My 'self' online & stopping Prozac
'I'm learning to fly around the clouds. But what goes up must come down' - Tom Petty, Learning to Fly
I'm meant to keep at least a bit of myself for myself right?
Someone asked me recently 'How do you deal with sharing so much of yourself on the internet? Don't you feel uncomfortable that so many people know so much about you?'
I didn't have a really good answer. I don't know how I deal, except to say that most of the time what you see is really what you get.
Let's put it in perspective. I've been on the internet now for 12 years, and I've never really used a pseudonym in all that time. I had a nickname back in chatrooms in the 1990s. Otherwise I've always just been me.
When I started my first blog I used my real name and I had absolutely no doubts about privacy, whether I should keep myself to myself, whether what I wrote was acceptable or not.
Whether what I wrote might affect my family later. Whether my kids should be exposed on the internet, full names, pictures, pictures of them in the bath.
Then a picture of my boys was favourited on flickr and got around 3000 hits in a few days. Suddenly it was like, 'wow, that's really out there'.
I didn't have any real issues with the idea of 3000 old men wanking over pictures of my boys, because after all they're just inanimate pictures right?
Then I put myself in my boys' shoes and recognised that maybe later on they might not be happy about the idea that mom put pictures of them in the shower on the internet and 3000 old men spent a lot of time looking at them. Know what I mean? I restricted viewing of that picture to family and friends.
Then when I started working and my colleagues were googling me I suddenly became very uncomfortable. I didn't want to be categorised as a mother who cooked and sewed and wrote about her carefully structured life. I shut the old blog down and removed it for a while from the internet while I thought about what I wanted.
Consciously I chose to put it back online, and to start this one, which is more of how I am now. I still cook and sew. I'm still a mom who writes about her life, but I'm also someone who thinks and feels and writes about the thinking and feeling.
A lot of what I wrote on my old blog was subconsciously edited. I cut almost everything that revealed how I saw the world, what I felt. It was pretty and light and nice and nothing there, bar once or twice by accident, really let you know anything about me.
Most of the time I was on a Prozac-induced cloud nine where life was even and numb and nothing ever got to me so most of the time I really was writing what I knew.
This time it's different. I've been Prozac-free for six months now and I have very little to no SSRI-discontinuation syndrome thanks to acupuncture, diet and exercise. The eating disorder that the Prozac was originally prescribed for is back, but that's just got to be dealt with some other way now. I have to be kinder to myself. No more drugs, ever.
I tried to stop taking Prozac several times in the last 15 years and had serious discontinuation syndrome.
Shaking, tics, lying on the bathroom floor withdrawing, crying, feeling completely out of control, tinnitus, feeling disconnected, suicide attempts.
It's strange that the drug that is meant to stop you feeling like that makes you feel like that as soon as you stop taking it. I was first prescribed Prozac in 1993. In between I had my dosage changed to an incredibly high 60 mg a day to try and control the bulimia and depression, changed to Cipramil to see if it would help and eventually a MAOI inhibitor, which was a particularly bad patch for me.
The first time I tried to stop I thought it just meant I wasn't 'cured' yet. I didn't realise that it had nothing to do with being better or not and everything to do with neurochemicals. Cue withdrawal-attempt-#2 and I started realising that it wasn't going to be that easy. A few more times and I had resigned myself to being on Prozac forever. Green & white pills everywhere.
When I started to see my acupuncturist and we talked about the eating disorder, the weight gain, the bloody Prozac, the dead feeling and wanting to get off the Prozac, wanting to be myself again, he said, 'let's just start slow'.
That was two and a half years ago.
Finally in August 2007 I felt comfortable enough to leave my little green & white pills behind and this time it's been smooth.
Smooth in that I've had no real withdrawal, not so smooth in that learning to feel again after 15 years is pretty hard work. Imagine you're some kind of vehicle on rails, and you spend so much time just chugging along on a flat road, then suddenly you have hills and valleys, and your speed hasn't changed. The bottom drops out of your world and your stomach hits the floor. That's a bit how life without Prozac feels.
My emotions haven't regulated themselves properly yet even six months later. I'm learning that yes, it's going to crap some days, but then other days I'm going to be deliriously happy for no real reason.
I'm going to lie in my bed and howl some days because things are not as I want them, but they'll be balanced by days that I sit smiling at the world, wondering how it can be so good.
Watching my boy finally hit a serve over the net, mouth open in concentration and the huge gap-toothed smile when he realises he did it. Reading a book and feeling the characters live. Listening to a song on my ipod while I run and be glad my face is so sweaty that no-one sees the tears. Laughing so much that I can't actually speak anymore. This is how it feels to feel.
Sometimes it's not pretty. Nothing is pretty all the time. Everyone wakes up snotty sometimes.
So why am I writing this? Why am I putting this little bit of myself online? Revealing the kookiness to everyone?
Because I tried to search for some information on the internet about how it feels after you come off Prozac. There's hardly any information on how you feel when you stop. There's lots of brief and incomplete information about the physical effects. Apparently everyone worries about sexual dysfunction. Priorities, people!
There is virtually nothing out there about the emotions, except advice to say 'if you can't deal with the emotions then go back on the drugs'. I wanted a guide book on how to ride the rollercoaster, not advice saying 'just get off'!
So I thought, hey look, I'll write about how it felt for me and that way I can share more of me than anyone every wanted me to. This is where you insert a wry faced smile to imagine how I look right now. To be fair to myself I did hesitate a few times before hitting that publish button, thinking hmm, maybe this is just a bit too much.
Seriously though, maybe this will help someone else who's learning to feel again.
Ash, this is a very powerful and revealing entry and I'm sure you will help many others in similar situations by sharing this.
Thanks for talking about it, Ash. I've also never read anything anywhere about how to come off anti-depressants, so this is really interesting. I have been prescribed them myself, but never took them long enough to ever find them useful, but I have a lot of friends and family (mostly in South Africa) who won't step outside until they've had their pills.
Having been an avid reader of your first blog, I have noticed a difference in style with this one, but I could never quite put my finger on why or how this is different. It does seem more vivid than the last, and I've been fascinated by the hints you've given as to how your life is changing.
Good luck with your journey, and whether you're writing about cooking, running, reading or how you're feeling, I'm one reader you've hooked.
Alison, I hope so! I'd hate the world to think that sexual dysfunction was the only thing that happened when the happy pills stopped. Thanks for taking the time to comment :)
Charlotte, depression is a hard thing to talk about. The only thing that's harder to talk about is bulimia, because there is absolutely no glamour attached to bending over the toilet with your fingers down your throat. Thanks for the compliments and I hope I can keep you hooked. :)
I had noticed the 'style change' and wondered what caused it.
Depression is awfull. I had one as a side-effect of my contraception once and it was really really bad. I had a touch of it (but not as bad) since the pregnancies and a year ago I started taking thyroid hormones. The sheer joy of just feeling happy because the world turns, I'd missed that so much...
Weird that it is so hard to find others who stopped, to share experiences and tips with.
Marjolein: What people forget to tell you is that when the dips go, so do the peaks. So that joy thing, the medication takes it all away. Re the people who stopped - well, I think there is still a stigma and also, either people want to forget about it or they kind of over-do it and become all militant. Neither of which is me (I hope!)
You are very brave to tell so much about yourself, your real self I mean. Vertine is a nickname, as you know. When I use my real name, I get all sorts of sexual proposals....
Taking anti-depressants has a stigma, you are right. I have never taken them, but even a mildly depressive day (hey, I am over 35!) scares the shit out of me. No criticism from me. I read somewhere 1 in 4 people regularly takes them, so perhaps it is one of those things nobody talks about until one starts?
Take care and hang in there!
Vertine, I love how you always say that about your real name. LOL. I think as soon as people think depression they think of crazy old ladies with cats. I don't mind talking about depression, but I'm surprised no-one talks about getting off the meds. Maybe that's because no-one ever does? Which is a horrifying thought and one that must make Eli Lilly and the other manufacturers rub their hands in glee.
Thank you for writing about SSRI discontination syndrome. I hadn't heard of it until I started to look on the web today for clues about why I'm feeling so weepy, scared, spaced and dizzy and being so clumsy. I'm not sure how I'm going to get all the way through the day being this dopey! I wish I had been more sensible about stopping Prozac. Even though I did it gradually, I haven't put anything else in its place, like you have with acupuncture, exercise and diet. Perhaps I should start taking Prozac again to get my strength back? I don't feel like I can do anything for myself, I'm so tired.
Thank you for writing about your experience, it helps to know x
Luce,
I'm so sorry to hear that you're having such a difficult time with the withdrawal. I tried several times before and I have to say that I think it's the acupuncture that has helped the most. I know that tired feeling quite well. What you might have to do is go back on it for a while, and then try again when you have more support structures in place to do it naturally. Be aware though, the tiredness that you're feeling might just be one of the emotions that the prozac has subdued. You may just simply feel overwhelmed.
I wish I could help more. Please mail me if you need to talk - the link is in the sidebar.
x
Thank you sincerely for publishing this entry.
I've always been an emotional and moody person, which has bothered me. During my second and third years of college I began to have severe depression and finally worked up the courage to talk to a doctor about it. I told my doctor that I was afraid of being emotionless and unlike myself but she reassured me that crying myself to sleep and worrying all the time was unlike myself, too. I decided that it would be easier to start taking an antidepressant to manage my wild emotions.
I've been on Prozac for three months and I feel like a zombie. I have stopped going to my classes, I'm absolutely going to fail out of college and owe thousands of dollars to my university. I still worry about my future, but in a passive way. I can't even look my boyfriend in the eyes and feel real love for him like I have in the past. I hate the robot I've become and have been struggling with the decision to discontinue Prozac. I don't feel so low, but I'm incapable of feeling as happy as I have been before before, too.
It's not worth it to me. I miss the joy and happiness in my heart. I haven't felt that way in three months and that alone would be enough to make me cry if I could manage to while on these damn pills. I'm not inspired to make art anymore, and I have a hard time seeing the beauty in the world that used to be all around me. I'm glad I tried Prozac because it helped me see that there is no easy fix to cure depression. I am going speak with my doctor about discontinuing the medication and look at other options that may help me cope without feeling emotionless.
My 16-year-old daughter stopped taking her Prozac about six weeks ago without telling me. I would ask her frequently if she was remembering to take her medicine and she said she was. However, about two weeks ago I noticed a change in her personality. She was making more rash decisions than normal and seemed to have a surly personality frequently. I could not figure it out because once she started taking Prozac she seemed to lose that irritablity and was more like the loving child that she has been her whole life. However, about three days ago, after a particularly difficult afternoon, she told me that she has stopped taking her medicine. She said that she was tired of never feeling really happy anymore. This really breaks my heart. I don't want to make her take medicines that she does not want to. At the same time, it is easy to see how not taking them changes her personality and effects her outlook on life negatively. When she is not on her medicine she is very difficult and does not make wise and responsible choices. I really don't know what to do to help her and I am so afraid that her life will always be much more difficult than needed if she can't find some method for coping with this. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Worried Mom
just wanted to say that i'm glad to find this blog, because i too have not found too much online, except here, about the up and downs of being on and off prozac. i decided about ten days ago to finally give up the damn stuff, having been on it for 16 years (i still can't believe i was on this drug for that long!). anyway, i know i shouldn't have, but i just basically discontinued it without tapering, as they do not suggest. but my prescription had only 2 more pills left and i really didn't want to pay for another bottle and really wanted to quit taking it, and so i just did the cold turkey thing.....well, i did feel rather strange by day 3, with a bit of clumsiness. by day 6 i noticed spaciness and forgetfulness but it wasn't so bad that i was concerned....however, the last few days i am SOOOO TIRED and sore all over (i've had sore joints for a few years now, when on prozac, but nothing like it is now w/o the prozac). i'm concerned about these side effects after withdrawal since i read that prozac molecules leave your system a lot slower than do other ssris, and, apparently, it can take weeks to really know the full impact of how it will affect me....my God, i am so friggin sorry i stayed on this drug for as long as i did. i feel like i allowed a drug to rob my life, and my creativity (i'm an artist). i mean i did have severe depression off and on during my life before and during my prozac years, so i'm thankful it helped me overcome that, but mostly i felt like a total hostage to it for about the last five years especially, so i just wanted off the damn stuff. but i'm hoping i feel better physically before too long - the fatigue is quite amazing actually - QUESTION: has anyone out there been on this drug for a very long time like myself, discontinued it (whether abruptly like stupid me, or more sensibly as in tapering), and suffered this severe fatigue but eventually improved? i do hope so. it's hard to find out other people's experience on the Internet, which i find very very strange since some zillion people have been or are on the damn stuff. anyway, thanks for reading this, and thanks for any clues or help you might be able to offer me. --mary, san francisco