It’s been almost two and a half years since I first got off psych meds, and it’s now two years since a reinstatement injury. This feels like a good time to pause and look back at what happened, and where I am now.
I offer support groups and 1:1 coaching for those going through withdrawal. If you’d like someone to walk with you through this season, I would love to meet with you. My withdrawal was brutal. I know how dark it can get. I also know how real healing is. I’m now in a place of joy, health, and full life, and I want to support you on your way there.
👉 Go here to see my calendar and register
My medication history
I was on meds for 10 years. I started after postpartum depression. It was a rough adjustment, and I was told medication would help.
After I stabilized and some time passed, I tried to come off. I got withdrawal symptoms, but I didn’t know that’s what they were. When I told my doctor what I was experiencing, I was told it was the return of my “original illness,” and that I would probably need meds for life.
A lot of people have heard those same stock phrases, especially when withdrawal isn’t recognized. Then comes the whole “family history” thread, so you start thinking, “Maybe this is genetic, maybe this is just me.” I don’t subscribe to that belief system now, but at the time it pulled me in.
After that, I was back on meds and then poly-drugged for about eight years. Over time I cycled through different meds, often in that familiar pattern, feeling low, reporting it, then getting the suggestion to switch or add something. I think I tried around six different meds total. For eight years I was on two, an SNRI and an SSRI, and by the end I was on a very high, max-level dose of the SSRI.
At one point, I had a low that lasted about a year while I was still on meds. I couldn’t make sense of it. I kept thinking, “I’m already medicated, I don’t want to keep adding more.” Looking back, I think that stretch may have been withdrawal from a switch. It felt like anhedonia, depression, no drive. It was a bad year.
Eventually, my therapist suggested increasing the med. I did, and I evened out. But what I really wanted was to not be med-dependent.
Coming off, then crashing hard
When I learned about withdrawal and stabilization, and started seeing the “chemical imbalance” story for what it is, it resonated. I wanted off.
I also knew my doctor wouldn’t support it, so I tapered on my own. It was a wreck. I did terrible tapers, even cold-turkeyed one because of bad info. I skipped days because of half-life. There was no slow, steady taper. No consistency.
I ended up in a really rough place. For about five months I felt dark and dreary, and I expected some of that. I’d just come off an antidepressant, so I told myself my body had to figure it out.
But it kept getting worse. It started turning physical. I wasn’t plugged into any withdrawal community then, so I didn’t understand what was happening. I started losing weight fast. I broke out. I got cold shivers across my whole body. I felt doomed and strange. I started thinking, “Maybe I really do need meds. My family needs me. I can’t lose it.”
I booked with my doctor and told her I’d gone off, I wanted to be med-free, but it wasn’t going well. She put me on 20 mg/day of fluoxetine.
What happened next was the most horrific, tormenting terror and agony of body, mind, and soul I’ve ever experienced. It felt like hell. I had no idea what was going on. I’d been told, “You might feel worse at first,” but this wasn’t “worse at first.” This was injury.
I couldn’t function. I was in bed.
The day everything finally made sense
That same day, a friend from the past reached out to check in. It felt miraculous. She had been through med withdrawal. She got on the phone and explained withdrawal, stabilizing, timelines, her story, what was going on in my body.
It was a revelation. That was the wake-up call. After that, I never took another pill. I didn’t use the rest of the prescription at all.
The symptoms I had
Here’s what it looked like for me:
Crying spells, so much crying. Worsened moods, gloom and doom. Cycling distress, fatigue, trouble concentrating. My thoughts stopped feeling linear, they became cyclical and tormenting.
I lost my appetite in a weird way. I couldn’t taste food for a while. Terrible nausea. Panic and terror. Fear of going places, fear of going outside. Trembling. Feeling doomed, condemned. Horrific looping thoughts about my faults, my past, how doomed I was.
I was irritable and restless. Insomnia at times. Confusion, slow processing speed. Derealization and depersonalization. Anhedonia, like I couldn’t enjoy anything. I almost felt like a ghost, like a tormented ghost.
Chemical cortisol surges, terror and horror, like shock in the morning. Flu-like aches, sweats, chills, so cold. Diarrhea. Weight loss. Hair loss. Feeling of bugs crawling on my skin. Unsteady, waterlogged feeling. Flashbacks, tormenting. Depressive thoughts, fearful thoughts. Inability to connect with people normally. In bed for a time.
That was day in and day out, with tiny brief windows where it was slightly less.
What helped me survive
What helped me survive were the hope stories, the proof that it doesn’t stay that intense forever, that there is another side, that the brain can mend.
In withdrawal your mind tells you that you can’t make it, then it drags up every worst “evidence” it can find. My husband called it my mind going to the garbage, all those tormenting thoughts that say I can’t heal, it won’t work out, I’ll never recover.
Those thoughts aren’t true.
The brain and body are built for resilience. The body keeps moving toward homeostasis. That’s why symptoms happen, even the mental ones. The meds interrupted things for a long time, then the body has to do the work of finding balance again.
I was carried by love and steady support, the safe people who had the capacity to walk with me through it. I also had to avoid caffeine and sugar for a time. I learned better sleep habits. I tried to focus on anything good I could find, even tiny gratitudes. Hot showers helped sometimes. Distraction helped sometimes. Over time, my list of “things I can do” grew.
Time was the hardest part. It felt slow, like a long grind.
A note about time and progress
For me, the total healing time was about two years. But there were major changes across that second year.
The intensity at the start is not the intensity at the end. The pattern is strange and can feel unfair. You can feel 20% like yourself, but be 80% through your timeline. The amount of agony you feel is not a clean measure of how close you are to healing.
Think of it like a certain number of days you have to get through. When those days are done, it’s in the past.
Life now
One thing I was tormented by was the feeling that I’d ruined my life and moved to the wrong place. I looped on it, hard. It felt like I was being cosmically punished.
Now I live near a beautiful lake. There are swans. I still can’t believe it sometimes.
Withdrawal can lock you out of joy, beauty, and clear thought. It also blocks your ability to imagine good outcomes. You can’t see how things could resolve.
But life on the other side has gifts again. It has wonder again. It has connectedness again.
I ran out of time while recording this update; I'll post a coda next week!