Went Through Hell and Am Here to Tell the Tale

Hi everyone! I wanted to share my healing story! I went through hell and am here to tell the tale. I have been making videos about this journey on YouTube and at lifeaftermeds.com as well.

So… I know you are wondering about my medication history and my symptoms.

Medication history:

I was on meds for 10 years for postpartum depression. I tried to get off after being adjusted with the baby but yikes! Darkness. I was told it was the original illness blah blah blah, meds for life blah blah blah. Lies with credentials blah blah blah. And so on for 10 years. Had been up and down. Down out of nowhere on the meds. Then caught wind of the whole fallacy. I learned about the whole myth of a “chemical imbalance.” When I learned I could be free I thought “Yes!” It really resonated with me that my body could do this without meds. It gave me reasonable hope.

I had been on many meds over those years with my doc trying to find my best fit. So I had already cycled a bunch, crossing over to other meds. And I was finally on an SSRI and an SNRI. I had been on multiple for like 8 years. Fluoxetine (which had crossed over from Lexapro) and Wellbutrin. I knew my Dr. believed I needed them for life and so I decided to do this on my own. I knew the standard advice about tapering so I did it myself over 6 weeks with the fluoxetine. I skipped days and everything because of something I read about half life. Yes, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Stopped the Wellbutrin abruptly because of some bad information I read. Equally brilliant.

I was kind of blue/sad but, ya know… expected, doable. I went months like that. I am a therapist and had specialized training in trauma and I had so many amazing tools. I could do this! Yeah, confidence, what a joke. All hell broke loose like 5 months in. I was unraveling physically and emotionally. Like something crazy was going on with my mind and body. Sweats and intrusive thoughts and bizarre anxiety. I went back to the doc.

Then I reinstated the amount they recommended, a lovely 20 mg of fluoxetine. And what ensued the next three days was mental horror. It was kindling for three days. Miraculously, a friend from the past texted and got on the phone with me for two hours. She had also gotten off meds and knew withdrawal. She helped me understand what was going on with my brain and body. I did not have a clue. She had survived the withdrawals. Then it was just me and God and my husband and the work of staying alive through the nightmare. Oh, and being a parent! My girls at this time were 11, 10, and 6. They are homeschooled, so they were home the entire time I went through this. So for those of you who are parents in this, my heart goes out to you so much!

Symptoms:

• Crying spells, so much crying
• Worsened mood, so down and gloom and doom
• Inconsolable, cycling through high distress to less distress
• Fatigue, so exhausted!
• Trouble concentrating, thoughts were not linear anymore!
• Lost my appetite in a weird way, could not taste food, and nausea
• SI
• Panic and terror
• Fear of going places
• Fear of going outside
• Trembling
• Feeling doomed and condemned
• Horrific looping thoughts about my faults, the past, how doomed I am, etc.
• Irritable
• Restless
• Insomnia at times
• Akathisia at times
• Confusion and slowed mental processing speed
• Derealization and depersonalization
• Anhedonia, felt like I was behind a glass wall
• Chemical cortisol surges
• Flu-like aches
• Sweats
• Chills, so cold!
• Diarrhea
• Weight loss
• Hair loss
• Feeling of bugs crawling on my skin or on my head
• Unsteady waterlogged feeling
• Flashbacks
• Terrible depressive thoughts
• Terrible fearful thoughts
• Inability to connect with people normally
• In bed for a time

It turns out all that therapy training and trauma training was completely useless to me. I questioned my life choices and career choices. I couldn’t work. So financial loss and hard times on that front. And agony. I had kids and a husband counting on me. We had moved from the city to the rural area I grew up in. I had been in the city my whole adult life, and I was hating the rural so much, but we couldn’t tell if it was withdrawal or a bad fit. So I lived in the boondocks while in this withdrawal. I was scared of everything. Had a lot of mental torment from memories. It felt like an absolute nightmare I could not pause, stop, undo, or find my way out of. Some examples of themes I felt tormented by:

Identity doubt:

• Questioning my identity: was I compromised by the meds?
• Questioning of life choices: were they because of the meds?
• Questioning my parenting: did I parent badly on the meds?

Spiritual doubt:

• Moral anxiety of decisions in the past
• Distortions about God and my faith
• Fear that the best days of my life were in the past and I squandered them
• Fear that I did something irredeemable to deserve cosmic punishment and torment
• Incredible grief over the years past when my kids were younger, delusional regret

Turmoil of situation:

• Feeling trapped in my brain
• Feeling trapped in my body
• Feeling trapped in my circumstances about where I lived

Existential:

• Fear I wasted my life
• Fear the future was dismal and nothing else good could happen for me

My perspective was so jacked. On every front.

Therapy was useless to me. I felt horrendously worse with it. Of course no meds. No hospital. No books. No trauma healing interventions. For a while not even journaling! All the things my training would say I need for surviving and getting good mental health were out.

What got me through? Guys, I will be completely honest here. Love got me through. There were just little bits of hope. Shreds of hope here and there. Like a phone call with a friend who would talk me down off the ledge. And then I would be at it again, swinging through the fight for however many hours until I was broken down again. Then I would listen to a success story. I would cling onto it for dear life. It reminded me of rock climbing and getting from one hold to the next up a steep, hazardous cliff. But entirely agonizing. I had encounters that really helped me have hope and keep going. I also did a lot of “faking good” to protect my kids. And eventually I wasn’t just being told about hope and faking it - I cleared the edge of that cliff. I had hope! Things changed.

I’ll list some things here that helped me hold on:

• Avoiding caffeine and sugar (for a time)
• Practicing good sleep habits (like getting off my phone and turning lights down at a certain time every day)
• Accepting when sleep didn’t happen
• God’s help in surprising ways
• Encouraging words specifically about hope from the Bible
• Prayer (often on loop)
• Loving people reassuring me (on repeat) that I would heal and putting up with me
• My husband being a rock of support to me through this
• Choosing to love others enough to keep living through hell
• Trying to do what I could still do for my family or others (doing stuff helped rehab me)
• Survivor stories
• Survivor videos (Michael Priebe, Dan Landauer, Angie Peacock)
• Angie Peacock’s support groups
• Also hot showers helped
• Focusing on anything positive to help myself keep going
• Distraction, anything productive I was able to focus on helped me get through the time and rehab my brain

Time was the hardest! Patience in suffering, holding onto anything good and true in the midst of ongoing agony. The total time was 2 years, but I felt significant improvements along the way in the second year.

And now? Now I am doing so well!

My husband was asked to help start a church in central Florida. It’s a place I love and have friends, and it all just unfolded so amazingly. My kids transitioned beautifully. I connected with my old supervisor and she valued my healing story and hired me as a therapist. So life circumstances just changed in time, in ways I could not have anticipated in the midst of the horror. All the horror stories of my future in my head really were fake news.

So here I am now, and I love where I live so much. And I love what I do. And I remember who I am! I was me all along; on the meds and even in the withdrawals and now. I can see a cohesive self. There were times of suffering and having my mood affected, probably by being medicated, but that was me affected, and now I am me on the other side. Then there was me in withdrawal with injury, but it was still me, just me suffering. And now I am myself, but relieved of medication and the injury. I feel my real self and don’t doubt every decision I ever made. Most of them were fine decisions! They were based on the real me and they were good! And what was wrong or selfish is forgivable and over and in the past. Not a big deal.

I feel lovable and loved again, where before I felt mostly in pain and had distortions about my self-esteem. I feel closer to God like he is laughing with me. I can take things lightly again. I have deep joy, gratitude, and peace again. I feel good in my body and brain. I work out and feel a rush of endorphins. I hear music and feel my heart lift and beat with motivation and purpose. I notice beauty and enjoy decorating my house again. I feel connected again to people and more deeply attached to my loved ones than ever. My relationship with my husband has forged into something indestructible. I feel a deep sense of direction and calling over my life. I have grace over every inch of my heart and mind and life like I could have never imagined in that torment. I enjoy the sweetness of everyday ordinary life. The sky is beautiful, the birds fascinating. Food is delicious and fun to make. People are a joy to be with. My kids make me laugh and feel pride. I enjoy these days and I also look forward to good times ahead. After the terrifying storms of withdrawal, my own self is like a warm house that I am finally at home in.

I still have normal human negative feelings and stresses of everyday life, running a house and getting the to-do list done. But it is so small compared to withdrawal pain. I feel so much more grounded and secure, like the little stuff can’t knock me now. I feel even like I have had a deep internal reset, about the things that really matter in life, and how I am really loved and secure in God.

Friends, right now you cannot imagine the good that can come in your future. So believe the words of people who have healed. You are coming through something incredible! This stuff is the making of saints and legends. So from one survivor to the next: you can come through this one day at a time to the beautiful other side!

❤️‍🩹 Joanna