didn’t exist and this was just me and I am ***** up (even though he has for the most part only known me through 15 minute visits every 5 months for the past 6 years aka only while on drugs).  Suffering as I was without my exercise, I convinced myself that I needed an updose.  I told my psychiatrist that I wanted extended release from a compounding pharmacy that was no more than 28 mg, since I am currently on a total of 25, believing that it would actually be an appropriately slow release.  I expected him to aim in the middle and suggest 26 or 27 but of course he went straight for the 28 and sent it right to the pharmacy.  Already afraid of him from previous gaslighting and in a weakened state, I did not argue and just hoped for the best.  It ended up costing $90 for 30 days of 28 mg extended release capsules, I took just 1, and it completely smacked me in the face.  I was floated away completely on a horrific wave of Fluvoxamine.  It was enlightening because it showed me just how ******* sedated out of my body I have been for 14 years, starting when I was only 14. Fluvoxamine is stronger than an opioid.  I cried for like 12 hours because I was unable to reach myself.  It felt like I had been finally standing on solid ground and was suddenly catapulted back into deep black water where I could not see the bottom and was barely keeping my head above the surface.

I was able to temporarily calm down that night by watching calming underwater videos on YouTube, and then the following day I cried more about being unable to reach myself, went for a nature walk with my dad, and felt like a completely different person unable to communicate with him.  I looked at the houses passing by outside the car as we were driving, and I felt like I was underwater with the dim light and sense of slow motion.  Like I was stuck inside jello, while having to move through life just like everyone else.  That evening I went to the pool, and I noticed that when I put my Freediving noseclip lanyard around my neck and let it go, as the large plastic clip bounced against my upper abdomen, it felt not there. I could not feel my abdomen.  I was so used to finally being able to feel my whole body, and suddenly it was numb again.  Not numb in the warm and fuzzy way induced by marijuana or opioids; numb in the way of when you’re sitting in a certain position too long and then there is suddenly no blood flowing to your leg.  The scariest type of numb.  I had to work twice as hard to swim way slower than I normally could.  I was sedated.

 

That was about a month ago and I went right back to what I had been doing.  Things were somewhat unstable for a week afterwards, then they evened out.

 

However, I’ve noticed some fairly new symptoms that I have sort of had before but they have become more pronounced.  I’m not sure exactly what it’s called but I’d describe it as a distinct twingeing, tickling, burning in the peripheral inside of my wrist to fingers, same in my foot, sometimes face, neck/shoulder and scalp, sometimes arm, mostly on the right side but sometimes on the left also.  I can generally feel more with the right side of my body; it feels like the right side of my body is more innervated I guess because I’m right-handed.  Accompanied by severe restlessness, restless legs.  It seems to at least temporarily improve when I use those parts of my body to exercise.  

Also noticed muscle weakness especially in my right hand; sometimes I am holding something and my hand just relaxes and I drop the thing.  Like my right hand is just tired of this ****.  It needs a break.

Sometimes all of my muscles twinge especially in my arms, they feel weak and cramping like they also don’t want to do anything.  Oh and HEAT INTOLERANCE.  That’s been the ever-present one throughout all my tapering.
 

In terms of mental symptoms I’ve become a lot more sensitive: I cry easily, I actually possess natural easy EMPATHY and don’t have to grit my teeth and strain to imagine it, and I feel offended and panicked by the slightest negative-skewing body language, facial expression or remark. I’m not as concerned about the mental symptoms because I now remember them from before when I was cold turkeyed off Prozac and then Zoloft a year apart… and of course at the time I was blamed for the ensuing destruction.  I now laugh in the face of these mental symptoms, with sarcastic respect for them, as they are now welcome after so many years of nothingness.  I’m sure learning to deal with these growing emotions are what Chessiecat was referring to about learning “basic life skills “ since I didn’t get a chance to grow up along with my own brain.  I’ve been appropriately grieving and feeling the pain and the net result has felt altogether quite soothing.

 

Also I’ve been keeping a mental food journal and omitting anything that increases my suffering.  I absolutely cannot stray from my new aforementioned diet or else my body becomes red and inflamed, my stomach and intestines hurt, my muscles cramp, my bones ache, my breathing becomes ragged, my internal organs become outlined with nerves and my head becomes cloudy and my thoughts become poisonous.  Easier to just find what works and stick with it, anyway.  Fewer choices = simpler decisions.

 

I can feel my face now, a distinct feeling especially in my nose.  I’m now constantly aware of the bridge of my nose.  It doesn’t help that along with this I’ve also become aware that I have a severely deviated septum, to the point that I cannot breathe normally out of my left nostril unless I literally hold it open.  I consulted with an ENT about this and they said that “if it’s liveable” I shouldn’t get surgery because “I have thin skin” so any displaced cartilage or internal scarring might show and I would then have an “aesthetic problem “.  I guess beauty really is more important than breathing, even for doctors.  I neglected to inform him about only recently becoming aware of my face.  He told me to seek out a second opinion if I want because “everyone has their own way of doing things”.  Another lovely reminder that doctors are flawed and quirky human beings.

 

I also notice that I tend to sleep inevitably mostly on my left side because of the deviation, and I have been doing that my whole life, without noticing.  Now I feel a crackly pain in my left hip, and my left shoulder is slightly higher than my right… my entire body compensated for the position.  I’m now doing my best to correct that.  It just goes to show how important it is to be neurologically aware of one’s entire body.

 

It’s funny, I remember now how it was when I first started Fluvoxamine at 14. It felt like I was floating above my body, barely able to feel it but still able to control it.  On top of that I was filled with burning white-hot energy that I could not grasp or control.  I ended up releasing it as best I could by running around in circles for hours in my neighborhood, barefoot (because why take the time to put on shoes if you already can’t feel your feet).  In a way, those first doses made me ecstatic.  I was started on a half then a whole 50 mg tablet per day.  I also did handstands repetitively in my house.  I have no idea how my parents passed this off as normal behavior, but I suppose it was preferable to the overt withdrawal that preceded it from being cold turkeyed off 2 drugs in the first 2 years of middle school.  As the dose was raised though, I became somewhat less active and more depressed.  And/or my body acclimated to the drug.

I’ve noticed that eating meat of any kind is the absolute worst thing for inflammation/histamine intolerance.  I’ve been trying to seek out anti-inflammatory foods since Fluvoxamine has powerful artificial anti-inflammatory properties as demonstrated by its experimentation as an acute Covid treatment… or whatever.

I feel you so much… The changes in meds (its ok, you did what you felt best in the state you were), the high sensitivity of others actions and taking things personal, changes in diet, a

im awakenings, and trying to adjust to it all. Oh, and the crying! The ruminations. The lack of excercise! In my case it has been optional but I just feel like I can’t with life right now. Even hygiene has gone down. (And im glad I can share this with someone lol)

i hope it gets better soon. Be kind to yourself. (I know I need to).

i once heard that if we can’t be kind to x experience, to try and be kind to the part of us that is unable to be kind to the experience. Love the self compassion in that statement.

Gentle, gentle, gentle

hugs and love

[Mdawg]

5 minutes ago, DazzlingCold said:

I feel you so much… The changes in meds (its ok, you did what you felt best in the state you were), the high sensitivity of others actions and taking things personal, changes in diet, a

im awakenings, and trying to adjust to it all. Oh, and the crying! The ruminations. The lack of excercise! In my case it has been optional but I just feel like I can’t with life right now. Even hygiene has gone down. (And im glad I can share this with someone lol)

i hope it gets better soon. Be kind to yourself. (I know I need to).

i once heard that if we can’t be kind to x experience, to try and be kind to the part of us that is unable to be kind to the experience. Love the self compassion in that statement.

Gentle, gentle, gentle

hugs and love

Thank you 🙏 oh hygiene has definitely gone down for me 😂 I have totally given up on shaving, somehow I feel better knowing my legs have fur on them being hypersensitive and all 

[Mdawg]

Just now, Mdawg said:

Thank you 🙏 oh hygiene has definitely gone down for me 😂 I have totally given up on shaving, somehow I feel better knowing my legs have fur on them being hypersensitive and all 

I also think oversharing might be a withdrawal symptom… I have overshared a lot in the past couple of years 😂 or maybe that’s just me… 🤷‍♀️

[Ariel]

4 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I also think oversharing might be a withdrawal symptom… I have overshared a lot in the past couple of years 😂 or maybe that’s just me… 🤷‍♀️

 

same here on the oversharing. I think WD f*cked with my filter, it was hard to switch off once I switched on, so if I started talking it was hard to stop, if i wasn't talking it was hard to start. in general hard to change modes, subtle nuances of adaptation and cognitive flexibility definitely impaired. brittleness. I'm getting an image of a car poorly, haltingly driven by someone (like me) who doesn't know how to drive stick and they're not changing gears properly, so it's very jerky. (how's that for a metaphor from one non-driver's-license-haver to another?!) 

[Mdawg]

1 hour ago, Ariel said:

 

same here on the oversharing. I think WD f*cked with my filter, it was hard to switch off once I switched on, so if I started talking it was hard to stop, if i wasn't talking it was hard to start. in general hard to change modes, subtle nuances of adaptation and cognitive flexibility definitely impaired. brittleness. I'm getting an image of a car poorly, haltingly driven by someone (like me) who doesn't know how to drive stick and they're not changing gears properly, so it's very jerky. (how's that for a metaphor from one non-driver's-license-haver to another?!) 

A perfect metaphor!! 😂 yeah withdrawal seems to jumble up my thoughts in a big soup meant for sharing 

[DazzlingCold]

On 6/30/2022 at 10:11 AM, Mdawg said:

Thank you 🙏 oh hygiene has definitely gone down for me 😂 I have totally given up on shaving, somehow I feel better knowing my legs have fur on them being hypersensitive and all 

Lol oh god… this and reading the oversharing part you and @Ariel wrote has me laughing hard. It made my day.
sometimes I, personally, think certain things aren’t oversharing but their opposite has been made taboo when, in reality it’s just human. And im, secretly, working im removing the taboo by sharing very human experiences lol. Sometimes, i do need to be careful about whom I share things with or what I share…. Specially when it comes to protecting myself/boundaries in different scenarios. I used to overshare, leaving myself exposed to some people that didn’t deserve to know my inner truths. I still do sometimes but way less.

oh man… this laugh has left me feeling refreshed

[DazzlingCold]

On 6/30/2022 at 10:11 AM, Mdawg said:

Thank you 🙏 oh hygiene has definitely gone down for me 😂 I have totally given up on shaving, somehow I feel better knowing my legs have fur on them being hypersensitive and all 

😂 love it

[Mirtazapine20mg]

Hi Maddie, I'm Soren. Saw your name somewhere in your posts, and I like names, especially Maddie. I have read some of your posts from time to time and I really like your take on being drugged/withdrawal/life and stuff.  Then I saw you liked some of my posts and then I got all grateful and a little happy.

 

I often get the feeling, that a lot of the members on SA have huge engines behind the drugs, and I can't wait to se them go (here goes my hero) when they are drug free. I get that feeling with you. So you just taper slowly, get well and then conserve the hell out of nature, set a new deep diving record and take down Big Pharmas disgusting commercialization of human suffering. I will be right behind you. Here on SA I will just joy-read your posts from time to time and send you a like now and then. 

 

Soren

 

Btw I really like the "over-sharing" concept. I laughed hard. 

[Mdawg]

7 hours ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

Hi Maddie, I'm Soren. Saw your name somewhere in your posts, and I like names, especially Maddie. I have read some of your posts from time to time and I really like your take on being drugged/withdrawal/life and stuff.  Then I saw you liked some of my posts and then I got all grateful and a little happy.

 

I often get the feeling, that a lot of the members on SA have huge engines behind the drugs, and I can't wait to se them go (here goes my hero) when they are drug free. I get that feeling with you. So you just taper slowly, get well and then conserve the hell out of nature, set a new deep diving record and take down Big Pharmas disgusting commercialization of human suffering. I will be right behind you. Here on SA I will just joy-read your posts from time to time and send you a like now and then. 

 

Soren

 

Btw I really like the "over-sharing" concept. I laughed hard. 

Thank you very much for your support! Right back atcha.  I hope that old boat is coming along well.  I pictured salty air and seagulls when reading your posts⛵️⚓️🌊.  Also I have a black cat named Spooky 🐈‍⬛

[Mdawg]

There’s this game called Geoguessr that is an app it’s very good withdrawal escapism!

[Mdawg]

I have this specific disease where I get suddenly overcome with the overwhelming urge to move to an off-grid permaculture farm in Hawaii and work in a dive shop

[Mdawg]

A best friend of a best friend passed away violently a few weeks ago and then my grandma died peacefully last week.  I am being reminded of how time is going by and life is what happens during that time 

[Mdawg]

So my nighttime 12.5 just kicked in and the urge to travel is fading… it’s still there but in a more rational, after-I-get-a-career-up-and-running-and-a-travel-buddy kind of way whereas an hour ago it was more along the lines of get-me-out-of-here-and-to-the-other-side-of-the-world-immediately-I-will-take-out-a-loan-if-I-have-to-alone.  I guess I have discovered a new withdrawal symptom ¿?

[Ariel]

@Mdawg

I'm sorry for your loss <3

 

7 hours ago, Mdawg said:

I have this specific disease where I get suddenly overcome with the overwhelming urge to move to an off-grid permaculture farm in Hawaii

Lol, been there done that! 

 

4 hours ago, Mdawg said:

So my nighttime 12.5 just kicked in and the urge to travel is fading… it’s still there but in a more rational, after-I-get-a-career-up-and-running-and-a-travel-buddy kind of way whereas an hour ago it was more along the lines of get-me-out-of-here-and-to-the-other-side-of-the-world-immediately-I-will-take-out-a-loan-if-I-have-to-alone.  I guess I have discovered a new withdrawal symptom ¿?

 

For me in WD the urge to travel or to move house/country and completely change my life are very often a thought manifestation of fight-or-flight mode -- the flight part (though arguably also the fight part in a more figurative, round-about kind of way?). The thoughts we have are generated by our physiology (and vice versa), and for me a big part of WD is a) feeling trapped and stuck; b) perceiving that trapped/stuck-ness as a threat; c) various bodily, mental, emotional reactions to a) and b). 

Including unknown quantities of time researching and sometimes pursuing possibilities of travel, moving house, donating earthly possessions, joining a monastic order of some kind, etc. Any number of iterations of getting out of Dodge. 

The tip-off is that panicky, desperate, churning energy behind the thoughts, the now-or-never bit, the uneasiness and urgency. That's what differentiates WD-fueled escape ideation from relaxed let's-live-life-to-the-fullest daydreaming.

 

On a technical note, M., I'm curious about your account of when the "nighttime 12.5 just kicked in". I see from your drug signature that you're splitting your dose and take it twice a day. Do you usually experience such a big difference btwn how you feel prior to a dose kicking in and after? Does this feel destabilizing to you to experience the change between the two? Are you experiencing interdose WD symptoms or other effects of interdose gap?

I don't know anything about this stuff, not a mod. Just wondering aloud whether this shift from pre-dose state to post-dose state is uncomfortable for you, do you experience these transitions and spikes every day? And if so, wondering whether there might be a way to stagger your doses in a way that evens things out a bit better to support more smoothness during the day. 

Remember if there's ever anything you'd like to inquire into or potentially adjust you can ask a mod for input. 

Again, I don't know about this stuff, but the body is always changing, especially while healing, and it might make sense to touch base once in a while to see if any tweaks are possible to make you more comfortable, or less uncomfortable (harm reduction). If you want. I imagine that it's not impossible that something that worked well for a while may change after some time and benefit from re-evaluation. 

Just a thought. 

 

Sending you a hug <3

 

[Mdawg]

Thanks for your idea Ariel, yeah I’ve been splitting the dose and taking it at the same times each day for a while now, and yes I can always feel exactly when it comes on and when it starts to wear off and when I’m in interdose WD, specific times each day.  Also the pills are not scored for splitting so it’s inevitably uneven each time.  The only alternative to this I can think of is paying for compounded extended release, which I would have to do anyway once I start to taper so I’m holding off on that.  

[Mdawg]

For the mods, the symptoms I experience when the Fluvoxamine kicks in are calmness, confidence, and pain relief, when it wears off I start feeling nervous, anxious, insecure, dread, despair, extreme regret and rumination, peripheral neuropathy and musculoskeletal pain and weakness slowly escalating from the time the first pill starts wearing off to the time the second pill kicks in usually about an hour after I take it.  Right now I have been taking the morning 12.5 at 11am and the evening 12.5 at 9 pm, because during the night I don’t seem to feel the symptoms as much (while sleeping) though at times I can tell when I took a piece that was slightly less because I wake up with racing heartbeat.  If I had taken slightly less in the morning dose then I can tell immediately when it kicks in that it wasn’t quite enough.  Been holding off on getting a milligram scale because money and also my psychologist said that measuring like that would be “too obsessive” lol but maybe I should just do that.