Cael

Age: 22 | US

“At the age of 19, I had just moved out of my family home, and within a few months I experienced an anxiety attack, as well as an overall increase in anxiety. I began going for walks and trying to understand why I was feeling so anxious.

Eventually, I couldn't figure out what was happening and went to my family doctor, whom I trusted and had known for most of my life. I told him that I had recently moved out of my home and was experiencing some general anxiety. He told me that what I was experiencing was called GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). He never recommended further regular exercise or a blood test to check my vitamin levels. He told me there was a medication that could make me feel like my best self and would help cure the anxiety I was experiencing. I was never told what side effects I might experience, or what to expect from taking this medication. He said he was going to prescribe me a medication called Lexapro, and that it would help cure my anxiety issues. I was looking forward to the relief and filled the prescription.

Within a few hours of taking Lexapro, I felt euphoric and motivated. I remember thinking that I had never felt so relieved from anxiety and was quite happy to have decided to try this medication. In the weeks that followed, I slowly became more and more isolated and wanted to be left alone by friends. I felt this extreme numbness in my emotions and kept telling my therapist that I felt nothing all the time. This behavior was not at all like me.

As the weeks went by, I began having suicidal thoughts, which I had never experienced before taking this medication. I thought about dying from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep. For some reason, I did not realize at the time that this medication was what was causing me to feel this way. Only later did I figure it out. My doctor had never told me that antidepressants can cause suicidal thoughts. He didn't even mention any side effects.

As time went on, I became depressed and was losing my motivation to stay alive. I called my doctor and told him I was feeling very depressed and having suicidal thoughts recently. I asked whether I should stop the medication or what I should do. He told me I was showing clear signs of depression, which I had never had before, and he suggested we increase the dose of Lexapro to the maximum dosage of 20 mg. He also said another medication should be added to help me, called Effexor.

He started me at 75 mg of Effexor, and things only got worse from there. I began noticing reduced sensitivity in my privates and that it took me longer to climax. I went to my doctor again and mentioned the sexual side effects, and he brushed it off. He said that happens with these medications and is common for people taking them. I was rather frustrated that I hadn’t known this was a possibility, but I trusted my doctor and kept taking the medication. At this point, a year had gone by, and I was now 20. Nothing had gotten better.

My anxiety had worsened, and I had become severely depressed and suicidal. I began to lose faith in my doctor. After speaking with friends, they said they could tell something was wrong. I was not acting like the person they once knew, who was always happy and bubbly. They told me I should stop the medications and no longer listen to this doctor. I stopped both medications cold turkey, which, at the time, I did not know you weren’t supposed to do.

Thankfully, I did not experience too severe of a withdrawal. I still had sexual functioning, and everything returned to some form of normal after stopping. However, I had low mood, anxiety for another six months, and suicidal thoughts that never went away. Eventually, I couldn't take the suicidal thoughts and anxiety anymore, so I went to a local hospital to speak with a psychiatrist about my situation. I was 20 at this point. He told me that I had just taken the wrong medications and that I should try Mirtazapine. I tried it for a week but could not function due to sleeping constantly on it. I stopped it and went to him again with the same issues. He told me that Zoloft was a medication that was well tolerated and that it would help me much more than these other medications. I started on 25 mg, and I remember feeling disconnected again.

My anxiety initially got better, but I also noticed a change in my personality in some ways, and my suicidal thoughts worsened. I was eventually upped to 50 mg, and things got worse. I had constant panic attacks, and the sexual dysfunction I had experienced on Lexapro and Effexor began to happen again on Zoloft. I continued taking Zoloft at 50 mg for another year until I was sick of feeling even more suicidal and disconnected from my emotions and thoughts. I had memory issues and couldn’t remember things very well. After stopping cold turkey again at the age of 21, I felt the best I had in a couple of years. My suicidal thoughts had gone away, I was able to feel emotions again, and my sexual sensations returned to how they were before medication.

After a month, an extremely stressful life situation caused me to not sleep for a night. This spiraled into over three months of insomnia and extreme panic attacks. I felt severely distressed and began looking into my symptoms. I realized I was experiencing withdrawal from Zoloft and tried my best to push through this. I would pace my house constantly unable to stay still. After a few months, I knew I couldn't continue and went to an Instacare (Urgent Care) clinic to get help with the withdrawal. I was told I needed to restart an antidepressant. They started me on Pristiq 50 mg and another medication to help me sleep, called Seroquel, starting at 25 mg.

I was then told to keep taking Seroquel at night and increase the dosage until my sleep improved. I was also told to stay at 50 mg of Pristiq. I felt extremely detached and could no longer be present in my body. I could watch a whole movie and have no idea what had happened or what I was watching. I also had further severe suicidal thoughts. Seroquel caused me to sleep half the day and gave me nonstop food cravings. I also began losing my hair, which filled the shower drain. This started within a week of taking both medications, and I began to freak out.

I decided to stop both medications due to worsening symptoms and began to distrust these so-called ‘professionals’. Another couple of months went by, and I still could not sleep more than three hours a night no matter what I tried. I continued to have panic attacks and emotional breakdowns. At this point, I needed help and reached out to my uncle, who is a nurse psychiatrist. He told me I should take a Genesight test to see which medications work and which don’t. From this test, the medication he said would work best for me was called Cymbalta. I started on 20 mg and was very scared of what to expect, but I trusted him, and other family members told me to give it a go because of how distressed I had been.

Within a few days, I noticed all of my emotions had gone away. I was numb. I no longer felt like a human being, and I could no longer sleep at all. I went days without sleep and noticed my genitals had become numb to the touch. I also could no longer feel an orgasm and noticed my erections were very weak. During this period, I was too distressed from the withdrawal and everything else to even think about the sexual symptoms. I told my uncle this medication was making me unable to sleep and feel mentally worse. He told me to stop taking it. After stopping Cymbalta, I started researching what I was experiencing. I found information on a condition called PSSD (Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction).

At first, I was reluctant to accept that I had this condition and waited for months, but nothing improved. I have been off all medications for over a year now, and still experience genital numbness and severe emotional blunting. Additionally, I suffer from cognitive issues such as both short- and long-term memory loss, as well as general dissociation. I also notice some visual disturbances, including visual snow and floaters when looking at the sky. Occasional tinnitus remains, along with a feeling of unrestful sleep, despite sleeping through the night.

A urologist officially diagnosed me with PSSD, which provided some relief through having a formal diagnosis. I was also diagnosed with idiopathic neuropathy, meaning my nervous system has sustained unexplained damage.

I grieve who I once was and feel very saddened at the loss of who I used to be. I no longer feel love for those I once did, such as my parents and siblings. I also cannot enjoy music anymore and cannot enjoy songs I used to love. I view my family as strangers, and I don't think I will ever accept this loss. Cymbalta has taken my life away from me, and now all I feel is a deep numbness to what once was a life full of adventure and love for everything around me.”