Don't despair, people do heal. For me I had an extremely painful withdrawal till 6 months, with things improving in windows and waves after that with 2 distinct sharp turns where I genuinely felt an overnight recovery. I am now 11 months out, I am in a wave right now however it's not as bad as the earlier ones. It does suck because I thought this was over however I even felt 100% healed before this wave hit so I know this will pass. I had so many painful symptoms and so few remain. You need to understand that the process is so traumatic your brain will do anything it can to prevent you from remembering it, including writing a success story. So people do heal, they do not tell others about it. I know you are thinking, "well if I came out alive after all this I'm sharing my story to give hope" - no. Trust me you are running away and never looking back. Don't despair at the few succeess stories.

@Luke is a saviour for making this site. How do donate to support it please? I haven't seen donation link anywhere.

Thank you for sharing this. Success stories are very valuable. Hopefully in time this site will fill up with them.

 

Are you on SA? I have a feeling I know but please could you confirm this so we can link to your thread? Would you mind summarising what symptoms have gone and what remains in waves?

 

SA didn't allow success stories before 1 year off, so you're right that it's still early and you are making a lot of progress in a relatively short time, even though you're having mild waves still, this is really good.

 

 

We don't have a donation link yet, but are considering how to manage this down the line, as we're aware that some people do want to support this, and we're spending our own money at the moment. We want to be sensitive and transparent about donations though, so want to take the time and care to do it properly and openly.

 

@Chippy has done a gigantic amount of work on this site, so he deserves plenty of credit too.

 

Please check in down the line for updates on support and to let us know how your recovery is progressing.

 

 

 

@Luke and @Chippy you are saving lives by making this site. There is huge momentum to collect donations at now at the site creation. I don't know if I will ever log in again after this, can I have your personal paypal to just make my donation?

I don't want my thread linked (sorry its too much, luke was a saviour on my thread though) but my symptoms were very bad. The most painful being insomnia (2-4 hours a night for months until one night it just disappeared), intrusive thoughts (I had OCD before meds, completely managed now with erp therapy 🙂, the instrusive thoughts were constant dark disturbibg looping thoughts 24/7 which I thought was my natural OCD but was all just withdrawal related, gone now btw), anhedonia (was gone before this wave seemingly for good but is back this wave, it's okay thought I have read in my similar stories this is the last symptom to 100% go so don't despair), no libido (all back), panic, anxiety, night sweats, crying spells, (all gone), digestive issues like sibo (complicated but I would say withdrawal related gone), visual snow (is back now in this wave but so much milder) and others but those were the main ones. My withdrawal was BAD trust me BAD.

Some points:

1. Difficult symptoms does not equal longer healing. You can have some symptoms disappear overnight. I suffered severe insomnia until one night it was just gone. Don't think because your symptoms are on the more severe scale that that is a guarantee for longer suffering because sharp corners exist.
2. The point of people not writing a success story I already mentioned.
3. DON'T BLINDLY TAKE SUPPLEMENTS. I genuinely feel that quitting vitamin d and mag allowed me to heal. There could be no correlation but a month after quitting both I hit a sharp turn in recovery. Just because supplements are over the counter doesn't mean that they are not as strong as these drugs were to us. Your body is trying to reach homeseostatis it doesn't want disruptions. 

4. Don't assume just because you had a bad illness before meds that that will make your withdrawal harder. I had bad OCD before meds and now's its in remission, I never even needed meds. Most people never gave psychological treatment a chance and just jumped to meds.
5. If you are feeling something, stop wondering if this is just you. It is 99% a withdrawal related symptom.
6. The trauma won't follow you forever even after you're healed, it's always less painful in retrospect believe it or not

Apologies for the spelling it's dark in my room rn



 

Edited January 18Jan 18 by iwillsurvive

Trust @Luke, he literally saved my life, his ongoing support and dedication to so many others like me was beyong admirable. There is literally NO ONE else I can think of more trustworthy to take on the task of creating this new site. Please support him with this site and in his own withdrawal. And @Chippy

Edited January 18Jan 18 by iwillsurvive

Hi @iwillsurvive

 

Thank you so much for sharing this update. It is really amazing to add it to the list. As Luke said you are still early days and experiencing some waves so don't panic if things get a bit rough again. This is great progress.

 

Please keep us upto date as to how you are? I know you don't want to log back in again but it would be at least helpful for others reading this to know how you get on over the coming months and years.

 

Don't worry about donations. Please it is our pleasure to support getting this site off the ground. We haven't made any decisions on funding the site  going forward as yet. If and when there is a PayPal link here please feel free to support then. Honestly your membership and topic is enough. Really it is.

 

Chippy

I was basically healed until this wave hit, so let this be a hopeful story for you all. From all the success stories I read there 20 months target seems good for me but if it's longer that's still okay. I am working, travelling, doing nice things even in this wave. For 6 months I would cry and scream in my room everyday for hours. Dopamine so damaged could not feel love and was unable to do basic data entry and had to leave my job. So sleepy. Could not look at an innocent picture of a puppy without getting some dark disgusting intrusive thought. Insomnia so brutal with waking up dripping in sweat, heartbeat thumping after 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Unable to leave reddit or survivingantidepressants constantly scrolling because I was so desperate for hope. That shit is all gone even in this wave. Ofcourse I am a still so careful, no vaccines, no supplements, no probiotics, nothing, not risking anything that could put me in acute. What I really just clung to was hopeful success stories.

What I really want to nail down is the miracle I felt. I literally went from the state I felt above to nearly 50% recovery overnight during august, and then 80% recovery during sepetember. Literally overnight. I am not saying I am the norm or that this is common, but it happened so hold on to the hope of a very sharp turn in recovery, particularly if you are in acute.

 

2 minutes ago, iwillsurvive said:

I was basically healed until this wave hit, so let this be a hopeful story for you all. From all the success stories I read there 20 months target seems good for me but if it's longer that's still okay. I am working, travelling, doing nice things even in this wave. For 6 months I would cry and scream in my room everyday for hours. Dopamine so damaged could not feel love and was unable to do basic data entry and had to leave my job. So sleepy. Could not look at an innocent picture of a puppy without getting some dark disgusting intrusive thought. Insomnia so brutal with waking up dripping in sweat, heartbeat thumping after 3 or 4 hours of sleep. Unable to leave reddit or survivingantidepressants constantly scrolling because I was so desperate for hope. That shit is all gone even in this wave. Ofcourse I am a still so careful, no vaccines, no supplements, no probiotics, nothing, not risking anything that could put me in acute. What I really just clung to was hopeful success stories.

What I really want to nail down is the miracle I felt. I literally went from the state I felt above to nearly 50% recovery overnight during august, and then 80% recovery during sepetember. Literally overnight. I am not saying I am the norm or that this is common, but it happened so hold on to the hope of a very sharp turn in recovery, particularly if you are in acute.

 

Well thank you for posting it here. And you know where we are. Please keep up to speed. We wish all wish well. This is undoubtably amazing progress! 🙂 

I think if Adele is closing the site it means she is going to big media, she can't have the site attached to her. Giving medical advice without being a professional will discredit her dearly. We need one of us to go big in media. I was so disappointment to see Dr. Josef in right wing media. They do not care about us, they care more about ssri's making the frogs gay then they do withdrawal. Tucker carlson should have opened with withdrawal but he didn't because he doesn't give a fuck since it doesn't attach to any talking points. If these people cared about us they would have only talked about withdrawal and nothing else. They diluted the matter by discussing other things thus diluting our suffering. If PAWS somehow becomes associated with being a right wing conspiracy theory it's going to be really bad.

2 minutes ago, Chippy said:

Well thank you for posting it here. And you know where we are. Please keep up to speed. We wish all wish well. This is undoubtably amazing progress! 🙂 

Thank you, I hope you, Luke and NT1001 all see massive healing. Thank you again SO MUCH chippy for this site

1 minute ago, iwillsurvive said:

I think if Adele is closing the site it means she is going to big media, she can't have the site attached to her. Giving medical advice without being a professional will discredit her dearly. We need one of us to go big in media. I was so disappointment to see Dr. Josef in right wing media. They do not care about us, they care more about ssri's making the frogs gay then they do withdrawal. Tucker carlson should have opened with withdrawal but he didn't because he doesn't give a fuck since it doesn't attach to any talking points. If these people cared about us they would have only talked about withdrawal and nothing else. They diluted the matter by discussing other things thus diluting our suffering. If PAWS somehow becomes associated with being a right wing conspiracy theory it's going to be really bad.

We shall see what she does. I'll refrain from political comments but we do need this to be more main stream for sure. We will try to keep what SA started going on here.

Just now, iwillsurvive said:

Thank you again SO MUCH chippy for this site

Absolute pleasure. Im very happy to try and do something positive. 

Hello @iwillsurvive

Thank you so much for giving hope. I know you don't want to get into details too much but can you just say how long you took meds (just one?) and did you quit CT or taper?

Thank you!

Sorry should have mentioned,
on Prozac for 6 years 60mg,
did CT,
then got kindled by a short term benzo use,
3 months after CT I reinstated 10mg Prozac for 8 days and abandoned immediately,
symptoms worsened greatly upon reinstatement,
that was 11 months ago. 
 

For those who are desperate for a Doctor to speak to I did speak to Stuart Shipko twice, you can find his email online. He didn't really do much though but he was able to to explain things to my family and I guess talking to a "professional" helped emotionally a bit during the worst of it

Also not sure if it's mentioned here but there is also the facebook group which supported me a lot during recovery. I forgot the name sorry but I recommend it a lot

Thank you very much for your encouragement! We really need to hear from people who reach the end of the tunnel. 

23 hours ago, iwillsurvive said:

@Luke and @Chippy you are saving lives by making this site. There is huge momentum to collect donations at now at the site creation. I don't know if I will ever log in again after this, can I have your personal paypal to just make my donation?

 

There may be, but money is not our main focus. There has also been huge momentum from us to create a working site with essentially 0 experience.

 

We'd also like to handle donations differently to SA, with some kind of feedback on the costs of the site and what is needed to cover them- we are considering how best to manage donations appropriately so that people aren't just throwing their money into a black hole. SA is now being closed off with no statement on how much money was ever collected, what will happen to it etc.

 

We would like to be more transparent.

 

For now the costs of running this forum have been paid in advance for a while, and the new software has also been purchased for the year. This has come out of our personal money (me and @Chippy).

 

 

So, in summary, we are looking at how to manage donations but we have had our hands full building this site and that has been the priority.

 

 

We'd like you to log in again down the line and update us on your further recovery, but that's your choice. If you do, there may well be a mechanism for donating by then.

 

If you feel very strongly that you'd like to help cover some of the costs now, please feel free to PM me to discuss this.

On 1/19/2026 at 12:10 AM, Luke said:

 

There may be, but money is not our main focus. There has also been huge momentum from us to create a working site with essentially 0 experience.

 

We'd also like to handle donations differently to SA, with some kind of feedback on the costs of the site and what is needed to cover them- we are considering how best to manage donations appropriately so that people aren't just throwing their money into a black hole. SA is now being closed off with no statement on how much money was ever collected, what will happen to it etc.

 

We would like to be more transparent.

 

For now the costs of running this forum have been paid in advance for a while, and the new software has also been purchased for the year. This has come out of our personal money (me and @Chippy).

 

 

So, in summary, we are looking at how to manage donations but we have had our hands full building this site and that has been the priority.

 

 

We'd like you to log in again down the line and update us on your further recovery, but that's your choice. If you do, there may well be a mechanism for donating by then.

 

If you feel very strongly that you'd like to help cover some of the costs now, please feel free to PM me to discuss this.

messaged

On 1/18/2026 at 8:19 AM, iwillsurvive said:

 Trust me you are running away and never looking back. Don't despair at the few succeess stories.
.

I do understand this.

i had a really good window in December that lasted 3 weeks and I did feel as though I was nearly better and didn’t think about any of the websites or support groups or want to check any of them.

they just didn’t come in to my mind.

 

a wave hits and I think about it again and want to come on.

so it does make sense and I agree there’s lots more success stories out there.

i know of people in my life who’ve come through WD and haven’t even joined an online group so there’s thousands out there….

 

7 minutes ago, Its-me-Rosie said:

i know of people in my life who’ve come through WD and haven’t even joined an online group so there’s thousands out there….

That's the thing. There are literally thousands (more) out there getting through this and they are not on forums. look at all the guests users on SA all the time reading. Also I think many deal with WD and don't know it.

1 hour ago, Its-me-Rosie said:

I do understand this.

i had a really good window in December that lasted 3 weeks and I did feel as though I was nearly better and didn’t think about any of the websites or support groups or want to check any of them.

they just didn’t come in to my mind.

 

a wave hits and I think about it again and want to come on.

so it does make sense and I agree there’s lots more success stories out there.

i know of people in my life who’ve come through WD and haven’t even joined an online group so there’s thousands out there….

 

 

If you're having entire 3 week periods where you're not thinking about withdrawal and feel close to recovered, at less than a year off, you're well on your way to a recovery in some more time.

Hi @iwillsurvive, thank you so much for posting this. I took fluoxetine very shortly (only few weeks) and am also still in withdrawal from it 4 months later.

 

Despite having bad anxiety and panic before and during the medication, I now feel very blunted and numb still, along with really bad (toxic) headaches and weird headsensations. It goes from feeling like concrete, to numbness, to feeling like parts are missing? To feeling bruised to feeling like sensitive nerves, to feeling like a sponge to feeling pressured…it is awful. 
 

My brain feels and works completely different from before the medications. Also my skin feels less sensitive, I am less able to feel goosebumps, adrenaline, nervousenss, hunger signals, etc. Can you relate to any of these symptoms as well? 🥹🙏

On 1/18/2026 at 6:38 PM, iwillsurvive said:

 

 

 

On 1/18/2026 at 9:19 AM, iwillsurvive said:

Don't despair, people do heal. For me I had an extremely painful withdrawal till 6 months, with things improving in windows and waves after that with 2 distinct sharp turns where I genuinely felt an overnight recovery. I am now 11 months out, I am in a wave right now however it's not as bad as the earlier ones. It does suck because I thought this was over however I even felt 100% healed before this wave hit so I know this will pass. I had so many painful symptoms and so few remain. You need to understand that the process is so traumatic your brain will do anything it can to prevent you from remembering it, including writing a success story. So people do heal, they do not tell others about it. I know you are thinking, "well if I came out alive after all this I'm sharing my story to give hope" - no. Trust me you are running away and never looking back. Don't despair at the few succeess stories.

 

this is a beautiful post @iwillsurvive, thank you! How encouraging. And I think you are right. At the moment, I feel bad and I find myself writing a lot…. Let us all never forget that the others need our encouragement and want to hear about our successes, too.

 

On 1/18/2026 at 6:38 PM, iwillsurvive said:

For those who are desperate for a Doctor to speak to I did speak to Stuart Shipko twice, you can find his email online. He didn't really do much though but he was able to to explain things to my family and I guess talking to a "professional" helped emotionally a bit during the worst of it

 

This could be a very helpful for others, and I wonder if people can find it,  if they look for informations like this. @Chippy, do we have a place to collect information about good doctors or people one could consult like Angie Peacock and others? If not, that might be a good idea.

 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Nemina said:

@Chippy, do we have a place to collect information about good doctors or people one could consult like Angie Peacock and others? If not, that might be a good idea.

 

 

Not yet. We do have suggestions threads.

 

The difficulty with this is:

1. keep it up to date
2. verifying who is "good"
3. avoiding giving medical advice and potentially being liable

SA does have a list, which is likely very out of date.

 

My own personal opinion is that for the most part when you're badly harmed, even the "good" practitioners can't actually tell you anything that hasn't already come from online peer support communities. They just tell you it for lots of money instead of for free...

 

It's also important to keep in mind that myself and @Chippy started this space to help people, but it's not like we know more than the rest of the community when it comes to which doctors are good and which aren't.

 

We can look at it, but we're just harmed patients, like the rest of us here.

I absolutely understand. What you’re writing makes a lot of sense. The big value in this forum is the exchange among people who go through the same experience or who have gone through it. So maybe such a list is not what you need to provide here. Thank you!