Mirtazapine20mg: I am one of you and thank you

June 17, 2022

On 6/15/2022 at 3:39 AM, Gigi68 said:

I would be standing in my kitchen unloading the dishwasher and absolutely could not decide which item to put away first. It was so weird and frustrating to waste time on something so stupid while standing there holding a spatula and a coffee cup. 🙃

@Gigi68

Great image, made me laugh!

Thank you, really enjoying your posts.

June 18, 2022

Something that has always bothered me: That you get prescribtions on the basis of 20 minutes consultations. It has never made sense to me, and yet I have taken the prescribed drugs. How can anyone with any precision describe who they are or what is going on inside of them in 20 minutes? Hell, how can anybody do that in therapy? Even 30 therapy sessions of 40 minutes duration seems not adequate to answer such fundamental questions. To really know a friend or a girlfriend or a coworker takes years. Anybody else, who get the same feeling of absurdity?

June 19, 2022

I will just keep posting. Today I feel something good: The feeling that effort matters: There is still a little fight in me. I haven't felt that for the longest time. I know it will probably disappear in a matter of hours but that is not important. It is much more important that I recognize it as an acquaintance from the pre-mirt-years.

On the back of that I feel real anger: I think the primary marketing-trick behind mirtazapine is its sleep inducing effect: Because Mirtazapine induces sleep reliable, and sleep disturbances is big problem in depression and anxiety-disorders, mirtazapine is viewed as a good antidepressant. In reality it works like a statin: It removes a symptom, nothing more. And of course gives you a wealth of new symptoms (sluggishness and weight gain as the most prominent). I'm only free styling here: Any mirtazapine-bodies have any thoughts on this?

June 19, 2022

In the prior post I was going to say something about H1-receptor blockage. How I love to be an amateur-neurobiologist. I really have to keep this fetich in check.

June 19, 2022

19 hours ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

Something that has always bothered me: That you get prescribtions on the basis of 20 minutes consultations. It has never made sense to me, and yet I have taken the prescribed drugs. How can anyone with any precision describe who they are or what is going on inside of them in 20 minutes? Hell, how can anybody do that in therapy? Even 30 therapy sessions of 40 minutes duration seems not adequate to answer such fundamental questions. To really know a friend or a girlfriend or a coworker takes years. Anybody else, who get the same feeling of absurdity?

The idea that time=money is one of the most destructive, detrimental, dehumanizing, disgusting forces in modern society. It has nothing to do with real life, (the) natural order, and what actually matters. It is one of the most fundamentally abject, offensive constructs I've ever come across and I hate it so much.

Most of the people I know (or once knew) have consciously or subconsciously internalized (bought into) time=money as a guiding principle for how they live their lives. It never ceases to baffle me. As a result, our relationships, ecosystems, health, quality of life (etc.) suffer profoundly, often to the point of endangerment and extinction.

In other words, I agree with you, it's utterly ridiculous.

Also -- where are you getting these 20-minute consultations? My GP does 7.5-10 minutes!

June 19, 2022

45 minutes ago, Ariel said:

Most of the people I know (or once knew) have consciously or subconsciously internalized (bought into) time=money as a guiding principle for how they live their lives. It never ceases to baffle me.

Isn't that the biggest sorrow? To see friends just - I don't know - evaporate? To be honest, at the time it felt like biggest betrayal, and I have never found peace with that. I thought we were going to be decent and be friends forever.

45 minutes ago, Ariel said:

My GP does 7.5-10 minutes!

My bad - I stand corrected.

June 19, 2022

45 minutes ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

Isn't that the biggest sorrow? To see friends just - I don't know - evaporate? To be honest, at the time it felt like biggest betrayal, and I have never found peace with that. I thought we were going to be decent together and be friends forever.

I hear you. I'm very sorry you've had this experience. It can be so heartbreaking, and sometimes completely unexpected and shocking. I still have WD nightmares about some of the worse friendship break-ups (WD can't stand rejection or relationship/social pain) and will wake up in a cortisol spike feeling inconsolable.

I invested so much energy in my friendships and relationships and used to feel deep trust and connection. In many cases these people have -- your word is a good one -- evaporated; in a few cases they have exited more spectacularly, leaving a parting gift of a speech about what's wrong with me, how I've f*cked up my life, that sort of thing. It has made me doubt what I thought was real between us. On bad days their character judgments and actions race around my mind and hurt with WD intensity.

Some of the time, on better days, I think it's just as well they're gone. One way to look at it is as a cleansing. When I come out on the other side of this I want quality people, quality relationships.

Looking back I don't know anymore whether the friendships I poured my heart into were ever truly healthy or reciprocated, at least not in the way I believed. I have tried to examine the past and it isn't always pretty. It seems I am slow to learn about how people use each other or instrumentalize social connections in a strategic way to network and "get ahead". So much of what I thought was honest intimacy was maybe a game or variations on a social agenda that never occurred to me. At the same time, I took on a certain role, consciously and subconsciously, and I played my part in co-creating these dynamics. I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe it's ultimately a good thing that the truth finally came out. The most honest thing these people ever did in our friendship was disappear. And as much as it may hurt, in the long run I am grateful for their honesty.

I loved them, and it's never going to feel good to (perceive to) be mistreated, disrespected, abandoned, betrayed, rejected, shunned, misunderstood, judged, dismissed, disbelieved, patronized, laughed at by those we love and trust and rely on. We are social creatures and social difficulty causes us great, measurable (scientifically studied and proven! haha) pain. WD-brain keeps the pain burning longer than it otherwise would, I think, but even without WD it's a formative, potentially traumatic experience to feel the social fabric of one's life disintegrate right when you need it most.

What I wish for us, dear S., is that this hell we're living through be a kind of purge by fire. I hope it clears the way for new, better, stronger, more honest, more kind and intimate and vulnerable and robust and deep connections to take root, and grow and blossom into relationships worthy of our fortified, recovered selves. I trust that as we heal and reconnect with ourselves we will become increasingly available to people worthy of us; we will find and cultivate true love in all areas of our lives, starting within ourselves.

Since I've already written you this long message I'll say thank you so much for your beautiful words of support in my thread. I feel your heart and it helps so much.

June 21, 2022

On 6/19/2022 at 6:12 PM, Ariel said:

I still have WD nightmares about some of the worse friendship break-ups (WD can't stand rejection or relationship/social pain) and will wake up in a cortisol spike feeling inconsolable.

Hi A, thank you for your beautiful post. Just want to say they are so appreciated. These WD-nightmares you have, I think it is sort of the same I have when I wake up. I am really thinking of you because rejection-themed nightmares are the worst hell and so lonely. The day will come when you wake up to the sizzling sound of someone wonderful making you a proper breakfast and you feel real hunger - both for breakfast and for life. I will write you soon, but just now Mirtazapine-demons are hunting me, and I am busy finding somewhere safe to hide.

June 21, 2022

On 6/19/2022 at 5:12 PM, Ariel said:

Looking back I don't know anymore whether the friendships I poured my heart into were ever truly healthy or reciprocated, at least not in the way I believed. I have tried to examine the past and it isn't always pretty. It seems I am slow to learn about how people use each other or instrumentalize social connections in a strategic way to network and "get ahead". So much of what I thought was honest intimacy was maybe a game or variations on a social agenda that never occurred to me. At the same time, I took on a certain role, consciously and subconsciously, and I played my part in co-creating these dynamics. I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe it's ultimately a good thing that the truth finally came out. The most honest thing these people ever did in our friendship was disappear. And as much as it may hurt, in the long run I am grateful for their honesty.

I loved them, and it's never going to feel good to (perceive to) be mistreated, disrespected, abandoned, betrayed, rejected, shunned, misunderstood, judged, dismissed, disbelieved, patronized, laughed at by those we love and trust and rely on. We are social creatures and social difficulty causes us great, measurable (scientifically studied and proven! haha) pain. WD-brain keeps the pain burning longer than it otherwise would, I think, but even without WD it's a formative, potentially traumatic experience to feel the social fabric of one's life disintegrate right when you need it most.

@Ariel @Mirtazapine20mg

I am sorry to butt in on this conversation but if I could share Ariel's post all over SA and other forums I would. I only reproduced half of it here. As it is I think I will just copy and paste it and print it off and read it again. Ariel - you have to get a blog or something and start to write professionally - you express things so well. I have had that experience many many times over.

What can I say for the 'other side' , i.e. the people who did the abandonment and mistreatment and disrespect? Well all I can say and I've learnt a small bit over the last while is that most people have very limited reserves of compassion and patience and I think that they have even less now in the time poor and money oriented world we live in that you refer to.

I have added by way of partial response a particularly good conversation between Nicole Lamberson of the Medicating Normal Outreach Team and Chris Paige a therapist who went through protracted withdrawal. I think it is worth a look. Chris Paige had a very similar experience - i.e. abandonment by basically everyone that should have cared while he went through withdrawal. I recall when looking at it Nicole asked him I think about the abandonment and he said with a great deal of humour that when someone would ask him how he was he would say 'I want to kill myself' in an hysterical way and basically that sort of behaviour is 'toxic' after a while to other people. I have had a lot of time to think about this in terms of people who have distanced themselves from me particularly in the last year or so - the truth unfortunately is there in the old adage - 'smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone'. Mostly I do think that is the case. People by and large do not want to be around needy and distressed people long term. Initially perhaps for the first few months or so they might be supportive - after that period - most if not all people will fall away.

There are people here on SA who have been lucky and had particularly spouses who cared and are supportive but I have read very few stories of people who had sympathetic or supportive families of origin.

I recently finished Matt Samett's book 'Death Grip'. He was a professional writer and climber who went through protracted withdrawal who had a similar experience with some friends and family but was lucky enough to have enough people in his corner to help him get through. At the end of the book though he writes that when he emerged from the experience he had seen (I am paraphrasing) the limits of people he thought were family and friends and had taken measures to set boundaries or have a very restricted relationship with those people. Matt is also in a conversation with Nicole and Laura Delano in Inner Compass Conversations where they discuss something similar when sharing their stories publicly I have copied and pasted both.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/innercompassconversations/posts/937237953615993

https://www.facebook.com/medicatingnormalfilm/videos/724439875143165

Bottom line is really - you are pretty much on one's own with this unless you are very lucky. I can remember the time I got out of an in patient stay in a psychiatric hospital (hell in every sense of the word) and I was pretty much isolated (back in the 1990's) - family just regarded me as a problem and annoyance - 'toxic' in other words; all friends bar one (who was using me as a networking tool because my father had position) had fallen away. I was gotten a job in the warehouse of a clothes shop. I spent all day climbing ladders and rushing clothes up and down a dumb waiter to the main shop floor. The only people that were kind to me during that time were some of the other retail staff who could see how shook I was. I can still remember one of them bought me a bar of chocolate one day. It was one of the only acts of kindness I can remember during those years. Every night when I got home from work I used to read 'Anton Gill's 'Conversations with Concentration Camp Survivor's'. I read it every single night for six months. It's a tough read but I thought to myself if they can go through that hell and survive, then I can get through this. That book literally saved my life for the next few years. I got through them on my own with the support of a dog largely.

But yes it is a sadness to realise the limitations of human compassion. What I work on now is not forgiveness but 'understanding' other people's limitations. And I have to be honest here - my own limitations. If you present to others as angry, or withdrawn or odd and you are considered an embarrassment that can create problems. What I have learnt to do now is just go no contact with some really bad people and limit my contact with others. I look to heroines like Rosa Parkes - she was quiet and steadfast. She did not lose her temper - she just refused to give up her seat. I think if one can be calm and cool with other hostile people one has won half the battle. It is better ultimately to be on one's own than to try and keep relationships with those who are disrespectful and unkind.

Sorry for crashing in on this conversation but I think it's very important.

Oaktree

June 21, 2022

Hi @Oaktree1 and @Ariel. I am so grateful for both your posts. When so deep and wonderful people write in my introduction I actually get a little starstruck, isn't that silly? I tried to answer Ariel more substantially yesterday, but it didn't come out right (it will) and today I am really hard hit (no sleep, and the hung over Mirtazapine-feeling). You are so right @Oaktree1: We are at the crux of the matter. I immediately thought of Mina Tannenbaum when I read Ariel. And now, when I read you I think about the movie again. Have any of you seen it? It is almost 30 years since I saw it but I still can't shake that movie, and I don't dare to see it again. @Oaktree1: You just strike a cord with me: I have also worked those sh*tty jobs and the loneliness is just brutal. You try to establish some sort of connection at those workplaces (its the only thing you have) but it pretty much falls flat and the failure just underscores the loneliness. I have always been tumbling in those periods. I remember the rainy darkness I tried to hide, especially on the bus journeys to and from work. I will try to find another source than FB. I would very much like to see videos you are suggesting.

June 21, 2022

@Mirtazapine20mg

34 minutes ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

I immediately thought of Mina Tannenbaum

What a gift to be reminded of this film! I haven't thought of it in decades. Incredible, thank you so much for this <3

I saw it at the cinema during a time of my life when I practically lived at the cinema... It was one of the only places I could bear to be alive, just barely. My go-to escape, I'd spend entire days just sneaking into one movie theater after another. Although with "Mina Tannenbaum" I'm pretty sure I saw it at a lovely independent cinema and bought a ticket (the big corporate multiplexes were easier to cheat without guilt).

I remember loving this film and feeling it very deeply, like it was speaking to me personally. I have only a vague recollection of it today but can recall enough to make out why you might think of it in this context.

Wow, what a sweet and unexpected souvenir. Thank you!

By the way when I read this

5 hours ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

The day will come when you wake up to the sizzling sound of someone wonderful making you a proper breakfast

it sent my thoughts in a really funny direction... immediately thinking about, Yeah but will it be something I can eat with my weird WD dietary needs? And what about my intermittent fasting for neurogenesis? Hahaha! And then my thoughts just kept going, until I was laughing to myself imagining a WD-safe version of a date, writing a comedy script in my mind for all the bizarre disclaimers and precautions for what a bubble-wrapped WD date would look like. Something as simple as a picnic in the park or going out to a restaurant would have to be modified hilariously given all the potential sensory stressors and CNS triggers... I got quite a good chuckle out of it. Thank you for the original kind thought and the amusement it inspired!

I am sorry you are feeling h(a)unted today. I hope you do find a safe place to hide and wait it out, that can make such a difference, can't it?

@Oaktree1

I send you love

June 21, 2022

@Ariel, I thought about exactly the same about your diet and your breakfast and I laughed. First I tried with a low histamine diet (its mirtazapine thing), then I remembered something about fish broth. Then I laughed, gave up, thought about bacon and pushed the whole thing into the far future (post-WD).

June 21, 2022

@Mirtazapine20mg

Haha!

At one point I developed a sort of WD aspirational/inspirational meme in my mind, I call it the Dream of the Casual Croissant. (Food porn for romantics!) (DRoCC?)

And I now use that phrase (in my inner musings) to signify the longing for any sort of more or less banal everyday pleasure enjoyed unproblematically without the dread of regrettable repercussions.

Btw I had a necessary low-histamine diet phase last year (probably not as bad as what you Mirt-ers deal with, but cumbersome enough), so I hear you on that, too. Among other things, that experience taught me the delightful term gustatory rhinitis.

Someday we will feast without fear of bizarre WD consequences! As you wrote so beautifully: with "real hunger - both for breakfast and for life" -- in good company and community <3

(well to be perfectly honest I don't know whether I'll ever not be a sensitive weirdo compared to so many others out there, I may always need ear plugs at the cinema and dark glasses once in a while, but relative to peak WD, I might just feel invincible, like maybe in my post-WD mind I will develop a comparative delusion that I'm an elite special agent with nerves of steel and imperturbable peristalsis! I will be so full of myself, bloated with egomania instead of gut issues, I will become insufferable to be around in a whole different way! hahaha)

June 21, 2022

4 hours ago, Ariel said:

t one point I developed a sort of WD aspirational/inspirational meme in my mind, I call it the Dream of the Casual Croissant. (Food porn for romantics!) (DRoCC?)

I know gustatory rhinitis!!! And it's cousin snatiation. I'm convinced there is comorbidity between the two. Now I’m franticly trying to come up with at least as funny acronyms (LaFA), but to no avail. I have developed PUD and PhA though (Both TLA. I know you will appreciate the recursiveness). PUD (Phyllo Use Disorder) sets in after the DRoCC-syndrom has resolved, but is often complicated by PhA (Phylloic Anosognosia). When PhA is present the patients diet almost exclusively consists of some sort of laminated dough, but the patient will deny this. Asked what the patient is eating he/she will typical say “I am eating a healthy carrot”, although the patient is clearly eating Kipferl.

June 21, 2022

7 minutes ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

I know gustatory rhinitis!!! And it's cousin snatiation. I'm convinced there is comorbidity between the two. Now I’m franticly trying to come up with at least as funny acronyms (LaFA), but to no avail. I have developed PUD and PhA though (Both TLA. I know you will appreciate the recursiveness). PUD (Phyllo Use Disorder) sets in after the DRoCC-syndrom has resolved, but is often complicated by PhA (Phylloic Anosognosia). When PhA is present the patients diet almost exclusively consists of some sort of laminated dough, but the patient will deny this. Asked what the patient is eating he/she will typical say “I am eating a healthy carrot”, although the patient is clearly eating Kipferl.

Snatiation is exquisite, I didn't know that one! I like the idea that it's cousins with gustatory rhinitis. They live in different parts of the country and get bullied quite a lot in school. Their parents are rather phlegmatic and conflict-averse and don't do a solid job of standing up for them. Ditto the teachers who are in over their heads in the inflammatory classroom environment. The best part of the year is summer vacation when S and GR get to go camping together. In each other's company, and often surrounded by unrelated seasonal hay fever sufferers, they finally get to feel normal for a few weeks.

As for PUD and PhA... let's market a drug for that, we'll make a killing!

June 21, 2022

@Mirtazapine20mg

Thank you for making me laugh, you have certainly made my day better! Hope your day is setting you down in a gentler place than where it picked you up (and shook you?).

@Oaktree1

Thank you for joining in the conversation (although this is not my thread, and since I'm not the host it's probably not my place to thank you, but let's not get too bourgeois about it) and contributing to improving my day.

I believe in connection and community; you are both proof that these are possible.

I am going to bed with a smile on my face, a voice in my mind gleefully whispering snatiation!, and a sensation of warmth in my chest.

So glad you're here and we get to hang out.

Wishing you both sweet dreams, peace, rest, relief, safety, healing, digestive ease.

May the night be kind to you and deliver you unto a gentle morning and a better day <3

A.

June 21, 2022

7 minutes ago, Ariel said:

digestive ease.

See, that is brilliant. Sleep tight Ariel. And sleep tight @Oaktree1. Disclaimer: I have an extremely romanticized picture of where you live @Oaktree1. Green hills, an old distillery and cottages made from the rocks on which Atlantic Ocean once broke. You speak Gaelic when you see fit (which is often).

June 21, 2022

Thanks @Ariel and @Mirtazapine20mg

I confess I never saw Nina Tannenbaum - where I am you rarely get to see foreign films and it came out a long time ago in the 1990's. Ariel _ in my early 20's I spent a lot of time in the cinema too (it was a kind of a haven and I used to go there and eat buttered popcorn) but haven't been now in years.

Mirtazapine20mg - I can almost feel what it was like coming home lonely in those buses in the rain. I was thinking only the other day about where I have to move to and all the bus journeys I used to take and I was always mostly on my own.

As to diet and food and the histamine issues induced by these drugs which in my case where improving (touching wood) as I lowered the dose of Mirt - try 10 days of Covid - my sense of taste has more or less disappeared - it's absolute 'cr**. I hope I get it back.

Mirtazpine20mg - your image of where I live sounds very beautiful and I'll leave you with that image. I do live with a view some beautiful hills and a lot of greenery - the fields were cut to the bone recently where I am and I can walk them - the ground is shorn of hay and scratchy blond bits remain but it's the deep green colour of the trees at this time of year that I really love. There's an elderberry bush at the bottom of the front field which has thick white flowers. I can't get near it though as there are banks of nettles and brambles covering it. I wish I could live here for the rest of my days.

Wishing you both an easy night.

Oaktree1

June 26, 2022

@Mirtazapine20mg

Thinking of you <3

June 28, 2022

I everybody, sorry I have been silent. But you know WD... When I disappear it is not that don't want to hang out you guys. I am just trying to get my head straight. This WD thing is really ******* with me and the despair and self loathing gets to me. One thing I really hate is that WD takes my ability to work in any constructive, systematic way. In that regard I am one big mess. Mirtazapine has always made my brain not suitable for planning anything, but on full dose I didn't care. Now I do. I am not scared of WD symptoms thanks to SA. That's is not completely true. Sometimes I think that maybe the withdrawal symptoms is not mirtazapine related, but 'you-are-slowly-dying-from-something-dangerous-which-also-causes-fatigue'-related. But that anxiety is short-lived.

I am trying so hard to find some sort of day-to-day rhythm, which can bring me through the next three years of withdrawing from Mirtazapine. I don't demand happiness, meaningfulness, painlessness or loads of well socialized friends laughing ecstatically with me, just the ability to work stupidly while I go through this: Sort of like the period in every bad hollywood movie, where the protagonist suffers greatly in some remote mongolian monastery before he can use his childhood-trauma-anger for productive crime-fighting. I am just envisioning someting more mundane for myself, e.g. working in a kitchen appliance web-shop warehouse.

I am still here and I will be through the whole WD-journey. And I am still angry. And I feel stronger than ever that we need to stick together in this fight against medicating bad **** away. Today I don't have the energy for the politness normally required for a public display of rational psych-skepticism, so here goes: It is an ugly travesty and bad **** crazy that anybody ever thought that peoples suffering in modern society primarily are defects residing in the individual and not in society or traumatic events in our collective history. It is western individualism gone berserk. When people feel that something is wrong it doesn't mean something is wrong with them. Politics, art, media, healthcare, science and everybody needs to think again. How I long for politicians, who make military-industrial-complex-speeches. Arrrggghhh.

June 28, 2022

Oh friend.

Sending you a big hug <3

June 29, 2022

I am going to research the hell out of mirtazapine. I am convinced that the key to understanding this drug is sleep. Tonight I only slept 6 hours. Not much, but plenty in withdrawal. I slept healthy though. And I feel withdrawal free this morning. The extremely positive thing is, that this would normally be a time after a cut where I suffer (I have just lived through three hellish days and normally when the hellish days sets in they last around 10 days). There is quite a few studies showning that mirtazapine improves sleep, not just the length of sleep but also the quality (e.g. more and better REM). My subjective feeling is that this a measuring-device-shortcomming: We are not measuring all the things going on in mirtazapine induced sleep correctly (well Einstein, how did you come with that surprising conclusion?). So here we go again: We are taking sleep hygiene to the next level.

June 29, 2022

Hi @Ariel and @Oaktree1, I want to write something about friendship inspired by both your writings above. It is not going to be long, and I would rather write about friendship in many small posts, because the topic of friendship is complicated. First I will write about what I think makes me the not ideal friend. First thing is ADs. ADs have changed my personality and the way I interact with people and therefore also my friendships or lack thereof. Being second or third generation ADs they do that almost unrecognizable over a long period of time. Most of the AD induced personality changes I am not aware of because they are so subtle. I believe there is a part of me that is alien to the human experience, just a tad off, but enough to influence social interactions profoundly. As humans we are communicating on frequencies yet to be discovered. The words said are only a part of the social. It think ADs messes up broad-spectrum face-to-face human communication. I look very much forward to unmedicated, withdrawal free human interaction. On a sidenote: I find it very disturbing that small AD-induced personality changes with big long run social consequences are not discussed in the public or in the scientific litterature. You only read or hear about the big visible changes in personality, e.g. mania, agression, promiscuity, lethargy and so forth. Granted, these small personality changes are hard to verbalize, but it would be foolish not to recognize their existence. Indeed I think the small subtle personality changes are the ones that are responsible for the real damage.

July 2, 2022

In my friends/social life posts I will write some more about how ADs have influenced my social life. I am only documenting here. It feels good to do. That is strange btw: I have documented nill in the 18 years on ADs. Took them brainlessly and used all my strength to fight for myself. Of course I didn't succeed. I failed miserably. But in the mist of my current misery I feel hopeful as well. In windows I feel drive. Yearning. Even a little self-confidence.

I was NOT less anxious in social situations on ADs (despite Big Pharma promises), but I was less anxious about being social. I felt pretty much the same social anxiety in social situations (not anything overwhelming), but I didn't care about partaking in social situations. I was indifferent. It gives basis for following hypotesis: When people report less social anxiety on ADs it is because they experience less social situations, not because the feel less anxiety in social situations. Is there any validity to this claim?

I used to be one of the social engines among my peers: I invited people, arrange small dinner parties, get-togethers and stuff. That all vanished with the ADs. When people invited me, pre-AD you could rely on me. I remember making a point out of never making last minute cancellations for two reasons. It is rude, and social situations have a tendency to become good experiences regardless. On ADs I could not care less. I did not invite and I cancelled without remorse. That is not a good friend.

For a long time - years and years - I confused the effect of the ADs with depression and what I thought of as depression-derived anhedonia. I systematically refused to see that ADs could play a role in my misery. I tumbled around deeply ashamed of who I was. And that was also my own official explanation for my non-existing social life. Shame. Not fitting in. Being weird. Having a strange outlook. Basically I viewed my former friends as intellectually lobotomized by the motivational human ressource-babble that characterizes modern organizations. I of course didn't point this out to my then friends. And on good days I didn't see them as lobotomized, just as people trying to get by in modern society. To keep their sanity, so I envisioned, they repressed the humiliating hypocrisy they had to endure. Anyway, neither of these views is a solid or healthy foundation for friendship.

This is a continuing saga. I will write more the coming days.

July 2, 2022

My morning cortisol is back with a vengeance. I wake up in utter dispair, usually with a crystal clear picture a random painful life events where I as always are to blame, and with a feeling that my life have been one long chain of mistakes. Everything good about my life seems to be an illusion. In the morning my life history is catastrophe only interrupted by short periodes of acceptable lived life. But even these good periods seems to have an imposter quality to them.

In the morning, this morning, I sort of get myself together after an hour or so. But that only makes me wonder if my conscious awoken self have reestablished an operational lie to ward off suicidal ideation to somehow function.

Can anybody recommend a trustworthy sleep mask? Mine is halfway pushed off when I wake up because I twist and turn my head in my sleep.

July 2, 2022

A reflection on withdrawal contra return of original pre-AD state: The hopefullness in micro windows gives it away. Depression for me was one unrelenting wave of hopelessness: There was no way out of it. ADs replaced that state with indifferent low-grade anxiety: You didn't desire anything, and you knew that was wrong, hence the low grade anxiety. In WD there is small windows, where you feel things you felt before it all began. Before the initial depressive state. Maybe all this nonsense can be a blessing in the end: A secret door to life.

July 2, 2022

7 hours ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

My morning cortisol is back with a vengeance. I wake up in utter dispair, usually with a crystal clear picture a random painful life events where I as always are to blame, and with a feeling that my life have been one long chain of mistakes. Everything good about my life seems to be an illusion. In the morning my life history is catastrophe only interrupted by short periodes of acceptable lived life. But even these good periods seems to have an imposter quality to them.

In the morning, this morning, I sort of get myself together after an hour or so. But that only makes me wonder if my conscious awoken self have reestablished an operational lie to ward off suicidal ideation to somehow function.

I wake up and try to hang onto the dream world as it is a nicer place but when it dissipates I feel like you describe above. You are not alone in that and I would say you are far from the only person who experiences the 'imposter quality' to good periods - when one has few good periods they do have an unbelievable quality to them.

Oaktree

July 4, 2022

@Grateful and @Oaktree1 and all other big-hearted SA-members. About the shooting in Denmark: The boys actions is already being framed as the result of mental illness, and there is not one word about it being maybe pharmaceutical induced. The reddit-crowd have already found the alleged perpetrators YouTube channel (confirmed by the police). The videos are removed from YouTube now but of course already copied and distributed to the dark corners of the internet. As I wrote earlier under each video, with videos of himself and his guns pointing to his head, he writes: "Quetiapine doesn't work" and "I don't care". Nothing more. Quetiapine (Seroquel) has a black box warning: "Increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents and young adults taking antidepressants for major depressive disorder and other psychiatric disorders." The young man was 22. Among veterans treated with Seroquel the drug is dubbed 'Serokill' due to the drugs ability to promote suicidal and homicidal ideation.

I know that I could be subject to a confirmation bias. But I think this is very, very scary. The young man explicitly make statements about antipsychotic medication before he goes on a killing spree. And as we know, there is almost certainly a SSRI in the mix. I am so sad and the whole thing is so chilling. It stinks of an unhappy young man, as young men often are, who under healthy circumstances would met a sweet girl, his unhappiness would disappear, and he would get two kids, a house and a good life. Enter modern psychiatry and Seroquel. Now he is evil incarnated, will get a sentence where he will spent the rest of his life as a psychotic patient, drugged beyond belief, and he will die before he is fifty. The psychiatrist who drugged him, won't even miss a days work. It is so sickening.

July 4, 2022

Hi @Mirtazapine20mg

I'm sorry you are plagued with these brutal wake-ups. They can take such a toll.

On 7/2/2022 at 9:16 AM, Mirtazapine20mg said:

My morning cortisol is back with a vengeance. I wake up in utter dispair, usually with a crystal clear picture a random painful life events where I as always are to blame, and with a feeling that my life have been one long chain of mistakes. Everything good about my life seems to be an illusion. In the morning my life history is catastrophe only interrupted by short periodes of acceptable lived life. But even these good periods seems to have an imposter quality to them.

In the morning, this morning, I sort of get myself together after an hour or so. But that only makes me wonder if my conscious awoken self have reestablished an operational lie to ward off suicidal ideation to somehow function.

Can anybody recommend a trustworthy sleep mask? Mine is halfway pushed off when I wake up because I twist and turn my head in my sleep.

You seem aware of the possibility that WD is coloring your perception of things. This awareness is good. Even if it isn't quite adequate to override WD lenses/waves, it's a very good sign that the awareness remains. Sometimes there is just no match for neuro-emotions and WD thought patterns, and that's okay. Sometimes we do well to spare ourselves the undue stress and exhaustion of fighting against the barrage of illusions, struggling in vain to see "clearly" (whatever that may mean at any given moment). Sometimes to simply surrender is an act of kindness we might offer ourselves, even though it may seem counterintuitive when acceptance means being with what is unpleasant. (Letting ourselves feel like sh*t... it's not an exact science, it's a practice. Haha!) Your awareness is an invaluable resource to afford you just that bit of distance to give you some breathing room within that; I'm glad it accompanies you at least some of the time.

About the cortisol spike, I have seen some mention of "baby aspirin" (approx. 75mg dose) possibly being helpful. Both Altostrata and Onmyway have mentioned this, as have others. If you're curious about experimenting with this, maybe something to look into further?. Also, here's a quote:

On 5/16/2022 at 6:49 AM, Onmyway said:

Your symptoms sound like typical withdrawal symptoms. Your morning exacerbation of symptoms is due to the increase in cortisol early morning and because a nervous system in withdrawal is more sensitive to cortisol.

A few things may help with the morning cortisol response:

1) sleep in as dark an environment as possible (blackout curtains, eye mask, foil on the windows, whatever gets you there)

2) a baby aspirin the night before may help lower the cortisol response in the morning

3) Check out some other tips here: Waking with panic or anxiety -- managing the morning cortisol spike

For a sleep mask I use a beastly old airline-issue polyester one. It's the opposite of lovely but it gets the job done and I don't have the energy/motivation to pursue the project of finding/making a nice one. Something I believe is helpful in ensuring the mask stays on is screwing your head into a vise at bedtime to ensure no movement whatsoever during the night. Foolproof. Just kidding. Seriously, though, it helps to have two separate elastic bands, spaced a few centimeters apart, as opposed to just one. Does your current eye mask have one band or two? If you've got only the one band, you might try to sew on a second one; play around with the location/distribution. Another option may be to create a face-mask-inspired loop-behind-the-ears sort of band. Or a combination of these? If you're not partial to threading a needle, perhaps some strategically placed safety pins could do the trick.

@Faure passed along some brilliant sleep advice, for which I am forever grateful: Pretend you're asleep. Genius! This simple phrase has done wonders for naps, middle-of-the-night wake-ups, any context of putting my head down and stretching out to rest. Now I no longer think about "trying to sleep" or "hoping to fall asleep", etc. I just say to myself, Hey, let's play a game, let's pretend we're asleep! There's a lightness to it and an ease, it's marvelous.

I feel love for you in my heart. Wishing you peace, healing, and treating yourself with the kindness and tenderness you deserve,

A.

July 4, 2022

5 minutes ago, Ariel said:

If you've got only the one band, you might try to sew on a second on

Me - sew? hahahahahaha - good one. WELLCOME BACK. My mask has two bands, so I am pretty sure we are sleeping with the same polyester horror. I dark marine blue color, right? BUT, thanks for the advice about baby aspirin. I will try it, when you have OK'ed it. Used to be like, "drugs, yes please, could I have one more!" Now paracetamol is sending shivers down my spine. Baby aspirin is just a low dose of acetylsalicylic acid, right? In Denmark you can get something called Treo, I will try that :-).

July 5, 2022

On 7/2/2022 at 3:05 PM, Mirtazapine20mg said:

In WD there is small windows, where you feel things you felt before it all began. Before the initial depressive state. Maybe all this nonsense can be a blessing in the end: A secret door to life.

So beautiful, @Mirtazapine20mg

Thank you for this <3

July 5, 2022

On 7/4/2022 at 10:34 AM, Mirtazapine20mg said:

thanks for the advice about baby aspirin. I will try it, when you have OK'ed it.

I haven't actually experimented with this myself in any consistent, systematic, meaningful way.

Have tried it a few times based on what I'd read here, as detailed in previous post. Results inconclusive.

If you give it a go I'll be curious to hear your experience.

July 5, 2022

@Ariel, I feel very inspired by your PM today, especially your thoughts about experiences in the formative years. Over the years I have thought a lot about that, and I have to write about it some time: How to build a productive but stil realistic narrative and find peace with that.

That made me think about SA. Two of the strengths of SA are you can write about a subject in semi-long form and the audience is qualified (the corrective feedback is brutal, so you have a highly qualified, no bullsh*t audience). That creates a space where you don't write undisciplined babble. On the other hand there is also no incentive to photoshop or Instagramify your life. I think that is very healthy. And that made me think how I once didn't think much of Mcluhan. But the older I get the more I respect McLuhans message (not intended).

I have just bought god old Aspirin. I will report back.

July 7, 2022

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/tags/mirtazapine/

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/tags/vortioxetine/

Just tag search lines for my own convenience.

July 8, 2022

I have reached my "like"-limit for one day. I feel guilty.

July 8, 2022

1 hour ago, Mirtazapine20mg said:

I have reached my "like"-limit for one day. I feel guilty.

Haha! Congratulations @Mirtazapine20mg

This must be a rite of passage.

(Guilty, why guilty?)

Mirtazapine20mg: I am one of you and thank you

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