Healing Intro
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 1:28 pm
Hi everybody, I’m 19 and I’ve been lurking on this forum since July 2018, I figured I should finally tell my story. This forum has been a godsend for me and thousands of others suffering. Thank you Ghost, Sonny, and everyone that contributes to this forum for providing me with hope and guidance. Anyways, I took Escitalopram (30mg) from January 2016-July 2016, quickly tapered without supervision of my psychiatrist, and got a form of PSSD as a result. I initially tapered because I noticed that my anxiety had largely gone away, and I wasn’t getting morning wood. Since then I've had a variety of symptoms including:
-Emotional apathy-
This was both a pro and a con in the beginning, as before I went on Escitalopram I had very bad social anxiety (and have had my entire life). My anxiety was so bad that I decided to go to a smaller school for my Sophmore year of high school, where I was very dedicated to better myself (putting myself out of my comfort zone, working out, eat better etc.). I saw antidepressants as just another "step" in the process of getting better, so I started looking for that "magic pill" to help me along. I was convinced that I needed treatment. As a result of all these things my anxiety completely went away, and it freed me up a bit to do things I wanted to do in my pre-pssd state. For my Junior year I returned to my old high school, and it was completely different. I made more friends then than even before in my life, I met a great girl had I had a meaningful relationship with a girl for a year and a half. While this was all great, the opposite side of the coin was the emotional apathy, which I can best describe as having all emotions "watered down" to an extent and some absent (libido). Although I loved my girlfriend, I knew that the emotional attachment I had to her wasn’t everything it could’ve been. I can’t stress enough how helpful it is to have someone close to you that you can tell everything to: whether it be a significant other, parent, friend, sibling, something. Despite the overall lack of emotions I experienced, the spring of 2017-fall of 2017 was easily the most meaningful time in my life, as I reconnected with old friends, met my girlfriend, etc etc. Whenever I feel depressed about pssd, I remind myself that the best time of my life was also when I was going through the thick of pssd.
-Loss of libido-
Ever since quitting Lexapro I’ve felt almost 0 sex drive, with some improvements as of late. In the beginning porn wouldn’t get me hard at all, It took forever to even get a semi full dick enough to whack it. Now I’ll get 70% boners when looking at porn, and 100% boners with porn+my hand or even just my hand. I noticed that I did have serious sensitivity issues, for example I didn’t cum or feel any pleasure with my first blowjob (approx 7 months after getting pssd). When me and my girlfriend used to fuck I would sometimes go soft, and I was never 100% hard. She was really understanding though. I regained full boners during sex last fall.
-Brain Fog-
I’ve noticed this more in the past year, but I’ve been generally forgetful since I’ve been off of Lexapro. However, this could be due to numerous factors. I’m sure there’s a lot of things to do to relieve or even cure it, as when I exercise I temporarily feel better, I’ve just been a lazy fuck.
-Loss of activities/motivation-
I used to be addicted to gambling, video games, porn, working out, etc before Lexapro. It’s like I completely lost interest in all of these things, and everything else. Interests have maybe somewhat come back to me, but very minimally. I’ve noticed that I feel better overall the more I get out of my comfort zone and do things though.
I feel like I can now finally sort this out, and better myself. It seems that the my overall trend is positive, it feels like one major component gets a boost every few months or so. Also seems that I’ve healed faster in without dealing with the stress of dysfunctional relationship. For anyone that’s read to here, thank you for listening to my story. I plan on making baseline comparisons of every aspect as well as creating a log to note my improvements/regressions of my conditions, along with experimentation.
-Emotional apathy-
This was both a pro and a con in the beginning, as before I went on Escitalopram I had very bad social anxiety (and have had my entire life). My anxiety was so bad that I decided to go to a smaller school for my Sophmore year of high school, where I was very dedicated to better myself (putting myself out of my comfort zone, working out, eat better etc.). I saw antidepressants as just another "step" in the process of getting better, so I started looking for that "magic pill" to help me along. I was convinced that I needed treatment. As a result of all these things my anxiety completely went away, and it freed me up a bit to do things I wanted to do in my pre-pssd state. For my Junior year I returned to my old high school, and it was completely different. I made more friends then than even before in my life, I met a great girl had I had a meaningful relationship with a girl for a year and a half. While this was all great, the opposite side of the coin was the emotional apathy, which I can best describe as having all emotions "watered down" to an extent and some absent (libido). Although I loved my girlfriend, I knew that the emotional attachment I had to her wasn’t everything it could’ve been. I can’t stress enough how helpful it is to have someone close to you that you can tell everything to: whether it be a significant other, parent, friend, sibling, something. Despite the overall lack of emotions I experienced, the spring of 2017-fall of 2017 was easily the most meaningful time in my life, as I reconnected with old friends, met my girlfriend, etc etc. Whenever I feel depressed about pssd, I remind myself that the best time of my life was also when I was going through the thick of pssd.
-Loss of libido-
Ever since quitting Lexapro I’ve felt almost 0 sex drive, with some improvements as of late. In the beginning porn wouldn’t get me hard at all, It took forever to even get a semi full dick enough to whack it. Now I’ll get 70% boners when looking at porn, and 100% boners with porn+my hand or even just my hand. I noticed that I did have serious sensitivity issues, for example I didn’t cum or feel any pleasure with my first blowjob (approx 7 months after getting pssd). When me and my girlfriend used to fuck I would sometimes go soft, and I was never 100% hard. She was really understanding though. I regained full boners during sex last fall.
-Brain Fog-
I’ve noticed this more in the past year, but I’ve been generally forgetful since I’ve been off of Lexapro. However, this could be due to numerous factors. I’m sure there’s a lot of things to do to relieve or even cure it, as when I exercise I temporarily feel better, I’ve just been a lazy fuck.
-Loss of activities/motivation-
I used to be addicted to gambling, video games, porn, working out, etc before Lexapro. It’s like I completely lost interest in all of these things, and everything else. Interests have maybe somewhat come back to me, but very minimally. I’ve noticed that I feel better overall the more I get out of my comfort zone and do things though.
I feel like I can now finally sort this out, and better myself. It seems that the my overall trend is positive, it feels like one major component gets a boost every few months or so. Also seems that I’ve healed faster in without dealing with the stress of dysfunctional relationship. For anyone that’s read to here, thank you for listening to my story. I plan on making baseline comparisons of every aspect as well as creating a log to note my improvements/regressions of my conditions, along with experimentation.