puellamagi
09-16-2014, 12:43 PM
I'm here because I'm desperate. I want to know if anyone else went through the same thing and successfully recovered. I'm sorry this is so long, but I feel like nobody understands how bad this is unless I describe it in-depth.
On the 4th of September I was diagnosed with mixed anxiety and depression and sent home from the doctors' office with a prescription for 20mg Citalopram. I was very excited to start taking steps to becoming a more functional person. I've never been against medication, and I wasn't afraid of it. I had read through the possible side effects and I thought I was prepared. I wasn't. My doc had told me to take it before bed because it can make people sleepy. At 4:30 in the morning, I woke up nauseated and had the worst panic attack I've ever had in my life-- literally. The things I'd experienced before and labeled "anxiety attacks" were nothing compared to this. I have never felt so awful and scared. No scary project, no math test, no job interview I've ever had has driven me into the dark, terrifying place that I went that night. I ran into the bathroom and retched. I also screamed, because the retching was so scary. It woke up my mother. I told her I might have to go to the hospital. I was having the whole acute stress response, but wasn't realizing it-- I was interpreting it as a medical emergency, as many do. I was petrified of being left alone. Every time my mother went to the bathroom or excused herself for a smoke I sat there and panicked until she got back. She had to skip work to stay with me.
After determining I wasn't actively dying, I went straight back to the doctor that morning. We switched my dose to 10mg in the morning for the time being, and like an idiot, I went back to taking it. I desperately wish I hadn't. I wish, so much, that I hadn't. I wish I'd been a bad patient and given it up right there. I felt so good for a few days. I improved steadily until the following Wednesday, day 7 of medication. I went to bed feeling great and woke up having another anxiety attack. I thought it was less bad than the first, but it lasted all day and spiked again in the evening... and I stopped eating. For the next 3 days I could barely force myself to eat. It was absolute hell on earth, the worst I've ever felt, bronchitis and stomach flu were preferable. It's still so hard to make myself eat, and normally I LOVE food. I've lost over 10 pounds, I think I'm nearing 15. At first I was determined to stick it out two weeks, like you're supposed to, but by the second night of hunger pangs, panic, writhing, and no sleep, I was done. I decided to stop taking the medication, for the sake of my health. Today's my 4th day off it. The anxiety is in and out, and it's not as "bad," but it's bad enough to be awful and paralyzing, and every time I sleep I wake up anxious. Currently it tends to spike, I freeze up for half an hour to 45 minutes, and then I just start bawling. The crying is the only relief I have.
I just... I don't know what to do. I haven't felt normal for two weeks now, I haven't had a break or a moment of unexamined calm since the 4th, and I feel like I never will again. I know it takes like a week for the meds to completely exit your system, and my screwed-up metabolism probably isn't helping, but I'm so scared. I'm scared it wasn't just the meds. I'm scared I've reached a terrible new baseline where I'll never, ever feel normal again, where I'll always wake up feeling anxious, where I'll always be terrified of waking up and seeing 4:30 AM, where I'll constantly be checking "am I anxious?" and then starting to feel anxious because of it. I'm scared that now I've seen a darker, deeper version of anxiety than I'd ever experienced, that's where I'm stuck. I don't want to try any more meds because I'm so terrified of something like this happening again. If I had hallucinations or, god forbid, actually vomited, I'd probably just self-destruct on the spot. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I'm petrified he's going to say this couldn't have been the meds (because "they only start working after x amount of time") or that he's going to try to get me to take something else.
All that I've done for the past year is try to help myself get better, and it's backfired on me every single time. This backfired worse than anything. I'd give anything to go back to the state I was in before I took this awful drug. Anything. I wish I had never taken it. I just want to go back to my normal, everyday, dysfunctional-but-at-least-FUN anxiety/depression. I was good at dealing with that. I can't handle any more of this mindless, gnawing anxiety. This is literally, without exaggeration, the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
Please, please, please, convince me this isn't the end of my life...
On the 4th of September I was diagnosed with mixed anxiety and depression and sent home from the doctors' office with a prescription for 20mg Citalopram. I was very excited to start taking steps to becoming a more functional person. I've never been against medication, and I wasn't afraid of it. I had read through the possible side effects and I thought I was prepared. I wasn't. My doc had told me to take it before bed because it can make people sleepy. At 4:30 in the morning, I woke up nauseated and had the worst panic attack I've ever had in my life-- literally. The things I'd experienced before and labeled "anxiety attacks" were nothing compared to this. I have never felt so awful and scared. No scary project, no math test, no job interview I've ever had has driven me into the dark, terrifying place that I went that night. I ran into the bathroom and retched. I also screamed, because the retching was so scary. It woke up my mother. I told her I might have to go to the hospital. I was having the whole acute stress response, but wasn't realizing it-- I was interpreting it as a medical emergency, as many do. I was petrified of being left alone. Every time my mother went to the bathroom or excused herself for a smoke I sat there and panicked until she got back. She had to skip work to stay with me.
After determining I wasn't actively dying, I went straight back to the doctor that morning. We switched my dose to 10mg in the morning for the time being, and like an idiot, I went back to taking it. I desperately wish I hadn't. I wish, so much, that I hadn't. I wish I'd been a bad patient and given it up right there. I felt so good for a few days. I improved steadily until the following Wednesday, day 7 of medication. I went to bed feeling great and woke up having another anxiety attack. I thought it was less bad than the first, but it lasted all day and spiked again in the evening... and I stopped eating. For the next 3 days I could barely force myself to eat. It was absolute hell on earth, the worst I've ever felt, bronchitis and stomach flu were preferable. It's still so hard to make myself eat, and normally I LOVE food. I've lost over 10 pounds, I think I'm nearing 15. At first I was determined to stick it out two weeks, like you're supposed to, but by the second night of hunger pangs, panic, writhing, and no sleep, I was done. I decided to stop taking the medication, for the sake of my health. Today's my 4th day off it. The anxiety is in and out, and it's not as "bad," but it's bad enough to be awful and paralyzing, and every time I sleep I wake up anxious. Currently it tends to spike, I freeze up for half an hour to 45 minutes, and then I just start bawling. The crying is the only relief I have.
I just... I don't know what to do. I haven't felt normal for two weeks now, I haven't had a break or a moment of unexamined calm since the 4th, and I feel like I never will again. I know it takes like a week for the meds to completely exit your system, and my screwed-up metabolism probably isn't helping, but I'm so scared. I'm scared it wasn't just the meds. I'm scared I've reached a terrible new baseline where I'll never, ever feel normal again, where I'll always wake up feeling anxious, where I'll always be terrified of waking up and seeing 4:30 AM, where I'll constantly be checking "am I anxious?" and then starting to feel anxious because of it. I'm scared that now I've seen a darker, deeper version of anxiety than I'd ever experienced, that's where I'm stuck. I don't want to try any more meds because I'm so terrified of something like this happening again. If I had hallucinations or, god forbid, actually vomited, I'd probably just self-destruct on the spot. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I'm petrified he's going to say this couldn't have been the meds (because "they only start working after x amount of time") or that he's going to try to get me to take something else.
All that I've done for the past year is try to help myself get better, and it's backfired on me every single time. This backfired worse than anything. I'd give anything to go back to the state I was in before I took this awful drug. Anything. I wish I had never taken it. I just want to go back to my normal, everyday, dysfunctional-but-at-least-FUN anxiety/depression. I was good at dealing with that. I can't handle any more of this mindless, gnawing anxiety. This is literally, without exaggeration, the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
Please, please, please, convince me this isn't the end of my life...