L’s Story- Atypical Antidepressants
“L”
Switzerland
PSSD-like symptoms from atypical antidepressant
Antidepressants destroyed my life.
I am a young woman at the end of my twenties and my life was taken from me before it could really begin. I have been suffering every single day for over 10 years now from massive iatrogenic (drug induced) damage due to antidepressant usage.
From the onset, I had no idea what was causing the problems that I was feeling and I felt in the dark for years as a result. About two years ago, I learned about another person who had experienced drug induced damage and connected to the dots to my issues beginning during usage of antidepressant medication. Since then I have known with 100 percent certainty that this was the cause of my problems, especially after I read through many more testimonials and found myself one to one with them.
My story of suffering began when I was a teenager. My parents decided to take me to the psychiatrist because of social anxiety and mild depression. The psychiatrist decided to prescribe me 30mg of an antidepressant every evening.
After about 6 weeks of taking the antidepressant I awoke one morning to the sensation that the whole world was further away. A kind of glass pane effect known as derealization. After about another month, I stopped the antidepressant. The feeling of derealization has never disappeared since that morning.
Distressingly, after stopping the antidepressant, my libido/sexuality completely vanished. On top of that, I found myself completely numb emotionally and without any appetite.
Five weeks after stopping the antidepressant I told a nurse that the side effects hadn’t gone away. She assured me that within three weeks everything was supposed to be out of my body and any side effects would dissipate. Needless to say, to this day they have not gone away.
I feel like everything that once lived inside me has been killed. Like I am a ghost trapped in another galaxy, like a bad horror flick. In my opinion this chronic derealization is the worst thing that can be done to a person. I have felt completely disconnected from reality for so many years.
I had days I was scared to death that I won't survive this state of derealization any longer. I felt like I have been buried alive in moments like this - thank god these moments are very rare and most of the time I am able to cope.
It goes without saying that I have years of doctor and hospital visits, investigations , and therapy odysseys behind me. While in the hospital I was offered more and more pills, which never did anything for me except cause more side effects. After a few weeks or months I stopped every medication without additional problems. Luckily, those medications did not damaged me further.
In the years leading up until my realization that it was the atypical antidepressant, it never occurred to anyone that my depression and everything I was experiencing was because of these pills. I have tried all sorts of experiments and therapies to improve my condition so far without success.
As a result of my condition I am as good as unable to work and cannot enter into loving relationships with men, which is probably the worst part of all of this for me. I had all the makings for a happy life, born an intelligent and attractive woman to loving parents and having had a good childhood. But all that means nothing when your health is destroyed.
It is alleged that the medication change or damage the neurotransmitter balance of the nervous system in the long term, and perhaps even elicit epigenetic changes but the truth is that no one knows yet what exactly happened for certain. All the reports of fellow sufferers I have read so far all read almost the same. Sometimes I think that outsiders can't even begin to grasp what it feels like. What has been going on here for many years is an absolute scandal and I hope that it will continue to come to the public.
I am almost 100 percent severely hurt and left behind, sexually, emotionally and cognitively. I kind of like a remote controlled zombie unable to return to reality and emotional vibration with others, no matter how hard I try. It does not help that I lost my emotional memory since developing PSSD. Everything I had in life with my friends and family before I got PSSD is extinguished. I remember everything but it feels like nothing. Former friends turned into strangers and it has now been years since I have been able to feel love for my family.
Since I have learned for certain what led to my state, my depression got worse and I lost almost every hope I had to get better. I often find myself in intense states of grief, anger, and bitterness over my situation.
I am shocked and its hard for me to realize and process that this condition is real and happened to me and others. It is even more confusing to me that people I know who abused illegal drugs do not have these lasting damage as with this condition.
I have the feeling that I am at the end of my life and with no own identity when I am only turning 30. In reality it feels as if I am almost 70 years old. All the many years I was fighting for a normal life with so much therapy, which was completely senseless, as you cannot fix a neurochemimcal illness with psychological sessions.
In my opinion PSSD is one of the cruelest and most criminal things that can happen to a human being.
Thank goodness PSSD is now beginning to get attention for studies, which gives me a little bit of hope of finding improvement for the symptoms at some point. Research is the most critical next step at the moment. Every one of us sufferers deserves to get answers as to what has happened and hopefully one day find relief for our symptoms. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry needs to be held accountable for the damage that they have caused too so many people, although this happening is unlikely.
As such, I will continue to hold on. In the meanwhile, I find a little peace in sport, dancing, and music and will try to do more things that help me to relax like go on beach holidays and swim.
Healthcare practitioners are still not warning patients about this possible damage. Only a note on secondary sexual disorders was requested. I hope so much that at some point those affected can be helped.
To all sufferers I want to say: you are strong as hell.