Please help with emotional blunting

Hi ,i was on citalopram for a week and day one after 2 hours i had a strange feeling and a pannick attack and also on day 4 , it definitely made my symptoms sky rocket ,i could not focus on writing as it was blurry , my anxiety and depression were constant some nights and this led to 3 days of insomnia that made it all worst i am now on day 10 of withdrawals and lots have subsided i think , don't want to be to overconfident, yeh it was 10mg and with an abrupt stop, my main concern was i was looking at stuff with no real emotion its a real horrible feeling,wanting to feal like i did but cant, i guess its down to the chemical imbalance of no serotonin maybe and the dread that my brain wont readjust to making its own one day ,thank you so much

with these medication's, it is very common for you to feel much worse before you get better. It definitely is a side effect of the medication as far as your panic attacks but once you are on the medication's for a few weeks that all should calm down, including the insomnia, it's just a rough road. If you have just gone off of it, you are probably getting with drawls. I've been on Celexa, citalopram a couple of times in my life over the last 20 years it does work for me, but occasionally I have to change up the dose , I do have a chemical imbalance that runs in my family so I will probably need this for my entire life. Right now I am going through side effects of raising my dose from 10 to 15… I can believe this is my 10th day on 15 mg and yes it makes my anxiety spike and messes up my sleep. I also feel nauseous and woozy there are days I think I should go back to 10 but then I will suffer the withdrawals so I am trying my best to stick with 15 and wait it out. The crazy thing is that some people don't get any side effects , some people will get side effects and it will last for a week or two then of course there are many people to where it takes several weeks and even months for the side effects to go away and the anxiety symptoms to go away as well. I was put on citalopram for generalized anxiety disorder , not for depression although anxiety, I'm sure can cause depression at some level. Also, I can always feel the medication strongly within a couple of hours after I take it that's when the wooziness dizzy stuff comes on the most I really don't know how to describe that, but it's kind of brain fog/woozy/dizzy and a little bit like I'm just spacey and not all there. I hope this helps you some. if you continue to get withdrawal symptoms and you feel like you want to give citalopram another shot… Maybe try going at a very very low dose to begin with like 5 mg I did that just to work up to where I needed it to be.

Also what dose were you on?

hi brian ,does that anxiety feel dreadfull like sheer dread ,mine did,i find it hard for people to really describe it, fear or being possessed i hate it

yes it causes us to think even more negative. can give you si thoughts . worry , fear, doubtful etc. tight stomach up to chest and neck just constant. distraction , cold shower or ice bath or excercise or a benzo helps. and yes i hate it also.

my muscles tense then release .

its usually mid morning and calmer in evening for me. try not to lay in bed in morning get up and get moving.

people make mistake of running back to dr when side effects come up thinking we are getting worse - then what does dr do? what he knows to do. change dose or brand then you go through start up side effects again ask me how i know.

if you take it work up slowly to the dose you are going to stick with and take same dose same time every day for at least 6 months.

when they say 6 weeks to recover just mark that in months. slow and steady

I get up too as soon as I wake up and just keep moving....even tho my side effects like the dizzy woozy stuff makes me just want to lay down...... don't get me wrong though, because for many weeks I have basically not doing much. I just give myself permission to rest and if I feel like moving around, than I do. My anxiety is like that too and it's very hard for us to understand because we know we are levelheaded, smart people, but when you have anxiety, it just makes you feel like you're losing your mind sometimes. When I start to get an anxiety/panic attack I just keep telling myself it's just my anxiety stop messing with my head lol it's easier said than done, but I know that , it will pass. I can't wait for the day that everything levels out and I can be more calm again...live my life! i'm very hard on myself about being productive every day… But right now I just have to realize that I am just not going to be as productive as I usually am. Everybody hang in there! We will get better.

Also, I agree with you about running to the doctor… I have learned not to do that… But I've been through this adjustment period before. back then I did keep running to the doctor because I didn't know what was going on. So now I just try to plow through.

yea being productive me too 😦 dont like the way i am now.

I have a lifelong habit of working late and sleeping late and then there is the bad feeling dont want to get out of bed.

my post is on the lexapro page. lexapro is twice as much as celexa. so 20 mg celexa equals 10 mg lexapro.

yes its hard to understand our system is on hyper alert. anxiety fear worry anxiety fear worry big circle.

If yall know katecogs on here she is full of good info and has a blog. If you havent been on the blog i can send you the link in messenger if you want. it explains just about everything anxiety and med related.

Yes I've seen her posts.... very informative. Yes please do send me the link to her blog. Yeah I just keep wondering. When am I going to get back to normal again? have you always been on Lexapro or have you been on others? Are you being treated for anxiety disorder only or depression as well? I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder many years ago. It does run in my family. How long have you been on Lexapro? And you are on 10 mg? Which is equal to 20 Celexa correct? I think most people that are on this site are really looking for reassurance that all of the things we are going through our normal for our disorders. Anxious people need reassurance. That's why we always look to our doctors, but their guess is as good as ours most of the time because nobody really knows how the drugs are going to affect each individual. You must be in the USA like me . West coast here.