New question crossing my mind

October 3, 2026

As some of you may already know, I’m doing very very poorly recently. It’s so bad. But let’s say I somehow do it to cope with this and keep fighting. The bigger question for me: How should my tapering continue from now? I’m seriously seriously so much confused. If my current symptoms resolve in the next couple of months, years... Sure. I continue. But what if the symptoms don’t resolve? What if my symptoms are not related to WD? How should i then approach tapering at all? I don’t know if I told you about this on here, but my pre SSRI symptoms was unbearable and to be very very fair, most of those symptoms resolved with the “help” of zoloft. It helped me tremendously with working, building a family, marrying and earning money. I certainly could try many different options to achieve the same thing. But more or less, the Zoloft helped me. Pre Zoloft I had severe obsessive ruminations and mental compulsions. Bad lethargy, anhedonia and chronic DPDR. There is unfortunately no doctor on this world who can help me. Or give me a solid guide on what to do next. I know these drugs are toxic and I must go off them. But what then? How in my situation? Have a nice day everyone❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Zoloft — 6,52 — 5 years and 9 months — holding | without clinician

132 Replies

McatOct 7

Mirtazapine · holding

@Leminaseri I've been at this taper for three and a half years. I thought I knew all my WD symptoms and how the patterns of waves/windows go in my taper. But my last reduction threw me into very bad WD that looked very different, and one of the worst - and newest symptoms - has been seeming cognitive incapacitation (improving every day now, but still coming out of it). Most people I know consider me a highly intelligent and learned person - I have lots of impressive achievements, and am generally viewed as highly competent. At my worst in this window, I could barely string a sentence together, struggled to make even the simplest daily decision, and was making ridiculous mistakes all over the place. I've experienced plenty of brain fog in my life, both in my taper and in relation to another health condition I deal with, but nothing like that and it scared me. It is improving and passing as I hold and focus on calming my nervous system in the ways I suggested to you earlier and have detailed in my posts on other forums about working with the nervous system re insomnia and stress/anxiety. @Maria A. I totally get that feeling of being upset with yourself for missing the signals - I felt like that, too, in my recent destabilisation; I'd had months of memos flying at me that I needed to slow my taper down - a taper I had done carefully and patiently for over three years precisely to avoid that kind of destabilisation, but we have to forgive ourselves - it only hurts us and our battered nervous systems more to attack ourselves for what are, after all, very human mistakes. It's hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes, especially with more than one ball in the air, and tapering is not always easy to track. And the way I'm looking at it is that it's a valuable lesson I needed to learn. A really hard lesson, but it has schooled me out of any delusion that I can dictate the terms with this drug and taper and taught me that there is nothing for it but to summon more patience, go more slowly and cautiously than ever before from here on in, listen closely to my body and the signs it's giving me and let it, and it alone, decide when it's time for another reduction.

Mirtazapine — 0.12mg — 3 years, 7 months

McatOct 7

Mirtazapine · holding

@Leminaseri PS: I'm going to say something to you that may be hard to hear, but know that I say it as someone who came as close as it's possible to get to losing their marriage in the last couple of years due to the cluster**** of these drugs and the nervous system sensitisation to lead to my partner and I landing on them: the more you send alarm signals to your nervous system by freaking out about losing your wife, the worse your WD symptoms (incl. anxiety and panic) will be, and the more strain that will put on your marriage, thereby increasing the risk of what you most fear. Sometimes, we have to be prepared to lose everything and put being there for ourselves ahead of everything else. I think this, my friend, is your challenge atm.

Mirtazapine — 0.12mg — 3 years, 7 months

McatOct 7

Mirtazapine · holding

@anne noni moss hey, that delayed responding must be hard graft - as I said above, I've had a pretty steady pattern of WD kicking in 1-10 days after a reduction, being at their worst for about 10-14 days, then easing ahead of the next reduction, but the last drop had a different presentation - that happened, but around the 3 wk mark, when I'd normally be stabilising and preparing to drop again, it ramped up, and it ramped up big time. I realise that was likely the cumulative effect of 4-5 too-fast drops where I'd been missing the signals to slow down, and also that maybe now that I'm in the low-dose realm, the pattern is changing, but I'm a bit worried about how long I'll need to hold when I start actively tapering again before being sure it's safe to make another move. How do you know/decide when to drop if you don't have any sense of whether the stabilisation process has completed or not?

Mirtazapine — 0.12mg — 3 years, 7 months

LeminaseriOct 8

NavigatorZoloft · holding

I feel severely suicidal and hopeless. Severe melancholia. It’s getting out of control. 40 days after holding. And updosing from 6,52mg to 6,6mg. I feel buried alive. Im thinking continuously about euthanasia. 45 days ago I thought and planned about getting an engineering degree. Life is full of surprises. Unpredictable.

Zoloft — 6,52 — 5 years and 9 months — holding | without clinician

Maria A.Oct 8

LighthouseZoloft · active

@Leminaseri I’m the same way. I’ve stopped sleeping my one day on and one day off. I’m in so much pain all the time now and my brain feels like nails on a chalk board. My family is insisting I got inpatient and I know it won’t help but I’m out of options. I wish so much I had never tapered. This microtaper destroyed my life and I’m trying to hold on for my kids but I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

Zoloft —50 mg to 15 mg — 8 years with a cold turkey and reinstatement in between— was liquid micro tapering, crashed at 14.275 mg and now holding at 15 mg.

LeminaseriOct 8

NavigatorZoloft · holding

"@Leminaseri I’m the same way. I’ve stopped sleeping my one day on and one day off. I’m in so much pain all the time now and my brain feels like nails on a chalk board. My family is insisting I got inpatient and I know it won’t help but I’m out of options. I wish so much I had ..." — @Maria A.

Stay strong you will get through this 💪

Zoloft — 6,52 — 5 years and 9 months — holding | without clinician

⭐

CatinaOct 8

Community AnchorEffexor

"This microtaper destroyed my life and I’m trying to hold on for my kids but I don’t know how much longer I can do this." — @Maria A.

Maria, we are all rooting for you. I know how hard you're trying to hold on. Please try to tackle just one day at a time. All the little reductions caught up with you, and your brain is just playing catch-up. This won't be forever, please trust me. I've been where you are and I made it through. You've already been surviving, so you can do this. Keep fighting and enduring the best you can. We ALL need you, especially your family. ❤️

Venlafaxine (tapering) - Current dose 17.28 mg
Trazodone - 50 mg
Synthroid - 25 mcg

“Your brain and body know how to heal. Trust the process and keep going.”

Please Note: I am not a healthcare professional. Any advice given is based on personal experience and that of others in the lay withdrawal community.

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