mikkelmarius.dk

You know how bad it hurts when you slam your finger in a door or hit it with a hammer? My whole body felt like that for about a month. My eyes, my brain, my body and skin, everything hurt like that. I actually have a hard time accurately describing how bad it hurt, I don’t have the adjectives. It was fucking excruciating. I think the pain of fire would be pleasantly distracting compared to the phantom brain-body pains that I was experiencing, an itch that couldn’t be scratched, a wound that didn’t bleed or heal.

I finally broke down and went in and talked to my (ex) doctor who simply said “Oh, so stop taking it.” and sent me on my way. Grar. I still think he prescribed too early. It was our first visit, he’s not a psychiatrist but a GP. I didn’t have a case history built up yet with my therapist and he sent me home the day of our first visit with a bottle of pills. In hindsight I wouldn’t have done that, but I was at the doctor’s asking for help because I was at the end of my rope.

So. I stopped taking them. The withdrawals were intense. Ever have one of those hypnagogic jerks as you’re falling asleep where it feels like someone zapped or shocked your brain suddenly awake? That falling, startled and panicky feeling? The withdrawals were a lot like that, but stronger and scarier, and much more frequent - with the added joy of it feeling like someone was electrocuting my brain and CNS. This happened every few minutes at first, to once an hour, to a few times an hour over the space of weeks. I could barely hold a coffee cup or glass of water for the first week.

A MetaFilter user talks about going on and then off Zoloft