Hi, I'm Joelle

Hi Joelle, thanks for sharing. Sorry to hear you had such a difficult experience, especially without good medical support and understanding! The abrupt stopp must have destabilized the system a lot. How are you tapering now? What symptoms are you dealing with? How do you know when to reduce the dose when you still struggle to stabilize?This is a question I think about again and again, would love to hear your approach. Glad you found this community

Hi @Joelle, welcome to Taper Community! I'm really sorry about your cold-turkey, and especially with having no support from your medical providers. How many antidepressants have you been on since your cold-turkey? Adding and switching between drugs can exacerbate a nervous system that has already been sensitized from a cold-turkey. Perhaps you never stayed on one long enough to find any stability. I'd like to hear more about your drug history. This is not official medical advice, but a suggestion would be to not keep tapering if you're currently unstable. What your body needs more than anything is consistency so it can find some sort of balance again. Catina 🌸

Thank you for your replies and thoughts… I stopped taking fluoxetine early 2024.. I had some counselling for breast cancer and thought I had life together .. I was fine for a couple of weeks before getting side effects and tried to reinstate but had terrible side effects .. physical and mental .. my local doctor had no idea about tapering and what had actually happened to my nervous system .. after 6 weeks I was told to stop .. a lot of the physical agitation and weakness left me but I was left with depression or anxiety etc … and I had that terrible early morning waking with fear and panic .. plus SI whenever I took an antidepressant.. I could not work after trying to reinstate the original antidepressant. I stumbled along with no doctor or psychiatrist understanding the tapering idea or withdrawal issues. I didn’t want to have to try more antidepressants but I was desperate so tried Escitalopram and venlafaxine but could never get up to a full dose due to the unbearable side effects. In March last year I reluctantly tried this current antidepressant as I still wasn’t aware what was really going on. Again I had terrible side effects and it was only through my own searching on the internet that I realised what was happening. So I have been tapering fluvoxamine since June last year. I am probably going to quick but I have never stabilised or felt good at any point of taking the antidepressant.. I have had windows and recently had about a month where I had capacity to function well during the day .. I made the mistake of thinking I was over the worst … but it all disappeared again and for the last month it’s been overwhelming and exhausting and hard to keep positive 😞 I dissolve my tablet and I’m down to 10 ml .. I drop .1 ml about every two weeks .. I have found a doctor now aware of what needs to happen .. and finally found a psychiatrist that is aware of tapering etc that I will see in a couple of weeks .. it’s really to get validation and hope and support … there’s nothing else he can offer in terms of another antidepressant but has asked for extensive bloods to see how else he can support me metabolically. 🤞