Do you feel like you're no longer yourself?

[sleeps]

occasionally there'll be a little reminder. something will make me laugh or a topic will interest me. i'll see a glimmer of hope and feel like my actual self for a moment.

but most of the time, i'm not there. there's just some creature of nervousness and regret, sitting around waiting for the next opportunity to be unconscious. i don't particularly want anything other than to disappear and not feel pain anymore. its like the person with dreams and desires is gone and the body is just coasting on autopilot.

 

[lifeORdeath]

I don't feel like a person anymore. Each day is a blur. Who I used to be was kind, cared about the world, was sad but still held dreams.

I'm apathetic, bitter over how bleak things are, and am too much of a jaded coward to dare to dream.

I agree. I used to dream and plan and want to do. Look forward to weekends and things happening.

Now I am day by day, hate waking up. Barely have it in me to get to work. It distracts me when im busy. When I'm not cowardice away or think of ending it.

Dreams. I forgot what dreams were too

occasionally there'll be a little reminder. something will make me laugh or a topic will interest me. i'll see a glimmer of hope and feel like my actual self for a moment.

but most of the time, i'm not there. there's just some creature of nervousness and regret, sitting around waiting for the next opportunity to be unconscious. i don't particularly want anything other than to disappear and not feel pain anymore. its like the person with dreams and desires is gone and the body is just coasting on autopilot.

This is me too.
I function on autopilot, barely and sort of.
I can pretend real well, but when I'm alone it haunts me and I can't hide from myself.

 

[Sad_Sack]

Thanks. It helps to know that others going through something similar. Not that I'd wish this on anyone else. My current psychiatrist wanted me to try going back on a very small amount of the sertraline... just a few mg, to see if it would help counteract what I viewed as protracted withdrawal symptoms. I fought with myself for quite a while and finally decided that it was such a small amount it was worth trying. In the end, I didn't have any problems with anger, but it did add to my brain fog to the point where I no longer felt safe driving, and was even more miserable in my day-to-day, so I ended up stopping it again. I know I've read in multiple places that if you're dealing with what can be considered "withdrawal syndrome" from AD and other psych meds the only "by the book" way to treat it is reinstating a small amount of the offending med, so might be worth a shot for you too? But I totally understand the fear. It took me many months of back-and-forth with myself to get to the point of trying it. I also went on such a small amount that, so far, discontinuing this time hasn't been bad. But it still leaves me looking for a solution to my core problem, which is depression, brain fog, and cognitive issues. I'm hoping a lot of it is that I'm still on 4 brain-slowing meds, and that tapering off of those will help address at least the brain fog and difficulty thinking and problem solving. Not sure about the depression though... I'm worried that quitting the sertraline so quickly really messed something up there, and I'm not sure how to fix that.

You may very well see improvement after you taper the other meds. I sure hope so. I was wondering if you had ever tried going back on them because years ago I had a massive withdrawal from quitting Cymbalta at cold turkey. I also quit at the end of a long benzo taper and I thought the withdrawal was from the benzos. 2 years into it I had had enough and agreed to at least try going in another antidepressant to see if it would hello my mood. I went on Lexapro and in around 4 months it wiped out my withdrawal so I realised that the withdrawal was not from the benzos which I must have successfully tapered but from the cymbalta. I stayed on lexapro for another 4 years and it started to poop out so I switched to Prozac which really didn't doanything. I stayed on Prozac for another couple years until my mother was passing away. I figured that for all the good the pills were doing id just quit again. I guess I was feeling pretty self destructive and just didn't give a shit because it was a stupid decision. In a walk I went into another huge withdrawal and I went back on the Prozac but it did not stop it. I ended up switching back to lexapro hoping the break would have allowed it to work again but it didnt. In June of 2019 I started a very slow taper and reached zero this july. The entire time I saw no improvement except for part of 2020 which had me very hopeful and then it just turned around even worse. I'm so desperate I still think I might give it another try but what's the end game? Even if somehow going in a new ssri would ease this ill still have AP the inevitable cycle of lookout and withdrawal looming over me.

Sorry to keep talking your ear off by the way. Its just good to talk to someone else in the same boat.

 

[NoLightRemains]

I feel like there's 2 versions of me.
1 that is pretty capable of dealing with life, open to recovery, doesn't really want to die but still feels attracted to the concept of suicide.
2 that is holding every single part of my trauma, cannot handle any kind of emotion, solely focused on destroying us both and determined to ctb.
These used to be infused, I used to be someone who really struggled on a daily basis, I couldn't handle my trauma but SI left me way too scared to properly ctb. I just felt trapped and in crisis 24/7. I feel like this separation of identities is something my brain decided to do as a result of my SI to try and protect me. I'm not grateful. I feel like now I'll never recover.

This is very relatable for me. I feel like I swap between these two identities frequently and it's pretty exhausting. I wish I could stick with one or the other somedays. I long to be free from this limbo and just commit one way or another.

 

[TheManIllNeverBe]

You may very well see improvement after you taper the other meds. I sure hope so. I was wondering if you had ever tried going back on them because years ago I had a massive withdrawal from quitting Cymbalta at cold turkey. I also quit at the end of a long benzo taper and I thought the withdrawal was from the benzos. 2 years into it I had had enough and agreed to at least try going in another antidepressant to see if it would hello my mood. I went on Lexapro and in around 4 months it wiped out my withdrawal so I realised that the withdrawal was not from the benzos which I must have successfully tapered but from the cymbalta. I stayed on lexapro for another 4 years and it started to poop out so I switched to Prozac which really didn't doanything. I stayed on Prozac for another couple years until my mother was passing away. I figured that for all the good the pills were doing id just quit again. I guess I was feeling pretty self destructive and just didn't give a shit because it was a stupid decision. In a walk I went into another huge withdrawal and I went back on the Prozac but it did not stop it. I ended up switching back to lexapro hoping the break would have allowed it to work again but it didnt. In June of 2019 I started a very slow taper and reached zero this july. The entire time I saw no improvement except for part of 2020 which had me very hopeful and then it just turned around even worse. I'm so desperate I still think I might give it another try but what's the end game? Even if somehow going in a new ssri would ease this ill still have AP the inevitable cycle of lookout and withdrawal looming over me.

Sorry to keep talking your ear off by the way. Its just good to talk to someone else in the same boat.

You've been on and off a lot of stuff. I have too... not sure how much of my story you've picked up on here... I've posted bits and pieces. I was in a serious car accident a little over 10 years ago that prompted my doctor to refer me to a psychiatrist for the first time, and the medication hell started from there. Previously I had been on the sertraline and a small amount of topamax to treat Tourettes syndrome and some mild anxiety and depression that went with it, but I came away from the accident with PTSD and that blew up the anxiety and depression and I ended up seeing a series of psychiatrists who threw every med in the book at me over the next decade. Anti-depressants, benzos, anti-psychotics, anti-convulsants. There were times where I would just sleep for weeks on end I was so drugged up. I finally got in with a shrink who I really liked and connected with who realized I was over-medicated, and worked to get me off of many of the meds. I was down to just 3 (sertraline, topamax, olanzapine) for a few years, and starting to do better. Then my pharmacy switched suppliers on the sertraline, I didn't tolerate it well, and he took me off of the sertraline abruptly. This led to my condition deteriorating further (depression, panic attacks, insomnia) and adding some meds to try to address those symptoms. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to start tapering some of these meds soon and get my "old brain" back.

Don't feel back about talking my ear off. I came here to interact with other people who were as broken as I am, and maybe find some encouragement to keep pressing on with life, rather than ending it. I appreciate being able to talk with someone else in a similar situation and find some comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in being screwed over by prescription psych meds. It actually seems like a relatively common thing around here.

 

[lifeORdeath]

You've been on and off a lot of stuff. I have too... not sure how much of my story you've picked up on here... I've posted bits and pieces. I was in a serious car accident a little over 10 years ago that prompted my doctor to refer me to a psychiatrist for the first time, and the medication hell started from there. Previously I had been on the sertraline and a small amount of topamax to treat Tourettes syndrome and some mild anxiety and depression that went with it, but I came away from the accident with PTSD and that blew up the anxiety and depression and I ended up seeing a series of psychiatrists who threw every med in the book at me over the next decade. Anti-depressants, benzos, anti-psychotics, anti-convulsants. There were times where I would just sleep for weeks on end I was so drugged up. I finally got in with a shrink who I really liked and connected with who realized I was over-medicated, and worked to get me off of many of the meds. I was down to just 3 (sertraline, topamax, olanzapine) for a few years, and starting to do better. Then my pharmacy switched suppliers on the sertraline, I didn't tolerate it well, and he took me off of the sertraline abruptly. This led to my condition deteriorating further (depression, panic attacks, insomnia) and adding some meds to try to address those symptoms. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to start tapering some of these meds soon and get my "old brain" back.

Don't feel back about talking my ear off. I came here to interact with other people who were as broken as I am, and maybe find some encouragement to keep pressing on with life, rather than ending it. I appreciate being able to talk with someone else in a similar situation and find some comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in being screwed over by prescription psych meds. It actually seems like a relatively common thing around here.

Definitely you guys keep talking. I'm on the beginning of the road you guys have been down for some time. I like the hear the truth from someone suffering as I am, and not to be judged.

 

[theboy]

I became what I lived

 

[Kazeeemoo12]

Emotional neglect has led me to have no sense of identity.I don't know who I am

 

[onetapgandhi]

January 2022 me would HATE what current me has become. I am disgusted by myself. If June 2020 me saw what October 2022 me was tangled in, he would end it right there.

 

[Fadeawaaaay]

Yeah I'm just a phantom… Just a ghost haunting my old life…

 

[BlackCatTalk]

I feel you totally I'm so death rn that barely I know who I am

 

[September5th]

January 2022 me would HATE what current me has become. I am disgusted by myself. If June 2020 me saw what October 2022 me was tangled in, he would end it right there.

January 2022 me would vomit if he could see what we would become. See what I did to others and what others (who I trusted) did to me. He would be grateful for what he had and perhaps would have enjoyed January and February a bit more, since those were the only good months of this horror show I'm living in.
It's so fucked up. I was so happy. Now I don't even remember how it's like to be happy. Life just doesn't hold any meaning for me whatsoever. It feels like it's been ages since I was fine. Like, a totally different life cycle or something. Paradoxically, it also feels like it was yesterday.

Fuck. I need two things: a beer and something to kill me fast.

 

[Venus13]

Yes, I have the already dead feeling. I have an empty and lonely void inside me.

 

[onetapgandhi]

January 2022 me would vomit if he could see what we would become. See what I did to others and what others (who I trusted) did to me. He would be grateful for what he had and perhaps would have enjoyed January and February a bit more, since those were the only good months of this horror show I'm living in.
It's so fucked up. I was so happy. Now I don't even remember how it's like to be happy. Life just doesn't hold any meaning for me whatsoever. It feels like it's been ages since I was fine. Like, a totally different life cycle or something. Paradoxically, it also feels like it was yesterday.

Fuck. I need two things: a beer and something to kill me fast.

I have my SN ready. Im gonna try to kill myself today. Been fasting for about 12 hrs now. Gonna try the STAT method. in like an hour or so

 

[hellispink]

I am more myself that what I have ever been. I have always been a poisonous depressive individual, since I was born almost. There is good qualities in me that have grown and I admire, there is horrible traits that have also evolved along with me. Everyday I lose myself to myself, how do I explain… my darkness is too heavy and deep that the more I enter in my own existence, the more fucked I become.

 

[Someday_Somehow32]

Lost myself when I developed my Fibro and IBS, shit really turns you into a shell of who you are and could have been