Showing Zoloft the Door

[Fred_The_Cat]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Giving this another shot. I'm reading the book "The Antidepressant Solution" written by a Harvard Psychiatrist about how he tapers down his patients from antidepressants. It turns out I'm doing it twice as fast as I should have been.

He makes some interesting points, most notably debunking the myth that when you stop taking the antidepressant the underlying psychiatric condition comes back. The distinction between withdrawal and relapse is that withdrawal takes place within days and depressive relapse takes weeks. Also, he said that chronic lifelong depression was almost never heard of until the mid 90's when big pharma started pushing antidepressants and creating diseases to market their drugs.

He also makes the rather grim observation that the drugs lose effectiveness over time and it becomes a matter of either increasing the dose or staving off withdrawal effects indefinitely.

Instead of tapering from 50-25-12.5-0 over the course of a month, I am going to stretch it out over three months this time. Hopefully this will go better.

[woofer]

Showing Zoloft the Door

I was on Lexapro (escitalapram) for about 3 months and packed on 10 or 15 lbs. I've been on Welbutrin (exacerbated my anxiety) , Lexapro (made me fat and tired, and didn't really help with anxiety or depression), Trileptal (helped with anxiety but the fatigue was massive and unbearable), and Busbar (didn't do a damn thing). Oh, and one more, the only one that helped my anxiety and depression considerably... Lorazepam! Go figure that I can't have it because of its abuse potential, which I of course did. I've given up on psych mess, and figured that they probably aren't as effective for me as for others because I don't have major major depression. Anxiety is a far bigger issue for me and the good anti-anxiety meds (benzos)... well, let's just say those don't work out for me either.

I plan to try to take a more natural route myself with some of the supps recommended here. I think I was up to 50mg of Lexapro and I tapered down over a week or so with no noticeable withdrawals. Both my mother and brother came off of Zoloft because of extreme weight gain, both probably gained 50 or more lbs over 18 months or so.

[Fred_The_Cat]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Old thread, but the home stretch is nigh. I've been dosing down both abilify and zoloft to 2.5 mg and 12.5 mg respectively over the past three months. (exactly 3 months to the day now that I look at my last post above). I saw my docs today and they said that I'm at such a low dose of each med that there is no way they can be doing anything and I will be safe to quit. Tomorrow morning I stop dosing.

They warned that the next few days would be "weird", but they should be manageable- I've been through worse. They also warned that since I have been hospitalized inpatient once and outpatient another time for major depression that I should probably remain on an antidepressant for the rest of my life or risk relapse. They hope they're wrong as much as I do.

[Fred_The_Cat]

Showing Zoloft the Door

woofer;1540940 wrote:
I plan to try to take a more natural route myself with some of the supps recommended here. I think I was up to 50mg of Lexapro and I tapered down over a week or so with no noticeable withdrawals. Both my mother and brother came off of Zoloft because of extreme weight gain, both probably gained 50 or more lbs over 18 months or so.

Did they have any decrease in weight? One thing I've immediately noticed is that my appetite has been markedly slashed today. I'm down to 160 from 165 when I started tapering down, and that was with eating healthy and exercising. Hopefully the losses will accelerate when it's fully out of my system.

[paulywogg]

Showing Zoloft the Door

So are younoff the zoloft now?if so are you feeling ok?

[Lo0p]

Showing Zoloft the Door

I'll let him say it in full, only he can do it justice. I'm sure he's headed into work. He might have the day off though..?

This is the first 24 hours. He said a little "fuzzy" but fine last night. And I can tell by what he told me that he is awaiting these last two drugs to finally wear off like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. I guess the words "very optimistic" [mine] would be more accurate. I tend to have a dramatic slant when I think about and say things. I yield the floor, Fred.

Shit I probably just obligated (in his head) him to write something big(ish). Sorry buddy! -Lo0p

[Fred_The_Cat]

Showing Zoloft the Door

It feels- insipid.

Think of the cat in my avatar with his sappy little smile that has never tasted a need for caffeine or alcohol.

Think of how you were moved by the shitty music you listened to on your 16th summer because you didn't know any better and hadn't the capacity to care.

Think of that morning after it snowed heavily and the roads were plowed clean, and it was somehow 50 degrees and you drove recklessly through the countryside with the windows down blasting music because, in your heart, spring had finally come.

It is a childlike feeling to be able to feel again, to be chemically innocent once more. I know that I know that I know I have finally arrived.

I ought to stop now to avoid tearing up on my lunch break- I'll check back in tonight.

[mama bear]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Zoloft made crazy...certifiable......cried the entire time I was on it

[Lo0p]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Damn boy! You can feel it! And it shows!

No I'm gonna go cry... :l:h

[Fred_The_Cat]

Showing Zoloft the Door

I think Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of human emotion... recollected in tranquility"

That was the spontaneous overflow, now the tranquility. I'm a little burned out from overdoing caffeine and could not finish my workout, so I can hardly say I'm bathing in star-shine right now. A far more sobering realization was looking at my initial threads from when I joined about a year ago. Some notable quotes:

9/18/12: Waiting for bac in the mail. I was sober for most of day in anticipation of a date. The date went ok, but the anxiety of meeting her and not drinking until 4:00 sent me straight to the bar. I had 3 margaritas and a confirmed blackout- I do not remember sending texts to my friends that I saw on my phone the next day. Thankfully, I live in a city and walk to my drinking spots.

9/28/12:I think this is what differentiates an addiction from a problem- it's become clear that I center my entire day around having two beers to the exclusion of everything else. Now that I'm sober enough to face down the void, a very ugly picture is emerging:

I am completely undateable. If my drinking weren't enough to derail any potential relationship, the emotional instability brought on by the drinking would get me at some point. My isolation is spiraling deeper and deeper into a pit I don't know if I'll ever crawl out of.

Despite having nice career potential, I am constantly broke. I say career potential because I've drank myself out of my last two jobs. The first time I was downing a margarita (or two) every night and started getting horrible anxiety attacks when the hangovers set in. I quit before it caught up to me. The second time I drank myself into such a deep depression that I refused to function at my assigned task. I was put on a probation period and quit before they could fire me. Now I'm working for much less money as an "intern" with no benefits. I can't afford to blow it again.

10-1-12

75 mg bac, 3 beers, 0 exercise

This is going to be a somewhat disappointing and complicated entry. I have neglected to inform you that I am also on zoloft and abilify since a nervous breakdown three years ago that left me in a permanent psychotic state. Not coincidentally, that was the beginning of my drinking problem. I will get into that incident in due time, but since my head is not clear right now I must focus on the present- being that I have been off of my meds for a week now and the horror is setting in.

Noises in the background threaten my existence like gunshots. Every conversation I hear in the distance is about me, they're conspiring to humiliate me and take me down a notch. I constantly feel as if I'm in front of a firing squad and that my soul is on the verge of being ripped out of my body and bashed against the sidewalk. This unending state of terror leaves a Charles Manson like glare in my eyes that unsettles and terrifies anyone I speak to or look at. I hide in my cubicle and nothing gets done in my pharmaceutically induced hell.

It has to be like this- I'm uninsured and what insurance I can afford has all kinds of hoops to jump through because abilify is $500 a month. There is no generic. Bristol Meyers Squibb has a patent on the drug that doesn't expire until 2014, and until then they can gouge me as much as they like. Finally, I break down and buy a week's worth on my credit card for $150. Hopefully my insurance application will be complete by then and it might be cheaper.

As I type this I am consumed by a deep sense of rage. Rage that a pharmaceutical company can reap an outrageous profit and allowing me not to live a life of horror and torment. Rage that insurance companies can take your money and contrive ways not to provide you with what you're paying them for. Rage that the monstrosities of another person can leave you with permanent psychiatric damage that requires a lifetime of medication.

So I'm drinking now. It is far preferable to enduring the mental equivalent of being skinned alive. Anyone who has gone through a psychotic state or anti-psychotic withdrawal knows what I'm talking about.

10/20/12: I apologize for my shoddy record keeping. In short, I believe that I have hit the switch at 125 mg. The past week I have had no interest in alcohol and drink beer out of habit/boredom, but I rarely finish them. I thought this would be some rapturous experience, but I honestly feel a bit underwhelmed and kind of bored with sobriety.

I will probably keep this thread going as a record of my life management, but I can no longer live up to the promise of detailed records.

12/29/12: Hello all, I have been more active on the medication forum, but having crossed the magical switch point I am at a total loss as to what to do next.

At 75 mg of baclofen daily I am uninterested in more than half a beer anymore. This has been going for two months and I am just now realizing the depth of the crater I have to crawl out of.

Rather than publish a litany of why my life is pathetic, I would like to ask what people's life management strategies are in sobriety. Specifically, I'm looking for a book I could read in the span of a week to get started. The emptiness is so overwhelming that I don't know where to start.

Thanks!

7/25/13: Wow, even though it's been a terrible, terrible week I am very grateful that it's been a sober week. Had I been drinking I would not have maintained my composure the way I did. (And once you lose it, people don't forget)

I never thought I would ever be able to see silver linings like this- life has gotten so much better!

8/29/13: I was doing pretty well at a 75 mg maintenance dose until, within a matter of two weeks the following happened:

1. Shit got real at work- my attention to detail was not up to par with the other workers and I was skewered for it. As I am completely zonked on Abilify, Zoloft and Baclofen, I only expect this to get worse.

2. Overambitious, I attempted to cut my abilify dosage in half and went through a mild psychotic episode for a couple of days. I'm back up on it now and seeking medical help to get off of it.

3. In the midst of said psychotic episode, I dumped my girlfriend for wanting to carry on a platonic middle school relationship. This was the right decision, but I should have handled it better.

4. Having gone through said breakup, I promptly started drinking again because, frankly, no one is there to stop me.

I should have noticed something was wrong the minute I said to myself "I just don't fucking care anymore" and started hitting the bar every night after work. I never bought the "spiritual" slants on alcoholism, but I'm starting to understand where they're coming from. I need a last line of defense, even if it is a corny delusion.

My sleep patterns have been wrecked, with me passing out around 7 and waking up at 2 to go to work at 5 and clock out at 3:30 (it's quite a large and flexible company so we're allowed to do that). Still,

I'm not writing expressly to bitch, as I've already bumped my dosage up to 100 in anticipation of hitting the switch again sometime in the next month. Just let this be a warning that shit happens and a maintenance dose is by no means a guaranteed safety net.

10/10/13: The general trend here is that things have gotten much better, but I haven't gloated about how much better things have actually gotten in a year. To date I have:

-gotten a job in an elite company at the top of my industry (hired straight off my resume with no interview)
-paid off my car outright
-reached the halfway point on my student loans with a projected payoff date of next march
-gotten closer to my family now that I'm not as concerned about them constantly seeing me drunk
-am once again in a datable state
-regained respect from my parents who won't have to bail me out of financial emergencies ever again
-have kicked medications I thought I would be chained to for life and have reached emotional stability
-exercise regularly and eat right
-have developed the habits of a good employee
-and, most importantly, I have basically become the "with it" person I pretended to be while drunk.

I'm never looking back!

[Samandkatharine]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Hi,

Keep talking! I love posts like this, especially when Lo0p chimes in😘

Sam

PS- did you switch again? I'm at 90 and want to stop here... Can't though.

[IAD]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Hi Mama ! Zoloft.....it's helped me cope......My father was Placed in a clinic at Walter Reed for a while for Clinical Depression. I suffer from it too. Both Alcohol , depressants, and are just that.....depressants ! They can't be used for the same thing......Zoloft can help.....but not when your self medicating with alcohol. Take care ! Tony]

[Fred_The_Cat]

Showing Zoloft the Door

Samandkatharine;1566930 wrote: Hi,

Keep talking! I love posts like this, especially when Lo0p chimes in😘

Sam

PS- did you switch again? I'm at 90 and want to stop here... Can't though.

I didn't mention how I got it back, I consulted my spreadsheet and found that I only had to hit 160 for a few days to get it back, then I stepped down to 100 and now back to 80.

Thanks Sam, people talk about recovery being an ongoing process, but there are certain milestones that just hit you upside the head with joy. Yesterday was one of them.