Victoria

Age: 24 | Russia

“I used to be a goal-oriented, bold, and vibrant girl. I wanted to become an animation artist, I was getting the education I'd dreamed of, working part-time, drawing for fun, making plans, and trying to organize an internship. I made new acquaintances, socialized with friends, loved spending time with my family, and was trying to build a relationship with the guy I was in love with. My life was full of color.

In October 2025, due to the intense stress of returning to school, my sleep was disrupted. It was typical stress-related insomnia. But instead of seeing a somnologist (sleep doctor), I went to a psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with bipolar disorder (which was wrong) and prescribed medication. I took them for two months, but then stopped, realizing the diagnosis was incorrect. However, during this time, I developed rebound insomnia — I could go three days without sleep in a row.

Instead of seeing a sleep specialist, I went back to the psychiatrist again. He didn't bother to investigate the fact that my insomnia was a consequence of my previous medications (and not a new disorder). He diagnosed me with anxiety-depressive disorder and prescribed escitalopram. I think the diagnosis was hasty because my insomnia was medication-related, not a mental illness. But the doctor decided otherwise. Unfortunately, this was the appointment that my descent into PSSD began.

After the first pill, my life was sealed. I was switched to trazodone, but three months later, when I stopped the medication, I gradually began to notice changes in my body. In the first week, I still had insomnia and new loss of appetite. I didn't pay any attention to it, but then I lost the ability to become physically aroused. Complete anhedonia set in. Within a couple of days, I lost my identity. I woke up one morning and thought “why do I want to become an animation artist? Why am I trying to start a family, why do I need my creative projects? Everything has stopped making sense. I'm seriously scared.”

I spent the next week googling what was happening to me and learned about PSSD from a foreign website. It sounded exactly like me. Gradually, my emotions began to flatten, to the point of complete numbness. I couldn't experience pleasure or joy in everyday activities, from good weather to playing video games. Everything just became gray, and it only got worse.

I lost feelings of anger, aggression, resentment, jealousy, motivation, sadness, empathy. Essentially the entire spectrum of emotions. Food lost its feeling of reward and taste. The worst part was when I lost the feeling of love for my family. I began having suicidal thoughts. I tried to hold on for a month, but then I gave in and returned home right in the middle of the semester. Things got even worse at home. Hugging my family, I felt no warmth. Looking at them, I felt no empathy. We went to see a psychiatrist. He said, "It'll all be back in a week." It didn't. It continued to get worse.

My dreams became increasingly flat. My creativity sank lower and lower. I struggled to come up with ideas, even though I never had a problem with that before. Music stopped evoking emotion. My sexuality and romantic side were erased. It wasn't just my genitals that suffered. All the skin on my body lost sensation, the very nerves responsible for gentle touch. The only emotions that remained were fear and anxiety.

But on the 20th day of my existence, everything changed, and even more dramatically. I lost the ability to feel sleepy, hungry, tired. I stopped sleeping (only every other day). My ability to sweat and come up with ideas completely disappeared. My loved ones became objects to me. I stopped perceiving reality. Anxiety and fear, those basic emotions that still remained, were also gone. There are no thoughts in my head. My parents are just objects in my eyes. My body stopped sweating in the heat and shivering in the cold. I've lost the ability to imagine. I can't understand what's happening on a screen, what's happening in a movie. When my mother cries, I can’t feel anything, not a drop of empathy.

A month later, the last vestiges of my nervous system broke down. It felt as if demyelination started from the bottom, crawling up from my feet to my head, and I felt weakness in my limbs. I physically felt everything that made me human being eaten away, leaving an empty shell; I felt every part of my brain under attack.

I was taken in an ambulance, who only saw "anxiety disorder," leaving me alone with presumably an autoimmune flare when I needed help. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. No one came to my aid as my world was being destroyed. When the attack finally subsided, I realized my PSSD was final. The damage felt irreversible. There was no hope of recovery, no point in fighting. I existed in a body that had betrayed me, in a void where the sun no longer shines. There was only one way out, because there was no fate worse than this. I'm bedridden, disabled, a vegetable, and no one can help me. I want to warn people that once you get here, there's no escape.

PSSD has destroyed not only my life, but also the lives of my family, three people. I've only had PSSD for four months. This short period of time was enough to completely destroy my life. Even though I stopped taking the medication long ago, the symptoms not only remained, but they became ingrained, becoming a new and ugly reality.

My libido didn't just decrease; it evaporated, as if it had never been there. My body below the waist went silent — total genital numbness deprived me of the last connection to physical pleasure and my own femininity. My genitals are completely, utterly numb. My clitoris feels disconnected from my body. After the attacks, I physically felt like my genitals had changed, no longer erogenous. It's just dead skin between my legs. I don't sweat, my mucous membranes are dry, I have no discharge, no periods, weakness in my limbs, body pain, and no emotional reaction to it.”