I think it’s been about two months since I took my last tiny sliver of Paxil, and I think it may be over soon.

I don’t have any of the electric-shock sensations shooting through my head and my eyes anymore. What I’m experiencing now is still somewhat severe, but it’s gradually becoming less severe, and I think it may be the last of the withdrawal effects.

Mostly all I have now is an extreme sensitivity to light and sound, which is similar to a hangover sensitivity, except it’s there all the time, not just in the morning. (Note: These are still debilitating withdrawal effects, but I think they’re the last of them.)

The other thing I have, probably related to the painful sensitivity to light, is bad headaches, like the kind of headaches that come from caffeine withdrawal; all the Tylenol in the world won’t make them go away. It’s an ache that reaches every part of my body, not just my head (my bones are aching). It’s a constant drag on my energy — but a walk in the park next to the electrical sensations. Sometimes the headaches get so bad that I become a little dizzy or disoriented, but that doesn’t happen often.

From everything I know about withdrawal (Paxil withdrawal, Valium withdrawal, heroin withdrawal, etc.), this is probably the end of the line — mainly because I’ve experienced every other withdrawal symptom anyone could have. There’s just nothing left to go through.

I think this may be progress. If things continue to go the way they are, except for the psychological scars, which are significant, I should be able to return to the land of living within a few weeks. I hope.

If the promised land really is in sight, if that’s really what I’m looking at right now, I probably won’t be around for awhile once I get back on my feet, mainly because I just want to live and make up for all the months that were stolen from me while I was going through withdrawal (which began last July; that’s how much of my life this junk has taken from me).

If I finally am getting better, one thing I will do before I take on the world again is set up a website which will contain all the significant post I have made to paxilprogress.org, and all the informative responses that I received from them. Looking back over these messages, I find that they capture the history of this experience better than any story I have the energy to write. I have detailed records of my experience from the first day of withdrawal up to the present day, and I think it may provide an excellent picture of what the experience is really like. Most people probably won’t have as hard of a time as I have had, but that’s what makes it valuable. It’s an accurate history of just about everything that could happen to someone.

This experience has completely consumed six months of my life. The end is in sight.

First response:

As I read your post, I started to cry. I’ve been off Paxil almost two weeks now after starting the long withdrawal process this past September, and what a ride it has been. I think I’ve been so busy with Christmas/New Year’s holidays that it hasn’t sunk in that I’m off the Paxil. I still have a half of a bottle of liquid Paxil in the medicine cabinet. I threw away any pills I had left a while ago. Maybe I’ll have some sort of ceremony in the bathroom while flushing the last of the Paxil down the toilet, farewell, good riddens.

Paxil has no hold on me now and it’s nice, but it’s sad to have had to go through all of that. Maybe I need to grieve for the “lost time” in my life due to this medicine, and then get on with life and vow to never get myself in such a mess again.

Good luck. I’m so glad the worst is over for you too.

Postscript – February 27th, 2001: In this post, I said: “If the promised land really is in sight, if that’s really what I’m looking at right now, I probably won’t be around for awhile once I get back on my feet, mainly because I just want to live and make up for all the months that were stolen from me while I was going through withdrawal…” A month and a half later: Yes, it was the promised land, but getting right back on the horse again wasn’t possible. I wasn’t, and still am not, able to return to the quality of life I had before Paxil. After seven months of not being able to do anything with my life, I want to jump back into things full force — I want to make up for lost time — and I can’t. (Take note: I hate this.) It’s like having a Ferrari sitting in the garage for the past seven months; the garage door is open now, but I’m not allowed taking it out on the highway. I find myself now fighting against a depression, because as much as I want to take the car out on the highway, I know I’d probably lose control and crash it into a telephone pole the second I got out there. Learning how to take it slow — man, this is something I need lessons in, especially at a time like this. I want to get right back into things. And I can’t. This is a huge lesson for me: As much as I want to get on with my life, I can’t rush it. (Deep sigh.)

Occasionally everything falls into place. Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day. Whoever was the first to say that has earned my admiration. The poem falls into the right hands at the right moment, and it works perfectly.

I just read a poem by a friend of mine who is a well-known writer. On another day this poem would have meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t have felt it — that is, it wouldn’t have been as real to me as it is right now.

It’s a poem about him and his son walking through a graveyard where some famous writers are buried. His son has “passed beyond boredom into resignation” and would rather be doing anything else. The groundskeeper, who acts as their informal guide and happens to be French and doesn’t speak a word of English — he “would as soon being doing this as something else.” The son in the poem speaks fluent French and acts as the translator. Listening to his son and the guard speaking, recognizing a word here and there but unable to grasp anything that’s being said, “It’s as if he and the guard are old friends now, and I’m there to be humoured.”

Like I said. Perfect. Perfect because I know the feeling.

Or maybe you had to be there.

The update of how I’m doing is kind of melodramatic. It’s not as good as I’d like it to be, or as good as I thought it first was, but here it is.

Anyone who has read my previous postings knows that I’ve been off Paxil for over a month now, but many of the withdrawal effects were still lingering, namely the electric-shock sensations that seemed aggravated by fast eye movements, bright lights — all that crap. I was getting really, really sick it. Really close to the end of my rope.

Then about 10 or 11 days ago I decided to do one those cleansing fasts where one doesn’t eat anything for two or three days, only water and fruit juices. None of my usual vitamin supplements, nothing; just water and pure fruit juices.

Well… it worked. Like many of the things we do to make ourselves better, it wasn’t much fun while it was happening, but within a day or two after I finished the fast (which lasted about 2 and a half days), I began to feel better. But more importantly…

I woke up last Saturday (6 days ago), and the electrical sensations were gone. There’s no other way to describe it except to say they were gone. I immediately returned to my fully alive, animated self, ready to jump up and down and hit a home run. I could feel it in my eyes that it was gone. I still had a painful sensitivity to bright light, and sudden loud noises still made me jump about ten feet in the air, but the electrical sensations behind my eyes, in my head, everywhere, were gone.

This felt like the greatest relief of my life. I was in the bathroom taking my morning shower, and about halfway through it I realized that my eyes were okay, that my head was okay, that everything was clear. I don’t know how long I stood there not washing, just standing there crying under the shower. I couldn’t believe it.

I got dressed and went on with my day and didn’t tell anyone, because it was still a bit unbelievable to me, and I was half expecting it not to last. But it did last — for two whole days. And they were the best two days I’ve been able to live in the past six months.

Then on the third day I started getting headaches, extreme body aches; every time I stepped on the ground too hard, I felt like I was about to get a migraine. Physically, my head and my body were just one big ache.

Most of that has faded, although today I’m still feeling stiff, and my eyes are feeling that way too. I wouldn’t say the electrical sensations have come back, but it kinda feels like they could. It kind of hurts to move my eyes if I move them too far to the left or the right. It’s as if the muscles that control my eyes are sore and stiff. It’s hard to explain.

Perhaps it’s a residue of the brain zaps I had at varying degrees for the past three or four months. I don’t know. I’m sick of theorizing. Maybe the worst is over, maybe it’s coming back — I don’t know. But I’ve been feeling pretty lousy these last few days. Last Saturday and Sunday were amazing, and now I don’t know how I’m doing. This may be progress, or it might just be more of the same. I can’t tell anymore.

I think I’m going to try another fruit juice fast right after Xmas. I’ll just keep doing what I can.

But anyhow, that was my news. I had two solid days of pure consciousness, nothing getting in the way of my nature; relaxed, flowing thoughts and feelings. Everything running smoothly. Not a sign of withdrawal.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we’ll see.

For those two days, it felt like the greatest thing in the world.

Scott said:

“I was driving into work through the most beautiful countryside this morning and remembering something someone said about how the colours are so much more vibrant when you are off the Paxil, and I was thinking about the fact that nothing has really touched me since I went on the Paxil, and that I don’t feel like I’ve really experienced things deeply — colours or smells or joy or excitement.”

This is something I can relate to. It’s something I’ve noticed even more since I began weaning myself off the Paxil, which completely messed with my normal capacity to appreciate the world around me. Over the years I’ve developed an appreciation and a connection to simple things, uncomplicated things. Things which are diminished by words: sunshine, gut-driven laughter, a compassionate touch, a genuine smile, a cool breeze that can lift you out of the weight of your days, poetry. All that good stuff.

I can remember the last time I had a moment like this. It was somewhere between the hell of my cold turkey withdrawal and the beginning of my weaning off the Paxil. I was on shaky ground, but I remember taking a walk behind our house in the woods with my father’s dog. I was walking past a crab apple tree in our backyard just at the edge of the woods when I heard a thump. It didn’t make me jump ten feet in the air like it would later on in the withdrawal.

I turned slowly and looked around, trying to figure out what had made the sound. I was standing there looking at this crab apple tree, a crab apple tree that was weighed down with these huge red and yellow apples. Then I knew it: One of those big apples had fallen out of the tree and thumped against the ground. That was the sound. And just as I was thinking that, another apple fell free, and I smiled.

It was one of those moments that wouldn’t have happened had I been three footsteps further down the path when the first apple fell. The whole thing probably took less than a minute to be over and done with, but I can still remember the joy of being able to appreciate that moment, the calm and the quiet of it all. Reading this you may not have any idea what I’m talking about it. But it was a moment of deep of appreciation, of being glad to be alive.

That sort of appreciation requires a certain kind of willingness, a certain kind of calm that allows a moment like that to happen in the first place. And since I’ve been living in Paxil Hell, I haven’t lived a single second like that. Believe me, I have wanted to die.

But there is a happy ending to this (I think). But I’ll tell you about that in a day or two. I’m not ready yet.

I just got back from my seeing my doctor. Today is my 82nd day of weaning off the Paxil. I don’t know how long I’ve been down to zero; two or three weeks, I suppose. I’ve been seeing this psychiatrist because I needed someone who supposedly knew what they were doing to supervise my weaning off of the Paxil. So far he’s done a good enough job. But as far as therapy is concerned, my sessions with him have never been a catharsis of healing. Occasionally, though, I manage to have a conversation with him, like I did today, that does provides some insight, or maybe it’s hope. In the midst of all this, hope can go a long way. So anyhoo…

I mentioned to him today how my libido went through the roof a few weeks ago and stayed that way for about two weeks, but how that peak period of vitality has since come and gone. This was around the period in the weaning when I was almost off the Paxil completely. It might have kicked in during the last few days I was on 5mg. That peak period lasted about two weeks after that and now it’s gone.

This is when my doctor mentioned that there seems to be a “window” for people coming off Paxil, a window of time in which the blood level of Paxil is just right and everything clicks. Observing this window of peak effectiveness, doctors have attempted to “freeze” the patient’s medication at whatever the dose is during the window. But… it is a window. Which means it eventually closes regardless of what actions are taken to keep it open. (This reminds me of Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings.) Doctors have yet to find a way to keep the window open.

He told me that patients coming off Paxil often report this “window” of peak effectiveness. During the past 82 days, I think I experienced minor peaks that eventually came together in this full peak a few weeks ago. Things have since levelled off. To be honest with you, I’m feeling kind of dull. Not much interest in sex, etc. (There’s more to it than that, but that’s all I care to say at the moment.) He said eventually, if I don’t experience any major traumas any time soon, I should return to a more realistic state of well being, a middle ground between that peak period and where I am now.

My eyes still often feel like they’re soaking in electrified saline, but as soon as that goes away (I am so sick of it), things should begin to return to normal. I look forward to that middle ground.

Anyhow, I just wanted to inform everyone that there is a window of vitality in the midst of the Paxil withdrawal. Eventually it levels off, but until then, for those of you who haven’t had it yet, it’s something to look forward to.

Response:

I experienced this “window” that you are talking about. It was the strangest thing and happened about three weeks after taking my last 2.5mg dose. I had one whole glorious week of normalcy. I felt better physically and mentally than since I was 15 years old (I’m 39 now). No anxiety, no depression at all! I was normal.

Now that I have seen what it can be like I want it all the more for myself.

Something interesting about this… I visited Dr. Shipko’s PDI site and he said this “window” is pretty common and that he has patients who use SSRIs PRN to try to achieve this state.

I am going to discuss this with my “new” doctor on Thursday during my first appointment with him and get his take on it.

I just wanted to affirm this phenomenon to any other withdrawing people. Also, you guys and gals hang tough.

I woke up this morning around 4:00am with a clarity of mind that I would describe as unusual. I’d fallen asleep in the living room/rec room while watching a TV show I had on tape. I picked myself up and walked to my bedroom. I didn’t go back to sleep right away though; it wasn’t in me.

I lay there wrapped in the blankets thinking. My body didn’t feel wide awake, but my mind was going on a ride. One thing would lead to another, and then another, and I’d say this went on for at least two or three hours.

There were so many thoughts — some to do with my own philosophy of things, arguing my way through it so I could clearly stand behind what I was saying. The thoughts were so clear and strong and well worked out that I doubt they will fade from my consciousness any time soon. I was able to find some peace in all of it. A peace of mind, and of heart and soul, that is hard to come by in the condition I’m in.

I’m down to about 2.5mg of Paxil a day, with at least 0.5mg of Xanax to take the edge off. I don’t know how I’m going to feel once I’m completely off the stuff.

Today is Tuesday. By this weekend I’m hoping to be off it completely. That won’t mean the end of the withdrawal. But that’ll be it for the pills.

I’m feeling better today. I was going to say much better, but that’s probably pushing it. I got up at 7:30 this morning to help a friend move some things into a new office. I haven’t been sleeping lately, so I was expecting to be tired, grumpy and out of sorts when I got up, and I was. Never too hungry that early in the morning, I had a slice of toast with honey, my usual handful of vitamin supplements, a bottle of water and off I went — hit the road in the pickup truck (someone else driving).

I immediately got dizzy and off balance lifting things and walking up and down the stairs. I wasn’t long popping my first Xanax (electrical sensations were beginning to stir behind my eyes). It took a couple hours to do the work, then I had soup and a bun from doughnut shop. By the time I got home about an hour or so later, I felt good. Not nearly as lousy as I’ve been feeling for the past few weeks, on-and-off suicidal and all that.

This wanting to live stuff is tricky business.

Today’s my 32nd day of weaning. Still levelled off at 10mg.

Two days ago I was feeling like a zombie. But since then, things have been different. The next day, just before I went to bed, I began to feel better. And all day today I’ve been feeling almost normal. (It feels almost abnormal to feel normal again. Weird.)

About an hour ago I began to feel a bit of a headache, and that’s the only possible symptom of withdrawal I’ve experienced today. I haven’t felt dizzy or off balance or any of the usual things. I think the withdrawal is still happening, but it’s amazing how when you’ve experienced the worst of it (i.e., cold turkey withdrawal), the degree of the withdrawal can be measured down to the slightest fraction. Anyone notice that? If cold turkey withdrawal (namely the brain zaps) is a 10 in severity, then what I’ve experienced today is a 1, maybe a 2. It’s what we who have lived through this junk call a Good Day.

In terms of my diet and exercise and the usual things I do to keep the electrical surges at bay, I haven’t done anything different in the past two days. Perhaps it was just my body and brain finally adjusting to the 10mg level.

But I have another theory. It’s more of a curiosity, I suppose. Not much of a theory, but it’s something I’ve noticed a few times since I began the weaning process. Until now I just didn’t think it was plausible. But who knows. This is what happened:

The night before last, I wrote a short letter to a friend of mine. It was a calm, quiet letter, short but well written. And here’s the thing: I felt good about it. Understand now that writing is the one activity I get more fulfillment from than any other. So even a short letter like this after two weeks of not being able to write a coherent word (Swiss Cheese Brain Syndrome I heard someone say) — it felt good. It was a small thing, but it felt like I’d actually done something. The first time in weeks I didn’t feel so useless.

The satisfaction from having done something with a bit of purpose seemed to lift my spirits in a subtle sort of way. I just… felt better.

Then I go to bed and this morning I wake up, and immediately before I even have breakfast or take my Paxil, I feel like writing about something. So I sit down and write about it… until lunch time. Normally, I’d be weak and fatigued from going this long without eating. But I sat there slowly writing without noticing the time or even if I was hungry. I’ve had to take a small dose of Xanax in the morning for the past week because of the withdrawal I’ve been experiencing. But this morning I didn’t have to (today’s the first day since I’ve had the Xanax that I haven’t had to take any).

So I woke up this morning and managed to do something which I found fulfilling. And having done some writing, I felt better again. But what I mean by that is that my energy level went up. My neurotransmitters started transmitting on just the right frequency or whatever you want to call it — but I felt good. The severity of my withdrawal was significantly decreased.

And if something can decrease the severity of Paxil withdrawal, even if it’s a bit of a stretch, it’s worth mentioning. I’ve noticed it before but didn’t say anything because I thought it was just coincidence. But I’m not so sure if it is.

A few weeks ago I had a moment of clarity where I was able to write a few excellent paragraphs, and the satisfaction of that feeling immediately cleared my head of the usual heavy-headedness of the withdrawal. There was also another occasion when I was told good news about someone close to me, and on hearing that good news, within seconds of hearing it, for an hour or so afterwards most of my withdrawal symptoms became a hell of a lot easier to bear. They were still there but with much less intensity.

I read in Oliver Sacks’s book Awakenings of Parkinsonian patients whose symptoms did not progress in severity as long as they had support of their family, something to look forward to, relationships and experiences of some kind that provided them with a sense of personal fulfillment and meaning. Take away these relationships and the feeling of fulfillment these experiences provide, and the patient would immediately fall back into severe Parkinsonian tremors.

I believe that perhaps I have experienced something akin to this. Sacks speaks of the power of a compassionate human touch to bring a patient out of the painful physicality of their disease. There is no medical explanation for it. But it’s as if the disturbances in the brain, at least temporarily, cease to exist, marking a profound change in, I suppose, the quality of consciousness.

There have been times since my initial withdrawal experience in July when I have clearly experienced an immediate and beneficial neurochemical change due to something happening to me psychologically. Medical doctors don’t like hearing this kind of thing (and those jerks at GlaxoSmithKline would probably take this as evidence that it was “all in my head” in the first place), but I can think of several occasions in which I would normally have had to take a Xanax to feel such an alleviation of my Paxil withdrawal. Instead, I experienced something spiritual, if you want to call it that, that made me feel good, and the withdrawal effects became less intense.

In the black cloud of Paxil withdrawal, there are these little rays of sunshine and warmth to be had. You just have to put yourself in the way of them I think. It’s just a theory, but there it is.

P.S., It’s very possible I’m losing track of the days. I say it’s day 32 of my weaning off Paxil, but I might be off plus or minus one day.

Well, today it my 20th day of weaning off Paxil. I am now down to 10mg, alternating with 15mg for three days (today happens to be a 10mg day), and for whatever reason, I’m feeling okay. I occasionally have a mild tension around my head, but no headaches, no feeling like the brain zaps are just around the corner, hardly anything.

Easily for the past three days I’ve been walking around holding on to the walls, grabbing onto something every time I stood up, not making any sudden movements (especially with my eyes), avoiding loud noises, being extremely careful walking up and down stairs, and absolutely not driving the car.

Then around 10 o’clock last night as I’m watching the Olympics, I start getting tired, and as I do my head clears up and I don’t have any symptoms for the rest of the night.

Then when I woke up this morning, my head was still clear — but seeing how everything usually kicks in about an hour after I get up, I wasn’t very hopeful.

But, to my surprise, I’ve been okay all day. I was not expecting to feel like this today. I picked up a Xanax prescription from my doctor today to help “take the edge off” if the withdrawal got any worse — and worse is definitely what I was expecting — but so far so good.

Tomorrow may be completely different, but what I’m experiencing now is definitely a surprise. I’m still moving slowly and cautiously, but I almost feel like I don’t really need to.

Go figure. Who’d expect to have a good day when they get down to 10mg? Not me.