I ripped off a bandaid

*ahem* So here goes. An explanation of what's really going on with me this week and possibly last. But mostly this week.

I don't know if you'll remember or not, but last fall I tried to stop taking Lexapro. I wrote about stopping it in the summer (wow, it was the spring - almost a year ago) and it took me a few months to actually get the nerve up to do it. It was kind of scary, letting go of the safety net that saved my life at one point. I'm being dramatic, but you get the idea.

Anyhoodle, I stopped taking it slowly and was finally off of it around the first of October. By November I was back on it. I don't exactly know why, except that I'd just started a new position at work and thought maybe that wasn't the best time to do that kind of thing?

Recently it started bothering me that I was still taking the lowest dose. I didn't think I needed it, but I did need the intestinal fortitude to quit. And I was having (am having) intestinal problems so I thought I needed to stop to see what own body would do without any meds in it.

It helped that I started forgetting to take it almost every night, so at best I was getting every other night? Eventually one night last week I just said forget it, and didn't take it again. Just like ripping off a bandaid.

I warned my husband to watch for crazy behavior. And I felt fine.

Then I got the wicked cold from hell. And here's where things get a little confusing. I was SICK this week. Flu-like symptoms, cold symptoms, fatigue, sleeplessness and lots of other stupidity including making bad decisions and bawling like a baby.

When I got back from Dallas I sat with my trusty laptop and looked up "Lexapro withdrawal symptoms."

Check it. This is the list I pulled off some antidepressant website or another.

Withdrawal side-effects/reactions from (SSRI) Anti-depressants which may be seen within 8-hours, often includes a spontaneously experience of a "flu-like" syndrome, feeling "crummy", tired, achy, etc.. In addition to the flu-like symptoms: anxiety, dizziness, fatigue, headache, migraine-like feelings, nerves jangling when moving eyes, continuous indigestion, neck and back pain, psychotic features such as visual and/or audial hallucinations/illusions, insomnia, nausea, restlessness, "electrical shock" like phenomena/electrical surges or shocks through the head and/or body, hyper-sensitivity of the nervous system to light, sound, colours & stressors, tremors, tinnitus and a vertiginous-like experience, depressive thoughts, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, extreme anger, severe agitation, extreme irritability, "over-reacting", ringing in ears and throbbing in head, vomiting, paranoia, aggressive behaviour, rollercoaster emotions rapidly following up on each other, out of character behaviour, severe malaise, general dysphoria, derealization, panic attacks.

Can you believe that? What I thought was the Yellow Swine Fever Flu was probably a run of the mill head cold combined with twelve or fourteen of the above-mentioned side effects from withdrawing the Lexapro. You see, I practiced perhaps the worst form of DXing a drug. I stopped abruptly.

The recommended way is to gradually taper down your dosage until your own body can take over. Like slowly pulling a bandaid instead of ripping your skin off with the scab.

I'm going to stick it out. I want to know what it's like to be free and clear of the medication for a while and I want to get to the bottom of my bottom problems. This time I'll give myself more time to let my body adjust. I've taken it for 18 months at least, I need to give myself a few months to let my own brain make its serotonin. If it can't do that, I know where to go for help.

P.S. I especially liked derealization and over-reacting as side effects of withdrawal. So much fun it's like a circus funhouse.

- H