I Should Have…..

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There are so many things in my life I should have done differently, or not done at all. One of them was taking antidepressants, I should never have started taking them in the first place. But as the saying goes…. hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

Its been exactly 10 years since I came off Lexapro (too fast), and coming up to 6 years that I’ve been completely free of all prescription medications, including any psychiatric drugs. But I’m far from completely healed from all the damage which these so called safe medications have done to my nervous system and life.

I’m a lot better than I was, when my symptoms were at their worst. I’m no longer suicidal, no longer feeling like I’m dying, or wanting to, and I can get up every day, get dressed and do a few things around the house. I’m able to go out now and shop for groceries, walk and visit my family without it feeling like I’ve suddenly entered a nightmare world of chaos, confusion and terror.

But my body and brain function are still not back to the way they were prior to starting on antidepressants. I can no longer multi-task, keep anything in my short term memory, or handle any kind of complex task. Its difficult to pinpoint exactly what’s not working properly, but my brain function is significantly impaired compared with what it used to be like. I have very poor word recall and find it difficult to communicate now. I can still write fairly well, but it seems like my brain can no longer translate thoughts into spoken language very well. I know what I want to express, but the words are hidden behind a thick fog and there’s no getting to them. Having any kind of conversation leaves me exhausted, frustrated and depressed. Most of my life I’ve felt misunderstood, but at least I had the cognitive ability to try and explain my ideas and views, but now, there’s no hope, I rarely even try. Perhaps my full cognitive function will return one day, minus the normal age type deficits, I hope so, I really do, because this is a lonely, painful way to live.

On the other hand, I seem to have developed enhanced abilities with something I’m also having problems describing. Sometimes, I’m able to solve problems spontaneously, effortlessly, with brilliant solutions of the kind which never would have occurred to me previously. But this only happens sometimes, mostly I’m struggling to accomplish the most basic of daily survival tasks to keep myself and dog alive and healthy.

I seem to have functional brain damage, endocrine disruption, extreme sensitivity, reduced immune function and a reduced capacity for any kind of stimulation. Sometimes I have no problems, symptoms or impairments at all. Other days I can hardly get myself out of bed to manage the very basics of life. These states fluctuate in changing patterns cycling around and around slowly improving over time.

There is no official term for this illness, its not even recognized medically. The withdrawal community has coined the term ‘protracted antidepressant withdrawal’. But its an inaccurate name, by this stage, the body is no longer technically having the symptoms of drug withdrawal. After months and years of a brain and nervous system becoming adapted to a daily intake of a brain poison, the shock of no longer having that particular chemical environment can cause a lot of chaos and disruption in what had become a balanced and functioning system.

The drugs basically cause what they used to be thought to cure… a chemical imbalance. But over time, the whole body adapts to this artificial environment, with many changes occurring in all of its systems. The nervous system is the foundation of all our bodies systems, and this is what becomes disrupted over time by psychiatric drugs. They effect our hormones, heart, breathing, digestion, thinking, perceptions, senses, sleep cycles… the list goes on. Everything is changed and these changes become entrenched. Suddenly changing the chemical environment and functioning of the whole system, by stopping the drugs too fast can send everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, into chaos.

Having your whole body, mind and life suddenly descend into chaos, with no idea what is going on, or why, with no help or understanding from anyone, including the doctors who put you on these wonderful pills in the first place…… well, the fact than anyone survives at all is a miracle.

The idea of hell seems like a holiday resort compared with what this experience is like. At least in hell you know where you are, the pain and torture is consistent, there is a general agreement about what’s going on and why, and the demons and other tormentors become familiar companions through the journey. But withdrawal hell has none of that. Its unpredictable, nothing is familiar, patterns may develop, only to change and morph into something completely new. There is no relief to be found in any kind of comfort, including the comfort of being able to predict or control things. Everything is out of control, including our own senses, perceptions, thoughts and ability to cope…. and no one who hasn’t been through this has any idea what its like or how to help, or provide comfort. Ive never taken hallucinogens, but have heard descriptions of what a bad trip can be like. This experience has been like a bad drug trip which has lasted years, combined with physical symptoms and pain, cycling around and around in unpredictable patterns, so there is no relief, not even in sleep, because that’s messed up too.

This is like the exclusive club inside hell, the place where the toughest souls are sent when they need breaking.

….all this because of a medication prescribed by our friendly family doctor who most of us learn to trust with our health and lives.

I’ve been having long, windows of recovery over the last few years. A window is when the symptoms subside or disappear completely for a while. During the first few years of recovery, I would get the occasional window which would last for a few hours. Each time I thought my nightmare was over and that I was back to normal, only to have the window cruelly close and be dumped back into hell, along with all its confusion and chaos.

One of the predominant symptoms of all this is confusion, is the inability to understand what is happening, while its happening. No matter how many times I read all the posts on various sites and pages, if I was in the throes of bad symptoms, or waves as they are called, nothing helped me to understand or relax into acceptance. Finding acceptance and understanding while in a wave was, and still is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Its like the part of the brain needed for this kind of process is offline, so it just doesn’t work. Its only after the wave has passed that I’m able to recognize what it was and understand what was going on.

I’ve been in a wave for the last few weeks, but I think I’m coming out of it, slowly. The last couple of days haven’t been quite as bad. This one started with a lot of physical stuff like sinus and head pressure. Jaw issues, nightmares, increased fatigue, neck and shoulder pain. It morphed into rage, anger, frustration and extreme irritability. The morning dread and terror was back, not as intense as the early years, but it returned at a strength enough to traumatize me well into the afternoon so I was again reluctant to venture far from the ‘safety’ of my home and routines again.

Now, these symptoms are morphing into a kind of hopeless, helpless fog of meaninglessness and depression. Nothing seems worth the effort of doing it, and when I do attempt to do something, like take the dog for a walk or make a creative change in the garden etc. It brings no pleasure, reward or satisfaction.

But even so, this lack of pleasure is a huge improvement from what my experience of life was like when I was at my worst. I remember trying to walk around the park at the end of my street. Everything my senses detected seemed to be an ominous warning of doom and immanent horrors about to befall me. I was constantly filled with gut wrenching terror and everything around me were like sticks, poking into a fire, stoking the flames a bit higher.

I took my dog for a walk yesterday. We went in the car to a spot I had never taken him before. I had to drag myself into doing it, there was no motivation or enthusiasm. The excitement and enjoyment of a few weeks ago had gone. The personal connection I usually feel with my dog is currently absent, so this was like a charade, trying to act the part, while feeling nothing but annoyance, irritation, frustration, pointlessness, and exhaustion. Not physical exhaustion, I could actually have walked for hours, but this was a kind of mental/emotional exhaustion. There was no energy there to connect with anything, not even my new dog, who has become the main focus of my life lately, since I got him about 2 months ago. There was nothing but irritability, with the traffic, the wind, the sun, his puppy antics and the tedious, pointless task of life and all its requirements… for what, everything eventually dies and decays into nothingness, so what’s the point, especially if there is no longer any pleasure or reward in the moment to moment experience of life.

Anhedonia…. I guess that’s what I’ve got now, my symptoms have cycled back to this one. Its not new, I’ve had this one numerous times before, its one of a set of unpleasant symptoms which come and go in very slowly decreasing spirals of intensity and duration.

Guilt and shame usually accompany Anhedonia, because why not? I’m a lazy, selfish, unappreciative, worthless accident of life, blessed with an existence I should be cherishing and making the most of. And now…. my poor puppy has a depressed, inactive, disconnected, lethargic human mum, when he deserves so much better. I watch animal rescue shows and real animal cruelty stuff on youtube to try and keep myself connected with reality… it helps. I don’t neglect him, far from it, I just feel so bad, my perceptions are warped, my thinking is skewed, I’m hanging on, trying to get through this latest wave and back to withdrawal normal, forever marching towards the next window, hoping that eventually one will stay open and never close again.

My pattern of windows seems to be that for the last 5 years, I have an extended one every 2 years. Each one has lasted longer than the previous one and the withdrawal normal that I return to is an improvement on what it was before. My waves are becoming less frequent, shorter and not as intense. But they still have the same awful features of causing dread and anxiety, confusion and a reduced ability to understand or predict what’s happening to me. Each wave comes with its own built in doom and despair attachment which firmly lodges in my mind, until the wave starts to subside. While in the wave, there’s no seeing beyond its prison walls, or remembering or imagining anything different. It’s like the complete opposite side of the miracle of present moment living. Living in the moment is wonderful when you are in heaven, but when living in hell is your current existence, you want anything but to be stuck there with no way out. But here it is, the power of now meets Nightmare on Elm street, there’s no escape while in the nightmare, because part of the nightmare is the illusion that its your forever reality…. its not, but it may as well be.

Have you ever had a nightmare that seems so real, and then you wake up and realize that it was just a dream, not real and you are overwhelmed with relief and gratitude that it wasn’t real. Well this is like being in one of those nightmares, waking up and realizing that it was real after all, waking up out of the nightmare was the dream, and this nightmare life is the real reality, and there’s no going back to sleep now.

Years of being medicated on antidepressants helped me stay asleep a bit longer I think. I was disconnected from the marrow of life, from myself and everything around me. Eventually, I felt very little of anything, which at first had seemed like a miracle, but over time lead to an all pervading deadness and lack of meaning in everything which had brought meaning previously.

I had been raised to not like myself very much. I wasn’t cherished, valued or loved, but tolerated, endured and used when it suited my parents own emotional needs. I was wanted, but wanted for the wrong reasons, and so I developed a deep sense of shame and unworthiness as I grew up. My general feeling about life was that I didn’t deserve anything good and when something good did happen, I was anxious someone would find out and take it away. I felt much more comfortable with adversity and when I was being treated badly, not valued or respected, it kept me searching for ways to change or improve so that I would finally measure up and be good enough and find the love I so desperately wanted and knew I deserved…. if only I could get it right, or get myself right, mostly by trying to change my appearance, or the image I showed of myself. I had no clue that this was about my relationship with myself. I had never been taught how to love and value myself, because no one else had shown me love and valued me exactly the way I was.

I never got it right. I was never able to make myself into that perfect, lovable creature everyone else seemed to want me to be. Probably because there was never anything wrong with me in the first place. My parents inability to love me unconditionally, for who I was, was their failing, not mine. Unfortunately, I was the one wounded by it, and I’m still trying to heal from those wounds now. I can only speculate about why some people are unable to love and accept their children exactly the way they are, always needing to change them into some kind of image they have of how they should be. Probably related to their own dysfunctions from childhood and inadequate parenting.

I rarely felt depressed before I started taking anti-depressants. Anxiety was my problem emotion. Of course I had periods of feeling down, unmotivated and just blah! But I always managed to pull myself out of it, usually quite quickly. Fear was the emotion which had plagued me from my very early years. But there was no biological chemical imbalance, I was having normal human reactions to my environment and circumstances. I’m naturally sensitive, and so being born to parents with inadequate parenting skills and an inability to love and nurture me the way I needed was always going to cause various problems with the way I thought and felt about myself and life. I remember being dismissed or ridiculed whenever I tried to express my normal feelings of apprehension in new situations. My dad would often laugh and tell me I was silly. Mum had even less patience, she was riddled with anxiety herself and would often say things which made no sense and just added confusion to the fear. She also had anger issues and would lose control at times with frightening emotional outbursts and then we would be banished to our rooms and ignored for hours, sometimes days, like as if we didn’t even exist. I remember both hating her and needing her, feeling helpless to get my needs met and incapable of escaping from the agony of my own overwhelming feelings. I used to create imaginary creatures in my mind who loved and supported me, they would keep me company and help me to survive in the terror filled world which was my life. I remember feeling desperately alone and unsupported, misunderstood and unseen. The safety I needed just wasn’t there. Superficially, it was, we had a nice home, money, clothes, food. But emotionally I was abandoned and neglected, at times I was emotionally abused. There was no safety in my world, not when the the people I depended on for my survival would regularly abandon me at my most vulnerable moments.

Dad was busy with his own life, his businesses, hobbies and ‘the news’ were more important than me. Mum did her best to protect him from the disruptions and inconvenience of my sister and me, after all he never wanted children, it was her who thought a child would relieve the boredom and monotony which her life had become after 10 years of marriage to my father. She never developed her own interests, goals or ambitions, her life was all about him. She’s the proverbial co-dependent enabler, who put her spouses needs before her own and ended up bitter and resentful because of it. And guess who learned from that role model?… even though I fought hard my whole life to try and avoid becoming my parents, on an unconscious, emotional level, it happened anyway. How could it not have, the seeds were planted when I was at my most vulnerable and impressionable age. We all develop in response to the care we receive as helpless infants, thinking that whoever we become is really us, who we were born to be. But it’s not true, we are born blank slates, ready to be written on by whoever we have the fortune, or misfortune to encounter in or developing years. This all happens very early, on an unconscious level, so none of us remember how we became who we ended up being. I used to think there was this person who was me. I thought I existed as something, a real person…. this me thing and it was who I was. I was stuck this way because it was me… and as far as my parents were concerned I wasn’t good enough, there was something wrong with me, I was a bad person, not enough, too much, a problem….. always something not right about me or what I did. I was defective and so I was ashamed of myself and always tried to hide behind facades which I thought might be more pleasing or acceptable.

Then one day I woke up into the nightmare which was my life and saw the horror of reality… a reality which I had created based on all the unconscious stuff I had been poisoned with as a child and subsequently poisoned with by doctors while trying to fix my non-existent chemical imbalance.

It wasn’t just in one moment, I sort of woke up in stages, seeing a little bit of reality at a time, integrating that and then getting hit with another chunk. But once it had started, it didn’t stop, I was seeing more and more truth and at the same time everything I thought was me and my life was disintegrating. Everything was literally falling apart in my life. I lost my marriage, my home, my studies, my business, my goals, relationships, pets, my health, most of my possessions, my car, my beliefs and almost my life.

That’s when the real healing began, a journey which took me to deaths door and beyond, through the corridors and dungeons of hell while slowly clawing and dragging myself through the darkness, moment by moment back to health and sanity, mostly alone, with only the wisdom and compassion of strangers from the internet for company and guidance.

The kindest thing I can say about most doctors now is that they are blind in their ignorance and most likely don’t intend to cause the harm that they do. But for various reasons they buy into the misinformation they are fed through their drug company funded training and probably, mostly do the best they can, given the dire situation which masquerades as medicine and health care these days. I no longer visit doctors these days, unless I absolutely have to. I no longer trust that they have the best information and training for keeping me alive and healthy. They are just as likely to do more harm than good, for me, it’s no longer possible to have faith that my doctor is able to take care of my best interests. Medicine has become corrupted by the financial interests of powerful psychopathic corporations who have the money and power to operate above the laws which govern the rest of us. The love of money is the root of all evil and power corrupts, that just about sums up planet Earth these days, it’s no longer possible to trust any authority or professional… the nightmare is real, which is a bitter pill for anyone to swallow.

But its too late for me to take the blue pill and go back to sleep, so I continue to stagger through my new reality, healing from my childhood emotional wounds and the damage done to my nervous system by years of psychiatric drugging.

The only positive thing I can say about my life is that I’m free. I’m free from the lies of this world, I’m free from the lie of who I thought I was, I’m free to ignore the illusions which surround me. I’m free, I’m sovereign and totally alone and responsible for creating the reality in which I live. There is very little information about how to live this way and almost zero recognition that this is even possible. Hell is real, its life here on Earth, its this invisible prison which surrounds us and becomes us. Its a hidden virus which is planted within us all and the only way to become free is to see it, rip it out and learn how to live all over again.

Or ask your doctor if a certain medication might be right for you, block out those nagging emotions which might be trying to tell you something important. My anxiety was trying to tell me that something was wrong with the way I was thinking and the choices I was making. It was trying to show me that the life I was trying to live wasn’t good for me and that I needed to honor who I really was and be true to myself. But first I had to find out who I really was. I was buried underneath layers and layers of lies and false images,  projections of the implanted virus.

But I don’t recommend this kind of journey, much easier to stay relatively comfortable asleep…. sweet dreams.