Cal’s Story
In my late teens I started to struggle really badly with anxiety, which I hadn’t seen this bad since I was a young boy in elementary school. I was prescribed Lexapro 10mg by my doctor and I took it in late 2019 for 3 months.
To this day I stand by the fact that I had no side effects and actually found the drug to be very effective. I never liked the idea of being dependent on a drug, even if it was helping me, so I decided to discontinue, thinking that maybe this rough tide had calmed. My anxiety returned and I left it untreated for several months and it spiralled into severe depression. I couldn’t escape this depression without medication, it was too strong. I went to a psychiatrist and I was prescribed Lexapro again, but this time when I took it I had a whole host of side effects; erection and orgasm were gone and I was very emotionally irritable. I stopped after a few days and tried other drugs to avoid these problems. This was unsuccessful as of the few other antidepressants I tried for a week or so, they each had side effects I couldn’t tolerate.
It was at this time I read about PSSD. I came across it on the internet, a place I was told to never go for medical advice, so I thought it would at the very least be too rare to get. I went back on the Lexapro, thinking I could bite the bullet of sexual side effects if it meant I got mentally healthy.
I took the drug for 2 years from March 2021 to March 2023 and have been off it now for 9 months. None of the sexual and emotional restricting symptoms have recovered in this time. Since withdrawal too, my upper leg and genital area went extremely numb. I feel like I’ve been neutered by my own medical system and this is completely unforgivable. I don’t even listen to music anymore because I can’t experience pleasure. I’ve gotten blood tests and seen urologists and there isn’t an answer for why this is happening. My prescribing doctor calls this depression returning but since when is numb genitalia a symptom of depression? I am shocked beyond belief that I have developed this condition I didn’t fully believe in, or at least thought was too rare to be worried about. If there’s anyone reading this considering taking an antidepressant, know it could very well happen to you too.