lost all my humanity (thanks Bupropion/Wellbutrin)

[NoRx4me]

If your family is convinced that one "specialist" knows what he's talking about, have them read; "Doctor's of Deception" by Linda Andre. It has all the facts (with references of course) about ECT, its trials and its history.
In addition to the facts, one chapter is all letters from people who experienced it.

[leo79]

I don't come on this site anymore to post but I felt the desire to respond to your thread due to some similarities with my own experiences.

Firstly, I understand what you are describing. It goes beyond mere "anhedonia" , it's a whole new world you are in. Most of the people you speak to will have no idea what your experience is like whatsosever. Really its insulting for the level of suffering and depths of consciousness you have travelled to for you to engage much with such people unless they are impeccable in their manner towards you. The medical profession is utterly cretinous and I doubt it has anything to offer. The ignorance on display from the majority of these people is vast.
More people have travelled this far, more than you might imagne at least. Various spriritual paths take you on this journey through the great void. Some people have lived in this state you describe for much longer than a few years. Your only solution is to bring your soul back from the hell realms or wherever it is. Once you are in touch with that you will be able to exist and function in this world again. You can do this yourself through going into yourself deeply and requesting its return. Suicide won't help, you will still have to sort this out without a body. I can't offer any other advice right now that adds to this.

[someonehelp8]

My problem is that some family members are not understanding of my situation at all and I am totally reliant on them for my existence right now. And just want to shut me up since I complain about my memory loss headaches and many other symptoms to them and they get upset when I do. They just want a quick fix and with this specialist who keeps insisting I try it I fear that I will have no choice eventually. I mean if hyperbaric oxygen treatments made the scalp and brain numbness spread along with other symptoms what would ECT do to me
I was brillant guy before all this and had a perfectly normal life. I had a micro cognitive evaluation done in November of 2010 that showed I was below average in just about every function. I just had some neurospychiatric testing and they said that the section of my testing that matched up with that section was much worse. I know that I have severe memory problems and can no longer remember years of my life but half the doctors try to blame my problems on lack of sleep and forget that no dugs help this condition they only push it further along.

Doctors meanwhile complain when I don't take drugs but they d nothing for my insomnia anymore they just make me more confused. Certain family members are trying to push ECT on me in hopes it will improve the insomnia

My problem is I have ventriculomegally in my MRI not present in earlier scans but no doctor will admit the supplement as the cause instead they keep looking for lyme disease or Multiple sclerosis and Im even on antibiotics for lyme now after I had them forced on me and the only SPECT scan I had showed 40% of my temporal lobes had decreased or no activity. It is infuriating to half people tell me that "You have to try something if you are getting worse why not try ECT since it costs nothing" I looked into Trans Magnetic Stimulation but the price tag is way to high but since ECT is covered by insurance I have people trying to force it on me in hopes it might improve my insomnia. I was on nemeda for a brief trial in hopes i might help some prolems but it just causes ripping pains in my head now after it did give me a brief improvement.

The scalp and brain numbness keeps spreading and getting worse along with other symptoms I am now getting muscle spasms

They keep using the example of ECT helping parkinsons patients. And ignore the fact that sleeping pills make my condition worse. When I don't try either of these they than complain about how I "am tying their hands for treatment" But the treatment makes me worse and no one can even figure out what the supplement triggered I have lost all faith in American Medicine.

[someonehelp8]

Again has ECT helped anyone on this page? I just worry it could make my neurological damage worse but this doctor who is one of the best in his field says ECT won't make me worse. I have alot of respect for hims but I have brain scans showing damage and now changes in my MRI but doctors just keep telling me I should try ECT as there are no other options besides drugs to treat my condition. People look at me like I am cray but in the beggining simple vitamins seemed to aggravate this condition along with just about every drug and when I get off the sleeping medications my symptoms do not improve and this condition just progresses anyway it seems.

If anyone has had ECT please respond?

The insomnia is not normal as I never feel a tired sensation and the raw numb areas in my head just spread with the more drugs I take and even if I dont. ther are patches on my scalp and forehead that go deep into my head and are totally dull and numb and the pressure on my head is painful. But my memory loss and insomnia are the worst

[leo79]

Really my friend you are in the same boat as the guy who is stook in the void who is the thread owner.

This filthy culture never ceases to amaze me.

There are other options but nothing the medical field would acknowledge.

ECT has helped some people it's true but also has damaged others... let's be honest here. I know 1 woman who had it, and it got her out of whatever hell she was in... but then another guy I know quite well who was an institionalised patient who had many ECTs... over 30 and now he doesn't seem much better many years later, still schizophrenic, still mentalised, and he can't remember large periods of his life.
Really ECT shows how clueless psychiatry is. You would think that SSRIs would have really nailed it for the whole idiotic profession, but to just confirm how sick and dumb it is they use their "bit-hitter" ECT when they run out of ideas.

[alivehope]

I lost it more than you can you ever think but later with time, I felt better than I have ever felt all of my life before taking the meds.

[DeVoid]

Paxil-free as of 11/7/08 ( 2004-2008 )

80% recovered at 2 years mark

0% recovered after 1 year, 7 months here.

That's in case anybody here cares, because I don't. You will not find a success story here, or even the faintest glimmer of hope.

When I first posted this thread I felt 95% of what made up "me" was gone (emotions, inner being, hopes, dreams, fears, desires, everything really). Still, there was a faint glimmer of a feeling that things could change. 4 months after being off the med I did experience a change. However it only lasted for 1 day. The inner self was coming back, along with emotions and motivation.

After this one day, I woke up and everything inside me was destroyed and erased again. But this time it was no longer 95% gone, it was 100% gone, and I had no reference for this state in my experience of living. This state has persisted now for a year and a half with not a hint of change.

Not only is the glimmer of hope gone, but the construct within me that would recognize a glimmer of anything (be it hope, pain, fear, sun, rain) is simply not there anymore. It's not a normal human living experience.

I was "something" for 30 years of my life. Whether or not I liked that something at all times is irrelevant (I didn't). The fact is, after this happened in my brain (whatever that is) all of that 30 years of living and building experiences somehow got erased. My emotional connections and feelings for everyone and everything that has every happened to me are gone. As in completely, couldn't be more erased. I don't relate to that person I was on any level, because none of it exists anymore. I don't feel 33, in fact, I don't feel like a man at all (not least because my sexual being has also disappeared, but so much more). I feel like a nothing.

I can't be called a human being, because I am missing the "being" part. You know, the part that contains everything relating to your existence, your life, and your connection to it. If you think about it, consciousness and feeling of being are difficult things to describe. In fact, we all take it for granted. It's not until I reached this state that I realized normal consciousness is impossible to describe. Yet everyone feels it and is motivated by it to go about their day by this invisible force. When that force is gone, life as we know it is not possible.

I am unable to experience life anymore as normal people do, so the year and a half I've spent in my room (literally) is not a confining experience, no boredom is experienced. The emotional connections to everything are not there... when I try to think about something that had a universe of feelings attached to it, there is nothing there. So it feels like it doesn't exist, and it never existed. Like I never existed. For me, there are no possibilities. Except that obvious one, but I don't care enough to do it. Entire universes inside of me were destroyed.

Don't ask me what I'm doing to help myself, because if you were in this position you would realize that is impossible. The most I can do is control what I put in my mouth, so I have been eating a lot less. I had thought I was close to 400 pounds, but after 2 weeks of pretty severe calorie restriction I got on a scale the other day and it was 257 (I was 170 a year and half ago).

Look, I don't expect anyone to understand this. Either I'm actually in hell (which I didn't believe in when I was alive) or a cosmic joke has been played on me, with me as the punchline.

My question to you is, how long am I to wait before I can call this "permanent"? Is a year and 3 months without change good enough? The thing is, 5 years could pass and I would be none the wiser. Time is literally not experienced, experience itself is meaningless without me to experience it. My past, present, and (likely) future have been erased.

I wished it was something organic like a brain tumor (as much as I can wish anything, which is not at all). At least then I could point to a good reason for this. My useless plan is to lose enough weight to get into my size 36 jeans which I bought on that one good day last year (4 months before that I was size 32) and get a physical exam. Maybe another MRI (last one I had was over a year ago). I don't know, maybe something physical was missed. Before this started I was referred to a blood doctor for a low platelet count (something I've never had). But that was 2 years ago. I don't really feel unusual physical symptoms, aside from occasional tingling sensations in my head and random nerve pains.

I hope the positivity brigade can take something good from this, because I can't. I don't relate to anything anyone could say as a form of encouragement, but thanks for trying. And you know I don't feel that sentiment.

[someonehelp8]

Did you try ECT did it work?

Do you have scalp and brain numbness?

Im at the end of my rope and doctors keep pushing it on me to treat my chronic pain.

I also have total insomnia and cant tell if I sleep I get rest but its not sleep.

[someonehelp8]

I have total and complet insomnia on top of many worsening symptoms years of my life I can barely remember and sleeping pills cause horrible crackling sensations in my head would you be wiling to try ECT if doctors insisting on it?I have had 3 sleep studies and each shows my sleep worsening my last showed 205 awakenings in 200 minutes I can never get a tired sensation.

All drugs just push my condition further along. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated no doctor seems to want to work with me unless I try ECT saying they can not help if I don't let them treat me.

[palm]

Originally Posted by someonehelp8

I have total and complet insomnia on top of many worsening symptoms years of my life I can barely remember and sleeping pills cause horrible crackling sensations in my head would you be wiling to try ECT if doctors insisting on it?I have had 3 sleep studies and each shows my sleep worsening my last showed 205 awakenings in 200 minutes I can never get a tired sensation.

All drugs just push my condition further along. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated no doctor seems to want to work with me unless I try ECT saying they can not help if I don't let them treat me.

My apologies to Devoid for hijacking this thread but as someone dealing with insomnia, I had to respond to this.

ECT is the last thing you need to be considering for this unless your goal is to be so brain dead, that you forget you can't sleep.

Any explanation from the doctors as to why you have so many awakenings? Not exactly a normal occurrence. Sorry for my sarcasm which is not directed at you but at the situation.

Palm

[palm]

Originally Posted by DeVoid

0% recovered after 1 year, 7 months here.

That's in case anybody here cares, because I don't. You will not find a success story here, or even the faintest glimmer of hope.

When I first posted this thread I felt 95% of what made up "me" was gone (emotions, inner being, hopes, dreams, fears, desires, everything really). Still, there was a faint glimmer of a feeling that things could change. 4 months after being off the med I did experience a change. However it only lasted for 1 day. The inner self was coming back, along with emotions and motivation.

After this one day, I woke up and everything inside me was destroyed and erased again. But this time it was no longer 95% gone, it was 100% gone, and I had no reference for this state in my experience of living. This state has persisted now for a year and a half with not a hint of change.

Not only is the glimmer of hope gone, but the construct within me that would recognize a glimmer of anything (be it hope, pain, fear, sun, rain) is simply not there anymore. It's not a normal human living experience.

I was "something" for 30 years of my life. Whether or not I liked that something at all times is irrelevant (I didn't). The fact is, after this happened in my brain (whatever that is) all of that 30 years of living and building experiences somehow got erased. My emotional connections and feelings for everyone and everything that has every happened to me are gone. As in completely, couldn't be more erased. I don't relate to that person I was on any level, because none of it exists anymore. I don't feel 33, in fact, I don't feel like a man at all (not least because my sexual being has also disappeared, but so much more). I feel like a nothing.

I can't be called a human being, because I am missing the "being" part. You know, the part that contains everything relating to your existence, your life, and your connection to it. If you think about it, consciousness and feeling of being are difficult things to describe. In fact, we all take it for granted. It's not until I reached this state that I realized normal consciousness is impossible to describe. Yet everyone feels it and is motivated by it to go about their day by this invisible force. When that force is gone, life as we know it is not possible.

I am unable to experience life anymore as normal people do, so the year and a half I've spent in my room (literally) is not a confining experience, no boredom is experienced. The emotional connections to everything are not there... when I try to think about something that had a universe of feelings attached to it, there is nothing there. So it feels like it doesn't exist, and it never existed. Like I never existed. For me, there are no possibilities. Except that obvious one, but I don't care enough to do it. Entire universes inside of me were destroyed.

Don't ask me what I'm doing to help myself, because if you were in this position you would realize that is impossible. The most I can do is control what I put in my mouth, so I have been eating a lot less. I had thought I was close to 400 pounds, but after 2 weeks of pretty severe calorie restriction I got on a scale the other day and it was 257 (I was 170 a year and half ago).

Look, I don't expect anyone to understand this. Either I'm actually in hell (which I didn't believe in when I was alive) or a cosmic joke has been played on me, with me as the punchline.

My question to you is, how long am I to wait before I can call this "permanent"? Is a year and 3 months without change good enough? The thing is, 5 years could pass and I would be none the wiser. Time is literally not experienced, experience itself is meaningless without me to experience it. My past, present, and (likely) future have been erased.

I wished it was something organic like a brain tumor (as much as I can wish anything, which is not at all). At least then I could point to a good reason for this. My useless plan is to lose enough weight to get into my size 36 jeans which I bought on that one good day last year (4 months before that I was size 32) and get a physical exam. Maybe another MRI (last one I had was over a year ago). I don't know, maybe something physical was missed. Before this started I was referred to a blood doctor for a low platelet count (something I've never had). But that was 2 years ago. I don't really feel unusual physical symptoms, aside from occasional tingling sensations in my head and random nerve pains.

I hope the positivity brigade can take something good from this, because I can't. I don't relate to anything anyone could say as a form of encouragement, but thanks for trying. And you know I don't feel that sentiment.

Devoid,

Obviously, you do care about something if you're trying to lose weight. What is motivating you to give a darn in this situation?

I would be careful though about severe caloric restriction and look into something like the Paleo or Perfect Health Diet. Of course, your mileage will vary.

I forgot, did you cold turkey Wellbutrin? Sorry, my concentration is bad from insomnia so please forgive me if you have mentioned this.

Palm

[DeVoid]

Originally Posted by someonehelp8

Did you try ECT did it work?

Do you have scalp and brain numbness?

Im at the end of my rope and doctors keep pushing it on me to treat my chronic pain.

I also have total insomnia and cant tell if I sleep I get rest but its not sleep.

I had ECT in 2001. All it did was erase my memories surrounding that year of my life. It also temporarily made some long term memories hazy or inaccessible (i.e. there was a park I used to walk but after the ECT everything looked unfamiliar, I didn't know where I was - it eventually came back). It did nothing for the "depression" (in quotes because I'm not sure it wasn't caused by the meds I'd been on off and on since 14).

The only thing that ever worked for my "depression" was time. Usually after a few months passed, I would come out of it and be able to live again normally. However, this consciousness shift does not relate to anything else that has happened to me. I am no longer the same person, and I can't relate to that person who went through those struggles. Everything is emotionally vacant, like it never happened.

I wouldn't call it scalp numbness, more like a tingling or vibrating sensation that happens in different parts of the head sometimes, usually followed by a headache.

I sleep and dream vividly, however the emotional vacancy of my conscious experience is there even in my dreams. There will be some sort of a scenario where I am doing normal things that I used to do in my previous life, but I am aware that nothing has changed with the consciousness.

[scotty]

Originally Posted by DeVoid

I had ECT in 2001.

Can you post your full history? ECT is pretty drastic and has very long lasting effects.

[DeVoid]

Originally Posted by palm

Devoid,

Obviously, you do care about something if you're trying to lose weight. What is motivating you to give a darn in this situation?

I would be careful though about severe caloric restriction and look into something like the Paleo or Perfect Health Diet. Of course, your mileage will vary.

I forgot, did you cold turkey Wellbutrin? Sorry, my concentration is bad from insomnia so please forgive me if you have mentioned this.

Palm

I don't have motivation to do anything as a visceral feeling, but I can physically make my body do things or not do things (there is just no emotion behind it). Logically I know that being so obese is not a desired state, though there are no feelings behind this thought. So I make my body intake less food. I have thoughts, but don't give a darn.

Thanks for the diet advice, but I am too apathetic to look into anything. I am not doing the calorie restriction too severely.

I tapered Wellbutrin off to nothing in a 2 week period, after being on the med for 5 years. I guess this might be considered cold turkey. However, I was functional for 4 months after this (I had a job and was going to school).

What really killed me was my decision to reinstate after the 4 months. I wasn't in a good state before reinstating. I was losing feelings and interest in life (usually a sign of my "depression" coming back). When my aunt died and I couldn't feel anything about this I knew something was very wrong. I decided to go back on the drug I had been on for 5 years as a stable, functional human being.

When I reinstated things really started to fall apart. I began losing parts of my inner being, not just emotions. Took it for a month, kept getting worse, then stopped. A month later, after no improvement I reinstated again. After 2 days I suddenly had an immense day of improvement where my emotions and inner being came back. Then I had a seizure and everything devolved back to nothing.

After 2 days of this depersonalized state, my self slowly came back and I thought it was over. Unfortunately, I woke up the next day and 95% of me had been erased. This persisted for 4 months, when I suddenly had another good day (no meds involved). Again, I thought I was finally coming out of it. The next day, I woke up 100% erased. This has persisted for 1 year and 3 months.

These good days were preceded by insomnia. Somehow the act of sleeping changed something and I woke up in a confused state both times finding myself staring at the wall and not knowing why. When I came to I realized the horrible change. Only this final time it was permanent.

I feel like I have repeated this story many times in this thread. If that is the case, sorry. But I still can't make heads nor tails of it.

[DeVoid]

Originally Posted by scotty

Can you post your full history? ECT is pretty drastic and has very long lasting effects.

If you read back this thread I think I already posted a general history (starting from about the 9th post). However, I don't think I can specifically blame ECT on this happening. It was something I tried that didn't help, and screwed with my memory. But it was temporary. I had a life after it, and at times felt better then I had previously.

What I think I can blame it on is psychiatry in general, and the mind altering drugs that they peddle. I have been in their grasp since age 14. I have no doubt that my life would've been completely different had I not popped that first pill (which coincidentally was Paxil).

[julieannboo]

Devoid - i know it makes no difference to you one way or the other (as it sounds as if severe depression doesn't even begin to describe what you got) but sending you my best wishes from London. x

[babs]

Devoid, you sound very depressed but, like Palm said, it seems to me like you do care. I think if you didn't care you would not be posting about it on here. Even the title of this thread implies anger or resentment ... those are feelings. I think in withdrawal we do have feelings, it's just that they are generally very negative feelings and the positive ones are hard to access. I don't think it is hopeless for you, but I do think you're going to have to get yourself out of your room to improve.

[Chrissy]

Hi DeVoid, I would like to say that I am in EXACTLY the same position as you are 19 months post cold turkey from prozac. I still have no emotions whatsoever. Unlike you I am not able to project to others exactly how my whole being/consciousness is devoid. I know it is an extremely difficult non-life to lead, I also have children to look after and they remind me every day how 'dead' I am. I am not depressed or anxious, if only I could feel even these feelings. When I originally ceased the prozac I suffered great physical pain. I also could not even think a thought for months. Confusion and crying episodes (without any emotion) were a daily struggle for months on end as were cognitive, memory and concentration problems which followed. I experienced extreme insomnia but was not tired or even anxious about it. I just was. Accepting everything as there were no feelings of frustration or need.

I have also got ear pressure/hearing loss and sensory hearing loss, diminished sense of smell/taste, touch and pain. I never feel hungry or thirsty and get no cravings or satisfaction from food either.

I know only too well how you are struggling to find a reason to carry on but you must have hope. Like you there is nothing else. And as I am naturally very stubborn I will not let those evil drug peddlars claim me like I am certain they have stolen countless others.

Lastly, I have recently been to see a psychiatrist who claims to know what is wrong. She is keen to diagnose me with "Functional neurological and dissociative symptoms caused through abruptly stopping prozac" I do not know if I agree. She assures me that this condition can cause complete emotional wipe out but I have read the site that she directed me to and I cannot find this major symptom. I sometimes think that I have been made autistic, that is the best way to describe some symptoms, apart from the complete lack of emotion, as I am lead to believe that they suffer hypersensitivity where emotions are concerned.

[Chrissy]

I forgot to ask DeVoid, how has sweating been for you? Have you noticed a change?

[texgirl]

For someone who doesn't care about anything, you certainly have an enormous amount of energy to expend on not caring. But that would be hypocritical, wouldn't it?

I'm going to channel RangerNY here and ask: Why are you confined to your room? Are you physically unable to stand or walk? Is somebody holding you captive there? Don't confuse true physical incapacity (fact) with feelings that have created the conditions that are holding you back (not fact).

[alivehope]

Originally Posted by DeVoid

0% recovered after 1 year, 7 months here.

That's in case anybody here cares, because I don't. You will not find a success story here, or even the faintest glimmer of hope.

When I first posted this thread I felt 95% of what made up "me" was gone (emotions, inner being, hopes, dreams, fears, desires, everything really). Still, there was a faint glimmer of a feeling that things could change. 4 months after being off the med I did experience a change. However it only lasted for 1 day. The inner self was coming back, along with emotions and motivation.

After this one day, I woke up and everything inside me was destroyed and erased again. But this time it was no longer 95% gone, it was 100% gone, and I had no reference for this state in my experience of living. This state has persisted now for a year and a half with not a hint of change.

Not only is the glimmer of hope gone, but the construct within me that would recognize a glimmer of anything (be it hope, pain, fear, sun, rain) is simply not there anymore. It's not a normal human living experience.

I was "something" for 30 years of my life. Whether or not I liked that something at all times is irrelevant (I didn't). The fact is, after this happened in my brain (whatever that is) all of that 30 years of living and building experiences somehow got erased. My emotional connections and feelings for everyone and everything that has every happened to me are gone. As in completely, couldn't be more erased. I don't relate to that person I was on any level, because none of it exists anymore. I don't feel 33, in fact, I don't feel like a man at all (not least because my sexual being has also disappeared, but so much more). I feel like a nothing.

I can't be called a human being, because I am missing the "being" part. You know, the part that contains everything relating to your existence, your life, and your connection to it. If you think about it, consciousness and feeling of being are difficult things to describe. In fact, we all take it for granted. It's not until I reached this state that I realized normal consciousness is impossible to describe. Yet everyone feels it and is motivated by it to go about their day by this invisible force. When that force is gone, life as we know it is not possible.

I am unable to experience life anymore as normal people do, so the year and a half I've spent in my room (literally) is not a confining experience, no boredom is experienced. The emotional connections to everything are not there... when I try to think about something that had a universe of feelings attached to it, there is nothing there. So it feels like it doesn't exist, and it never existed. Like I never existed. For me, there are no possibilities. Except that obvious one, but I don't care enough to do it. Entire universes inside of me were destroyed.

Don't ask me what I'm doing to help myself, because if you were in this position you would realize that is impossible. The most I can do is control what I put in my mouth, so I have been eating a lot less. I had thought I was close to 400 pounds, but after 2 weeks of pretty severe calorie restriction I got on a scale the other day and it was 257 (I was 170 a year and half ago).

Look, I don't expect anyone to understand this. Either I'm actually in hell (which I didn't believe in when I was alive) or a cosmic joke has been played on me, with me as the punchline.

My question to you is, how long am I to wait before I can call this "permanent"? Is a year and 3 months without change good enough? The thing is, 5 years could pass and I would be none the wiser. Time is literally not experienced, experience itself is meaningless without me to experience it. My past, present, and (likely) future have been erased.

I wished it was something organic like a brain tumor (as much as I can wish anything, which is not at all). At least then I could point to a good reason for this. My useless plan is to lose enough weight to get into my size 36 jeans which I bought on that one good day last year (4 months before that I was size 32) and get a physical exam. Maybe another MRI (last one I had was over a year ago). I don't know, maybe something physical was missed. Before this started I was referred to a blood doctor for a low platelet count (something I've never had). But that was 2 years ago. I don't really feel unusual physical symptoms, aside from occasional tingling sensations in my head and random nerve pains.

I hope the positivity brigade can take something good from this, because I can't. I don't relate to anything anyone could say as a form of encouragement, but thanks for trying. And you know I don't feel that sentiment.

I experienced all of what you've been through. I dwelled on my previous self, I felt like I died the moment I took the medications, I felt like a different person and could not connect to my past, felt all of people I knew for a long time as strangers. could not enjoy a song even though I was addicted to music, could not laugh or joke or feel relaxed and felt very dead inside. along with constant brain zaps, insomnia, food sensitivites and paxil weight of 242lbs.

I think you will make a lot of progress in the second year to third year. Exercise and don't lose hope.


Look, I was 3600% different person (( in better way )) two years off than I used to be 4 to 9 months off paxil.

[alivehope]

Exercise, watch movies, play games, go outside, eat well, have hope and keep going. you will definitely improve with time. I've seen people with severe brain injures recovering and improving, if they can improve, you can improve given the fact your are in better condition than they are.

[NoRx4me]

Here's a recovery story from a guy who was locked up and tortured (solitary confinement, ECT) from age 6 to 17. He didn't know "who he was" either.

The story ends when he gets out and doesn't explain how he recovered and became happy and productive, however he's an active member of MFI and could probably be contacted. I believe I've read other papers he's written in the past also. Maybe google him.

http://www.mindfreedom.org/personal-...habasisnskited

There are other recovery stories that are just as dramatic on that site too

http://www.mindfreedom.org/personal-...tart:int=0&-C=

I can relate to what you are feeling/not feeling. I still have trouble with my identity because of the memory loss, to a degree.

A year and 3 months with no change or even feeling worse than on meds, isn't long enough unfortunately. Think about how long you were on meds. Since 14 years old right? Changes are happening they are just not noticable to you yet. They will be.

[DeVoid]

Originally Posted by Chrissy

Hi DeVoid, I would like to say that I am in EXACTLY the same position as you are 19 months post cold turkey from prozac. I still have no emotions whatsoever. Unlike you I am not able to project to others exactly how my whole being/consciousness is devoid. I know it is an extremely difficult non-life to lead, I also have children to look after and they remind me every day how 'dead' I am. I am not depressed or anxious, if only I could feel even these feelings. When I originally ceased the prozac I suffered great physical pain. I also could not even think a thought for months. Confusion and crying episodes (without any emotion) were a daily struggle for months on end as were cognitive, memory and concentration problems which followed. I experienced extreme insomnia but was not tired or even anxious about it. I just was. Accepting everything as there were no feelings of frustration or need.

If (god forbid) one of your children were to become deathly ill, would you be able to feel anything? See, for me, it is as if all my past experiences have been erased. So I have no emotional memory of the people I used to love or any of the experiences we had together. If one of them died, I can honestly say I wouldn't feel a thing about it.

I haven't seen my best friend and my brother in a year and a half, yet don't miss them. I dream about them and we are doing things we used to do, but there is still no emotion attached in the dream. It's as if I never knew them, everything associated with them is gone inside. It's the same for everyone, including myself. I've lost that emotional association with everything in the external world. It doesn't feel alive to me, it doesn't feel like it even exists. If that's not losing your humanity, I'm not sure what is.

I know only too well how you are struggling to find a reason to carry on but you must have hope. Like you there is nothing else. And as I am naturally very stubborn I will not let those evil drug peddlars claim me like I am certain they have stolen countless others.

I'm unable to have hope - they've taken that too. I can't even be mad at them, I just don't have that feeling available. All I can do is keep waiting, and if I ever get myself back, devote my life to fighting against psychiatry and big pharma.

Lastly, I have recently been to see a psychiatrist who claims to know what is wrong. She is keen to diagnose me with "Functional neurological and dissociative symptoms caused through abruptly stopping prozac" I do not know if I agree. She assures me that this condition can cause complete emotional wipe out but I have read the site that she directed me to and I cannot find this major symptom. I sometimes think that I have been made autistic, that is the best way to describe some symptoms, apart from the complete lack of emotion, as I am lead to believe that they suffer hypersensitivity where emotions are concerned.

I'm surprised you found a psychiatrist who would even consider that as a possibility. The last one I had was stubborn as a mule. If I could feel the slightest thing about the loss, I'd probably want to kill him (literally). When I came off the medication and was feeling bad I wanted to go into therapy to fix the underlying issues, but he insisted that I go back on the meds first. I didn't think in a million years they could put me in this state (I'd been on them for 5 years before). That decision to reinstate cost me my soul.

[DeVoid]

Originally Posted by Chrissy

I forgot to ask DeVoid, how has sweating been for you? Have you noticed a change?

Not sure what you mean, I never had a sweating issue. Maybe you meant someone else?