I was severely hurt by long use of Paxil. After polydruged, rTMS, kétamine... Nothing worked.

 

Now I am tapering the hellish Mirtazapine. I am on 0,32 mg. The hell continues, no window already 10 month of terror.

 

You can find my journey so far here my old blog at SA: https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/32828-dimitrova-depression-and-anhedonia-caused-by-long-term-use-of-paxil/

Welcome to the forum, skamen.

 

I am the Recovery Assistant Bot and I am here to post some information for you whilst we await replies from other members.

 

This is a volunteer-run, community forum aimed at helping those who are experiencing difficulties with psychiatric medications. If you are experiencing an adverse reaction to them, withdrawal difficulties or are injured by them, we are very sorry to hear this and will do what we can to help you.

 

While we are waiting for human members to reply, there are some things you can do that will help you get the most out of this forum whilst you await further support.

 

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Please update your signature. This will allow members to see some basic information about your drug history and situation so that they may help you best. Information on how to do this is located in the guides linked above, but here is a direct link:

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Once this is done, future posts made by you will have this signature turned on by default.

 

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Hi Skamen

 

Welcome to the forum! Im sorry to hear how much you are suffering. I hope this new home can help in recovery in some way.

 

If you came over from Surviving Antidepressants please feel free to link your SA blog to here so people can see your history. Be great if you could update your signature with your drug history too.

 

Chippy

Thank you, Chippy,

Can you assist me to transfer my thread from AD?

Thank you, Chippy,

Can you assist me to transfer my thread from AD?

Yes of course. What was your user name at sa? I couldn’t find you as skamen?

Thank you, Chippy. In AD I am @Dimitrova

---

Thank you, Chippy,

Can you assist me to transfer my thread from AD?

Thank you, Chippy. In AD I am @Dimitrova

---

Thank you, Chippy,

Can you assist me to transfer my thread from AD?

 

Oh hey! I didn’t know. Great to see you here. I’ve linked your da blog above for you. 

 

Chippy

Thank you for joining.

Hi Skamen, how are you doing? I understand not feeling well and going through tapering can be awful. I had 2 cycles back after not having it for 2 cycles, due to stopping my thyroid Rx in Sept—so another taper in the neuroendocrine system. I’m surely in peri too, and it felt like I had the flu and was in a dark funk—not characteristic of me. 

So hopefully you are feeling better and/or on the mend. We’re here to support each others’ tapering journeys. Do what you can to stay positive or at least neutral. Faith helps me. What has helped you in the past? Or when did you feel most like your uplifted self and what was that like?

Thank you, Namestejen1, to contact me. This helps me a lot to know that I am not alone in this horrible journey. Almost nothing does help my suffering. I profoundly regret to be arisen in a country (Bulgaria) at the time where the faith was forbidden... But perhaps I can trust in the Universe?

I am at the end of my month 10 of protracted whidrawal after CT from 2 others ADs + lithium. I was so stupid to accept drug after drug after drug... But at that time I haven't found SA yet and trusted the doctors...

Yes, we are here to encourage each other and I thank you to do this. 

My days are endless because of the awful anhedonia caused by the AD. I am not able to work because of this inhumane state. Nothing interests me, I cannot interact with people, no feeling for nothing nor nowon, it is awful.

Do you work? What do you do with your days?

 

Svetla

Hi Svetla/Skamen,

I am sorry to hear of how flat/numb you are feeling.  I really hope your body mind spirit make a turn for the better soon! I have those flat moments but am still tapering Mirt. and fairly functional--Thank God! Without going into all the info, you can read my story in the signature about how crazy things were 12 years ago and CT after CT. I think I was blessed to make it out alive from that situation and not polydrugged. I definitely had my guardian angel watching over me.

I work as a licensed counselor (but had no idea about the deeper underlying mechanisms of psych Rx [sERT occupancy, etc.], it's not in our formal training even to learn about them in general but I took a very watered down CE course, and what these things could do if not properly used and deprescribed). I taught yoga for 16 years but have stopped for a variety of reasons. Very sparingly, I teach mindful movement that integrates many modalities--gentle, stress relief exercise is what it is. I am being called in a different direction than teaching weekly classes, plus my brain and body need to heal from all of this, and it seems I need to really scale back on exercise these days. We will see what the future holds for this type of physical fitness work.

Currently, I took a couple weeks off for winter break because of holidays, son was also off from school, fatigue (thyroid and tapering), and needing to get away from the stressful insurance company issues this past year has brought upon me for the business and even my personal health. I need a body mind spirit vacation, and I don't take off enough. 2026 will be different!!

<3 If you ever want to talk about faith, let me know. No pressure. It helps me to have a relational faith with God. I am Catholic, so we have the trinity (God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), saints (St Mary as our Mother), and angels. We are old school and close to Orthodox which might be more in your geographical area. Are you still in Bulgaria?

Hope you’re are doing well, Svetla. Checking in. I understand when not feeling well, it can be difficult to get on the site. Please know we’re thinking about you and take care!

Hi namestejen1, thank you for asking. I am not doing well, it is my month 11 of hell, adrenaline and cortisol spikes, hot flashes, depression, sleepless, panic attacks, awful anhedonia. My situation is worse than many others because I endured one year of anhedonia caused by ADs and ON ADs before the cold turkey. During this one year the psychiatrist tried drug after drug after drug, kétamine, 70 sessions of rTMS... nothing worked. Than he decided to stop the drugs but did cold turkey (2 ADs + lithium at high doses at the same time). I kept the third one, Mirtazapine which I am tapering now (I am on 0,3 mg). I have also multiple sclerosis (numerous lesions on the brain). I know that it is difficult for the CNS to work for homeostasis in this situation... I never have known that such a mental and physical torture exists on earth as the withdrawal. There are days I don't want to live anymore...

I am Bulgarian but I live in Montreal.

Be in touch with me means a lot for me, thank you.

You’re so close to being off the Mirt. not that it’s a comparison, but you’re further along than me, which I think is fabulous! Keep going on the hyperbolic tapering schedule.  I so hope that you are able to find what works for you soon. It cannot be easy to still feel so bad.

See something I’ll post on my thread, that I don’t want to take space here.  I’ll do it today.

Take care and do something uplifting for yourself today. Don’t feel bad if you don’t feel uplifted. But just knowing that you are doing something to fill that bucket of positivity we all have IS worth the effort to do little or big positive things every day. It fills up and will eventually make itself known by your shift towards a window.

Hi Skamen/ Svetla Good to see you have got onto this website. We are both in a living hell at the moment. 14 years on Paxil

is not good. A nasty drug, BUT then so is Mirtazapine. So we just have to keep plodding on the best way we can though this

horror. I was feeling slightly better, but have deteriorated again now, and am feeling horrible again. Time is the only healer

so I am praying for relief for us both.

Take care Svetla and stay safe,      B.

Hi B., we will continue to support each other through this site. My hell is awful. I have been CT-ed in March 2025 by the psychiatrist from 2 powerful ADs + lithium at the same time. I have been talking also the hellish Mirtazapine which I am tapering now. I am on 0,3 mg and want to evacuate it from my brain as soon as possible. I hate this poison, I hate psychiatry, I hate the big Pharma...all of them ruined our lifes.

I am glad that you are doing better today. Keep going,

Svetla

Hi @skamen How are you doing today? Have you found any relief yet? I do understand and it is so incredibly hard. Distraction

can sometimes take the edge off. Now I have just had the worst morning ever, 🤞 it is easing a bit now, this is after

10 hours of absolute living hell, it just beggars belief how a tiny pill can put you in such a terrifying horrible beyond 

words state. You cannot find words horrible enough to describe it, reducing a human to ball of FEAR and  pent up

mental trauma. Feeling like we have been injected with a thousand poisons. So yes I am praying the rest of the day

is less of an ordeal. So I am praying for you Svetla, I am not religious per se, But I DO believe in a higher power.

Please take care and stay safe. Sending you strength 💪,      B.🙏🙏🙏🌷  

Hi, @NT1100B, I am like you, in constant living terror. My nights are horrendous: adrenaline hot flashes, muscle pain over all the body, depression, anxiety. The inhuman anhedonia kills me, no feelings, no motivation, I am reduced to a nutshell. There is nothing human in me anymore. I am wondering myself how I was able to function before this hell. You say a distraction, B., but what distraction?!?!?! I don't have a motivation for nothing. I am a real scrap. I am sitting down in front of my unique grandson who was born last October and I don't feel nothing.... How is it possible? I am a monster, without saoul, what happened to me? How is it possible that the prescribed drugs took off my entire life? 

Svetla

Hi @skamen Yes very sorry, the only way I distract is online like I am now in a morning, and afternoon I watch 

box sets, on the dvd player, I have quite a few and just keep going around in order. maybe 70 discs. My memory

is so shot, I have part forgotten them by the time I get back around. I will admit this morning in the worst wave

ever I did find it hard following  threads on SA. I am praying you get a break Svetla, you more than deserve one.

Take great care and please stay safe.      B.🙏🙏🙏🌷

Hi @skamen How are you doing today? still in that living hell? I sincerely hope you are in for a big window very soon.

Are you holding on your taper? I think the only way is to hold for as long as it takes to get a window. Let your CNS stabilise.

It's the hardest scenario we will ever go through in our lives, but you are STRONG Svetla, and you will WIN. Change nothing

until you have got into a long window. We are ALL with you all the way.

Take great care,        B.🙏🙏🙏🌷

Hi B. Two days before I dropped to .28 from .3 mg after 20 days in .3. I couldn't sleep that night and returned to. 3 mg yesterday (I hate Mirtazapine, I want to evacuate it as soon as possible from my brain). So the sleep came back but that's all. The others horrific symptoms are still present: anxiety, pain over all the body, awful anhedonia, fatigue, brain fog, hot flashes, hellish morning terror... I approche the end of my month 11, and no window until now, living hell, darkness, hopeless...

Svetla

Hi @skamen I know it's almost impossible but I think if you stay on .3mg for as long as it takes for your CNS to settle down

Svetla, now this can sometimes take a long time. But keeping a steady state with NO drug changes should let your CNS become

stable, your window  will then appear. Hold steady in the window until you eventually feel confident in resuming a very slow gentle

taper, at maybe 3% drop. So no changes with the drug until that window appears. We are with you Svetla.🙏

Take great care,       B.🙏🙏🤞

Thank you, B. I went back to .3 mg after 1 day at .28 and will stay there waiting for window. This night was horrendous: only 2 hours sleep. At 1 am I woke up and was unable to sleep any more... What a hell, what a nightmare, what a terror without end. In addition: depression, anhedonia, zero motivation, numbness, flatness, fatigue, brain fog. Our suffering is unbearable.

At least, I hope you are doing well.

Svetla

2 minutes ago, skamen said:

Thank you, B. I went back to .3 mg after 1 day at .28 and will stay there waiting for window. This night was horrendous: only 2 hours sleep. At 1 am I woke up and was unable to sleep any more... What a hell, what a nightmare, what a terror without end. In addition: depression, anhedonia, zero motivation, numbness, flatness, fatigue, brain fog. Our suffering is unbearable.

At least, I hope you are doing well.

Svetla

Hi Svetla

 

Im sorry about the rough time you are having at the moment. 
 

I think you are wise to up dose to 0.3 as you have done and hold.
 

I hope you find stability in the coming days. 
 

Chippy

Thank you, @Chippy. I hope also, but this journey is intolerable. There are not words in the human language to describe this terror...

Svetla