Symptoms: Akathisia, Emotional blunting, Cognitive impairment, Depersonalization/Derealization, Suicidal ideation, Tinnitus, Neuropathy, Severe anxiety/panic, Muscle/joint pain, Anhedonia, GI disturbances, Dizziness, Vision issues
Fifteen years ago, I was not trying to escape my life but survive it responsibly. I was a young mother, overwhelmed and determined to do the "right thing."
When my daughter was two and my son six weeks old, my doctor urged me to get a copper IUD. Soon after, I developed panic, visual overstimulation, and depersonalization. Repeated warnings by doctors that my fear was dangerous led me to start Zoloft, trusting it would protect my children.
About a year after starting Zoloft, I developed mastitis and was prescribed antibiotics. Almost immediately, I felt something was wrong and told several doctors I thought the antibiotic was interacting with the Zoloft. I was told that was impossible. Instead, I was told I was anxious, that my mental illness was worsening, and that I should speak to my therapist.
The next day, on my way to that appointment, I developed intense intrusive thoughts, buzzing throughout my body, and racing speech. Alarmed, the therapist sent me straight to the psychiatrist, who prescribed Seroquel "as needed."
What followed was months of sedation, dizziness, agitation, fog, and fear. I would take Seroquel, sleep for twelve hours, then later feel unwell and take more. No one explained withdrawal or suggested stopping the original medication. Instead, this pattern was treated as worsening mental illness, and Seroquel was prescribed daily.
The medication stack grew. Side effects became symptoms, withdrawal became relapse, and every reaction was treated as proof that something was wrong with me, that I needed more drugs, more monitoring, and less trust in myself.
Over time, Zoloft, Seroquel, Lamotrigine, and Abilify were added as "protection." Instead, I became tired, foggy, ashamed, and afraid. My hair fell out, my joints hurt, I gained weight, felt dizzy, developed tinnitus, and lost memory.
I was repeatedly told untreated maternal depression could harm my children and that I could not trust my own mind. Tools like the PHQ-9 made those judgments feel scientific and final. For a decade, I raised my children while shrinking into a quieter, medicated version of myself.
By the summer of 2022, life convinced me that I needed to stop all the psychiatric medications. What remained was how.
I still wanted medical guidance. I asked my doctors for it repeatedly. What I received instead were half-answers: permission to "monitor," warnings without instruction, and tapering advice that was dangerously rapid. None of it felt safe or helpful.
So my sister and I began learning on our own. We read medical papers and patient accounts. We joined online forums where people described tapering slowly and carefully, in ways that matched what my body seemed to need.
I began tapering my final drug, Lamotrigine, on January 10, 2023. The plan that I came up with (which my doctor said was fine and my sister warned was too fast) was to reduce the dose by 25mg or 50mg every 2-4 weeks.
The process was not linear. Each dose reduction came with new symptoms; dizziness, neurological instability, food sensitivities, vision disturbances, numbness, fear combined with autonomic dysfunction that manifested in various ways. My body behaved in ways I couldn't predict or explain.
In January I stopped driving. My vision was unreliable and my coordination untrustworthy. In February, I stopped leaving the house unless absolutely necessary. I continued working remotely for a time, but my cognitive abilities were deteriorating. Reading, writing, and speaking became difficult. In March, I cancelled meetings because I could not muster the focus for a 30 minute conversation. Some days I could jog on my treadmill, but other days my heart was racing when I walked up the stairs and an arm or leg would randomly go numb for hours. By April, I could barely tolerate looking at the computer screen and struggled for two weeks to write a simple slide deck. Eventually I asked a colleague to complete it. My employer suggested medical leave. In May I took disability leave from work and I took my final dose of Lamotrigine.
Throughout the taper, I struggled to understand and describe my cognitive decline. I still cannot fully convey the constant physical and emotional suffering of those months; much of it remains beyond language. What appears on the page is only what can be named.
Doctors kept searching for explanations. When I said I felt like I had Parkinson's, I was told that was unlikely and that it might be multiple sclerosis. I was sent to cardiology, neurology, and hematology, but no one connected my symptoms to medication withdrawal. By then, I no longer expected answers from them. I was just continuing on my path to get off the drugs.
After my last dose of Lamotrigine, I expected things to settle. They didn't.
What followed was protracted withdrawal; a prolonged period in which my nervous system seemed unable to regulate itself after years of psychiatric medication. There were no longer dose changes to explain what was happening. Symptoms arrived without warning and without clear cause. Nothing felt buffered. Nothing resolved cleanly.
My days became very small.
I spent much of my day on a yoga mat on my back porch, or on my parents' patio, listening to guided meditations because being indoors was too stimulating and silence felt too exposed. I did chair-based yoga videos meant for the elderly, not for strength but to remind my body that movement was still possible. I knew I could not stop moving altogether as stillness made everything worse, but movement felt dangerous and difficult.
When I could manage it, I paced slowly on the grass in my backyard. I hesitated at the ten steps leading down to it, unsure whether I would fall or whether I'd be able to climb back up in time if my bladder suddenly failed me. Every action required calculation.
Symptoms came in waves. Dizziness. Visual distortion. Peripheral neuropathy. Confusion. Depersonalization. Sudden terror that arrived without thought or story. There were periods when forming words felt impossible, when language seemed to recede. At my worst, even sitting upright required effort and concentration. I couldn't explain what was wrong because my thinking itself felt compromised.
Once, trying to help with dinner, I broke down while peeling carrots. The peeler felt impossibly heavy. My hand wouldn't coordinate with my intention. I stood there crying, shocked by how little I could do.
I developed bladder and bowel urgency and episodes of loss of control. I had extreme food sensitivities but had to eat every 2-4 hours. I lost my sense of smell and taste. I couldn't understand colours or music. Progress was measured in sensations. Some days, in minutes.
What I was experiencing did not move in straight lines. There were days of relative calm followed by sudden collapse. Small improvements did not accumulate reliably. There was no timeline offered, no reassurance given, no framework that made sense of what was happening.
During the worst months, I could not work, drive, or meaningfully participate in family life. I meditated not for insight or growth, but to survive the sensations in my body. I tried to keep my suffering contained so my children would not see me unravel. They resented the yoga mat because it seemed to take me away from them, even though I was physically present. I preferred this to them realizing the truth, that I could not follow their conversation. I did not know whether I would recover.
What I did know was that this was not relapse, and it was not mental illness returning. It did not resemble anything I had been told to expect.
It felt like a nervous system that had been pushed beyond its limits for 12 years, now trying, slowly, imperfectly, and without guidance, to find its way back to equilibrium.
In the moments when my mind was clear enough to focus, I searched for information. I read about nervous system regulation, withdrawal physiology, sensory integration, and rehabilitation. I learned about somatic yoga, feldenkrais, meditation, and mindfulness. I gathered tools the way someone lost gathers landmarks, not knowing which would help, only knowing I needed a way forward.
Healing felt like stroke rehabilitation, slow and uneven. My senses returned in stages: smell, vision, then clearer sight. Music and a second language gradually became understandable again. Television remained overstimulating for years.
By mid-July 2023, my strength began returning in small ways. I could walk across the yard with more confidence. I followed the healing wherever it led and was grateful for every gain, without knowing how complete recovery would be.
Slowly, over the next few years, I continued towards recovery, and in 2025 I lovingly gave birth to a healthy baby boy and rejoined my family fully.
This is not a miracle story. It is not a victory story. It is a life story, one that continues.
A more detailed version of my story is published here.