I Pray To God I Will Feel Better

[Petrucci]

i feel hopeless, helpless and lost. this feeling in my brain is making me feel so uncomfertable and stressed out. psychiatry and its drugs have ruined my life. i cant work i cant do anything. i feel like a prisoner in my own house. i want to get off these meds and be free and live. i fear this long term withdrawal is permanent. what could cause these terrible uncomfertable feelings in the brain for so long ... i have only 1 answer .. its permanent alteration of brain chemistry serotonin and other neurons. these drugs stimulate the chemical serotinin out of its normal state and stimulated for so long will weaken its mechanism and action therefore causing other mental problems. i have been "had" by psychiatry. i blame the north american governments for funding psychiatry and ruining peoples lives ........ psychiatry does not cure but only damages. my blood is boiling and i am thinking of the people who done me harm "psychiatrists" and thier "collegues". i will make them pay for the evil they did to me when i was 18.


god bless us all. i had to vent this. i dont feel comfertable. i am pissed off. they destroyed my mind and my brain all for the sake of money.

[Charlie]

I know this sounds lame but hang in there and it'll get better. I do believe in general the mental health industry does far more harm than good.

[Petrucci]

the mental health industry is not to help people its to destroy people. psychiactric drugs kill. psychiatrists are the true grand inquisitors, the epitome of all evil. there is much more to psychiatry than drugging people. this is a political money making cult that causes the death and suffering of millions all for the sake of money. and who falls victim? we .... the vulnerable and naive people of society. psychaitry must be destroyed forever.

[Paxilalmostkilledme]

I agree with Charlie - hang in there - it does get better. I feel myself coming out of a drug induced stuper and it really feels great. I stayed home for the first 3 months and still prefer to stay in most of the time...but it is getting better, like a hangover that is ending.

[Petrucci]

its almost 6 months and i still feel bad with my head. i cant think clearly and concentrate. my brain still feels a bit tense and full. kind of like a congested feeling and extreme sensetivity in my neurotransmitters. i feel still in a drugged up stupor and i feel lost and my brain doesnt seem to clear totally. i was on 2 heavy doses of maximum potency of antidepressants. i was weaned off very very quickly in a period of 6 weeks. i waited 2 months off no meds. i almost died. true horror. these drugs stimulate neurotransmitters and weaken its action i think. thats why withdrawal off these meds takes sooooo long to go away. its the damage to the serotonin receptor.

[rdjanis]

Petrucci, what you experience is common at six months. I know you are suffering, try and focus on healing as apposed to anger and being broken. You can deal with the anger when you are feeling better.

[mapleleafgirl25]

what you have gone through is terrible..but you cant let the meds hold you prisioner...only you have the ability to leave your house ect...even if its for a walk around the block..time will heal you!..that is all..there is no magic remedy....i am 6 months off paxil..and i still have bad days..but i know they will get better..just hang onto that ..even if it seems like its impossible..its not!!..you will get better!!....

michele

[TryingtoGetWell]

Six months was one of the hardest times for me, maybe the hardest. It was a while later that things started getting better, and even then with ups and downs. Some people heal faster than others, but the brain has amazing capacities to heal, thank goodness.

Some people here are getting good results with fish oil and magnesium. The magnesium eases symptoms, and the fish oil does that and also helps the brain heal, I believe. Are you taking those, Petrucci? If not, they might be worth a try. I'd suggest being very careful with most other nutritional supplements, since some can actually make things worse in withdrawal, but if you're not taking the magnesium and fish oil you certainly might want to try them. Start in smaller doses than people normally take, so you can gradually find the dose that's right for you.

There's a lot of information on this group on both of those things, if you use the search function here. Be sure and take one of the kinds of magnesium that's best utilized by the body (some of the most common kinds are barely utilized by the body), and start with even just a fraction of a pill if you have any digestive system problems, or to work up gradually in dose to prevent that.

Many of us have found that there's a healing stage that generally starts between 5-7 months off that's extremely difficult, but after a while you start feeling the effects of the healing start. Hang in there, it will get better.

[Petrucci]

thanks for the positive attitue guys i appreciate it. i think of when i was young, before i took these meds how much i enjoyed life and living. i want to be just like i was before i took these drugs. maybe it wont happen but at least heal my brain to normalcy and heal all the damage to the brain the drug has done. what is it that causes these horrible horrible symptoms when you take the drug out of the body? something is defenitly happening. i get so stressed with my brain that i cant even see clearly. these symptoms are driving me crazy. god let me get well.

[rdjanis]

Petrucci, any emotion in this period is magnified, try not to focus on the negative, the anger etc. It is your brain healing/repairing that are causing your symptoms.

[LossLeader]

Petrucci, your first priority now is to heal. Letting your anger at psychiatry take control is NOT going to help you to heal. Rhetoric from Scientology-funded websites is NOT going to set you on the right course. It will only make you feel worse, and it will influence you to think in the most destructive ways imaginable.

Maybe take a real interest in neurology and read up as much as you can on the brain - from reputable scientific sites or books. That will help you to understand what's been happening to you, and it will enable you to see it in more clinical, scientific terms, like any other kind of illness. This is a good way to distance yourself from your daily pain - by understanding it better. If you allow devils into your thoughts (devils dressed up as psychiatrists) you'll just be chasing them round your brain forever. Now is the time to move forward, not to get caught in a loop like that. Becoming consumed with anger is just a way of adopting a victim mentality, and letting "them" win. This isn't about you vs psychiatry, it's about you vs Paxil and Effexor. That's what you should be concentrating on - anything else is a distraction and is not healthy.

[nicemom]

Originally Posted by LossLeader

This isn't about you vs psychiatry, it's about you vs Paxil and Effexor. That's what you should be concentrating on - anything else is a distraction and is not healthy.

I so agree! What loss says is so true. Try to focus on what you can do to help yourself and ways of pampering yourself and making yourself feel special. Listen to a nice relaxation CD or gentle music. Taking a walk somewhere you like being and are relaxed. Give yourself a facial. Get a new haircut. Color your hair or go a different shade. Do something nice for someone like send a special card or call and see how they are doing. Buy or pick yourself some flowers! Message your feet. Rearrange your bedroom. Rent a movie like a good love story. I loved Catch and Release, its a good one. Sit outside and listen to the birds. Listen to or read something spiritual.

I guess what I am saying is be kind and gentle with yourself and get away from the anger and negative. This is a time for concentrating on recovery and treating yourself special, because you are! (((((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))

[babs]

I know it's hard not to be negative when you're in the thick of it. But I do think you will benefit from trying to stay positive as much as you can. Yes, it's wrong what was done to us, but it is what it is. Letting the anger consume you is only hurting YOU, not the pharma companies or psychiatrists. There are many here who have healed and you will, too, but on your own timetable. It took me a year and a half before I felt substantially better.

[Casey1231]

Hi Petrucci,

I'm sorry you are feeling so badly. I believe I have posted this question to you 3 times after your posts, and I don't believe you have ever answered me, and I'm not sure why.

I will ask you again - have you restarted Effexor as well? If restarting the paxil has given you no relief, and since people claim Effexor is worse than paxil, perhaps you should restart some effexor, stabilize, then wean off paxil slowly, and then effexor.

Please let me know if you have done this.

[Boots]

Petrucci I know what you are going through. I pray for you also. I answered your question about going on and off meds in my thread Need help badly.I am having a bad day today with head ringing and hissing.Good Luck

[Petrucci]

hi guys thanks for all the positivity, i'm in real rough times and i'm scared because i was on 2 high doses of meds that were tapered at the same time in a very short time. hopefully i'll recover like everyone says.


Casey1231 i havent restarted effexor i have just went back on paxil since april 10, i went on 10mg's and increased 10mg per month until i got up to 40mg. i'm at 40mg now and some bad symptoms have went away but my brain chemistry feels so sensetive its causing me great discomfort and mental confusion that i cant think clearly. its very frustrating and extremley uncomfertable. my brain doesnt feel tranquil and relaxed, it feels like there is a mess in there. have any of you had these symptoms?

i been taking ssri's since 1992, i dont know if it can be reversed now. if i take out the drug it will cause an imbalance which is supposed to be balanced. the biggest mistake i made was listening to my shrink while he tapered me off 2max doses of paxil and effexor at the same time in a period of 6 weeks. i should have listened to you guys when i started the taper and listened to the warnings of the terrible withdrawal symptoms. if i weaned off slowly i wouldnt have suffered as bad as this.

[Casey1231]

Originally Posted by Petrucci

hi guys thanks for all the positivity, i'm in real rough times and i'm scared because i was on 2 high doses of meds that were tapered at the same time in a very short time. hopefully i'll recover like everyone says.


Casey1231 i havent restarted effexor i have just went back on paxil since april 10, i went on 10mg's and increased 10mg per month until i got up to 40mg. i'm at 40mg now and some bad symptoms have went away but my brain chemistry feels so sensetive its causing me great discomfort and mental confusion that i cant think clearly. its very frustrating and extremley uncomfertable. my brain doesnt feel tranquil and relaxed, it feels like there is a mess in there. have any of you had these symptoms?

i been taking ssri's since 1992, i dont know if it can be reversed now. if i take out the drug it will cause an imbalance which is supposed to be balanced. the biggest mistake i made was listening to my shrink while he tapered me off 2max doses of paxil and effexor at the same time in a period of 6 weeks. i should have listened to you guys when i started the taper and listened to the warnings of the terrible withdrawal symptoms. if i weaned off slowly i wouldnt have suffered as bad as this.

Hi Petrucci,

I have also been taking SSRI's since 1993, paxil since 1994, but in much lower doses than you, and I never took effexor. I am weaning at 0.5mg a month. You weaned much, much too fast. Are you adverse to restarting effexor? Because I think you will have more relief if you do. That medication works on serotonin and norepinephrine, which paxil does not, so you are probably going through effexor withdrawal. The time frame of my wean will be at least a year, yours should probably be more like 2 or 3 years. I believe you said you are in your 20's or early 30's , you still will have lots of life in front of you after a long slow taper. I notice that you keep going back to the word "permanent", and I think you need to strike that word from your vocabulary at this time. There is no evidence that your damage or anyone else's is permanent, in fact, the brain has remarkable capacity to heal. I have seen people recover from traumatic brain injury where there were in a coma for months and had to learn to walk, talk, do everything all over again. You just have to be patient, calm down, take suggestions, and stop this ranting against psychiatry. That is going to get you nowhere.

When I was 24 I went through xanax withdrawal and felt much as you do now, that I would never be okay, that all doctors were out to get me, etc. It was not true, in fact I went on to become a registered nurse and some of the kindest people I know are doctors, and yes, some of them are psychiatrists. It does sound like your doctor was extremely ignorant in the manner which he tapered you, but I would not give up on finding a knowledgeable compassionate doctor who will help you get off of meds slowly, they are out there, you just need to do some searching. I implore you not to get sucked into the cult of scientology. I will not say more as I understand there are scientologists who post here and I do not wish to offend them, just do your own research. You don't want to go out of the frying pan and into the fire.

It sounds like you need to restart effexor, find a good therapist, learn some calming techniques such as meditation and exercise, and time will pass and you will recover. You have to look at this as a long term process, and this is a place where you will have lots of support and understanding. As far as your "brain not feeling tranquil and relaxed," you probably are used to an artificial state of medicated well being which may never return, but I promise you that you will be able to experience tranquility and relaxation again down the road, in a more natural way.

Good luck and dont give up.

[CELESTEP]

Petrucci...I just posted on how much better I feel when I jump in the ocean and the pool too. Putting my head under the water, the sun, looking for sea glass is a marvelous distraction and there is something refreshing about it. Even on a bad day I have to try to focus on enjoying nature, but it does help more than anything I have tried. Can you go for a daily swim?

[Petrucci]

i think this is probably the effexor withdrawal, because i was on max dose of that too. but i am now almost 6 months off effexor and just on paxil but i still feel terrible. i cant think clearly i'm so confused and this stuffy head is driving me crazy. the reason i blame psychiatry for all of this is because they started drugging me when i was 18 without telling me the side effects of these drugs and how i would feel on them. they never told me it would be extremely difficult to get off antidepressants. and they never explained anything to my family of what these drugs do and their effects etc.... they also never explained they have no proof in the illness they diagnosed me with and told me they are just theories.

if these things were told to me and my family i would have never taken these mind altering drugs, and i would have never suffered all these years while being on them. i could have had a normal life like everybody else but these medications made me sick and shaped and changed my psychological thinking and behavior. i am not a scientologist or believe in scientology but i do believe in their movement against psychiatry. to me and my experiance, psychiatry is the epitome of evil. with no psychiatrists there wouldn't be no psychiatric drugs. psychiatric drugs are exactly the same as dirty street drugs, only they have been given the green light by the government for psychiatrists to prescribe them. these drugs dont cure anything and they dont work for everybody and they have tons of side effects. most people who take them want to get off them after a while. SSRI antidepressants are similar to the street drug Extacy.


this will be a long road for recovery (if i recover, hopefully i will) i never knew in my life i would experiance something so horrible and frightning and tortureous as SSRI withdrawal. god bless us all.