Over 15 years and time to stop...!

[tchrldy]

Oops!

[poxyroxy]

Thanks tchridy.

I am really lost today, really scared...

[lotusflower]

PR,

Sorry to hear you're feeling this way....maybe stay at 4 mg. until you feel a bit more stable. Paxil w/d can get really tough at 5 mg. and under so keep it nice an slow and you'll be fine. Patience is key. big hug, joanne

[poxyroxy]

You are so right, patience is key.
It is over a year and a half that I have spent working my way down to this point. And work is the correct term for it.
Good times and bad times, I have had to work hard to get this far.
There is more work to do, much, much work. It is easy to want to just get it over with and do 24 hour shifts, 7 days a week.
However I don't think my body and mind could take that. Maybe I need to slow down and make sure I can continue to live and work.
I will see how I do on the 4mg, only a week on it now and it is usually about 10 days before I get the effect.

[Timinjapan]

Roxy, you've done really well coming all this way, so give yourself a pat on the back. The journey is not going to be easy from here on, but go easy on yourself. Work if that's what gets you through, but try to get enough rest too. You know that a lot of what you're feeling now is due to w/d effects and that some of these symptoms should go away when your brain gets use to the present dose. I wish you well in your efforts.

[tchrldy]

I am only on my second taper... I can only imagine how weary you must be...but please go slow...stay the course...it will be ok!

[poxyroxy]

Everything is a little lighter and somewhat smoother at this moment.
This is greatly helped by a couple of influences. One is that I have decided to go back to weekly visits to my therapist / councilor. The other is that I have decided to come back and spend a little bit more time here on this forum.

Both of these decisions are helping me understand the depth of where I am at the moment. There are allowing me to cast aside the "pull yourself together" attitude that can be associated with depression.

I need to keep focused on who I am and where I am. I need to remember that I am not here out of laziness or taking the easy option. This is work, hard work.

It is hard to get sympathy from others to the truth of suffering that depression is. However it is even more difficult when in the depths of depression, not to beat yourself up as lazy, useless, self absorbed, wasteful and lost.

Everyone who comes to this forum to read or to write is a hard working fighter, taking a step beyond what most of us could never dare.
Well done to us all...

[rose32]

Poxyroxy,

Keep going you can do it. No matter if it is .5 or whatever just keep on working at it. My thoughts have always been just today, just this hour, just this minute. It passes anyway, may as well be working on it. W/D is hell and a war...... you will do fine just be good to yourself and give yourself all the time you need. I believe time is our friend.

Best wishes

Rose

[tchrldy]

So glad you have a plan and have found relief! I realized as I read your post that PP brings me relief exactly for what you said...everyone here knows I'm not lazy or a drama queen or weak! I have found this reality check so empowering! You're right...everyone of us know the hard physical and mental work that goes into maintaining withdrawal!! Thank you for this post...not only a joy to know you are doing better but also an inspiration as well!
aka Katie

[Timinjapan]

Roxy, reading your comment makes me realize that I've been beating myself up a bit because I am no long able to work as hard for as long hours as I used to (I'm self-employed so I can get away with that). But the fact is, this whole Paxil roller-coaster is damn hard work, whether your going onto it or coming off or else waiting to recover from the side effects. And Rose, I've personally been thinking of it as purgatory and a struggle, but for a lot of people who have to go through a much harder time than I have so far, it literally is hell and a war.

[poxyroxy]

A very scary day for me and those around me today.
No doth in my mind this is an illness.

[poxyroxy]

I got through another night, and another day lies ahead.
So very scared and delicate now.
Regretting everything past and fearing all to come.
I have no idea what is happening now in the moment.
I am proper lost.

[poxyroxy]

A little bit of light broke through into my life yesterday. A little bit of freedom to live and get on with my responsibilities of life.

My life these days is so very fickle. It is tiring to swing from day to day.
However any freedom I find must be appreciated and lived.

Still I am left wondering if it is the cycle of the medication withdrawal, just the mood swings of life, or more probably just a mix of influences from everything.

Anyway here I am again, somewhat alive.

[rose32]

Hey Poxyroxy,

This should be called a rollercoaster not a withdrawal !!!!!!!!!
Seems like we never know. But keep going others have made it and I know we can too.

Glad there was some light in your life today. May there be more tomorrow !!!!!

Rose32

[poxyroxy]

Thanks Rose32,
Yep, your right and it can be so hard to appreciate the days of light for fear of what you are unsure will be around the next bend in the track.

I long for a place on the ferris wheel - gently swinging in a breeze, climbing higher and higher to see the world spread before me. Knowing that although I will be heading back down to earth again soon, I can depend on the sequence that will once again lead to me rising to a high point.
In fact maybe I just want to have my feet firmly on the ground for a little while, with a nice big candy-floss in hand...

[tchrldy]

Sweet image...the buzzing in my ears actually subsided long enough for me to hear a gentle breeze rustling leaves of distant trees!

Hi RoxyPoxy ... keep dreaming... : )

[rose32]

Hi

Hope you are better.

Kiss your baby !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sening (((((((HUGS)))))))

[poxyroxy]

Thanks rose32, yes this really helps. What ever happens, how ever bad things appear to become around me, there is always my baby daughter. She just needs to look at me with her big open, caring eyes and give me one of her cheeky little girly smiles... and I am back in a better world.

This is so good for me to have got to here. To have managed the last years and progressed through so much. There are times ahead of me now that are going to be brining great change. Not just the final few milligrams of medication, not just the continuation of my journey of exploration into my future through understanding my past, but now it looks as if we will again be moving geographically.

I am scared and frightened by this thought. It is a big upheaval for the best of us at the best of times. Packing up one house and trying to settle into a new place. It will be a testing time over the next months to manage this along with everything else that life throws at me.
However the truth is, this is life...

[tchrldy]

Hi RoxyPoxy, i can see your strength lies in your wonderful ability to look into yourself and gain insight! Your open awarness of how difficult moves can be especially when in wd gives you the golden chance to prepare ahead of time for any anxiety that may pop up! You won't be broadsided my it.

I know how sressful moves can be especially with a young family...moved often with my husbands job when my kids were very young...they're adults now and my husbsnd is my ex...but i remember! Thats why i know you will be good...you have forsight and you can be prepared for the possible angst.

aka Katie

[poxyroxy]

Thanks Katie, I know that we will get through it and again all will be somewhat settled and safe.

Everything just seems such a battle for me. Everything needs to be worried about. Everything starts on the assumption that it will be difficult and possibly fail. That is the way of the world...

However the words that I write here above need not be true. They are written for the moment but reflect and how my thoughts are interpreting my life, past, present and future.
The many layers of thoughts that bombard me.
The busy hive of energy that swirls my brain.
There was a beauty of simplicity in the freedom that the medication gave. Softening the fear, calming the anxiety and slowing the mind activity down.

I wonder will it turn out that the doctors were right. My brain is over stimulated and a confused mess that is inhibiting me to follow simple thoughts and open true feelings.
I wonder is this what is coming back to me now? Am I to be overloaded by the sheer volume of activity in my brain. Unharnessed and chaotic energy controlling my emotions.

I am close to needing the medication again, or something similar.
I don't drink, I don't take drugs, I don't know how to relax.
I am tired and lacking freedom and I am scared that finally I am realizing that this is what life is...

[tchrldy]

Your wd is not finished yet. This is you in wd at lower doses, thats all.
Katie

[poxyroxy]

Thanks Katie, I know you are right, but it is still so bloody hard...so very, very bloody hard..

I am for the moment so unsure of myself, where I am and what i am trying to do.
I am realizing the great loneliness of this illness.
This self-inflicted loneliness that feeds the illness.
The lack of belief in myself to even allow myself to understand this illness.
The pain and confusion that I suffer in trying to fix myself from an illness I can't believe in.

There are people out there who love me, who care for me.
However the deeper the pain, the more I hide it from them.
Sometimes I get desperate and loose out to the pain, but the pain is deep within, and by the time this happens, I too am deep within, unreachable and untouchable.

The hardest part of all of this pain and suffering, is my self-inflicted loneliness. The hatred I build for myself, the worthlessness that surounds me.

I am not even worthy of the pain I feel.

[Timinjapan]

Roxy, you sound a bit like me on steroids. I've felt a lot of what you are describing, only to a milder extent. It's hard. It's lonely. It can easily boil over into self-hatred and zero self esteem.

You also sound like a mixture of Marvin the Paranoid Android and a Calvinist at prayer. As I do too on my bad days. Regardless of what has happened and what you are experiencing now, please give yourself a free pass on being responsible for it. These thoughts and feelings you are having. They are not you. They are in your consciousness but they are produced by Paxil withdrawal.

I read something by a self-described "former anxiety sufferer" named Paul David, who says that the thing turned him around after ten years was when his new therapist said to him, "Paul, you will never get better until you stop trying to get better." I've pondered that long, and I think it is good advice for many of us. While the damage done by Paxil to the nervous system can't be undone, a recovery of sorts can come in time when the brain chemistry sorts itself out. Likewise our habits of thinking can't be changed overnight, but I firmly believe we can learn to think smarter, and that may be enough to change the trajectory of our lives over time.

I don't think we can succeed in trying to fix ourselves in a direct way. An alternative oblique approach is to stop trying to get better and instead working on accepting our current state and changing our thinking so that we don't make things worse by becoming our own judge, jury and executioner.

On the phone to my brother in England a few months back, I told him I felt such a wimp for getting into this mess. He shot back angrily at me. "Tim, you're not a wimp! Never call yourself that! Don't even think it!" And he was right.

Roxy, I have no right to tell you what to do, but I'd like to see you challenge some of those negative thoughts and self-criticisms, find some love for yourself, identify ways in which you are worthy. You are suffering and you are spending a lot of time in a living hell, but never think of yourself as worthless.

[tchrldy]

PoxyRoxy...Tim wrote what I couldn't put into words...this is so damn hard...but you are not alone...we're here...fighting our own negitive self talk as much as fighting the drug...I get scared too...so grateful for this safe place to write outloud!!!!

aka Katie

[poxyroxy]

Tim, your words do make sense to me, although at the moment they are hard to hear, appreciate and fully understand.

I want to learn to stand back from myself, give myself some freedom to live.
This withdrawal is so long and drawn out that at times it seems to be my life, my whole life.

However, still I can not just jump out of this place. Why? I don't know?