Any psychiatrists who can input on the matter of SSRI withdrawal?
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One of the reasons I stopped SSRI's was a feeling of spiritual numbness. Where once I'd felt too intensely, now intensity was replaced by a kind of dullness. I read recently, "There is a sense in which we assume, perhaps with a degree of shame, that moods divorce us from reality and who we are. On the contrary, Heidegger construes moods as a key to self-knowledge or self-interpretation and as a context within which our world (its meanings, significances, and values) is shaped." If the writer (and Heidegger) are correct, is it possible that SSRI's have disallowed me the self-knowledge and self-interpretation I need to make sense of my life? If we live buy once, should it be lived in a sort of drug-induced fug? My very first psychiatrist said there was no need to live every day in existential pain, and I believed him. But after so many years on antidepressants and think he was wrong, at least in part. Perhaps I needed to reconnect with my shadows. What worries me though is not the return of shadows but the strange symptoms which suggest a brain altered by the long use of SSRI's. This scares me more than anything. Any psychiatrists reading this?
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sarah30799 Benjam1n
Posted
I originally stopped taking my first prescribed anti depressants for this exact reason -the feeling of emotional "dullness" it gave me. Some years on I was prescribed SSRIs (sertraline) for severe anxiety, and the experience has been completely different.
On the first meds I just didnt feel anything. At all. It was like being a robot and i felt so detatched from my own existence. I stopped taking them outright without even talking to a doctor and was OK for a few years. It gave me chance to figure myself out and feel again.
After a few big life events i began to have severe anxiety and panic attacks - feeling way too much and I just couldn't handle it so went back to the doctors, and they put me on sertraline and diazepam, with CBT for a few months.
I dont feel the way I did on the first meds on these new ones, I think they have found a good level of some, but not debilitating, anxiety that allows me to make sense of my situation and thoughts.
If you feel like you need to feel more then your SSRIs may be too high a dosage, or the wrong medication for you, I'd talk to the doctor about this as detatchment and emotional numbness will (as you know) not help you discover why you feel the way you do or who you really are.
Spiritually speaking I understand what you are saying, but I don't see it as living in a mental fog, so much as giving yourself a temporary breathing space. There are many stages in everyone's life. The story doesn't end here, its just the personal revelation and renewal chapter
Benjam1n sarah30799
Posted
Thanks Sarah, I think I recognise at some level you are right, a gentler more measured approach than my own which is a bit extreme and angry. (One post-SSRI characteristic is a weirdly short fuse and irritability, and a kind of suspicious ness of the intentions of psychiatrists!!). Difficult to manage sometimes. Well this is a careering truck I'm in! I do appreciate the little bit of light you shared.
Dom05879 Benjam1n
Posted
Hi Benjamin,
I know I've replied to another of your posts, and that what you're after is a professional opinion I just wanted to say that I am sorry you're struggling with things and scared of what SSRIs have done to your brain. I can totally empathise with the fear about irreversible changes to the brain.
I hope someone with experience in psychiatry gets back to you, but I just wanted to say that if you ever need someone to chat to then feel free to send me a personal message, or just reply on here. Take care, Dom