A Mother's Day suffering from Paxil/Seroxat withdrawals:One Mother's Story

A Mother's Day suffering from Paxil/Seroxat withdrawals:One Mother's Story

I found this article at Bob Fiddaman's blog, Seroxat Sufferers-Stand Up and Be Counted, and it is yet another horrible withdrawal from SSRI story, written by a mother on Mother's Day in the U.S., in attempt to withdraw from Paxil, she missed 4 days of Paxil and ended up suicidal, agitated, attempting self-harm and more.

"I went from a normal level headed nurse who graduated at the top of her class to some psycho addicted to drugs just because of some anxiety issues. These would have been long resolved by now. Why wasn't I informed that these drugs were addictive and that I could indulge in self-harm? What if I kill myself and It is out of my control? Why am I acting on impulse? I do not have a history of violence. What is going on here? Certainly someone has to step forward and get the stories out there. This makes it more than ever my top priority. I locked my children out of my room on Mothers' day." -Shelly, her baby was born addicted to Paxil.

Read Shelly's blog, "Paxil Withdrawal Hell: Self-mutilation..my mother's day gift"-- entry and wonder why we do not have appropriate guidelines for SSRI and other psychiatric medication withdrawals.

Why are the patients left to their own questions and why they are suffering when removing psychiatric medications?

Why do we suffer at all?

When these medications such as SSRI's or Benzos, anti convulsants etc. are prescribed to patients we/they expect to feel better, and when the drug has not done it's job, or the patient tries to change drugs or remove them completely, what happens takes the person to places they've often never been before in suffering suicidal thinking,dangerous and erratic behavior, and leaves them full of self-doubt and wondering what the hell they did wrong in life, when in fact it's outcome of a brain that has been chemically altered by medications with often life-long negative health results.

My experience on Prozac 5 years ago was horrific and at that time is when I finally understood the living hell my 13 year old suffered while on and removing Zoloft, an anti depressant, and that was in 2001. It was given to a child, under age 18, she suffered suicidal thoughts and became erratic with dangerous behavior, and the withdrawals were far worse!

For 2 long months she was raging and attempting to jump from my vehicle while driving on the freeway and ended up in a psychiatric hospital to finish removing the drug.Her classmate at age 11 had been given Paxil/Seroxat in 1999 for social anxiety. When they both attended school summer camp, his mother received a telephone call in the middle of the night that her son was standing on the ledge of a cliff threatening to jump from it.

These stories of SSRI use and withdrawal must be heard, and one can only wonder why the drug companies and the FDA and MHRA seem to not want to acknowledge withdrawal symptoms.

The only thing patients have left is to find help from others who have and are experiencing these same life-altering and damaging withdrawal symptoms, and they are horrible. They are physical. My list of symptoms that happened to me removing just .5mg of Xanax in 2 months is unbelievably painful. Headaches, tinnitus, stomach pain, brain zaps, eyes feeling as they were bulging from my head, dizziness, nausea--there are more--but the worst and most offensive one of all was the intrusion of suicidal thinking that scared me to death, and I did what only thing I could do, was to seek advice on the Internet support system via my blog.

It is time these stories are acknowledged, we are not going away, we continue to suffer.

Lives are shortened, careers ended, and families broken as a result of stories like these.

I personally was not able to work while suffering the Prozac medicating of my mind and it took 6 months to be able to work again. While still suffering withdrawal symptoms.

I had never stood on the top of my automobile screaming "I want to kill myself!", in the pouring rain, barefoot at midnight in the middle of my town, until I was on Prozac. I've never had any incident like that since.

Who will finally hear our voices?