Hi all,

So it’s been exactly 9,5 months since my last dose and I still feel so very altered. Idk how to keep hope that this will ever get better. It’s like my brain is stuck in a very malfunctioning state and this state is quite static. I don’t have moments were I feel normal. My biggest concerns are the severe blunting, anhedonia and head symptoms I experience on a daily basis. I used to be quite sensitive and intuitive and it’s like my entire inner world is dead and my response system as well. It’s like the pathway to my emotions in my brain is deleted. I feel NOTHING. It’s out of this world.

I try to push forward everyday but I feel 90% of the time the same and my system feels very stuck. I know I repeat myself a lot.. but I think what I experience isn’t withdrawal. It genuinely feels like the meds were neurotoxic to my brain and I have a chemical injury to my receptors.

I made a list of my symptoms. If anyone recovered from them, I am pleased to know 🥹:

1. Head pressure / injured / sore brain / swollen brain / feeling like something is stuck in my brain / numb brain /concrete block in frontal lobe .

My head symptoms are excruciating and very painful on most days. Makes me unfunctional.

2. Hollow brain / airy / empty brain. Like parts are missing.

—> I have 1 + 2 at the same time but at different parts of my brain

3. Emotional blunting (even negative emotions like, anxiety, shame fear, sadness, nervousness, just blank robot)

4. Can’t feel effects of caffeine/ alcohol, just numbness (I do drink coffee occasionally but avoid alcohol now). Numb brain blocks all signals.

5. Prickling in toes (little better)

6. Face presse / eye pressure /nose pressure. Also my face feels hollow / like air. Hard to explain.

7. Tingling in forehead, nose, front teeth (this or the pressure alter each other) 

8. Severely dry eyes + NO tear reflex from wind, sneezing, yawning, wind, etc. Tears seem dead, sand in eyes feeling 24/7.

9. Blank mind / reduced inner monologue (windows and waves in this symptom). But never fully normal. Think this is linked to the defect in my limbic system.

10. Cognitive issues (memory is very poor, less visualization and complex thinking, but I have windows and waves in this symptom so the severity changes)

11. Can’t feel tired / sleepy / drowsy in head. Only eyes or body get tired. Head has this unnatural fake clear feeling in the background 24/7.

12.Low to no libido. No sexual thoughts or desire. Thoughts aren’t translated to arousal.

13. Blunted hunger + saturation signals. Eating nothing or 3 pizzas… doesn’t make me feel any different. Too numb. —> Somedays it’s a little bit better but still far from normal.

14. Overall feeling of being drugged and waiting to get sober.

15. Dilated pupils (like being in drug$), I didn’t have this in 1 month, but yesterday it was back and I was in a bad bad wave.

    what has improved:
    - Numb skin were it felt like I wore a suit (normal again)
    - Thirst (almost normal again, maybe even more thirsty)

    - Reduced sweat (I barely sweat but sweat normal again)
    -Muscles feel also more normal again (felt really lightweighted and couldn’t feel them well)

    - sometimes had slightly burning skin.

    I feel like my brain is stuck in a very malfunctioning calibration and it needs a “shock” to wake up and to reorganize into a different state.

    I thought I would have healed more by now but I feel like I maybe only improved 5-10%. It’s a hard pill to swallow. It feels really permanent.

Can really use some hope. @Luke you mentioned before that you know people (also outside of this forum) who recovered from complete emotional anesthesia and anhedonia. Do you know if there is any chance they are open to contact? 🙈

I feel like I’ve already died. Only walking corpse 90% of the time.

@Sophia you are so early on in all of this. I know it is hard to believe in your healing and you are still adjusting to your injury and this reality, but time is your friend. My advice is don't drink ANY alcohol this can set you back. I would avoid caffeine personally too or at least keep it weak and earlier in the day. Then work on acceptance and distraction coping skills. You are stuck in the pattern of looking for someone to make you believe in your own healing. It is common, but it never helps only prolongs/amplifys the suffering. Eventually we all have to just accept, learn to drill down a routine which helps pass the time and distract ourselves and grind out the days until this has stopped. You WILL heal, start to trust and believe in your healing, it is coming for you eventually. xxxxx

48 minutes ago, Chippy said:

ou are stuck in the pattern of looking for someone to make you believe in your own healing. It is common, but it never helps only prolongs/amplifys the suffering. Eventually we all have to just accept, learn to drill down a routine which helps pass the time and distract ourselves and grind out the days until this has stopped. You WILL heal, start to trust and believe in your healing, it is coming for you eventually. xxxxx

Yeah thank you... I know you are right but I think its something along the lines of "only if I see it happening myself I believe it"..

I go on holiday this weekend and decided to be absent from the forums and my phone to focus on my family. Hopefully it will help a little.

@Sophia you know that i relate a lot to so many of these symptoms. Feeling drugged, feeling like my brain has been unplugged or stuffed full of cotton wool. All of that. Hang in there buddy. I am 9.5 months off meds too. We will battle this together. I have faith we will recover.

@Sophia These are symptoms that a significant number of people have or had and then recovered from after coming off of these drugs.

The person I was referring to had a very similar experience to me, and like me is still experiencing difficulties. However, crucially, I also experienced significant emotional blunting and anhedonia. At this kind of timeframe I was very bad, along with being really quite disabled by my symptoms. Now I am not.

I'm here, telling you that I recovered from those symptoms.

I know that you feel that your condition is very static, but there are early signs that it is not:

May:

On 5/25/2026 at 7:55 PM, Sophia said:

Today I had one of my best days when this all started. I feel parts of myself very subtle and slowly coming coming online sometimes! It’s really nice weather here in the Netherlands and I went to the beach with friends today, so I don’t know if that plays a role.

March:

On 3/3/2026 at 2:29 PM, Sophia said:

I could even cry from relief. Definitely feels like a first real window, so relieved! 
 

@Chippy the corner came!! Hopefully it stays with me, but I don’t want to get my hopes to high 🥹🙈

Unfortunately, it's still very early relative to the typical healing process most people undergo. I've looked back through my thread and at this kind of timeframe the better times for me were not too physically disabled to go for a walk, and cognitively able to watch TV, and anhedonia was still very bad, with glimmers of feeling more normal mentally, and these were very few and far between. The overwhelming majority of time I was totally unable to function at all.

All I can really say is that you are also likely to improve in time.

It just so unfair that 9.5 months is considered early. What is the typical timeframe of healing?

25 minutes ago, Samuel said:

It just so unfair that 9.5 months is considered early. What is the typical timeframe of healing?

I wonder...

I don't know if it's unfair... I am almost 8 years off. Not healed at all...

On the other hand Adele Framer (Altostrata, the major admin on SA) describes herself as healed, but after being 11 years off, if I understood correctly.

Also, I heard that some people do not have problems with coming off these drugs, so who knows...

Edited July 16Jul 16 by The Dust

40 minutes ago, Samuel said:

It just so unfair that 9.5 months is considered early. What is the typical timeframe of healing?

Oh, I recalled that somewhere this number has been mentioned - scientifically.

In total, n = 69 individual reports of protracted withdrawal were selected for analysis. At time of the subjects' most recent reports, duration of PWS ranged from 5 to 166 months, mean = 37 months, median = 26 months. Length of time on the antidepressant causing protracted withdrawal ranged from 6 to 278 months, mean = 96 months, and median = 79 months.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33489088/

I also remember that Horowitz explicitly mentioned somewhere that the longer you have been taking the medication, the longer the recovery process takes.

Edited July 16Jul 16 by The Dust

I hope to one day hop on this forum to either see someone I recognize get better, or to post the "it gets better" myself. Take care Sophia.

22 hours ago, Sophia said:

Yeah thank you... I know you are right but I think its something along the lines of "only if I see it happening myself I believe it"..

I go on holiday this weekend and decided to be absent from the forums and my phone to focus on my family. Hopefully it will help a little.

I hope you have a good trip, it sounds like a good idea to have some time not thinking about WD. Sometimes we have to try to live even though it's hard. You will see some progress eventually, but this process can take so long and can be very up and down so eventually we have to let it all go and just accept.

10 hours ago, Samuel said:

It just so unfair that 9.5 months is considered early. What is the typical timeframe of healing?

this varies widely. I think 2-3 years is a good general guide but it can be less or more. Everyone is different.

10 hours ago, Samuel said:

It just so unfair that 9.5 months is considered early. What is the typical timeframe of healing?

It varies significantly, and there's very little good quality data on it.

What I can say, is that if you spend time in support groups, the most prolific posters are typically less than 2 years off, and people still posting at 3+ years happens but is uncommon.

Nothing is guaranteed but most people are better at 3 years off, often considerably earlier than this.

My observations are supported by the data @The Dust posted- median symptom duration is just over 2 years.

It's also worth remembering that it's not uncommon to not be 100% recovered yet, but recovered enough to not be suffering extensively and this is something many experience for a while before being totally symptom free.

However, it's important not to get too hung up on specific timelines, as difficult as that is. Some recover relatively quickly, some don't. All you can do is take care of yourself as best you can.

@Sophia

Violets: Fully recovered from severe form of PSSD after two years - Success stories: Recovery from psychiatric drug withdrawal - Surviving Antidepressants

I read that recovery story almost everyday haha! Thanks!! 🤗

Our time on meds and symptoms are very similar. Hopefully I also see significant improvements at 1,5y off the meds @Luke!

8 hours ago, Luke said:

My observations are supported by the data @The Dust posted- median symptom duration is just over 2 years.

@Luke @The Dust It is sadly incorrect to conclude that 50% recover before 2 years and 50% after from the Hengartner paper. The sentence in the paper is "**At time of the subjects' most recent reports**, duration of PWS ranged from 5 to 166 months, mean = 37 months, median = 26 months". Unfortunately people extrapolate that to mean "median recovery time". No, all it means is that when the authors read people's threads, half of the 69 people had been posting and descrining symptoms for less than 26 months, half had posted and described symptomsfor longer. The average length of posting about symptoms was 37 months. That is not recovery. That is people no longer posting. Many people stop posting for a whole range of reasons. For all we know, some may have suicided. Some may be living life with ongoing symptoms and feel a sense of futility about posting. Some, at 5 months, may only just have joined the forum.

Edited July 17Jul 17 by Sminismoni

@Sminismoni You have a point. If someone ask me, i will say that these numbers seem quite optimistic. But I wanted so be fair and that's why I shared a real research. It's great that someone has done it, but it's quite intuitive that this paper doesn't tell us much.

I we continue your meaningful speculation, we can also add that someone whose cognitive impairment was so severe because of drugs, wasn't even able to do his report, or someone with 24/7 akathisia was not even able to sit down to do it...

After all statistics is tricky just by itself. If we use these number as numbers of years needed for recovery: 1 1 1 3 3 7 8 9 9 10

our x = 5.2

and Me = 5

Someone remembers number 5 and after 5 years he/she will say "Wait the minute, 5 years is not enough?"

14 hours ago, Sminismoni said:

@Luke @The Dust It is sadly incorrect to conclude that 50% recover before 2 years and 50% after from the Hengartner paper. The sentence in the paper is "**At time of the subjects' most recent reports**, duration of PWS ranged from 5 to 166 months, mean = 37 months, median = 26 months". Unfortunately people extrapolate that to mean "median recovery time". No, all it means is that when the authors read people's threads, half of the 69 people had been posting and descrining symptoms for less than 26 months, half had posted and described symptomsfor longer. The average length of posting about symptoms was 37 months. That is not recovery. That is people no longer posting. Many people stop posting for a whole range of reasons. For all we know, some may have suicided. Some may be living life with ongoing symptoms and feel a sense of futility about posting. Some, at 5 months, may only just have joined the forum.

Personally as much as I understand the need to look for hope and a timeline, I have never read success stories nor have I fixated on timelines, for me it is pointless, just trust and accept that given enough time you will improve, perhaps that sounds brutal in some ways, but I find it exhausting putting that much energy into predicting the unpredictable.

20 hours ago, Sophia said:

I read that recovery story almost everyday haha! Thanks!! 🤗

Our time on meds and symptoms are very similar. Hopefully I also see significant improvements at 1,5y off the meds @Luke!

I hope you do too. The small glimmers and windows of emotion are a very good sign, it can just be very slow to keep seeing those.

15 hours ago, Sminismoni said:

@Luke @The Dust It is sadly incorrect to conclude that 50% recover before 2 years and 50% after from the Hengartner paper. The sentence in the paper is "**At time of the subjects' most recent reports**, duration of PWS ranged from 5 to 166 months, mean = 37 months, median = 26 months". Unfortunately people extrapolate that to mean "median recovery time". No, all it means is that when the authors read people's threads, half of the 69 people had been posting and descrining symptoms for less than 26 months, half had posted and described symptomsfor longer. The average length of posting about symptoms was 37 months. That is not recovery. That is people no longer posting. Many people stop posting for a whole range of reasons. For all we know, some may have suicided. Some may be living life with ongoing symptoms and feel a sense of futility about posting. Some, at 5 months, may only just have joined the forum.

That's partially true, however they do actually post charts/data of the outcomes of all of them, 36% were lost to follow-up without an outcome. Nearly a quarter were actually confirmed recoveries.

It's important to recognise that it's simply a review of people posting on an internet forum, yes. However, my experience having have been on SA and large quantities of other support groups on other platforms like fb for years now is that in a lot of cases when people stop posting, it is because they're doing better.

When people are doing better, they often go and live their life and don't want to think about this anymore nor visit forums. I've seen this happen a lot, where someone never posts on SA again but I will see them comment somewhere (not even make a post) on a fb group that they're recovered/doing very well. I often saw people's posts talking about improvements, picking up more and more momentum before they disappeared.

It was also immensely common on SA, and I see it all the time here, that even in windows people just stop posting, and they'll come back in a wave.

We've had recovered members on SA offer to help with this site and then just disappear.

You're right, insofar as drawing concrete conclusions from this paper is not really possible, however I am very confident about these two statements based purely on my own observations from spending obscene amounts of time in these groups, especially in the first couple of years:

1. Many (but of course not all) of those who stop posting are doing better.

2. Recovery in less than 3 years is the norm, not the exception, if people stay off of drugs.

To expand on 2, do people sometimes take longer to recover? Absolutely. However they are the unfortunate minority of sufferers and I have personally observed absolutely huge numbers of people get better in this timeframe. Look around this forum and you'll find plenty who are considerably less than 3 years off who are objectively improving.

I don't know how long it might take you to recover @Sminismoni, and I realise that high-quality data on recovery rates and times is effectively non-existent, however such a dataset would be looking to capture a large range of patient experiences, and I feel as though I have observed large volumes of patient experiences in my time to be able to say that I think it is likely that you will, and the ramping up of symptoms you've had in the last several months does seem to be somewhat common- it happened to me too. It's all "normal", sadly.

I struggled with immense hopelessness for a very long time, my physical symptoms were very severe and seemed impossible to recover from, but most of them are gone, and I'm improving all the time now. Even the severest symptoms are absolutely possible to recover from.

On 5/1/2026 at 12:55 PM, Sophia said:

7 months today since last dose.

Today is really hard. Woke up from sleep due to head pressure. My eyes feel pressured and hurt as well. When I touch them, they even feel different.

Eyes are dry, skin is dry, no hunger, no thirst. Everything is blunted once again.

I went to work out 2 days ago for first time in months. Was proud I made it, but I noticed it did not even sweat anymore during the workout.

Again I felt complete devastation. I am baffled that 7 weeks of use (1,5 month) had torn every system in my body apart. Nothing feels the same.

I still feel severely emotional blunted almost 24/7. My "windows" are days were the anhedonia lifts, and I feel chemically better. Like I am on drugs.

Still no huge signs or signals of my organic self or my own personality coming back anywhere..

Also noticed a new symptom this month and sorry if it is TMI, but my lady parts burn sometimes. I thought it could be an uti but I guess these are my nerves firing. Makes me really scared and uncomfortable. Read it more often in the PSSD community.

Today I had therapy. My therapist is also a psychiatrist. I really like him and he is really compassionate. He beliefs me and we try to work together to touch my emotions. He told me today the only thing I can do is to be mindful of my symptoms. And allow them as much as I can. Stop the fight, so I can feel some sense of control / agency. I know he is right. Acceptance is the only thing that can be done. But it's hard to notice that my response is so indifferent in many instances. When I cry, I dont feel an emotion. I dont feel any healing or insights TRULY landing in my nervous system. I had a brief moment of true emotion this weekend. Its was the most beautiful thing I felt since day 1 that I took that damn pill.

I've chatted to quite some people the last couple of weeks. It scares me that many with my symptoms still suffer after years... I can't get these cases out of my head. I WANT to belief in my healing, but my gut tells me my brain is too altered and damaged. Isn't toxic positivity? Not all people with long covid heal right?

Still.. I am proud of myself for enduring this torture. I am proud of everyone on this website. We are human beings and don't deserve any of this.

Hang in there ❤️

Hi Sophia,

Yes prozac is quite nasty stuff, it's gave me twitching for 5 months even though I stopped it 4 months ago 😔

I am sorry @Billiam :(

Do you also have weird head symptoms? Like pressure, tingling, brain feels lightweighted / airy?

It was 100% neurotoxic for me. What a disaster.

It's only muscle symptoms for me, twitching, tightness and aches.

3 weeks on 20mg untll I complained to my doctor about symptoms who doubled the dose to 40mg which I took for another 2 weeks til quitting CT.

I should have recognised it was an adverse reaction and stopped (or tapered) at the 1st twitch. Im not too happy with my doctors for not spotting this either.

It just shows how only a few weeks on these things can damage you

Yeah 7 weeks for me… 10 months off next week and still not healed @Billiam

Edited July 26Jul 26 by Sophia

I feel like I barely improve guys. Still no emotional range, severe dry eyes and excruciating head symptoms everyday.

7 weeks I took it only….. thought I would feel way more healed by now. I think it’s really damage to the brain.

Just had a family gathering, I can’t connect anymore through feelings of nostalgia or empathy. People cried and I was completely blank. Its so hard because I know who I was before this injury.

I want to start a family and stuff in 1–2 y but I never can have a baby if I can’t feel any emotion or empathy ?

I feel like a psychopath honestly. Even the most disturbing news articles or horror movies don’t evoke any reaction.

I don’t see how I can even heal from this. I notice I feel more and more pessimistic. The way I feel feels so incredibly chemically and wrong in every way. I don’t feel human anymore.

The same with me, @Sophia, + cortisol night and morning terror... you are not alone.

Thinking of you @Sophia No improvement for me either. We will heal together. ❤️