...I should start by saying what this blog isn't. It's not a jeremiad against anti-depressants. It's not a self-help column. It's not an attempt to get famous.
"My, but she's negative..."
If that's what you're thinking, that's fine, and this blog is probably not for you. I'm not writing this to make friends, much as I like to do that. I'm writing it in the hope that it might help or even comfort someone somewhere who's going through the same experience. If that's not you, well, be grateful.
It's not fun.
After 22 years on various antidepressants, I made the decision about 8 months ago to make a serious effort to get off them. I didn't make the decision lightly. I'd tried before, been fairly incapacitated, and quickly went back on. But by this time the side effects were becoming intolerable and the benefits were dwindling, and I had a relatively stress-free job and a supportive spouse, so I decided to try again.
I expected to return to the same familiar symptoms I left behind when I was twenty-one. Instead I've encountered a whole cornucopia of new ones, both cognitive and physiological. Weird stuff I'd never experienced before. I still don't know if the change is due to being much older and hormonally different, in different life circumstances, or what. I'll describe the specifics later. Bear with me.
I sort of dropped out of sight for a while. I missed some work, because there were days I was so dizzy I couldn't really walk, and my heart rate was so elevated I was kind of afraid to. I also had to deal with some minor surgery, which I ended up having done with local anaesthetic only, out of fear of a possible interactions with the general anaesthetic.
When I surfaced again and began reconnecting with friends, I discovered that one of my closest ones had been going through precisely the same thing at the same time. She was getting off a different drug. Excited and surprised, we spent an evening sharing our experiences and describing our withdrawal symptoms and the new sensations we were now being bombarded with. A lot of them were the same. A few were very different.
It felt good to be able to share the bizarreness we'd both been through. I find that depressives tend to flock together, because it's comforting to be able to describe how you're feeling and have your buddies understand. Not suprisingly, New York City is a great place to find fellow depressives.
After that evening with my friend, I started to wonder whether I should document the various stages my recovery/adjustment was taking. Maybe it would be useful to someone else.
Hence this blog.
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