Symptoms: Akathisia, emotional blunting, sexual dysfunction, cognitive impairment, insomnia, depersonalization/derealization, suicidal ideation, severe anxiety/panic, anhedonia, amnesia, loss of fear response, nervous system dysfunction, blank mind
I was suffering from severe depression, anxiety, and stress for a few years and was pressured into beginning psychiatric medication by mental health providers. I had stated many times I did not wish to be medicated. I started an SSRI for a year and was told I could just discontinue when I wanted to. In the span of 1.5 years I tried 2 SSRIs and 3 weeks of an antipsychotic. Looking back, I now realize that the withdrawal from the first medication is what made me believe I needed the next one. I was only on "low doses," and never informed about tapering.
The last medication, Lexapro 5mg, made me develop DPDR, anhedonia, akathisia, insomnia, nausea, and sexual dysfunction, all dismissed as my own mental health issues, even though they had never been an issue prior to medication. After 4 months of Lexapro, during Christmas holiday, I finally realized how sick Lexapro was making me and without knowing better, I went cold turkey. I just wanted to have my emotions back, my sadness, anxiety, and stress. I was actually excited to feel those more fully again. Unfortunately, just when I thought it was over, the real hell began.
I experienced what I call a cognitive collapse. I lost my memory, my life story, my identity, my personality, my interoception, my ability to read, watch TV, and think complex thoughts. I got aphantasia, the inability to have visual thinking and to visualize. I lost my fear/stress/adrenaline response along with every other emotion possible. I lost my ability to sense space and understand time. I don't recognize a single element of my entire life anymore. I can't feel any type of pleasure, except from a tiny bit of body comfort. Never have I been more suicidal. I feel utterly trapped inside a brain that does not work. I am 16 months medication free, and not a single of these issues has improved. It has cost me my education, and I am now unemployed.
I am working with a nervous system professional, and she has no idea what is happening in my body and has never had a patient like me. I am in chronic neurological discomfort that is not fuelled by thinking or emotions, and not a single intervention or therapy has provided any relief.
A psychiatrist I began seeing after this happened does not believe a word out of my mouth and would happily medicate me into oblivion. Her lack of empathy and understanding makes me wonder how many people in PAWS or PSSD she has made worse.
The main reason I am hanging in there is because of recovery stories. It seems that time is the only healer of these injuries, and I am willing to give it a few more years.