Withdrawal symptoms

[Ariella]

Withdrawal symptoms can mimic other health challenges and that’s why it’s important you play an active role in helping your health care providers sort out particulars over time. The trap we’d like you to avoid falling into is the popular belief that withdrawal symptoms are a sign that all your mental health challenges are coming back full force.

We will say this again with the hope you memorize it as part of your current inner dialogue, “just because I feel like I have a health challenge during withdrawal, does not mean it’s the same challenge I was feeling before”.

It is possible though. If you feel the same health challenge you had before during withdrawal, it may be that since medications don’t cure challenges, and only treat the symptoms, you may indeed be facing the same challenge as before.

[Ariella]

One of the first symptoms to materialize is dizziness. This dizziness may not only affect your balance but also your visual acuity. The term whoosh effect comes from how the dizziness feels. When you move your head by looking from one place of focus to another, your vision blurs and remains smeared even after you’ve stopped moving, and then the point of view from which you just moved has to catch up. It’s like a Star Trek motion blur effect as seen when ships jump to warp speed. (Streeeeeeeetch...and...whoosh back together!) Ever notice how the flight trails then suddenly catch-up with the ship far ahead? Imagine things smearing and then catching up to you when you turn your head.

Non visual dizziness is related to your perception of movement and balance. Although people usually report just general discomfort, some have been known to have trouble controlling their balance to the point of tripping and falling.

[Ariella]

Try the following:

• When doing an activity that requires continuous focus changes (near to far, far to near) like scanning a shopping aisle, try to look up to a distant point every now and then to stare off into the distance and rest your eyes. Avoid trying to focus on movement like other shoppers, but not at the expense of running into things or people of course. Do what you can.
  
• When you’re at home and looking at something fixed like a book or TV and you keep looking at something else like a child or clock, close your eyes first, and then turn your head and open them when you think you’ve about made it to the new location you wanted to look.
  
• Take a nap. Keeping your eyes closed for longer periods of time helps even more.
  
• Spend some time every hour or less staring out a window to a distant point.

[Ariella]

One of the strangest symptoms of withdrawal are called zaps and waves. Lasting anywhere from a month, to a year or more (rare), zaps can be quite varied and confusing. Zaps can feel alien, and can vary in level of discomfort subjectively. They’re called zaps because they feel like an electrical jolt in your head, and are often accompanied by limb jerks. It’s as if a jolt of energy, sometimes reported as audible within the individual, was felt in the head and/or body. The frequency at which they can occur varies anywhere from a couple a week to many per hour.

Waves are a milder variation of zaps where the experience is not as jolting, and is experienced as temperature changes or swashes of sensations around the spine, head or limbs.

The zaps have been known to cause abrupt changes in light sensitivity, and the sensation that audible popping or bzzzt noises were heard.

[Ariella]

Yes. Dreams frequently become more aggressive during withdrawal. Therefore, we encourage you to not assign an absolute meaning to them during the early stages of withdrawal. Save the judgment for a later time when the withdrawal is more comfortable and you have built an informed frame of reference. Just be observant while detached so that if you do happen to have a violent dream where you are involved in something you wouldn’t normally do while awake, you do not feel compelled to repeat the scenario.

Despite having bad dreams, you need to get more sleep during withdrawal. Never avoid rest just because the dreams are uncomfortable or frightening.

Remember that it does get better.

[Ariella]

Yes. You can get really agitated and sensitive during your withdrawal efforts. People dealing with anxiety have frequently been jolted awake by a panic attack that occurred in their sleep and this could continue during withdrawal. Since withdrawal seems to amplify the senses, you can also discover that you’re overly sensitive to noises, room temperature or even an itchy nose. With time you’ll gain an expertise on falling asleep despite the annoyances and making this skill a priority will serve you well in the long run.

[Ariella]

During withdrawal, you may feel a quantity or intensity of emotion you may not have experienced before. Paxil is not necessarily selective in what emotions it suppresses (like anxiety), so as it leaves your system, you can expect to feel A LOT! Your personal boundaries will not clear any more and you may find yourself swinging from one extreme to the next at times.

Who you are is not a distinct thing, but a concentration of possibilities that Paxil withdrawal can blow into. You may be used to being a cool cucumber and find yourself wanting to raise your voice more often. And yes, you may just start crying for no reason on many occasions. Benefits of relief felt through self expression are self evident and I’m letting you know that you may not recognize yourself for a while. That doesn’t mean you’re losing your mind. You’re actually reclaiming it by moving from a state of being controlled by Paxil, to be controlled by nothing and then moving to your own sense of control.

Paxil Control <-> Loss of a sense of control <-> Your own independent control

This isn't to suggest that Paxil can make you buy chocolate, but we have noticed many people suddenly choose to separate from their partners and familiar surroundings as they move into the "loss of a sense of control" zone, and then regret it and change their mind once back into the "your own independent" zone. Don't be afraid to sit quietly and reflect deeply on sudden changes you feel the urge to "run to make" while withdrawing.

[Ariella]

Paxil and Paxil withdrawal can create their own anxieties and you'll notice the difference once you've been off for a while. The important thing to remember is that just because you feel anxious today, or have been for the last week or year does not mean that you are forsaken into being forever anxious. Believing yourself trapped or stuck can create even more anxiety, so just don't believe. This is easier to accomplish when you let your belief precede experience.

Here are some things you can consider to help keep you grounded:

• While withdrawing, you are not in a normal state of being. You cannot predict how things will go until you're done withdrawing, so dont! But do spend a lot of time imagining how great it will be to not be so anxious. This puts your focus on something positive and makes the ability to create what you seek much easier. It also gets you to stop anticipating being anxious, which relaxes you, which reduces the probability of anxiety which gets you to stop anticipating being anxious, which relaxes you which...
  
  
• You cannot and will not get rid of anxiety completely, at least not if you want to be a human being. You can get rid of the chronic poisonous kind though! As you feel differently about anxiety, so will it feel different to you when it happens.
  
  
• If you spend a lot of time with those WHAT IF types of mental chatter like: what if I panic, what if I get sick, what if I have to use the bathroom and there isnt any, what if I pass out, what if they laugh at me, what if Im discovered, what if I die, what if I die and my body lets go of its waste etc. Make sure you spend an equal amount of time answering those questions. No really! Answer those questions. Once you have answers, you can stop asking and the scenarios you're inventing will most likely not occur anyway. The point is to deal with the situations now, when you have time to breathe, than to be on the spot and a victim to a rushed imagination. While you're at it, have the panic attacks about those scenarios ahead of time too. Think about them and panic now so you wont have to later.
  
  
• Talk to, accept and love your anxiety. This can be the most difficult thing to do since you've probably hinged a lot of importance on anxiety leaving you, especially once youre off Paxil. Treat your anxiety like a cut. You instinctively seek to protect and heal a cut and that is never done by hating or ignoring it. By loving your anxiety you change your relationship to it. Anxiety can actually be your minds way of trying to get your attention focused on some challenge still unconscious and festering

No matter how anxiety amplifies during Paxil withdrawal, be sure to commit to the perspective that you are now making a statement about how you wish to live your life, and no matter how hard it gets, or how thwarted your efforts seem, time will reveal your progress and not always the moment. Use what you think are setbacks as indicators that you are still moving forward. If you still feel the anxiety, you might still be receiving reminders that there is more work to be done. Its OK to settle in a comfort zone every now and then if its refreshing but dont stay there!

Valerian root can help too, and that's discussed in the Supplements section.

[Ariella]

Definitely. In fact, anger and frustration are the most frequently reported emotions which raise to the surface as Paxil releases its grip on you. We believe that anger and frustration are the result of emotions being repressed, including the anxiety/depression that was intentionally pushed back by Paxil. You may not have been able to notice, but emotion festers when it's held in, and turns into something else: anger.

You may suddenly find yourself completely upset and irritated with people around you, and the world in general. Your patience for many things from the crying of children to slow drivers, can disappear. It's difficult to catch yourself becoming angry, or to even question its validity despite what you know about its probability and temporary appearance during withdrawal.

This angry state can last weeks to months, although the latter is rare in our experience. It may be different with you and not endure as long. It will be affected by how you usually deal with your emotions.

Here are some thoughts you can latch on to to help you see through the temporary anger fog:

• Withdrawal can be really challenging and you could feel completely fed up. You dont have to blow up the world to know you're fed up. This is your experience and why would you wish others to go through this? Do you really wish them pain? Is this a true statement about who you want to be?
  
  
• You are who you are and your opinions never need to be validated for them to be real and true to you. If you were the last person on earth, would you still want to throw dishes at someone or something to somehow affirm your convictions? If you need to do a physical demonstration of your agitated discomfort, a sponge brick is just as useful.
  
  
• Instead of trying to prove everybody wrong, try to find out why they think they're right.
  
  
• When somebody is really ticking you off, ask yourself if you have any of the things within yourself that you believe about the other person. You may be projecting and refusing to admit it.
  
  
• This mood is temporary so don't make an angry life consequence out of a temporary moment.
  
  
• You're probably wrong. No really! Nobody can experience life as you do, nor can you know what another is thinking/feeling quite like they do having never lived all their years for them, as them. You can fantasize all you want, life is probably 95% different for each person. If you dont believe it, pretend and ask more questions about their truth instead of telling your own truth repeatedly, just in case. If you're going to be a know it all, at least do the research. Or, notice what it feels like to believe that nobody REALLY understands you. Now imagine that every single person on the planet has that problem. They do.
  
  
• Nobody can tell you their truth until you stop spending all your time sharing yours.
  
  
• Its not real. This is a tough perspective to explore because you basically have to disbelieve your whole experience and that is not something people accept easily. Give the world the benefit of the doubt that what you're feeling may not be a real reflection on whats around you, no matter how real it feels. Let the passing of time (if you get angry at something or someone, wait 8 hours and see how it changes) reveal the truth to you. An emotion is often just a snapshot in time. Dont live the past or future. Let the future come to you while you observe how the moment creates it.

[Ariella]

There’s plenty about withdrawal symptoms to get depressed about. It’s not easy. Withdrawal affects the same parts of you that depression can, and when the two are mixed together, feeling hopeless is easy.

Depression can happen to anybody in this adventure if it’s chemical or the result of withdrawal pushing you to your tolerance limits. We believe it often hinges on if you see yourself as a victim or just someone having an experience, and in either of these two, your measure of time vs results complicates things further.

Try to keep these thoughts in mind:

• Youre allowed to be depressed. How much time do you allow yourself to grieve the death of a loved one? A week? A month? A year? Do what your heart needs to heal by giving yourself permission to fall. Youre not supposed to be an internalizing/unfeeling wall. Even if it feels like its some specter and you cant figure out where its coming from, its OK to be there for now. It will change.
  
  
• Just because you are depressed today, does not mean that youll be the same way tomorrow. This will not last long if you consider that there are plenty of years ahead of you which will be depression free. Life doesnt have condemnation built-in. Only your imagination can fool you into believing that youre stuck for good.
  
  
• Having a depressive experience does not signify a return of a daily depression like you may have had before. Perceive this one differently.
  
  
• Admitting the previous points, how can you possibly know how long a depression will last or if it will be here tomorrow? You cant, but you can avoid them by not contributing to them. You can shorten its duration by not believing or convincing yourself that you'll have more episodes. And even if you do, does it really serve you to have a moment of, aha! Im depressed! I was right damn it ? Wouldnt it be more useful if when you did feel depressed again you thought, hey, heres that depression again. I wonder what I can do to make it better today. The trick is to never need to know if youll be depressed in the future or not because it doesnt immediately matter. When and if you get there, youll be a different person equipped with even more knowledge and experience with depressive episodes and youll be better prepared to dispel them. You can help yourself get better if you do the work now however, and that involves not entertaining fatalistic scenarios.
  
  
• When you have thoughts like, "the whole world hates me", ask yourself if you interviewed the billions of inhabitants on this planet to find out if this was even remotely true. Get out of the illusionary bubble whenever you can by challenging your beliefs so that you dont miss out the opportunity of the adopting the next growth promoting one.
  
  
• When you have thoughts like, "I just cant go on like this anymore, I would rather be dead", seek love immediately through friends, family or even a hot line. If you think you dont have any friends, think again (billions of people, remember). Theres at least one friend you forgot about and millions of others in the social services sector that would give you so much without expecting any return. You came here for a reason, your soul chose to have experiences for its/your growth and this dark period will pass too. Youre not coming up to a wall or finding an ending, youre moving through something and you can never stop moving. Wait, relax and rest with a candle, music or something while thinking of a laughing baby, a bundle of baby kittens or someone bending over and ripping their pants.
  
  
• If youre committed to getting off Paxil and depression hits you hard during the withdrawal, know that its only temporary. Youre so close to being free from experiences you no longer want, its worth waiting just another day or week. Trust that the end goal is coming to you with perfect timing. In the meantime, no matter how low you feel or how little you actually want to do, push yourself at least a little each day. Try singing, watching a comedian, catch a funny movie (like Patch Adams), take a walk outside, go around collecting hugs or best of all: volunteer. Youll be immensely surprised at how good it feels when youre in the service of others. The universe is a copycat machine, confirming that you already have what you give, because you were able to give it.
  
  
• Laugh. Just laugh. Depression killer #1 is laughter. You cannot be low while raising enough energy for a completely senseless zany outburst! If you cant think of anything funny, just practice laughing. The body sends out happy-hormones often with the physical demonstration and not necessarily the punch line.

Saint John's Wort can be a useful herb, and that's discussed in the Supplements section.

[Ariella]

There exists a collection of withdrawal symptoms that internet support groups are calling Paxil Withdrawal Flu. Some of the grouped symptoms include: nausea, diarrhea, headaches, low energy, poor concentration and lethargy.

It's more of an affectionate title than an actual correlation, but people who go through the experience all say the same thing, "it's like I had the flu!".

There's no nasal or chest congestion however.

It's almost amusing to experience the similarities, until it persists for weeks to months, at which point it becomes the worst flu-like experience most have ever had.

[Ariella]

Try eating a simpler diet that has less caffeine, less fat, less sugar and fewer solids. Soup, oats and apple juice are useful when you just can’t keep anything down. Keeping up with your electrolytes is paramount so get drinking when you can’t eat. This excludes alcoholic beverages. You may even find that softened or cooked fruit and vegetables are easier to handle then meats and raw plant fibers. One great solution is to drink chamomile tea before and/or after eating a meal. Chamomile is a great stomach pleaser. If your bowels are not too soft, you can even include some fennel seeds to steep in the hot water. One naturopath I met suggested keeping up with yogurt products since the bacteria used to make it aids in promoting healthy flora in the intestines, where food needs to be broken down further by bacteria to have its nutrients absorbed. Although you often hear that milk coats the stomach, it still breaks down into acid during digestion. Also, don’t miss the comforts of mint.

[Ariella]

Headaches are headaches. There are so many different kinds and people respond differently to various over the counter remedies. We recommend you consider getting more sleep, drinking more water, relaxing, and perhaps using what has worked for you in the past with other headaches if it's ibuprofen (Advil), acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) or aceteminophen (Tylenol) type solutions.

You can also try temperature shifting solutions like heating pads or ice packs.

Don't forget to ask your doctor about other pain management products and solutions. Aim for something short term that is non addicting.

[Ariella]

Yes it does. As with any situation where bowels are soft and fluids are being lost, keep drinking the amount of water that's best for your age. It's also a good opportunity to consider being more responsible with your fiber intake.

It's important we say something about intense cramping however:

During a withdrawal experience, people have reported a period where abdominal cramping occured. Whereas some endured mild discomfort for several weeks, others have had very intense pain with an urge to double over and rock back and forth for several days. We don't know if this is indeed directly withdrawal related. Always get this kind of situation looked after by a health professional. Don't play the tough guy/girl and endure it without question, just in case it's something else.

[Ariella]

Whozama whuzzit? C-c-c-can’t talk? Have you read this page five times already? Paxil withdrawal invites all kinds of challenges with focus and concentration.

It's a full experience. Every part of your being will be distracted by the experience. You know your attention can't focus on everything and anything all the time, and even less so during withdrawal. Be prepared to laugh at how many times you say, "Oh, I missed that detail" and "Huh? I don't remember that".

Please be forgiving and let mistakes be mistakes, and not new crusades to judge yourself as being inadequate. Things will change over time. Concentration does improve over the months, and don't become upset if it lasts a year. Time heals gently and slowly at...times. :)

[Ariella]

It gets shorter, for a while. Like we said above, withdrawal is a very busy experience full of distractions. In an ocean of stimulation coming at you mentally, physically and in areas of self identity (you will be marked by this experience, but in a good way), your mind will find it difficult to hang on to details. Things you were remembering easily, will become very slippery during the withdrawal process and possibly for a time afterwards.

Don't be shy to take notes of things you used to grab a hold of automatically.

In the event that your short term memory takes enough of a vacation to make creating long term memories difficult (useful for personal growth), its best that you document your Paxil/Paxil withdrawal journey so that you can keep track of it to either have a tool for personal reflection throughout, or teaching aid for others. You can always throw away your notes should you decide to truly close this chapter and leave it behind you.

[Ariella]

Withdrawal is exhausting. Period. So off to bed with you! :) Get those holidays booked and delegate responsibilities for a while if possible. Cultivate a family cohesiveness whenever you can to build your support system for this journey, and future ones other family members may have.

Avoid caffeine or nicotine traps! Stimulant highs of any kind are always short lived and are often followed by a drop of energy. The only way to achieve consistent energy output is through exercise, rest and healthy diet. You’d best invest in complex carbohydrates, walking and avoiding stimulants like nicotine. Be prepared for a drop in energy when you quit smoking, but over the months it will rise back up. You may however want to delay quitting smoking until after the other energy returns if you want to avoid having to deal with multiple withdrawal challenges simultaneously.

It's boring. It's not exciting, and if you're not into listening to music and/or reading, having to lie still in greater frequency may make you feel restless. However, if you gently channel that restlessness into a regularity of light stuff like walking, then you're not only getting some sun, but also improving your health. But hey, you're already physically charged and want to keep up with your usual exercise activities even if in limited fashion, go for it. Just don't judge yourself nor feel disappointment if you have to slow down. Healing comes first.