Numbness and sexual side effects after restarting citalopram, advice and help please!

This will be a long post so thank you in advance for reading. First of all, some backstory- I took citalopram for the first time about a year ago and was on 20mg for 8 months before reducing to 10mg for 2 months. I took it for moderate depression that I had been suffering with for years. After the 2 months on 10mg, I felt great and decided I was ready to come off. To come off, I took one 10mg tablet every other day for 3 weeks and then stopped completely (my doctors recommendation). The first week I had the physical symptoms of withdrawal such as brain fuzziness, sickness, tiredness etc. Mood-wise though I was completely fine. After that first week the physical symptoms disappeared, however I then started to go downhill mentally. I had a few down days, then a few up days and after that seemed to be emotionally unstable and constantly down all the time.

Now onto the main things I am writing because of- it is during this withdrawal that I began to feel numb sexually, having no feeling or arousal and thus finding masturbation difficult, sometimes giving up part way through. Getting an erection was no problem but I couldn't orgasm as there just seemed to be no heightening of feeling, if any to start with. Before going on citalopram I had a little issue with orgasming (due to my depression I think, as I had no problems before suffering), but this didn't seem to get any worse when I took citalopram the first time. The sexual side effects weren't very noticeable- some loss of feeling but that is all. When I accidentally missed a dose 3 months in on 20mg, my high sex drive returned with a bang and was like it was before I had depression. I am therefore worried and concerned as to why this didn't reoccur when I came off citalopram completely and instead was replaced with dysfunction.

After a couple of weeks of persistent withdrawal, I decided I had come off citalopram way too fast and restarted on 10mg. After 2 weeks on 10mg I increased the dose to 20mg, due to feeling as though my mood wasn't great still. However, despite my mood improving slightly with the increase, it is still iffy and I've begun feeling numb when it comes to certain things. The sexual problems from withdrawal have remained also and I'm concerned as to why these haven't improved now I'm back on the drug.

Sorry if this post is long and overly complicated but I'm just wondering if anyone has any advise/help on what to do about the sexual problems and numbness I'm experiencing? Or are just able to shine some light on my situation? Particularly the sexual side effects. It's obviously very upsetting I've had to restart citalopram after having so much success and now feeling like I'm back at square one/ having to choose between a lose-lose situation (sexual problems and numbness vs depression). I'm unsure what to do with my dosage at the minute and some guidance from people with more knowledge of the drug would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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