Too many long ongoing withdrawal affects from Sertraline

Congratulations on getting to one year off Sert!  YES, it is still possible to have withdrawal this far out!  I am a member of the Surviving Antidepressants forum and the place is loaded with people with stories exactly like yours!  You might want to visit there and have a look around.  There are people there who came off their meds too quickly, following their doctor's taper schedule, and have suffered protracted withdrawal as you have.  There are also people there wanting to come off their meds but looking for guidance and support on how to do so.  The forum and other authorities recommends a 10% per month taper, and that is 10% of the previous dosage so the cut gets smaller and smaller each month.  I'm sure you came off faster than that!

Because doctors don't believe in protracted withdrawal, they tell their patients they have relapsed when the symptoms last longer than three months or so. Then, the person goes back on the med, or gets put on a new one, or on a cocktail of several to treat all the different withdrawal symptoms, from anxiety, depression and insomnia to physical symptoms like digestive upsets, muscle pains, and the like.  I have had eye trouble on ADs as well, extreme dry eye in one eye.

Anyway, I am impressed that you made it this far without caving!  Not many do!  

It is quite common for the first month or two off the drug to actually be quite wonderful, but the honeymoon ends and withdrawal wallops you at about three months.  From what I've read, the 7 or 8 month mark can also be quite crippling.  Was that your case?

Healing from antidepressants occurs in a windows and waves pattern.  You will feel better, then get hit by a wave, then have a window and think perhaps it is over and then get hit by a wave again.  I read of someone getting hit by another bad wave at 2 years out!  So, hang on!

What you need to understand is that the withdrawal symptoms are actually your nervous system trying to heal.  The drugs caused an IMBALANCE that your nervous system had to try to correct by physically remodeling, upregulating receptors, down-regulating serotoinin production because there was now too much serotonin in the gap between neurons, etc.  Three years of building the drug's action into the functioning of your nervous system is a significant amount of time.  So, when we come off the drugs rather quickly, the system is once again thrown into chaos, and a lot of remodeling has to be done to function again without the drug.  Someone put it well when they said the drug was like a trellis that a vine had grown on; rip the trellis out and the vine collapses.  And it isn't just the one serotonin system that is affected.  Other neurotransmitters are affected by serotonin levels, as well as hormones, enzymes etc. throughout the body.  The repercussions are far-ranging.  

So, try to be gentle with yourself, and realize that feeling awful is due to your body trying to heal. 

An interesting note:  there are people who were put on ADs for pain, not emotional issues, but these people suffer anxiety and depression in withdrawal, so it is NOT a relapse of the original complaint!  Also, the depth these emotions is usually described as being far worse than was ever experienced before or during drugs.  That was the case for  me when I went through 10 months of protracted withdrawal from Effexor but didn't realize what was happening.  At least you know, and awareness is powerful!

So, hang in there.  You are healing and you will get there, but it won't be linear.  You will have times where you are feeling so incredible, but then another wave will come.  Just hang on to the wonderful times, because they will come for longer periods, and the waves will lessen.