Adrian

My story: I am in my mid 20s, and I have been on psychiatric meds for about 15 years. I started on Prozac which I only took for 3 days and discontinued due to side effects. Then I switched to Zoloft, maxed out at 150mg, and intermittently tried Lamictal on top of it. After 10 years on Zoloft I tried to discontinue and go off of meds, but I was met with so many side effects that, at the time, I thought were my true mental state. I was scared of that, and decided to switch to another med instead. I switched to Luvox which I took for 3.5 years. I maxed out at 300mg extended release + 50 immediate release. In this time period I also tried Wellbutrin, Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse. All of them made me feel not like myself, and Adderall gave me heart palpitations. On my high dose of Luvox, I struggled hard with side effects and feeling like my symptoms were not managed. I also started to realize that I had been dissociating/derealizing my entire life and had never faced my emotions. I started tapering off of Luvox under the advisement of a practitioner who did not know, in any way, what she was doing. Under her guidance I was down from 350mg of Luvox in December 2025 to 100 ER in April 2026. I was struggling very hard with the next step, which was switching from ER to IR according to her. My provider’s solution was to switch me to another medication which I could then taper off of. The med she chose was Pristiq. I had never taken an SNRI before and incorrectly assumed that she chose it because it would be easier to get off of or something like that. I discontinued Luvox around 5/2026. I took Pristiq at my starting dose of 50mg for a month and a half and hated it so much the entire time. It made me depressed, angry, and dissociative. My nervous system felt fried. After that month and a half, I told my provider I was done. She agreed it would be fine and told me, quote, I could “just stop it.” I told her I was uncomfortable with that because I’d skipped one day of it and had gotten terrible side effects. Her response was to give me 5 days of 25mg which she told me to take and then discontinue. She insinuated it might be a little difficult at first but would pass quickly. I decided to take 3 days of the 25mg, and then discontinue, hoping the withdrawal would occur over the weekend and I would be good to go back to work on Monday. That did not happen. Instead, the withdrawal was so abysmal for those first few days that I ended up in the ER. My baseline of anxiety was 8/10 with full blown 10/10 panic attacks 5-8 times a day, my heart wouldn’t stop racing, I was sweaty, unbelievably dizzy, stomach cramps, diarrhea, insane levels of nausea and dry heaving. The ER found my labs and EKG within normal and offered as needed anxiety meds to help get me through the withdrawal period. They gave me propranolol, hydroxyzine, and Ativan. The hydroxyzine helped at first, but soon started making me even more anxious due to the dizziness and wooziness it caused in me. The propranolol helped a little but honestly barely touched the sheer levels of anxiety I had. Ativan was the only thing that provided relief, but at the same time it caused a lot of anxiety in me because of fear of becoming dependent. I took it when I severely needed it so I could actually get food in my cramping stomach, which averaged out to 0.5mg once a day with few exceptions. The acute withdrawal lasted just about four weeks. I was incapable of working. I spent hours on the phone with my mom and relied heavily on my best friend to cook for me and help me with basic ADLs. Around week 4, I was so afraid that this would last forever and was actually my baseline. I had incorrect information that the withdrawal period should have lasted 2 weeks (in reality, acute withdrawal often lasts 4-6) and thought there must be something wrong with me. I ended up in the ER one more time because I had paralyzing anxiety around taking my Ativan. After that I saw a primary care doctor because I was unable to see a psychiatrist for another 3 weeks due to my health system refusing to accommodate a stat psychiatry referral from the ER. I was feeling slightly better than I had been before, but I was still struggling, and very concerned. She gave me Prozac to help with the withdrawal. I took it, again, for 3 days. It made literally everything worse. My GI symptoms increased tenfold, my anxiety shot back up to constant and uncontrollable, I felt this terrible despair and depression that hadn’t been there before, and my sleep (which had been the only consistent thing since withdrawal started) was extremely disturbed. I would wake up every 2 hours in full blown lightning-bolt panic. I quit it after 3 days and after about 5 days felt so much better. Around week 5.5, I truly started to be able to say I felt better. I returned to work, which at first was very difficult but is steadily getting easier. My physical symptoms started to wane enough that I felt like I could physically leave my house and do things. I still had breakdowns nearly every day, struggled with extreme mood swings, and needed a lot of support from the people around me. Throughout this process I also was getting weekly acupuncture and therapy. I journaled every single day: my brain fog was so severe that my memory was affected for many weeks, and it helped me a lot to write down at the end of the day what had happened that day so I knew I had it down somewhere other than my mind. I wrote down what I struggled with and what successes I had. I learned just how strong I was. It’s been about two months since my last dose of Pristiq at time of writing this. Currently, my symptoms are: daily headache in multiple areas of my head (may also be related to other things? going to several doctors to hopefully find out), some cloudiness in my head and occasional dizziness, appetite struggles especially in the morning, waking up anxious early in the morning, and still having sensitivity to change and pretty big emotions. On the flip side, I feel like myself for the first time since I was a child. My tolerance for distress and discomfort is increasing. I am able to truly feel emotions. I am learning to work with them instead of against them. I am back to doing hobbies, I am back at work, and I even flew to visit some family over a weekend (which was difficult and stressful, but I was able to cope when it was hard and still have a lot of fun!). I am glad I made the choice to go off of medications. My only grief is that it was handled so terribly by the person I trusted with my care, and that no one on any of my care teams or in my life knew better than to go with her recommendations. I wish I had known about this community back in December last year; my journey would have been so different. But I’m endlessly grateful that I’m here, and that I’m growing and getting better every day.

Luvox — 3 years — completed taper | Pristiq — 1.5 months — completed taper | Ativan — 0.5mg — 8 months — down to as needed, haven't used in 4 weeks.