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OfflineMilleresque
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Registered: 04/10/22
Posts: 326
Last seen: 2 days, 57 minutes
Suggestions for a friend coming off an SSRI * 1
    #28498429 - 10/10/23 03:15 AM (3 months, 17 days ago)

It’s been a tough afternoon, shroomery. 

Before I go any further yes, I understand you’re not doctors or psychologists and we’re for the most part strangers, and I’m making a thread about another stranger who doesn’t post here. But I need to reach out and ask for anything that might help a dear friend who is struggling badly with anxiety and an entirely ruptured sleep pattern, two months after deciding to quit her daily dose of lexapro, which insofar as I know was prescribed to combat said anxiety. She was taking something else (not a benzodiazepine) to sleep at night—a recent addition after her partner of 14 years came home and pushed her around, admitted to being with someone else and left her with two girls ten and five, six months ago. 18 months ago or so she and her girls and then partner lost everything they owned in a flood.
    Her decision to come off the lexapro (I do believe she’s been on and off it for almost a decade) has the support of her psychologist whom she sees weekly.  I support that decision entirely, but it is very hard sitting with her, hearing her roar at her children because she gets four hours sleep a night. She occasionally wakes up at 3am and vomits she’s so anxious.  It was five minutes after she “told” the girls to just go somewhere and play and then she then she breaks down weeping. Just exhausted. Just over her whole lot. I understand that feeling.

She’s a very tough person. Her upbringing was peppered with misfortunes  I’ve never known. I also understand trauma, old and new, I know the behaviours it can steer people toward, how they can behave, devolve, lash out and withdraw. I know it because it’s my self, just down different avenues. I am not a parent. Usually I’m good with giving advice and genuinely saying something that might help out. But I found myself today just bumbling around empathetic tropes. I felt like a dickhead.


What I’m asking…is for any advice/helpful pointers/things she can try taking safely/ doing during this period of, well, readjustment vis a vis the medication.  Of course there’s the stuff we all know with exercise and diet and finding “you time”. Admittedly her diet isn’t fabulous and I’m not one for pushing too hard here given the aforementioned.

Anyone who’s gone through this—what helped the most? Whether it was simple things, or a herbal supplement, or…whatever.

This might be a trite or nebulous thread, I’m only sitting on my arse tonight concerned. I’d like to help but I just didn’t know how today. Any response/pointers are appreciated


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InvisibleCreonAntigone
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Registered: 05/30/21
Posts: 2,875
Re: Suggestions for a friend coming off an SSRI [Re: Milleresque]
    #28503095 - 10/13/23 10:17 AM (3 months, 14 days ago)

Edit: I read in the thread that she was off it for two months already. In that case my advice about tapering doesn't apply - she should stay off it at this point. But I will leave my post as it was for people just starting to get off anti-depressants.

Is she tapering? How long has she been at it?

If she's been off for less than a week, you may advise her to taper the drug rather than go off cold-turkey. It can be really bad for some people to go cold-turkey from these drugs - brain zaps, migraines, worsened depression and anxiety symptoms. Sometimes there are symptoms on the withdrawal that weren't there at the start, known as 'discontinuation' or withdrawal effects. Going very slowly can be the ticket - it can help you come off over the course of weeks without any big changes along the way.

This website can be helpful for reading stories about 'withdrawal syndromes' from anti-depressants.
https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/

They actually recommend a really slow starting taper of 10% per month.

Now that may be a bit cautious, but let's say 10% per week, done in 10 weeks or sooner if she speeds it up at the end. Then she can get off the drug without actually experiencing nearly any of this up and down. Slow and steady wins the race I say.


Edited by CreonAntigone (10/13/23 12:02 PM)


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InvisibleThe Blind Ass
Bodhi
I'm a teapot User Gallery


Registered: 08/16/16
Posts: 26,657
Loc: The Primordial Mind
Re: Suggestions for a friend coming off an SSRI [Re: Milleresque]
    #28503282 - 10/13/23 01:02 PM (3 months, 14 days ago)

Tapering smoothly and having 2 weeks off at the end of said taper to do whatever i needed to do to cope just in case it ended up being awful, that's what I allowed myself.  Also, I believe I weaned myself off over relatively slowly over a period of 4 or so months after having been taking an SSRI A.D. for almost 1.5 years, or thereabouts.

The withdrawal syndrome sucks, any withdrawal of any kind always does to varying degrees - but, in part, that's the body recalibrating to regain homeostasis without the added chemical it had become dependent upon.  Albeit, it doesn't come close to even holding a candle to that of opiate/opioid or benzodiazepine/alcohol withdrawal, or even that of tobacco/nicotine's w/d, etc.  So, that's a blessing in some ways (but only for those who've been through one or more of those, i suppose...)

I might be somewhat lucky in that I immediately could feel joy again, rather than the flattened affect to my mood caused by taking the SSRI I had been prescribed, even while the withdrawals were happening, although it took about a week in before I did.

Sure, overall it sucked, no one wants to willingly go through such a thing - a bit freaky with the brain zaps and heightened anxiety and random weird mood changes & sleep disruptions for a while (the worst was over in a month, and then entirely unnoticeable after about 2 months altogether) - but -  just finally ridding myself of what was a essentially a useless medication for myself, personally, helped my confidence naturally return.  That was important to me, idk about your friend though, she may feel/believe and or see things differently.

Anywho, in terms of what helped?  Exercise, running especially helps me to feel better pretty quickly, too.  Reading a good novel that engages the imagination until fully captivated also helps a lot, that and good films which can evoke various emotions - lastly - having a routine eating, sleeping, shitting, work, and exercise cycle helped very much, tripley so after reintroducing mushrooms (psychedelic and otherwise) back into my diet. 

If need be there are support groups,  private therapy/counseling which can seem to help some to get through the rough parts of it until their body has reacclimated to life once again without the drug.  If more help is needed, seeing a compassionate, understanding, and available physician who can prescribe other medications in the short term just for during the worst of any withdrawals can also be a significant help for some people.  I received 2 weeks of a low dose of gabapentin and I also had some delta8 gummy edibles to help me through the first 2 weeks of gnarliness & headtrip of it.  Thankfully, things naturally tend to rebalance. 

Nature's cool like that, knowing the body is included in that category helps immensely - knowing the change is inevitable so long as one doesn't rebegin the process by returning to taking whatever class of chemical they're currently dependent upon and withdrawing from.  :thumbup:


--------------------
Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps


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