Hi everyone,
this isn’t exactly a success story, but rather what has helped me the most—both in the past and now. I thought it might be useful to someone else, and honestly, I’m also writing it down for myself—just in case the big wave comes back in full power.

I quit Escitalopram 10mg (which is equivalent to 20mg of citalopram) cold turkey seven months ago. I had zero knowledge. Over the past six weeks, I’ve experienced truly tough and intense wave. The last week has been better, and my overall condition is starting to improve—I can even manage work video calls or go for a walk alone without overwhelming waves of anxiety. Hurray!

I won’t list all my symptoms here, but I’ll share what has helped me the most:

• Eating regular, healthy fatty foods, even when I have no appetite. The best thing for me was bread with butter and cheese. I eat it for breakfast and dinner, along with some vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, or microgreens).

• This forum—reading others’ stories and writing my own post helped a lot. The moderators supported and continue to support me wonderfully.

• Cutting out all substances that affect the nervous system (sweets, sugar in general, caffeine, but also vitamin B, magnesium, chamomile tea, lemon balm tea—and especially alcohol).

• No seggsy time

• No Alcohol—I want to say more about alcohol: in the first days of the wave, I thought it was just normal anxiety and, a bit naively and foolishly, tried to drink it away. I don’t recommend that. Instead, today I’m 50 days sober, and it’s still improving my overall condition.

• Videos about alcohol—you might be surprised, but videos about sobriety helped me a lot, especially those showing recovery timelines. First, it gave me a sense that I could at least do something right during this period (i.e., not drink). Second, even though it’s not entirely comparable, it helped me absorb information about how the brain recovers after quitting alcohol—something I like to imagine is similar to recovery after antidepressants (I know it is not, it just helped to see, that there is light at the end of the tunnel for dopamin (alcohol) AND serotonin (antidepressant withdrawl) recovery as well since there are not timelines for the second one. I especially like this woman’s content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_7t0F0tno.

• Studying—maybe a bit obsessive, but studying different things about antidepressants, how they work, and the exact mechanism of withdrawal helped me. There are many studies on this, and it was fascinating to read them. It helped me because I’m an analytical type—I like knowing what’s happening, and it kept my mind occupied with something other than much worse thoughts.

• Based on my studying, I’ve concluded that most psychological symptoms (rumination, inability to let go of thoughts, anxiety, etc.) are caused by a lack of serotonin signaling (THIS IS ONLY MY CONCLUSION that IS HELPING ME to get through it, I AM NOT PROFESSIONAL AND THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE!) It might sound obvious, but let me explain: I often found myself in states where I couldn’t make even the simplest decisions, leading to anxiety. Or I’d think I couldn’t make any decisions at all, that everything was predetermined, accompanied by strong derealization and depersonalization. What helped was telling myself: This is the result of my serotonin circuits being fried by antidepressants, and when they recover, this will pass. The brain will heal. Dopamine receptors recover at a rate of about 30% per year. There aren’t studies on serotonin recovery, but there’s no reason to assume it wouldn’t be somehow similar.

• Treating withdrawal like OCD—this helped me a lot. My thoughts were very intrusive, so I started reading about OCD (it’s much more than just obvious rituals, something I didn’t know before). I recommend reading about OCD and its treatment because I could apply the same “respond/behavior” to withdrawal. Especially the approach of not reacting to negative symptoms—just noticing them, acknowledging their existence, but not dwelling on them, and tolerating the uncertainty that I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but it will pass. My favorite resource for reading was NOCD: https://www.treatmyocd.com.

• Recovery isn’t linear—I know this is written everywhere here, but for me, the habit of thinking: I get sick—I feel terrible—I feel a bit better—I’m healthy; is so strong that subconsciously, every time I have a better day, I expect the next one to be even better. But that’s not always the case, and terrible days can come out of nowhere. So, in those tough days, I remind myself: Don’t panic. The brain doesn’t heal linearly. This isn’t a cold. It will get better again.

I realize I’m writing all this mainly for myself as a reminder of what has helped, even just a little, during the toughest moments. It’s great to feel that the dark period is passing and that I now have moments where I feel at least a bit okay.

Have a peaceful day,
Mína

Edited October 1Oct 1 by Lighty

Hey @Mína Thank you for such a wonderful and helpful post. I have moved it here as I think it will fit in wonderfully in the coping skills section of the site. :)

On 10/1/2026 at 12:33 PM, Mína said:

Dopamine receptors recover at a rate of about 30% per year.

Can i ask you the link for that, please ? Where do you have seen that ?

Im curious because some people said they recovered in 1 yr sometimes.

Edited October 2Oct 2 by poulette38

1 hour ago, poulette38 said:

Can i ask you the link for that, please ? Where do you have seen that ?

Im curious because some people said they recovered in 1 yr sometimes.

I believe that you can heal much faster. Our receptors are probably not ALL fully fryed. And also body is more connected system than just receptors. So you can feel much better before your dopamin and serotonin systems are 100 % healed.

,,In a small 2012 Addiction Biology follow-up, dopamine receptor availability had risen about 30% after a year of abstinence or much-reduced drinking, though you’ll usually feel better well before that."

https://sobrmate.app/blog/dopamine-recovery-after-quitting-alcohol

Interesting, thanks for the link. Was the study conducted in the context of alcohol withdrawal?