paxil and self injury-- am I at risk??

Exactly what do the warnings mean by 'suicidal thoughts' or urges to injure oneself? I mean, not only was I depressed, but a cutter and suicidal. Some of these things are still lingering. I haven't done anything, but you know, urges still come and go. Fact is, i can control myself now since I don't need to do those things to keep myself sane. But does this mean that i'm in danger because of paxil? I'm really confused about this....
(Last summer my best freind's bro (he was 14) killed himself. This freaked me out, and when i told my doc about my thoughts on suicide, she sent me to the ER. i'm not to keen on bringing the above up with her)

[scotty]

No one can predict who will harm themselves. But that said, yes I believe that paxil can increase your risk of suicide. Its usually seen when starting,when weaning, or when changing doses. My sons attempts were when he went cold turkey.

[lifeisbeautiful222]

I believe that the fda has a warning out that anyone coming off of paxil or just starting paxil needs to be monitored closely for suicide risk. I do think that this is true now because after withdrawing from paxil I had become soooo extremely depressed to a point that I had never felt in my life. Please make sure that you are in touch with your doctor and seek help if you feel any urges to do anything harmful to yourself. Also maybe try a different drug. Paxil is just one big nightmare that an already depressed person should not have to deal with.

[darcyb]

Originally Posted by the child

Exactly what do the warnings mean by 'suicidal thoughts' or urges to injure oneself? I mean, not only was I depressed, but a cutter and suicidal. Some of these things are still lingering. I haven't done anything, but you know, urges still come and go. Fact is, i can control myself now since I don't need to do those things to keep myself sane. But does this mean that i'm in danger because of paxil? I'm really confused about this....
(Last summer my best freind's bro (he was 14) killed himself. This freaked me out, and when i told my doc about my thoughts on suicide, she sent me to the ER. i'm not to keen on bringing the above up with her)

Paxil takes away from the familiar you. So if you were able to control your self injury without it, you risk losing that control as Paxil will toy with the very system of awareness (experience and growth based) you developed that got you to not hurt yourself as much. It's a foreign substance that affects your sense of self. So as rational as you may seem while not on it, you risk being irrational while on it. And irrationality is a perfect environment for self injury and suicide since they are both denials of life.

At least that's my abstracted way of looking at it. In simpler words, Paxil toys with your ability to identify with thoughts, emotions and impulses and therefore can feel like it is a wild animal you can't control that compels you to do things you wouldn't normally do. Not everybody gets affected this way, but some do. From what I can tell, it's people who feel really agitated while on Paxil who end up doing spontaneous disasters to themselves and family.

But also, Paxil can reduce fear. And any natural defense mechanism based around how we experience fear that exists to make self injury or suicide undesirable, gets compromised. You lose the ability to feel naturally afraid of things that don't serve the big picture and why you were born : TO BE ALIVE. So devoid of the ability to experience caution, rationality and fear because of Paxil, anything can happen.

You'll so often hear it from people who hur themselves and/or others while on an SSRI who have been off of it for a while. They'll so often say, "it's like a bad dream - it's like I was on autopilot - I can't imagine why I did that" and so on.

Paxil takes YOU away from YOU as the result of you believing yourself insufficient, so that you took a drug to take the YOU away from YOU.