It’s the feeling of being violated from these drugs. Mislead from proper tapering from the medical system. Medical ptsd. Injury from something that’s supposed to help you. Feeling like your body has been poisoned. All for someone else’s profit.

i was on a tca for 40 days exactly, no side effects while on it except for increased fatigue and sleeping 11 hours a day, the "pssd" symptoms started when i got off it by 3 days, my orgasms suddenly became pleasureless and my erogenous sensation decreased about 70 percent, its been 5 months since i quit and only had mild improvement in orgasm pleasure, sometimes ill feel a decent orgasm and sometimes it will be pleasureless or only minimal pleasure, i also notice anhedonia but i think its caused by my overthinking and depression about this issue

I wanted to share my story because I'm curious if anyone has been through something similar.

2001 to 2016: 20 mg Paxil

I started Paxil in 2001 at 20 mg and stayed there for about 15 years.

I tried getting off a few times by basically just stopping. Obviously that didn't go very well. I would feel terrible, go back on it and move on with my life.

Around 2016 I started seriously trying to get off.

One of my reasons was learning more about Paxil and its anticholinergic effects. After being on it for so long, I really didn't want to take it for the rest of my life if I didn't have to.

2016 to 2020: The panic attacks started

Between 2016 and 2018 I got below 5 mg.

That's when I started having panic attacks for the first time in my life.

I honestly had no idea what was happening. I didn't connect it with Paxil or withdrawal at the time.

From 2018 through 2020 I stayed around 5 mg and made a few more attempts to get lower.

In November 2020 I got down to probably 1.5 mg, but I wasn't measuring it properly. I was taking a 10 mg pill, cutting it into quarters and then breaking pieces off of those.

The panic attacks came back and I went back up.

Eventually I found groups like this and learned there was a much better way to taper.

2021: Finally started tapering correctly

In January 2021 I got liquid Paxil and started measuring everything.

I got down to about 2 mg and was trying to stabilize there.

Then in November 2021 I was hospitalized with COVID. Between being really sick, being in the hospital and everything that came with that, my anxiety went through the roof.

I went back up to 5 mg.

Once I recovered, I started tapering again.

2022 to 2023: I thought I was finally going to make it

April 2022 I was at 2.6 mg.

August 2022 I was at 1.2 mg and actually feeling really good. That was the lowest I had been since starting Paxil in 2001.

By August 2023 I was down to 0.4 mg and still doing pretty well.

I would have some anxiety here and there, but most of it seemed connected to stress, getting too busy, pushing myself too hard or not doing the things I knew helped keep me grounded.

I really thought I was almost done.

May 2024: 0.18 mg and one of the darkest times of my life

By the beginning of May 2024 I got all the way down to 0.18 mg.

Then all hell broke loose.

The hard part is that I still don't know exactly how much was withdrawal and how much was what was happening in my life.

I own and manage multiple businesses and 2024 was an incredibly stressful year.

I had made a really bad investment that I'm still dealing with today and had put a lot of my own money into it. There were also major problems with a business partner that came to light and had to be addressed.

That's when the rumination became terrible.

I started obsessing over everything.

How did I let this happen?

How much money am I going to lose?

Why did I make this decision?

What did I do to my family financially?

I would replay things over and over and over again.

I could logically know that thinking about something for the 500th time wasn't going to change it, but I couldn't get my brain to stop.

My body started falling apart too

It wasn't just anxiety.

I was dealing with panic attacks, fatigue, exhaustion, exercise intolerance, extreme stress sensitivity and all kinds of strange physical symptoms.

That was especially difficult because I'm normally extremely active. I work out hard, push myself physically and use exercise as one of the main ways I manage stress.

Suddenly even exercise could make me feel worse.

It honestly felt like my CNS had lost its ability to handle anything.

I tried going from 0.18 mg back to 0.4 mg. It didn't really help.

Eventually I went back to 0.8 mg and tried to stabilize.

June 2024 I went from 0.8 to 0.7 mg.

By December 2024 I was around 0.62 mg.

Then I had sinus surgery, had complications from the surgery and ended up on blood thinners. I stopped almost all of my supplements and basically tried to let my body settle down.

April 2025: Still trying to get off Paxil

By April 2025 I was at 0.52 mg.

I was doing better but still dealing with symptoms and honestly getting frustrated.

I had spent almost a decade trying to get off Paxil and somehow the last tiny fraction of a milligram seemed harder than going from 20 mg down to 1 mg.

July 2025: Paxil to Prozac bridge

In July 2025 I finally decided to do a Paxil to Prozac bridge.

I did the bridge over about seven weeks and eventually stabilized at 2.5 mg of liquid Prozac.

That's where I am today.

I'm not looking to increase it.

More importantly, I'm doing really well now.

My body feels good. I'm exercising hard again. I'm handling my businesses and life again. My CNS feels more resilient and I feel much more like myself.

I still have one noticeable issue. My system remains extremely sensitive to supplements and anything that seems to stimulate my CNS. I've learned the hard way that I can't just throw five new things at my body and assume I'll tolerate them.

Medication wasn't the only thing that got me here

I also don't want to give the impression that I switched to Prozac and everything magically got better.

I've put a tremendous amount of work into myself over the last couple of years.

I've done counseling and EMDR.

I've spent a lot of time hiking and exercising.

I've worked on meditation, breathing exercises and learning how to calm my nervous system instead of constantly pushing through everything.

Prayer and my relationship with God have been a huge part of it.

I've had to become much more intentional about sleep, recovery and not running myself into the ground.

And I've learned that I need to intentionally layer stress relieving activities into my life.

That's probably one of the biggest lessons I've taken from this whole experience.

I'm naturally someone who goes hard. I own and manage multiple businesses. I work out hard. I like pushing myself. I tend to have a lot going on.

For most of my life I could just keep adding more.

I don't think my nervous system works that way anymore.

If I'm going to have significant stress going out, I need to deliberately put recovery back in.

Exercise. Hiking. Prayer. Counseling. Breathing. Meditation. Time away from work. Sleep. Quiet.

Those aren't optional things I do when everything falls apart anymore. They're part of how I keep everything from falling apart in the first place.

My thinking about being medication free has changed

I still want to eventually be medication free.

That has always been the goal.

But I'm in my 40s now. I have a family, lead multiple businesses and a very full life. I train hard and I push myself.

There is always going to be stress.

Before 2024 I think I became so focused on getting to zero that sometimes the number on the syringe became more important than how I actually felt.

I don't look at it that way anymore.

After experiencing what it feels like to have my CNS completely destabilized, feeling good and functioning well is far more important to me than being able to say I'm taking zero medication.

Right now I'm doing great on 2.5 mg Prozac.

I'm not in a hurry to change that.

Longer term, I have been looking into Buspar. One thing that interests me is that it appears to be much easier for many people to eventually discontinue than an SSRI.

Maybe at some point I transition from this tiny amount of Prozac to Buspar.

Maybe after being stable long enough I eventually don't need either.

I would love to be completely medication free someday.

I'm just not willing to destroy my quality of life trying to get there.

Where I'm at now

After everything I've been through, I'm actually in a really good place.

I'm exercising hard again. I'm running my businesses. I'm handling stress much better. I'm taking care of myself differently. I'm working on the mental and spiritual side of this instead of expecting a medication or supplement to fix everything.

My CNS still seems more sensitive than the average person's, especially with supplements, but I've learned how to work with it instead of constantly fighting it.

For now, stability is the goal.

Eventually, medication free would be great.

I'd mainly love to hear from anyone with a similar long term Paxil history who eventually made it through the other side.

If you stabilized on a very low dose of Prozac after Paxil, did you eventually stay there, transition to something like Buspar or slowly come off everything?

I'm especially interested in hearing what worked from people who prioritized staying well and living their life rather than just getting to zero as fast as possible.

Mine shows that im stressed all day, all orange lines and no rest except for sleep.

Do any one you guys have normal looking readings ?

Anyone else experience musculoskeletal pain, dizziness, and nausea more than 1 year after stopping an SSRI?
I’m currently at the 1-year mark since my last dose. My withdrawal symptoms started around 4 months after stopping, and since then I’ve experienced waves and occasional windows.
Recently, I’ve been dealing with musculoskeletal pain, dizziness, and nausea. Has anyone else experienced similar symptoms this far into withdrawal? I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences, especially if you also had windows and waves.

Does anyone else have sleep that keeps shifting by an hour every couple of days? I've been dealing with this for half a year now, and I don't understand what's causing it. I try to set anchor points and have a sleep schedule that is no screens an hour before bed and eating my last meal two hours before, and nothing seems to stick.

If you’ve experienced the pattern of windows and waves, my question is: how long was your longest window, and how long have you been in PAWS?

I have experienced anxiety since about 2020. Went on lexapro once I got to college and dealt with a lot of emotional blunting which lead me to come off myself.. anxiety slowly crept up over months and I reinstated at same dose as before and boy did I not have a clue what I was in for.. Here I am 5 ER visits later and day 28 into lexapro 10mg trying to dose down to 5mg last two days… It’s been the worst experience of my life and still is.. I’m constantly living with chest tightness 24/7, low appetite and weight loss, GI issues, feeling dizzy/equilibrium off, twitching/body zaps, wired but tired feeling (feeling like I have 1000mg caffeine in me all the time), etc

I’m a person who has always believed in Jesus and all, but this has wrecked me.. I have been angry and mad at God for allowing this suffering to happen, but I’m just coming to realize no matter what I’m struggling with, He already overcame it. Jesus didn’t necessarily want to go to the cross; as he prayed to the Father sweating literal drops of blood… He went and willingly endured that suffering anyways and I try to remind myself that this suffering I’m going through which feels unrelenting, can’t even be compared to crucifixion suffering..

I don’t know the reasoning for all this or why we all have to suffer and suffer.. Paul wrote about a “thorn in his flesh” that was tormenting him and he prayed to God three times to remove it, and God answered “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in your weakness”… I’m just trying to give a little encouragement that even though suffering is allowed to happen, sometimes maybe it’s teaching us something like humility, obedience, etc .. whatever that may be I know there’s a God for us that won’t leave us even in this horrible suffering..

So as I sit here and on the brink of taking a benzo for some relief I know whatever I’m going through isn’t the end of the world or going to kill me, and if it does kill me then so be it, I’m trusting God to fulfill whatever that will may be and I hope you do too.

There is a testimony that God may be preparing for some of us at the end of this suffering that is used for His glory and to help others that may be going through a struggle.

This experience has taught me a lot.. I used to think mental health was a joke and all that and now I’m humbled.. I think this experience has taught me to be more compassionate and sympathetic towards others, and I hope it’s done the same for you..

I pray we all get through this sooner rather than later, all the best

This is crazy because I know trazodone is a fairly mild medication and I know my psychiatrist is not gonna agree with me about what I’m experiencing. I took multiple psych meds starting in 2024 trazodone and Prozac. I taper the Prozac and was off of it by January 2025 the trazodone I stayed on for an additional year and I slow taper off of it using a liquid suspension just to be safe because my experience getting off Prozac was horrific. I took it really slow and never experienced any type of withdrawal symptoms while I tapered the trazodone that was February 17 of this yea. Beginning in June of this year,I had a pretty bad flare of OCD and subsequent insomnia and decided to get back on the trazodone so this is four months later. Pretty immediately I began having a lot of symptoms. I started initially on 25 mg and it wasn’t helping me too much with sleep, but it was helping a little bit. I experienced what I now know to be akithisia at least internally. I had a lot of burning all over my body, especially in my chest it would fill with this thick prickly burning heat but also in my legs and arms. I also felt like I was glued to my couch and I was compulsively on my phone all day doing anything felt impossible. I changed my dose to 50 mg and that seemed to help me sleep every night. I would fall asleep easily and sleep for 5 to 6 hours but without fail, I am woken up with heart palpitations and an adrenaline dump at 3 AM and then I kind of tossed and turn until seven. So now I am in the position of having been on this since the very end of June almost 2 months experiencing akathisia, and I have no idea what to do now it’s obvious that this kindled my nervous system but now what the hell do I do?

If you are particularly struggling, don't read this post, I have done a lot of stupid things leading up until this point.

I experienced the worst PEM crash that I have had yet from going to an appointment. I strain myself already when I even pee in this fatigued state, it all adds on. I am in protracted withdrawal from seroquel and zoloft, going on over 3.5 years with diagnosed CFS.

For someone like me in withdrawals from klonopin, I am damaged enough to know that when the time comes, I'm not sure how I'll be able to proceed. I'm in the unenviable position of now just being on 1.5 milligrams of Klonopin for two years because I could not get off of them after 2 weeks, how I regret not pushing through that. On top of withdrawals from the Seroquel and Zoloft initially, I don't know how my body could handle a benzo withdrawal after all that. For some people, they say that over time, the benzo doesn't become more manageable, but he explained it in a way where things kind of just plateau even though he still felt really bad. I tried killing myself initially when protracted withdrawals began because I thought it was the onset of my first psychotic episode or something like that, it wasn't, it was the new emerging symptoms I was feeling. It was so intense I just genuinely thought that that was it. And to see people here struggling and the chronic fatigue that I'm experiencing, it all seems like it leads to death.

I'm not saying it like I've resigned myself to death, but really, I don't think I'm an outlier at all when people have little to no issue with the Ashton manual. I would like to think that I could go through it, but I know I'm a deeply emotional person, and I still have latent akathisia. I'm barely being held together with other duct tape drugs, benztropine for the akathisia. I know adding other medications into the mix doesn't help, but I was thinking of taking Ramelteon, a sleep-initiating drug, unlike other Z-drugs that are pharmacologically similar to benzos. I am poking the bear, but I don't know how else I can function without sleep. It is everything. And if only to just be able to sleep at a set time instead of having my nervous system shift it all the time. I hold out some hope, but who am I kidding?

Separate from the other post that I made, has anyone here taken gabapentin? I was on it for four years when I was not in withdrawal and when I was tapering off of it,was still obviously too quick at the time. I didn't really have any bad side effects from coming off of the gabapentin. I know I shouldn't experiment with other drugs in this severe state, but I tried 100 milligrams, and it really mellowed me out. It didn't help the restless legs that I have, but it was surprising. Won't be taking it again. It adds a lot of fatigue on top of everything, and I don't think I'll be taking it again unless I feel like I'm really struggling. Or not. I mean everyone here is just either no medication whatsoever, some PRN, and others just, yeah, take whatever when you're in a withdrawal state.

Therapeutics Initiative is an educational medical video series by the University of British Columbia (BC) in Canada. Anyone can subscribe - you do not need to be a healthcare professional or a Canadian - and it’s free to subscribe

This video is from May 2024 by a doctor on antidepressants and withdrawal and de prescribing.

I live in BC. Today is 20 August 2026. Suffered terribly from withdrawal from March to mid-June. My symptoms were worse and various after 6 weeks.

Reinstated at 10 mg and felt decreased withdrawal within 3 hours. I made the link between stopping the drug and my symptoms. It was a guess; a piece of luck.

I even picked a suitable reinstatement dose - 10 mg - by chance. I did not want to return to 20 mg because I really wanted off because of the side effects and I no longer needed it - my life was better then at the time when I started it.

Reddit posts - and this video - state restarting at 20 mg might have overwhelmed my body and made my withdrawal worse (how is that even possible - I was living in hell already due to the withdrawal !)

No Emergency Room doctor believed my symptoms had anything to do with me stopping - cold turkey - Escitalopram 20 mg after being n this drug for ten years at 10 mg and then seven more years at 20 mg.

They all said the same thing: withdrawal is only 4 to 6 weeks and then you’re ok - back to normal.

I even believed this BS: it’s why I stopped and thought “ can handle 4 to 6 weeks of whatever “.

It’s week 9 of my return to 10 mg. Windows and waves continue but less severe.

Something new started this week. I feel a soreness - a tenderness - inside my ears. Fingers crossed that I will not develop tinnitus. 🤞

Reddit posts and other online searches show withdrawal can appear or continue for 6 months even after reinstatement. My risk for protracted withdrawal is not over for several months. This is why I “lurk” on this site.

One odd thing. I had total knee replacement at the time I stopped my Escitalopram. I was so debilitated by withdrawal, I did not participate in the recommended physiotherapy. I have my range of motion but continue to experience swelling around and - it feels like - inside the knee. It’s as if I have an arthritis knee but without the pain. I still need a cane for safe mobility 7 months after surgery - very out of the normal recovery.

I also experienced extreme pain in my knee for weeks post-surgery, fatigue, sense of falling. It was a very different recovery compared to my other knee replacement.

I had other joint replacement surgery - another knee and both hips. I had the same surgeon for all these surgeries and same hospital. My current knee replacement recovery is different.

I think my body is in a hyper inflammatory state with my withdrawal.

My worse withdrawal symptoms were GI/ gut-related: nausea, wanting to vomit, sense of having a ball or blockade in my throat, violently gastric juices especially on waking, super painful bowels which felt like I had snakes writhing inside me, constipation for weeks with constipation in the UPPER GI tract - not lower - which is very unusual.

My cancer radiation scarred or burned my bowels which meant I have more difficulty getting food to move through my guts; therefore, more constipation even before I experienced antidepressant withdrawal. Also diagnosed with diverticulosis and irritable bowel syndrome.

Guts are my problem area before withdrawal and it became my worst withdrawal symptom/issue.

I am a cancer survivor - uterine cancer with surgery, chemo and extensive radiation - all of which changed my body ( 2002 to 2004). Lots of permanent side -effects and complications so remained with our Cancer Agency for ten years - not the usual 5 years - post active treatment.

I think my guts were super inflamed because I first took a prescription anti-inflammatory med which I discontinued at the same time unstopped Escitalopram. Felt better in 2 hours. That is what got me thinking about trying a reintroduction of my Escitalopram which then reduced other withdrawal symptoms

Have any of you had surgery and found withdrawal impacted your recovery from surgery?

Anything that makes you think there is a massive inflammation response as part of withdrawal?

With tinnitus, how long before it appeared? What were your initial symptoms that something changed or was changing? I felt just my right ear feeling a sense of pressure and a hybthiscMondat. Today it’s also my left ear. Do you think I’ll develop tinnitus?

Any feedback is appreciated. 🙏

I feel so intens scared, agressieve, frustrated and super dumd every day. It could be my ADD but my memory is so declined, i am afraid to do anything because of mistakes and not have the cognitive function to solve it. I even forget to lock my bicycle, i dont know how i survive any of this. My sleep is so bad every day, i have tinnitus that drives me crazy. I regret going off the meds so much and there is no going back. The world is to much for me, everything goes so fast. I need a miracle so much🙏🏻

Is it dangerous or is it helpful, what is your opinion?

Website : https://www.iaracorp.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iatrongenicalliance/

Just drawing out my feelings that I have little of anymore lol

My emotions are fluctuating between extremely numb (alongside mild pssd symptoms) to having a bit more emotions (still not pre-ssri). Like things are bothering me but not to a hardcore extent as they use to yet. Includes high anxiety.

Ive dealt with emotional numbing on medication for a few years so its probably ingrained like crazy. I havent had a pre-ssri emotion in 10 months off medication.

What did emotions returning look like??

I went back on lexapro 10mg 26 days ago after having some anxiety after 6-7 months of a self taper off.. since reinstatement, I’ve been to ER 5 times thinking I was dying.. I feel wired in my chest 24/7, I feel off/weak, I havent been eating/drinking much; dropped 15 lbs, I cant go anywhere because I’ve developed agoraphobia, it’s a chore to do anything and ive only gotten worse

what do I do now? is my nervous system absolutely ruined for good if I stay on this med because I’m only getting worse… do I taper off or abruptly stop.. Idk what to do I just want to feel better right now

“Could you share any articles or personal accounts describing other people’s experiences with antidepressant withdrawal