Marc’s Story

Marc Reinsdorfer

Germany

PSSD for 2 years

Original story: https://medium.com/@marc.reinsdorfer/how-antidepressants-destroyed-my-life-fb965cfcf92d

Follow Marc Reinsdorfer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reinsdorfer

This is a story of how I went from working as a frontend software developer in an exciting city to living in my parents basement for the last 1.5 years.

I just started a new job as a junior software developer, and the stress from my new job as well as problems with loud roommates led to insomnia, from which I desperately tried to get relief with “natural” remedies, like working out, meditating, taking magnesium and CBD oil.

When this didn’t work, and I still couldn’t sleep through the night (I got max 1–2 hrs of sleep during this time), I decided to see my GP. At first, he prescribed me some mild sleeping aids, like anti-histamines (Diphenhydramine). When these didn’t work, the doctor prescribed me Trazodone HCL which is an antidepressant, used off-label for insomnia. The doctor told me it’s completely safe and even safer than benzodiazepines, which can cause dependence quite easily.

I was told to start with 1/3 of a tablet, which is 50mg Trazodone HCL. At this dose it should only sedate me, so I can finally get my sleep. The doctor told me the antidepressant effect would only start at 150mg, so I did not have to worry about the side effects.

My cognitive skills deteriorated and I was fired from my job, as I was unable to perform my duties in this state. I was essentially bedridden at this point and had to move back in with my parents. The state of panic continued for months, during which I only got an estimated 1–2hrs of actual sleep a night. At this point I didn’t attribute all of those symptoms to the few Trazodone pills I took.

I thought my mind finally broke from the stress of getting fired, and I was now officially depressed. My parents told me to see a psychiatrist, which I did. To help with my very bad insomnia, the first psychiatrist I saw prescribed me Mirtazapine, another antidepressant, to supposedly sedate me and help fall sleep.

Little did I know, the “Flower Pills” already caused a paradoxical reaction in me, leading to the first iatrogenic damage I got from psychiatric medications.

I took Mirtazapine (15mg) for three weeks, which made me even more of a zombie, and then quit.

The panic state continued for months, and during this time I tried every natural remedy imaginable to escape this prison of my own mind. It still wasn’t getting any better, so my family convinced me to see another psychiatrist, this time combined with talk therapy.

After my first session, I left the psychiatrists office with a script of Effexor (SNRI) and Zoldem (Sleeping Pill).

I informed myself about Effexor from the internet and the included leaflet, when I realized the side effects, and especially the withdrawal, are very dangerous. The Effexor package was laying unopened on my desk for weeks, but after about the 6th therapy session with my new psychiatrist, he convinced me to go on the pills. I told him my concerns about the devastating withdrawal effects and the bad reviews it gets on the internet. He downplayed the antidepressant side effects and told me they rarely ever happen, and that the reviews on the internet can be made by everybody and are mostly fake.

After 2 months on the Effexor I figured it only made me worse, it completely warped my time perception, feeling of hunger, thirst, and gave me sexual dysfunction, anhedonia and genital numbness and complete loss of libido.

The real horror came when I went off Effexor- the antidpressants side effects were persistant. Even 1 year after coming off these pills, my sexual dysfunction as well as many other symptoms are persisting.

After googling “antidepressant sexual dysfunction” I came across Post-SSRI-Sexual-Dysfunction (PSSD).

The name for this condition is PSSD. Although it seems to be quite rare, there are thousands of sufferers like me. There is a subreddit aswell as a support forum.

As of now there is no cure for this disease, and many suffers are left with permanent (not only) sexual dysfunction. One of the most life-disabling symptoms of PSSD is Anhedonia, the inability to enjoy anything.

More than 1.5 years after my first contact with psychiatric medications, I’m still an empty shell, a complete shadow of my former self, left with no personality, interests, and libido.

There is barely any research on this condition despite sufferers having it for decades.

After some temporary life problems, a natural reaction to stress was made chronic by psychiatric medications. I cannot work, I have no interests or hobbies any more, I can’t feel love towards my own family, and I have zero interests in the other gender. Chronic fatigue, loss of muscle, penile shrinkage, and numbness are just some other symptoms of this madness.

So far there is a $66k price (May 2020) by rxisk.org for whoever finds the cure for PSSD.

Unfortunately this amount of money isn’t remotely enough to find a cure for PSSD, if there is one.

There are many theories about what happens in PSSD, the most popular one being that permanent epigenetic alterations happen.

Over the last years, sufferers tried many treatments, supplements, even illegal drugs like LSD or Ayahuasca to get relief from this treatment-resistant condition.

I got PSSD when I was 21. Now I am 23 and still have all the symptoms. My life’s purpose is now to find a cure for this condition, mainly by raising awareness.

There are similar syndromes, such as Post-Finasteride Syndrome (PFS) and Post-Accutane Syndrome (PAS). Those communities have also been trying various drugs to find relief, including hormones and research chemicals. There are thousands of sufferers and many suicides in the communities each year. This shows how desperate people are for relief.

Please join these forums if you are affected in similar way as I am from psychiatric drugs. We need to unite all sufferers together for maximum visibility and evidence.

If anyone reading this has knowledge in neuroscience, epigenetics, etc, and wants to contribute to solving PSSD, please message me.