What I learnt through SSRIs

[Agrande]

I've been on SSRIs, more specifically Prozac, for a whole year and it was an interesting experience. I've been clean for about 6-7 months and I quit cold turkey and I did not experience any withdrawals. A quick rundown of the effects were memory loss, depersonalization, derealization, emotional blunting and blank mindedness. The only way I could describe Prozac is that it acts like an anaesthesia for your emotions and your thinking. Despite being reluctant to take SSRIs, in the end it was my taste test to awakening. Everything started to look brighter, life seemed to have hope again but most importantly, I realized just how damn selfish I was my whole life. I acted like a narcissist. I was so damn self centred and in the end it was my own poison that ruined me. I could never show love to anyone. I was always so distant and I always felt like an outcast. Prozac gave me the inner stability to start showing people I care about them and I love them and Prozac eliminated any trace of social phobia or social anxieties. I finally felt I could be more expressive instead of a close offed introvert that can't be charismatic. I always hated myself for that.

I had deep awakenings I think. I kind of know why because SSRIs act on serotonin much like some psychedelics such as LSD and DMT and oddly enough, I experienced hallucinatory visuals while on Prozac. Because of the depersonalization and derealization, it was like an epiphany that nothing is real. Everything seemed like a toy, cartoon world to me. I realized that I never existed. My personality and "me" was just a strange amalgamation of memory, other people's thoughts and other people's personalities. A literal echo chamber of everything that I found myself near. I never knew who I was until awakening. I became pure spontaneity and unpredictability. In the long term, Prozac cleared up my mind of nonsense limiting beliefs, negative thoughts and constant rumination but at the cost of emotional blunting and brain fog. These side effects are definitely possible to recover from though with experimentation with other drugs more specifically dopaminergic drugs. With the influx of serotonin, dopamine definitely got supressed which lead to less motivation, feeling little to no pleasure and less appetite I guess. Appetite for both food and sex.

For a while, people looked very strange and as I walked, the motion of objects becoming bigger and smaller also looked strange and otherworldly. It was like some sort of shift in perception. I also wasn't reactive to physical pain like I did before. It didn't affect me as much. Words looked strange, people looked strange, everything looked strange. It was like observing everything from some sort of detached, meta perspective.

I never craved anything because I was very numb. Being numb was pretty freeing though. Nothing affected me like how it usually would but at the same time this kind of blocked my empathy. My breathing and heart rate naturally got slower and was not affected by external things that much. Words began to look strange. Things that elicited an emotional reaction did not affect me anymore. This made me see things for what they are without the tinge of emotions, sentimentality and thoughts associated with certain things. It was almost as if I was fearless. It was like I was another being (perhaps the higher self) observing everything.

Since taking Prozac, I noticed forehead pulsations between my eyebrows too. Whenever my brow started pulsating, repeating numbers would eerily appear near me. Seen on websites, youtube, every website, in real life, on license plates. I can not escape it. 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777, 888, 999, 123, 369, xx:xx, xy:xy, xx:yy (these are for times. replace the x and y with numbers 1-9 and I would've seen it). I don't want to see it but it's there. Since then, I've noticed a lot of strange synchronicities too. It's almost as if I'm in sync with a higher power than myself or a higher intelligence because insights would spontaneously pop into my mind too. 

It was like I found the constants in the sea of variables finally.

I remember quite vividly that in the first 3 weeks of taking Prozac, I was laughing manically but I didn't know what was so funny! Certainly a strange effect. It's like I was laughing because I was finally free from the prison of self.

That's all for now.

Edited April 23 by Agrande
more detail

[Carl-Richard]

Can I ask why you started taking it and why you stopped taking it?

[Agrande]

17 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Can I ask why you started taking it and why you stopped taking it?

I started taking it because it was prescribed by my psychiatrist after I was at the brink of suicide at a cliff. I got sent to a psych ward. In hindsight, I think I could have overcome my depression without medication because I forgot how strong thoughts and emotions feel like. I feel like I don't exist basically. But maybe that's a good thing because I see the truth in it. I stopped taking it because it made me too lethargic and it made my body feel weak and after quitting cold turkey, that problem was resolved. I had the most psychedelic visuals that engulfed my field of view after I woke up from dreams during the first 3 days quitting. And dreams got pretty vivid.

I know because SSRIs act on serotonin, it also affects the pineal gland. Maybe that played a role in my first awakening somehow. Since taking and after quitting, things just look brighter and almost otherworldly now. A shift in perception most likely happened somehow. Despite the physical side effects of lethargy and weak body gone, I still feel the effects of emotional anaesthesia, poor memory and brain fog here and there but it is certainly getting better when compared to how it was like in the first days of quitting.

Edited April 23 by Agrande

[Carl-Richard]

@Agrande

I see. I'm happy that it ended well for you.

It's not clear how SSRIs work to alleviate depression, but one hypothesis is that it causes neurogenesis in the hippocampus. The hippocampus can get damaged by excess cortisol (which is a factor in depression), and the hippocampus is involved in inhibiting the HPA axis, which effectively decreases the production of cortisol. It could be that taking SSRIs for a year restored some of your damaged hippocampus and thus dampened the chronic stress response associated with your depression.

Edited April 24 by Carl-Richard

[puporing]

I've taken some SSRI's, it helped in some ways but I was too sensitive to them so the negative effects always caught on pretty quick.. It depends on the drug too I feel like some of them open up a portal to a demonic place in the collective mind, like I would have very horrible nightmares that are very much what you might see from a horror movie and very disturbing, and not stuff I would normally think about. 

Long story short, I only took them briefly when it "helped" until they didn't and caused problems. Like you say they could be similar to some psychedelics. 

Edited April 24 by puporing

[Schizophonia]

3 hours ago, puporing said:

I've taken some SSRI's, it helped in some ways but I was too sensitive to them so the negative effects always caught on pretty quick.. It depends on the drug too I feel like some of them open up a portal to a demonic place in the collective mind, like I would have very horrible nightmares that are very much what you might see from a horror movie and very disturbing, and not stuff I would normally think about. 

Long story short, I only took them briefly when it "helped" until they didn't and caused problems. Like you say they could be similar to some psychedelics. 

I had the same thing with Remeron.

Which SSRI was it ? 

Edited April 24 by Schizophonia

[Agrande]

22 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

@Agrande

I see. I'm happy that it ended up well for you.

It's not clear how SSRIs work to alleviate depression, but one hypothesis is that it causes neurogenesis in the hippocampus. The hippocampus can get damaged by excess cortisol (which is a factor in depression), and the hippocampus is involved in inhibiting the HPA axis, effectively decreasing the production of cortisol. It could be that taking SSRIs for a year restored some of your damaged hippocampus and thus decreased the chronic stress response associated with your depression.

Thank you

[Schizophonia]

Prozac actually decreases overall serotonin levels after a few weeks and increases allogregnanolone, which is the most potent GABAergic neurosteroid.

The most effective antidepressants and anti-stress (trycyclic) drugs are powerful 5ht2a and 5ht2c antagonists.

[puporing]

20 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

I had the same thing with Remeron.

Which SSRI was it ? 

Escitalopram gave me those nightmares. 

There's plenty of documentation for this for SSRI's.

Edited April 25 by puporing

[Schizophonia]

5 hours ago, puporing said:

Escitalopram gave me those nightmares. 

There's plenty of documentation for this for SSRI's.

I don't remember if it was the intake or the withdrawal that triggered it, but when I was playing with mirtazapine and benzodiazepines, I had horrible nightmares like someone was about to kill me.
It was almost psychedelic and I could feel "fear of death".
I also had the nightmare of a humanoid monster devouring the flesh of a freshly killed animal with a monstrous mouth at the level of its abdomen, this brought me back to my very fragile human condition.

Do you relate?

[puporing]

11 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

I don't remember if it was the intake or the withdrawal that triggered it, but when I was playing with mirtazapine and benzodiazepines, I had horrible nightmares like someone was about to kill me.
It was almost psychedelic and I could feel "fear of death".
I also had the nightmare of a humanoid monster devouring the flesh of a freshly killed animal with a monstrous mouth at the level of its abdomen, this brought me back to my very fragile human condition.

Do you relate?

Er yeah similar kind of things, "murdery" and violent kinds of scenarios which I won't go into details. It happened more than once so it wasn't like some coincidence. Those can be kind of traumatizing too I had to process it a bunch after..

[Schizophonia]

21 hours ago, puporing said:

Er yeah similar kind of things, "murdery" and violent kinds of scenarios which I won't go into details. It happened more than once so it wasn't like some coincidence. Those can be kind of traumatizing too I had to process it a bunch after..

All the more reason not to touch this SSRI crap.

[puporing]

1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

All the more reason not to touch this SSRI crap.

Mostly not that helpful but I had some brief periods where I almost couldn't function during my awakening journey, and it helped for those blips so I only recommend it for short term use I guess.

[Philipp]

@Schizophonia what are some ordinary name for those "good" antidepressants? Do psychiatrist prescribe them?

[Schizophonia]

4 hours ago, Philipp said:

@Schizophonia what are some ordinary name for those "good" antidepressants? Do psychiatrist prescribe them?

Tricyclics (amitriptyline, mirtazapine, mianserin, etc.) are generally effective and have few serious side effects. The only problems are sedation and possible weight gain.

MAOI can also be very effective, but there are bad interactions (you cannot eat foods rich in tyramines for example).

There are also more atypical treatments (ketamine cures, certain atypical neuroleptics like quetiapine, high doses of testosterone, etc.)