Please read this if you take supplements!!!!!

One quick thing. I wrote a lot about melatonin, maca, and other supplements. I don’t know the true validity in if they are helpful or not. However, I do know that a paper has been published in which scientists verified whether these companies were actually packaging what they say into these supplements. Frequently, what you’re taking is full of filler crap and a little bit (if any) of what you are intending to purchase. For instance, you may be buying maca 200mg, but in reality you are taking a pill with 5mg maca and 195mg of rice filler (this is a made-up example). The paper reads that St. john’s wort is actually the worst offender on the market.

Please be careful in your purchases, some are laced with nut extracts and other things that you may be allergic to. My best recommendation, if possible, is to try and grow the plants yourself because I don’t believe there is any way to be sure you are getting what you’re buying other than paying lots of money for lab testing.

If you are interested in reading the article, it’s called:

DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products (2013), Newmaster et al.

3 years after first introduction to Paxil

How could it possibly have been this long? So crazy. I was originally manipulated into taking SSRIs by a cheap psychologist. She wasn’t certified to prescribe (thank god), so she advised me to go to a general practitioner. Wish I spent the extra non-insured money to have gone to an expert. The GP was less than competent in the different SSRIs and the fact that Paxil is actually one of the worst out there due to its short half-life. In fact, there are times I would catch the flu, sleep less, stress more, and these factors were enough to change my metabolic rate to the point that I’d feel withdrawals by evening time.

My psychologist assured me that I would only be on this medication for about 7 months. When I looked online and found so many people with bad experiences on SSRIs, she advised me that “sometimes, it’s best to not do your research ahead of time because it wont affect everyone the same way.” Yes, perhaps not, but it did indeed affect me much like many of the reviews I read. I became a zombie, I lost passion for everything I loved to do, I felt my emotions become numb, my memory and concentration has diminished, and I’m physically dependent.

Here’s the great news: I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to get off. It was really hard at first – the withdrawals were insane (hysterical crying, dizziness, brain zaps, constipation, diarrhea, nausea), and I barely tapered down for a long time because it consistently interfered with my responsibilities – more than actually just being on Paxil does. But I’m succeeding! I’m getting off! My taper has become progressively faster and easier, too. Today, I am taking 6mg of liquid Paxil. I downdose by at most 10% each time to reduce the symptoms, and it has been helping a lot. I’m able to lower without losing my days to being bedbound. I hope that in the next year I will be off completely.

Everytime I downdose, I tend to have a bit of anxiety or depression. I told the psychiatrist I’m seeing now and she said it might be that it’s who I am without the drugs beginning to resurface. What a debbie downer and so full of shit! Yes, I get minor anxiety because I’m withdrawing. After a few days it subsides and I don’t face that problem anymore. What a terrible thing to have said to me, it could have discouraged me if I didn’t know how little they know about SSRIs. Psychiatrists don’t understand these withdrawals, and unfortunately, the mentally ill aren’t seen as very credible people. But, the truth will be exposed sooner or later.

I’m not perfect, I still get socially nervous sometimes, I still have some confidence issues, but I no longer have a disorder. I no longer am chronically depressed. A previous psychologist told me I may have these problems for the rest of my life and I am so happy to report that she was fucking wrong! We all are capable of curing ourselves. If I went from having panic attacks at the idea of leaving my house to being able to give motivational speeches in front of a hundred people, anybody can do it. If you are reading this and are still suffering, please don’t give up. I promise you, you can make it. Just keep working hard and don’t ever stop fighting.

A letter to my parents,

I think that all babies are born with this undoubted belief that their parents are the one thing in their life that they can trust above all else for protection, guidance and unconditional love. And no matter how much this belief gets tried and tried, the child will so aggressively believe in this idea because s/he wants it so badly to be true. So powerful an expectation, it took me 23 years to realize that I was so wrong to trust you. To think you had my best interests at heart or that you were even remotely psychologically stable to have children. I have witnessed enough domestic violence, been victim to enough emotional and mental abuse to traumatize me for several lifetimes over. I have issues; I’m chronically depressed, I have an anxiety disorder so severe that at one point I couldn’t leave my house, I’m on anti-depressants, I have a hard time getting close to people, I can’t comfortably show who I am or reveal my flaws, I’m lonely, I always feel like I’m going to be accused of things I never did. Why? Maybe because you always made me feel like such a slut given no evidence whatsoever. Because you saw some prescription skin cream on my desk and assumed that I was treating a fucking STD, and decided to talk to me like a whore instead of doing your fucking research first. Maybe it was the domestic violence I was always exposed to as a child. Or the isolation you kept me in because I wasn’t allowed anywhere that you couldn’t monitor me. The lack of friends I could have because I was forced to stay home, with video games and books thrown at me to keep me occupied instead of giving me love and a little social interaction. Maybe it has to do with how you thought I was too stupid to pursue and achieve my dreams, or that I’d just get pregnant and “destroy my life.” Or from when you picked a fight with me so that you wouldn’t have to go to my high school graduation. Given all of the above.. I think it was all for the mere fact that you had nothing but conditional love for me. That you only cared about me or loved me when you felt like it, and whenever I did something you didn’t agree with, or made a human mistake, you’d take it all away and give me the silent treatment, likely after talking shit to me first.

 

And it’s finally come down to this. I hate you both. I have no respect for either of you. You both cut me out of your life two months ago and now you want to text me a manipulative message so that I will talk to you again and forget what you’ve done to me, yet again? No – this cycle of abuse ends here. I want nothing of it or you. No parents are better than shitty parents. You’re monsters.

 

Parents are difficult

No parents are better than shitty parents.

 

Is this true?

 

I’ve been hurt so much by mine, and they don’t seem to have any idea all the emotional pain and trauma they cause me through their selfish actions of control, dominance and interest of only what will make them happy. Any time I do anything that isn’t to their exact desire, then I go from being their source of pride to extreme disappointment – and they like to make me pay dearly for it.

 

I know putting the blame won’t get anywhere but truthfully, my anxiety disorder and chronic depression spawns straight from them. I don’t want anything to do with them, but a friend of mine believes she’d rather have her shitty dad who passed away than no dad at all. I don’t know. I find it hard to think I’d feel the same way.

 

Perhaps their last e-mail that vaguely implies disowning me should be a blessing.

 

My first success against Paxil

This is day 8 of my first 10% dosage drop. Physical symptoms have lingered a bit – I feel my digestive system has been much more sensitive and headaches are much more common. Occasionally at night I begin to get withdrawal symptoms like brain zaps and dizziness though that’s not different than when I was taking pills at my original dose. 

I feel good. On Saturday I went ice skating; the first real physical activity I’ve done since I’ve started and though it was a bit exhausting, I really needed it. It felt amazing, despite falling backwards and hitting my head on the ice.

Am I done adjusting to the new dose? I’m not sure.. but I feel that I’m coping with it quite nicely compared to when I first started. And I think it’s important to celebrate the battles won, no matter how small, because it will help me remember the progress I’m making when I’m at my lowest.

Making progress through my battle against Paxil

I’ve done my first dosage drop of 10%.. the first two days were absolutely crazy emotionally. Phyiscal side effect could certainly have been much, much worse – so I’m grateful for that. Consistent headache, fatigue, body weakness, constipation, minor brain zaps. Nothing I can’t handle. Though I have been sleeping for an unholy amount of time per day. I sometimes nap for longer periods of time than the breaks I’m awake between naps.

 

Anyhow, I think this dosage drop has so far been a success. Apparently it takes 4 weeks to begin feeling the effects though I’m generally pretty sensitive to changes, I think. Hopefully the worst is behind me. While in school and working, I’m not going to do any drops – or at least none as large as 10%. The fatigue and emotional crazy would not be good at all for me.

 

But I’m doing it. I’m getting through.

Step 2 of getting off Paxil

Though it probably is a good idea that I fully adjust to the liquid Paxil.. I don’t really have much time left on my vacation and I need to be well adjusted to a new dose before I return to school and work. That’s my number one priority – not letting my taper interfere with my career and academic life.

That gives me two weeks. And so today I lowered my dose by 10%, from 10 to 9mg. I should also mention in the event that somebody finds this post who’s trying to get off as well – paxilprogress.org has been an invaluable resource for me. It’s an open forum that seems to have helped many get off and offer their suggestions for tapering, one of which by only decreasing as much as 10% every 4-6 weeks to minimize withdrawals – or as those clever pharmaceutical companies call it, “SSRI discontinuation syndrome” so as to sound prettier.

I’m really tired, I’m taking naps all the time though that probably is in part because I quit caffeine cold turkey (which as finals just ended for me, you might imagine the kind of dependency on coffee I built up). Mood swings – irritability to anger and depression in particular. Sudden anxiety. Nothing unbearable, truthfully. Though it’s kept me hiding and cooped up in my house.

The other interesting thing is my intensely vivid dreams/nightmares. I had a dream that the eyedropper I use to get my liquid Paxil had a hole in it and this morning I was looking for it to try and cover it up. I’m unsure if conversations happened or if I dreamt it because it felt so real. My dreams all tend to have a much more negative feel to them as well.

 

Who cares, I’m getting off!

 

Score of the day:

Depression: ??

Anxiety: ??

Loneliness: ??

Weird.. I don’t actually know how I’m feeling, until I’m overcome by an intense emotion for a brief period of time.

SSRI Withdrawals

And so my hysterical crying and misery begin.

 

I have to stay strong.. this is only one part of the obstacles I have to overcome.

From pills to liquid

I feel angry, short-tempered and worst of all very vengeful. I’ve worked very hard over the years to be a better person and have pure intentions and it feels like I suddenly reverted back with old urges. Could it be coincidence or is it that I switched to liquid antidepressants and even though I’m taking the same dose, liquid is probably easier for the body to absorb and so I could be getting more of it. That would be pretty ironic, since I switched to liquid so that I can more easily lower my doses.

 

The weird thing is those feelings and urges feel so unnatural, as if they aren’t mine – but I know I’ll feel better when I succumb to them anyway. I’m going to be such a horrible person to be around.

Step 1 of getting off Paxil

For the year and eight months that I have been on Paxil, I’ve been cutting 20 mg pills in half and taking that 1/2 a day. It’s my plan to taper off, but pills aren’t the best way to go about it. Even if I can accurately cut the pills in smaller fractions as I get off, manufacturers only guarantee that you can cut a pill in half and get equal amounts on both sides, but not in any other increment. 

So, I bought a big bottle of liquid Paxil and took 10 mg worth today. I wanted to adjust my body to the liquid first though it seemed to go well today and am now contemplating doing my first decrease in dosage tomorrow to 7.5 mg.

 

Score of the day:

Depression: 0

Anxiety: 4

Loneliness: 2