Addax: 30 years with Fluoxetine and tapering

[Addax]

The cut seems to be going well now. The fatigue seems to have passed. The sadness is passing, and along with it the gloom that pervaded my thoughts and perceptions. In general, my emotions seem to be running a little close to the the surface and still get teary-eyed when I think of my friend, but I believe that's normal.

 

I can't seem to update my signature. I keep getting a message that I'm only allowed 750 characters...

[Rhiannon]

Good to hear! This is what it's like when you're tapering at a rate that works for you--yes, you get some withdrawal, but it's manageable and doesn't spiral out of control.

 

You'll get more confident over time and you'll also know what to expect, you'll learn how your symptoms develop and unfold and resolve. You'll become an expert on your own body and process.

 

Give it a bit more time before cutting again, there can be some ups and downs during the process, and take some notes (recommend brief daily journaling). 

 

Sounds like you're doing fine and you're on your way!

[Addax]

I am definitely in a wave. A crap-ass wave. God I hate this. I hate how it feels and I hate the barely even vague memory that I was feeling relatively normal a week ago. Today was the worst so far. I couldn't shake the anxiety or negative thought cycle.

 

Was this set off by my two glasses of wine on Saturday? Then exacerbated by being unable fall asleep last night? I'm thinking, "yes."

 

I'm not prone to insomnia or any real sleep problems. Thank goodness. But last night was bad then woke up anxious. Woke up with fkn cortisol and couldn't shake it. I ended up exhausted despite laying around all day wallowing in my anxious thoughts and self pity. I'm completely overwhelmed by thoughts of the future. Including my professional future. This is horrible! I found myself just wanting to give up and walk away from life. It's like I'm already feeling the shame and embarrassment of professional failure, and I haven't even begun yet!

 

Withdrawal is a giant mind-fk. That's really what if feels like. I wrote in another thread that it's like a hall of mirrors with all the images warped or distorted and thinking each one is the real image because you've forgotten what you actually look like and feel like.

 

I fell asleep for a couple hours in the afternoon and luckily felt a little better after that... A little.

 

 

So is this what it will feel like with every cut? Not that I have any intension of cutting anytime soon. Hell no!

[Hudgens]

Nothing sets these waves or any of the symptoms off-they just come and go when they come and go. What you eventually get about them is that they're all fake. They're phantoms. At some point you begin to see through them. That really does make them easier to get through. Not sure if you learn to see through them, or if you begin to see through them because they're getting weaker. But even now, after they've passed, you probably realize they're not really you, but only a temporary creation by the withdrawal.

 

I got bouts of depression for the first time in my life during withdrawal from Effexor. It was awful, but one day, right in the middle of a bad episode-I mean like you're wondering how to get through the next minute- I suddenly got this glimpse beyond the bad feeling.

I could see a little beyond it or through it to how I normally felt. This "seeing through it" increased as time went by and made the subsequent episodes more and more bearable. I eventually found I could see through any symptom in the same way.

 

In addition to the ability to see through symptoms, I'd also like to mention another way I have of coping with them. And that is when one hits, by letting it be exactly what it is and turning my attention to it without making any judgment about it or ruminating about. I don't think It's  the ideas or images related to the symptom that hurts you, it's the feelings, the anxiety. So let them be what they are and simple be aware of them, keep your mind on them. When the ideas attached come back, or when you start to make judgments about how awful you feel and all of the hellish  "what ifs", gently go back to

simple awareness of the bare feelings. This really helps keep even the worst symptoms in proportion.

[andy]

just hang in there Addax I know its a cliche but time really does heal and things will start to get better.Let the anxiety do its worst the more you fight it the more it knocks you about,just float above it

take care

[Addax]

Hudgens- I do try to sit with anxiety and the thoughts and try to acknowledge them as only that thoughts and nothing more, but it's so difficult not to believe they true and the impending doom they communicate accurate. Maybe with awareness of their falsehood and some practice I will be able to see through the anxiety and associate thoughts to the other side. Just reading what you wrote seems to have calmed my mind a bit.

 

Depression has become a part of my anxiety in the last 24 hrs... Though I guess that's a logical path. How could it not if I'm thinking and believing all the worst case scenarios playing out in my head.

 

Andy- Cliche or not, being reassured it will get better helps. Especially when you don't think it will. . Funny: I believe you, Andy, that it will get better, but I don't believe myself when I try to remind myself of the same thing.

 

Part of it is disappointment, I think. After feeling well and believing I may have gotten through the worst unscathed, to have a wave like this hit is kind of crushing. I actually considered increasing my dose out of fear that this will get worse. I have to remind myself that withdrawal symptoms are essentially unavoidable to some degree and up dosing will only delay them, not prevent them. I also need to remember that waves have passed before and will again. It's just so hard, and all I want to do is get in bed and sleep till the symptoms pass.

[andy]

Part of it is disappointment, I think. After feeling well and believing I may have gotten through the worst unscathed, to have a wave like this hit is kind of crushing. I actually considered increasing my dose out of fear that this will get worse. I have to remind myself that withdrawal symptoms are essentially unavoidable to some degree and up dosing will only delay them, not prevent them. I also need to remember that waves have passed before and will again. It's just so hard, and all I want to do is get in bed and sleep till the symptoms pass.

 

The waves get further apart though and thats what you should focus on,im having a bad today but feck it it only means a window is next to come along

[Meimeiquest]

There was a time when Hudgeons did quite a bit of CBT work, just FYI.

[Rhiannon]

Addax, I don't know everything you've been doing, but from your sig line it looks like you dropped Wellbutrin pretty fast from, what, 75 mg daily in May to 16 mg daily in July, something like that? That's something like 79% dropped in two months! I know Alto says some people can come off Wellbutrin faster, but that hasn't been my own experience. And even talking "faster", 80% in two months is way too fast, IMO.

 

So it's not surprising you're having some trouble now. Hang in there. This will eventually pass and then maybe you might look at just doing the regular 10% or smaller cuts in the future.

[Addax]

My signature doesn't reflect the last month+ because it won't let me add anymore to it. I'll try again...

 

I did a 50% cut to 75mg, then when smaller cuts went well and after reading the tips on tapering Wellbutrin I did 25%, then 50% cuts! up dosing once, stabilizing and then decreasing again. I was stable, then made the 1st 10% Prozac cut about 2 weeks ago. Withdrawal symptoms started pretty quickly. There was an initial wave lasting less than a week, then a window for a few days, and this current wave hit last week, with symptoms becoming progressively worse. Mix in two glasses of wine that seemed to set of insomnia and BAM! The last 5 days have been rough. The worst with this current taper. Not nearly as bad as what happened in 2012, but still pretty bad. I'm giving it till Sunday and if I don't feel any relief I'll increase from 8.1 to 8.5mg.

 

Once I'm stable I'm going to try 5% reductions.

 

Does anyone know if half life decreases along with decreases in dose?

[Addax]

It's been a bit of a rough go the last couple of weeks. When I've had withdrawal symptoms in the past they've usually consiste of cortisol, anxiety, and Akathisia. This time I had those things, but they were subtle compared to the depression and hopelessness. Wow! A new experience for sure. I thought I'd experienced depression before. I mean on some level everyone has in one way or another, but I've never experienced it like I just did. I was seriously thinking last night, "screw this, I'm reinstating!"

 

... But right after that thought I realized I was tired and sleepy and I knew I was going to be able to sleep. I was so excited because I knew this meant something had shifted.

 

I woke up a little dissipointed. I had slept well and I did feel better, but it wasn't the window I'd hoped for. There was still the cortisol morning thing, and definitely some Akathisia, but the depression was much less intense, and as long as I diverted my thoughts away from the issue causing me anxiety the anxiety had significantly weakened. Then at around 1pm the cortisol and Akathasia abated and although a general, mild, depressed feeling clung on the hopelessness dissipated. By 3pm I was standing at a window. Not a grand bay window, but a window non-the-less.

 

Now 6 hrs later the window is bigger and there's a wonderful breeze, but I'm afraid to go to bed. I'm afraid I'll fall out of the window while I'm asleep and get swept up by another wave.

[Petunia]

Congratulations on the window Addax.  I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to go to sleep at night because of being in a window and not wanting it to disappear.

[Addax]

THAT was a short lived window . If it was even a window. I increased from 8.1 to 8.5 mg because I just couldn't deal with how I was feeling. Hopefully the increase will help.

 

Feeling like I'll be stuck forever in this place of apathy and fatigue and cortisol...

[Petunia]

I'm sorry Addax, I know how awful it is to be attacked by the same old symptoms after a brief window, it seems cruel.  But having a window is a sign of recovery, no matter how brief.  I'm sorry you increased your dose, its better if you can ride out the waves, they usually subside on their own.

 

I guess I'm lucky in as much as I don't have any medication to adjust when I get hit with a wave of increased symptoms, I would probably be tempted to increase too.

 

I just read back through your last few posts and see that depression/hopelessness is new for you.  I think that this is a 'later' stage of recovery and even though it feels awful, its actually a sign of progress. I thought that getting better would automatically mean feeling better. But it seems that many of the feelings and sensations associated with depression are part of antidepressant withdrawal recovery, normal emotional responses are one of the last things to return to normal.

 

For me, at first, cortisol, anxiety, and Akathisia were my predominant symptoms too, these days they have reduced considerably, now I'm getting the depression type symptoms just as often and through large parts of my days.

 

This discussion on Apathy, Anhedonia and De-motivation might be helpful.

[Addax]

Thank you for the link Petu.

 

It's hard having the window taken away so quickly. It's also hard because I'd felt so relatively normal for so many months. But I guess that's the way of Fluoxetine. Maybe the wave is a sign that at this low dose the withdrawal symptoms won't be so sneaky and they'll come more predictably after a decrease in dose.

 

This wave doesn't seem as bad, so maybe the increase to 8.5 helped. It's only been a couple of days, so I don't know for sure if the increase is responsible or not. I know I should have tried to ride out whatever was going on, but knowing I might be able to find relief from my anxious thoughts and resulting depression was just too alluring.

 

I think I'll be able to tolerate waves if they are like this one rather than the last. In part because the intensity of the wave decreases as my day progresses. It's this fact that makes me think my waves are in a large part cortisol driven. I wake with my chest tight (cortisol?), my body tense (Akathisia), my thoughts anxious (anxiety), and my mood depressed (anxiety). The tightness in my chest subsided by late morning yesterday, then the rest followed with my mood coming in last just before dinner. I hope this is a cortisol pattern.

[Addax]

So today is a bad day. Not as bad as some, but I woke up panicked and the Akathisia and fatigue are still pretty bad several hours later.

 

I've now been on Prozac for nearly 26 years and I'm beginning to doubt being able to be "normal" without the scaffolding the drug provides. I'm trying to be patient and holdout through these rapid cycling waves but it's making life so difficult during an already difficult time. Transition for me is hard, transition while feeling as I do is so much harder.

 

I wish I could find more stories of people who have similar histories to mine with the same drug. I wish I had some idea of my prognosis so far as it pertains to successful withdrawal. I crave feeling normal.

[Addax]

Things are still pretty rough. I wake up too early feeling panicked and ruminating about three huge stressors in my life right now. I spend most of the day with that inner restlessness and anxiety, but with an almost overwhelming fatigue, except I can't seem to fall asleep. I'm kinda miserable . I'm afraid to acknowledge any improvement. Looking back, I probably should have held at 9mg Prozac for a year given the major transitions and challenges going on in my life right now. None of it is particularly bad, per se, just challenging and scary. I'm just so tired all the time.

 

I feel almost normal by 6pm... What the hell goes on while I'm asleep that flips that horrible switch?

 

Rhi, I may have underestimated the effects of the quick Wellbutrin cut... At the very least I probably should have waited longer before beginning to taper Prozac again. Should I add some back-in and re-taper slower?

 

I'm beginning to wonder if I should return to 9 or 10 mg of Prozac and stay there a couple of months. Any input on this would be sincerely appreciated.

[bubble]

Hi Addax,

 

I'm sorry you have been feeling so unwell for so long now (especially after things were on the mend before that).

 

That's pretty much my story at the moment: I've been feeling unwell, first very anxious and then depressed more than in a very long time. It all happened after I experimented with cutting sooner than usually. That could be a case of what Rhi calls things spiraling out of control (although nothing drastic is happening, it's just that it's significantly worse than before). And it's been like this for a month. There are gradual improvements but they are really gradual with windows and waves exchanging every few hours.

 

I have adopted the policy of giving my brain as much time as it needs to rewire itself from what was obviously a traumatic cut. I don't  think updosing would help. That's the basic principle: stability heals and not any particular dose. You tried updosing but as far as I could see it didn't result in  positive changes, except initially which might have been placebo and the effect of calming your fear. It seems your CNS is destabilised and changing drugs will destabilise it even further. Instead of looking for a solution in the drug, that is looking for a "correct" dose, I would focus on damage control: look at what I can do to deal with the symptoms while leaving my CNS to recover undisturbed.

 

When I read about your days of wallowing, as you say, and laying around I want to "prescribe" some physical activity, no matter how hard it seems. Instead of sitting with my anxiety (which only sparks negative thinking), I prefer to walk with it and in that way I shake at least some of it.  Although it's hard and although it is sometimes the last thing I want to do. But what good can laying around do to anyone? Even if we didn't have any issues, spending a day laying around would cause anyone to get broody. The tactics I apply is some activity one day and then laying around the next or the rest of the day. But I absolutely try to avoid spending more days in the inactivity mode. 

 

It seems we have both cut too much too soon. I think that updosing now will just disrupt the attempts of our CNS to recover from that. You know what went wrong: too fast taper of Welbutrin followed by too close reduction of Prozac.

 

There is also talk therapy as somebody suggested, CBT. You will need it sooner or later as you learn to live without the drug.

 

Going back to basics helps to keep things in perspective so I ocassionally read through this thread:  http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/6632-the-rule-of-3kis-keep-it-simple-keep-it-slow-keep-it-stable/

 

You seem to have done quite a few things your CNS didn't like and now it's showing its displeasure but it will find its way out. Given the chnges it might take a while but it will happen. 

 

Hope it happens soon.

[Addax]

Thank you for your response Bubble, it means a lot to me.  

 

Recently I have forced physical activity on most days than not, but sometimes in the middle of it I'm just so uncomfortable I just give in and stop.  It's definitely not at the level it was prior to this wave, where I felt good and got to the gym or did something else almost daily.

 

I just have so much to do right now that feeling this way is interfering with my ability to get things done I very much need to get done, which is why I've been considering reinstatment.  The fatigue seems to be what's kicking-my butt the most.  I just constantly want to lay down and rest.  I get about 5-6 hours of sleep.  I fall asleep fine, but wake up around 3a and cannot go back to sleep.

 

The updose was so small, so your probably right about the initial placebo effect.  But that's partially why I want to updose back to 10mg.  Just to get through the next 9 months... I have so much change coming up and things to do, including a project to complete in the next several months that has an enormous impact on my professional future.  If things don't improve in the next couple of weeks I really think I"ll have to reinstate some.  I hate the idea of it, but I also feel kind of trapped. 

[bubble]

I understand that need to be functional very much. But do you remember how we say that trying to speed things up makes them worse?

 

The whole idea is that it's not a particular dose that makes us recover but stability (and chasing after the right dose disrupts that stability).

 

I am also very familiar with the feeling that there are major and significant events ahead of me which I simply cannot face in my current situation. I would actually sacrifice my health before by stuffing myself with drugs  just to meet those major goals. Apart from increasing my dependency, these impulses often resulted in more damage and worse symptoms. 

 

Now I'm willing to pass on some great opportunities if it threatens to put me under too much stress.

 

Easier said than done. But try not to project your current state into the future. Things can and will change in that time. I firmly believe that if you allow your CNS stability those changes will be for the better and will leave you comfortable enough to be able to face the challenges. 

 

I like to put exact dates of when I made my cuts in the signature rather then 3rd week of august because that can be 21 or 28 th However, it seems that you have been on this dose for almost 30 days so your CNS has already done a lot of work adjusting to the change.

 

That's my take on the situation with hopes that improvement is just round the bend. Also, don't feel bad about lying around. I just see this as my brain needing a lot of rest as I think Petu said: closed for repairs. 

[Addax]

Hi Bubble. Thank you again for your support.

 

Not to sound overly dramatic but this project is not an opportunity per se, but career maker/breaker. If I don't finish what I'm working on by a particular date I'm very much screwed. I know how dramatic that sounds, but I think part of that is because I'm being a little vague on purpose. Even though there are millions of people on the world, and I could be any of them there's a tiny part of me that wonders if I added one particular detail if someone reading my thread would go, "aha! I knew it was her!" I know, I know... Sounds so silly.

 

Your words have not fallen on deaf ears... Er... Blind eyes . You're right, holding is probably the best idea if it's stability I'm seeking. I will try and push through. Saying that after 11am is much easier than before when the anxiety, depression, and Akathasia predominate.

 

I always have such trepidation about reporting improvements. Like I'm going to jinx myself. As badly as I've felt over the last month or so I think there have been small, incremental improvements. For instance each of the last few days my symptoms have begun to subside a little earlier each day. It's not like coming out of a wave. It's more like climbing very steep steps, in very high altitude, caring a 200lb water balloon to some enigmatic landing. Yes, closed for stair climbing.

 

If I get through this and end up stable w/o having to reinstate I will be convinced that my Nervous system is capable of healing after 25 years of Prozac. That's something I'm honestly not yet convinced of.

[rapunzel2]

I would also vote for hold, hold, and more hold! it seems reasonable. and you will recover, if everything is stable!

 

It's so hard when on top of withdrawal, there is LIFE to live... projects to do, people to be with... I'm faced with same dilemmas - I need to be functional. at the same time, I need to go off the med. which one to choose? it's a fine balancing project...

[Addax]

I will be holding indeed, Rapunzel! At least through November if not longer. My next cut will be 5%, if not less.

 

I took 2.5mg of Melatonin and 200mg of Magnisium before bed last night. Except for waking briefly at 3am I slept 7 hrs. I did not wake up panicked or ruminating and the inner restlessness and muscle tension of Akathasia is relatively mild this morning. I actually laid in bed for 10 minutes waiting for the panic, thoughts, and physical discomfort to hit while praying that they wouldn't. It's been an hour and they haven't come screaming out of the woods yet.

 

I think my anxiety and rumination are at the edge of normal limits considering my task ahead. However, my guess is that I'm hypersensitive and need to be careful and keep myself calm. I found that talking to other people about the specifics of my project is a trigger for heightened anxiety and associated symptoms.

 

I had read so many people talking about how sensitive their NS is. I have to admit, I didn't think mine was or would be. I was absolutely over confident and in some ways must have been thinking that somehow I was different because I was doing so well for so long. I guess that's denial, huh? Yeah, I'm not different.

 

There is still some depression lingering, but yesterday and today, rather than hopelessness and believing the worst WILL happen it's now fear that the worst could happen and that my efforts might not be able to prevent it. A very relative improvement.

 

The weight of the fatigue is rough. I can't seem to shake this sometimes overwhelming desire to lay down and I'm finding myself wanting to counter it with coffee or a Monster drink or something. I keep reminding myself how badly that might turnout. I'm still drinking coffee in the morning. It's 1/2 the amount I was drinking when I first got to SA, but I know it should be 0. Maybe that will be my taper project when I stabilize and hold on Prozac.

 

Like I said yesterday, I don't feel like this is me reaching a window. It feels like I'm arduously climbing stairs out of a wave. It feels like the improvements, as slow as they are coming, or more permanent than a typical wave-window pattern. I am in no way implying that I'm not at risk of experiencing waves... Hell no. I'll just be in a different body of water when (if?) the next wave hits. I mean this as a positive thing. This last month and the slowness of the improvements from feeling utterly horrible to where I am currently feels like indication of healing. Like my brain is recovering and/ or compensating for whatever mutations, death, and damage has occurred to it's receptors and messengers over the last 25 years. Of course whether it can recover and compensate completely is yet to be seen.

 

Last night I was reminding myself of the side effects I no longer experience as well as some of the initial withdrawal symptoms that have not reappeared for many months. That helped me look forward because they were absolutely neurologically rooted and now they're gone and to me that's evidence of healing already taken place even while some withdrawal symptoms persist. I forgot about those things or dismissed them too easily during the worst parts of this last month.

 

I'm still scared that tomorrow will prove me wrong and I can't even think about reading my posts over the last month. It was a dark, scary 30 or so days.

 

So right now I'm 51.5mg from where I started this journey. My body feels tired, I don't quite feel like me or that I'm in a stable, fully functional place yet. But I'm in a MUCH better place than I was just a few weeks ago, and even a week ago.

 

The slowness of climbing the steps from this wave is somehow reassuring.

[andy]

keep the faith Addax ,you are making progress and thats what really matters.in time you will heal fully

[Addax]

Thank you, Andy

[Altostrata]

We're all rooting for you, Addax.

[Addax]

Thank you Alto.  That means a great deal to me.  

 

Today was a strange day.  I was just sooooo tired.  The other symptoms were either drowned out by how tired I am, or were too tired to express themselves!

 

This fatigue thing is really an ass kicker.  It has waxed and waned this week, where other symptoms have progressively, albeit slowly, improved.  I've also had two days (not consecutive) including today where I'm not only incredibly tired but my eyes feel like they were covered with a film or something.  I guess that can also be an allergy, however, I don't have allergies that I know of. The tiredness over rides my desire to do anything.  It's like apathy or de-motivation, except that it's based on being tired and just wishing I could fall asleep.  

 

The anxiety is waning.  It will creep in, but it's anxiety over things I should be anxious about.  Unfortunately it's activating and causes a weird physical discomfort that's not quite Akathisia.  Maybe like a minor cortisol surge? 

 

The depression isn't just feeling depressed in general.  It's feeling depressed about how i feel... I'm depressed over being so tired and thinking I'm lazy? 

 

I guess I'll take this extreme fatigue over what I was experiencing 1,2,3 and even 4 weeks ago.  

 

I've been reading about Fluoxetine and dopamine and read "treatment with fluoxetine potentiates dopamine D2/D3 receptor function " and "Chronic Fluoxetine Selectively Upregulates Dopamine D1-Like Receptors in the Hippocampus".

 

Sooo... perhaps my dopamine levels have dropped in a sort of rebound? And this is why I'm so tired and unmotivated? It it's a rebound that means my brain will now work toward homeostasis, right?

 

Way too much -> Way too little -> way more than needed -> way less than needed -> more than needed -> Less than needed -> not quite right -> not quite enough -> within normal range -> normal range 

 

It's funny.  My doc had added Wellbutrin to combat the fatigue and yawning I experienced as a side effect of Prozac.  I remember when I first started Prozac.  I was 18 and I spent the first few weeks edgy and on the brink of hyper.  I remember thinking I liked feeling that way.  I don't recall when that edgy feeling passed.  

[Altostrata]

Don't worry about your dopamine. It's a lot more complicated than that.

[Addax]

Hmm... I was hoping I had a clue.  

 

Whats going on then?  Why am I so tired? 

 

Today was tough. Major fatigue and although i've experienced Akathisia much worse than I'm experiencing now it's still just... I don't even know.  Improvements have leveled off right now and anhedonia and apathy seems to have set in.  I guess the two make good bedfellows. But like the hopelessness and depression I experienced almost a month ago, this anhedonia and apathy are new experiences.  I have not felt like this before.  Just the total lack of energy or desire to do anything.  And of course I sit here feeling like it will be like this forever unless I reinstate something.  I seriously need to function at a higher level right now.

 

How bad would it be to reinstate Wellbutrin now? Just maybe 25mg twice a day?  I had originally started taking it to combat the fatigue caused by prozac... 

 

whine, whine, whine... I just want to wake up!!

[bubble]

I know fatigue very well but I came to see it is something positive.

 

It means that my body and brain are using all their energy to recover. There is a lot of healing taking place. It is a much more preferable state to the agony of anxiety. I came to like my fatigue and just go with it: if I feel tired and sleepy, I rest and sleep so happy that I can sleep. 

 

Try to look at it this way and not as being lazy. Even if you were lazy, there is nothing wrong with that: human beings are not robots and being lazy once in a while is here with a reason as well. It seems that your attitutude to fatigue plays a big role in how you are feeling about it. Accept it as something that is here with a good reason. (There is a big difference between angry resignatiom and calm embracing of unpleasant situations we find ourselves in that characterises acceptance).

 

Your CNS is rebooting so nicely. Don't interfere with this process by destabilising the CNS with changing the drugs. It's not a particular dose that heals but stability. It's been over a month since you stopped taking Wellbutrin. Adding it now would just cause confusion. 

 

You are recovering nicely and it is a gradual process as you say: climbing out of a pit. 

 

This is also a learning opportunity for you: learn about accepting undesirable situations, turning lemons into a lemonade. I read about this concept in the book called Power of Now: if you feel lazy, just rest, be as lazy as you feel the need to be. Paradoxically the sooner you start resisting it and more completely you give yourself in, the sooner it will go away. There is a great story to illustrate the point in the book. Can't remember it exactly but it's about a Chinese toy: you can put your hand in it but you can only get it out if you relax it completely and stop forcing it out. The more force you use, the more entrapped you get. Sometimes, very often we just have to let ourselves go and give in...

[andy]

Bubble puts things beautifully into perspective as ever.

I am at a point now where my dose is low on a drug that knocks you out and makes you feel lethargic and tired 24/7.My body has obviously reacted by wakening up so i am getting no sleep and feel awful but also hyper alert at the same time.

I can say that my next phase when my body goes into further recovery is that I will start to feel tiredness and sleepiness once again.I am looking forward to it and will take every bit of being a couch potato once again with both arms open wide.

Sometimes we can try to hard and just have to let go

[Meimeiquest]

I was very, very tired at that distance from Wellbutrin.

[Addax]

I love what your wrote bubble, but I've been sleeping most of the day and it's just not something I can afford to do. I know it's risky to re-introduce Wellbutrin or prozac but I've become so desperate to wake up And pull out of this foggy anhedonia.

 

I will see if there is any relief by the end of the week. If not, I may reinstate s tiny bit of Wellbutrin. I know it's activating, but it would be a very small amount... Grrrr... I don't know!!

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Well, I am anti drug at this point in my experience.. You came off the wellbutrin very rapidly and not too long ago. I remember Alto saying something to effect that trying to find just the right 'drug cocktail' to manage symptoms just doesn't work. Better to take walks and do breathing exercises when you feel tired than to hope a drug will fix things. Wellbutrin has other effects besides activation and may not work again as you would like.

 

I feel for you and hope you can figure this out. I hate to see people yo-yo their drugs. Nothing good comes of it. Sleep and inactivity are necessary for healing. Too bad we sometimes think they get in the way.

 

Hugs to you!

[rapunzel2]

I too, think that holding will solve this. it's better than yoyo-ing. 

[Addax]

Thank you! Thank you all for taking the time to read and contribute to my thread. It means so much to me.

 

My dog passed away last night. My heart is broken. He was quite old so it wasn't entirely unexpected, but I haven't been able to get up off the couch today.

 

The fatigue has sort of become exhaustion, but then I'm also not able to fall asleep because my body feels so restless.It's like some horrible, mean trick.

 

Unable to function at a level I need to I made a doctors appointment. My last doc is gone so this is a brand new guy. I'm feeling desperate to function right now for reasons I mentioned earlier. Luckily I know enough that I'm not going in blind and will be able to tell if this guy has a clue. At best I'll go in, get a script and not use it. At worst I'll reinstate a tiny bit of prozac and a tiny bit of Wellbutrin.

 

I'm scared.