What up PSSD people

[jack]

Hello PSSD forum, my name is Jack. This is why I'm here:

A few years ago I was going through a really tough time, and I made a couple of botched suicide attempts. Needless to say, I ended up on sertraline 50mg. I took these for just over a year, completely turned my life around, and found I no longer needed them (nowadays I really don't think doctors should be prescribing these pills to people who are just going through a rough patch and have no mental illness, but that's a discussion for another time). So I quit. Withdrawal was a bitch, I can tell you. Shakes, sickness, headaches - I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with it. But I came out the other side, and I was fine. Well, so I thought. You can probably all tell where this is going.

During my time on sertraline my sex life was as before: pretty good. I was never a man short of partners, and I enjoyed having sex a with lots of different women. I'd no trouble getting aroused, though achieving climax was pretty much impossible in the first few months. It became easier, though still very difficult. While it was perfectly fine keeping hard, sensations became very dulled - but I still got a lot of enjoyment out of other parts of sex. Now, fastforward to post-SSRI, I have become hypersensitive. The first time I noticed this I must have lasted about 30 seconds: I asked my partner to keep still while I calmed down, but I went off anyway. I'm sure some people here have had similar things happen to them.

So, basically, I have regressed to the dreaded "inexperienced 14 yr old boy" mode. Not only that, any orgasm I achieve is completely dulled and joyless. I'm basically completely useless to myself and to any partner, and even masturbation holds little to no joy for me. A huge part of my life has been completely wrecked. Of course, I did some Google-style diagnosis at first. I read a few testimonials, saw people saying "it took me years to get back to normal", freaked out, and went offline. I just shut sex off in my mind for months. That was 6 months ago (when I discontinued my SSRI). I hoped that, given time, it would just fix itself. Well, I had sex again a week ago, and while I wasn't as bad as last time, it was still a massive struggle holding back - one which I gave in to much sooner than I would have liked. Also, when I had sex again the next day, when I did manage to pause for respite I completely lost arousal.

So, I came back and did some more Googling. I came across this site. I read some more testimonials, saw how long most people suffer for, and saw that nearly all people never return to what they once were. I broke down in tears at my computer screen, feeling completely defeated. I threw things around my study. I screamed and shouted. It was pretty shit.

I feel like a broken man. Something for which I was once so proud of and took so much enjoyment in pursuing and engaging with I am now entirely inadequate in doing. My friends, knowing me and my large sexual appetite, inquire as to why I've calmed down so much on the romantic front. All I do is bullshit about having matured and about how I am now just focussing on myself. I do this in order to hide my sexual misery and unwanted shame. I am considering just going back on sertraline so that I can fix my sex life, though a bigger part of me knows that would just reset the progress I've already made. I have decided to be patient. I only hope I can continue to make progress, and perhaps this place can help me keep strong in the time ahead.

I am Jack's inadequate sexual potency.

[Ghost]

When you quit sertaline, did you quit cold turkey, or did you taper?

I'm sorry you're going through this too, it's not easy...

Welcome to the forum,

Ghost

[jack]

Hi Ghost, thanks for the welcome.

I quit cold turkey. Why do you ask?

[Ghost]

Hi Ghost, thanks for the welcome.

I quit cold turkey. Why do you ask?

Some people who have cold turkey-ed have have luck going on a low dose and then tapering off. I don't know why this is, but I've seen it before. I'd just research your options before you make a choice.

[Tenyears27]

I'll try to make this as clear as possible.

My entire life I was extremely anxious. I was always very sensitive. When I was 17 I went on Effexor for social anxiety disorder to get through college. While taking it, I lost all emotions, including the ability to feel love and the ability to think about or enjoy sex. Then I discontinued it after 2 years and I went back to the way I was before. My sex drive returned.

Then I couldn't handle the stress of life so I went back on and off, every time look g for that numbness created by this drug. Each time realizing how empty I was and deciding to quit agai and again.

2011 I began messing with pain pills to handle the anxiety, along with Xanax.

Then I went through terrible withdrawal in 2014 and went on Effexor to help deal with the terrible anxiety associated with withdrawals.


This is what I figured out. This is what I developed from the chronic stress of my social anxiety. I developed the personality that I gained while on Effexor. Not purposely.

A flip was switched, where one morning I woke up and remember my heart racing, and I was crying and did t sleep for a week.

Then I remember the flip or switch. Everything went away. I became disassociated . Or de personalized. After that, I find driving difficult, walking feels strange. I no longer have the ability to function sexually because my emotions became dulled. Or gone.

I no longer feel anxious or depressed. I feel like I'm inside me screaming with all my life to wake up! And I want to believe I have the sexual dysfunction associated with Ssri . But deep down, I understand that I developed disassociation.

You might go the rest of your life, thinking you have pssd. I do t discourage it. It would be an easier life to live.

I'm at a place where I've accepted that this change occurred in me. Some geniuses who write music have had this happen to them, and they're able to Chanel their genius through music. I believe pink Floyd developed this condition.

Last year this time I was a different, anxious, emotional version of my self. Then I couldn't take it anymore and my mind switched

I sit here wondering if anyone here will even read this, for this is the answer to all of your questions.

Why do you feel emotional blunting?

Why can't you relate to yourself before this happened?

Why is sex impossible? Not the act, but the emotional act between two people that feel love for each other?

It's because your mind burried the old you, leaving this new you that is f affected by anything.

Anything. But you so desperately want 'you' back

I've read of people coming back from this. But not everyone is similar. We all have unique circumstances

Soldiers who went to war, and seen death had this same flip happen in their minds. And if you ask anyone of them, all they want is to feel again they just don't know how. They call that ptsd.

We call what we have pssd.

I know understand that they're all labels.

[Tenyears27]

I figured this out last night after I had great insight. I meditated. and realized this.

I'm checking myself into a hospital today. I'm 27, my names Derek. I was always a loving caring person. And anxious. That part of me is gone and now I'm nothing . Literally, without the ability to feel emotions I'm dead.

Tonight I had hope and I lost the hope I had and feel nothing but the content that maybe death will bring me a feeling of sadness, which would be a blessing.

[Ghost]

I figured this out last night after I had great insight. I meditated. and realized this.

I'm checking myself into a hospital today. I'm 27, my names Derek. I was always a loving caring person. And anxious. That part of me is gone and now I'm nothing . Literally, without the ability to feel emotions I'm dead.

Tonight I had hope and I lost the hope I had and feel nothing but the content that maybe death will bring me a feeling of sadness, which would be a blessing.

I think that checking yourself in was a smart idea. Best of luck, and try to keep positive.

[Animus]

I figured this out last night after I had great insight. I meditated. and realized this.

I'm checking myself into a hospital today. I'm 27, my names Derek. I was always a loving caring person. And anxious. That part of me is gone and now I'm nothing . Literally, without the ability to feel emotions I'm dead.

Tonight I had hope and I lost the hope I had and feel nothing but the content that maybe death will bring me a feeling of sadness, which would be a blessing.

I think that checking yourself in was a smart idea. Best of luck, and try to keep positive.

I don't think it was a smart idea, because psychiatric hospitals are dangerous. What are they gonna do to him there? Drug him, shock him? Either with his will or against it. They can do it, psychiatrist have a legal right to drug him with an SRI against his will, AFAIR. A smarter thing to do would be to go outpatient, there you have more power, and ask for a emotion enabling med (Bupropion? I read (btw, it's a neurology handbook that talks about PSSD (480,481)) that dopaminergic meds enable emotion (482)).
Of the 37 tablets I took of the SSRI, 32 of them I took in the psych ward.
Tenyears27, would you commit suicide if you got Parkinson's? Parkinson's is worse that PSSD. PSSD is better treatable and has a better prognosis than PD. In the 9 months post ssri, I already had improvement, small, but still definite improvement. That, and others' testimony about gradual improvement to recovery, makes me think I will continue to improve and if it's not 100%, I can still take meds.
About the emotional aspect, I can relate. I too feel disconnected, emotionally numb, not myself, not fully awake. Don't know how much of it is my imagination. I can still feel desperation at least.

[Ghost]

"Tonight I had hope and I lost the hope I had and feel nothing but the content that maybe death will bring me a feeling of sadness, which would be a blessing." I think that he was in danger of hurting himself. There was also a growing sense of instability in his writing. I think that outpatient would be better, but I believe that he must have had a pretty strong reason to turn himself in. It's not something that people would want to do.