Paxil Free

If you were prescribed Paxil or a similar drug, there is a strong possibility that your doctor didn’t do any research or fact-checking when they told you about the side effects of the drug — and that’s probably why you’re here. Most likely your doctor simply read to you from the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialities, which is the information source most widely used by physicians in Canada. (The U.S. equivalent of the CPS is the PDR or the Physicians’ Desk Reference.) Here’s a quote from a critical analysis of the CPS:

The Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialities (CPS) is the most widely used source of drug information in Canada, and is heavily financed by the pharmaceutical industry. A close examination of its contents comparing a computer-drawn, randomized sample of monographs from its “White Pages” to standard pharmacological reference works demonstrates certain of its characteristics: it uncritically includes many inadequate preparations; it overstates the benefits and understates the adverse qualities of many preparations; and it contains little or no information on relative indications, efficacy, or price. These characteristics serve to promote the marketing goals of the drug manufacturers and severely limit the volume’s usefulness as an objective source of drug information.

And this is where most doctors get their information about the drugs they prescribe. So please be careful when listening to your doctor’s advice. With all due respect to their training, they may not know what they’re talking about, especially in regards to a drug like Paxil whose manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, has never been too forthcoming about the real side effects of the drug.

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September 5th, 2006.

Some of you might actually know who I am from the original version of this blog back when blogs didn’t really exist the way they do today. I first uploaded Paxil Free sometime in 2001; I don’t remember the exact date. I kept the website up for a couple years, then took it down after it became too much to deal with.

I never wanted to become an authority on Paxil withdrawal. My withdrawal experience was thrown in my face, and although I survived it, it made me feel like a different person — except I didn’t ask to feel like a different person.

So it made me angry. I was glad so many people were able to find comfort through reading about my experiences, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I answered all the emails to the best of my ability, but I didn’t feel like a willing participant in any of it — because I was still angry. I was alive and grateful, but I had nothing good to say about the experience. I was not the person to turn to for inspiration and hope. Emailing me to ask how I got through it all, I didn’t have any secrets or words of wisdom to pass on. I was uncomfortable having people turn to me for anything.

I was also embarrassed by much of what I’d written on the site. I subsequently decided to take some time to revise it and get myself out of the loop for a while. So I took the site down, and immediately it felt like a burden had been lifted. I could just leave the whole withdrawal experience in the past and be done with it. I did make some revisions, but I didn’t stick with it. I felt like moving on instead.

So I did.

I moved on to a completely unhappy life. The withdrawal experience disrupted every single aspect of my being. Continuing life from where I’d left off was impossible. Which was not entirely a bad thing, because I’d done plenty of stupid things before my withdrawal that contributed to my misery, and jumping back into some of that crap would have been a bad scene. In fact, it was a bad scene, because like a fool, I actually did try to continue where I left off — and I made a bigger mess of a situation that was already a pretty sad looking scene.

My world didn’t come crashing down…

Scratch that. What am I talking about? My world came crashing down — that’s exactly what happened, and it happened a few times over. I’ll skip the miserable details of those events. But I got through all that, too, and found a good relationship at the end of it all when I wasn’t even looking. No complaints there.

But the thing is, I never did put the withdrawal experience behind me. It’s in my bones. Things inside me got shook up and rearranged and none of the pieces fell back into place. I’m alive and getting on with life, but I live with daily reminders of my Paxil withdrawal, things which I first thought were temporary withdrawal effects but have stayed with me for the long haul. Little things that I notice more than anyone else.

And it still pisses me off.

Little things like being hypersensitive to sharp, sudden sounds. Even the creaking of a floorboard can make my nerves jump; it doesn’t have to be a loud sound. It gives my body a shot of adrenaline, and it takes hours to relax from that kind of jolt to the nervous system. That’s a rare occurrence these days, but it first happened when I was going through Paxil withdrawal.

Another withdrawal effect that’s persisted has to do with my speech patterns and my ability to simply express myself. I developed a stutter at one point during my withdrawal. It didn’t last long, but five years later I still get stuck in a stutter from time to time — and I never used to stutter.

I didn’t have problems expressing myself either. But, again, at one point during my withdrawal, it felt like 50% of my vocabulary simply disappeared from my consciousness. I knew the words were there, but I couldn’t access them when I wanted to. I would get stumped expressing the simplest thoughts because I couldn’t think of the word for what I wanted to say. It happens to everyone from time to time; we can all relate to it. But it happened all the time during my withdrawal, every time I opened my mouth, and it’s still with me today. I feel like a half-illiterate simpleton who can’t express even a slightly sophisticated thought.

This is the one thing that really pisses me off. I want to bomb every Paxil factory on the planet and sue the doctor who didn’t warn me about the withdrawal effects. I want to kick him the balls, and then kick him again. I simply cannot bring myself to put a positive spin on this experience. I wish it had never happened.

When I said before that I didn’t ask to feel like a different person, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. (Note: I don’t really want to blow up every Paxil factory on the planet or kick my doctor in the balls. I’m just angry. Who wouldn’t be?) I’ve heard of people losing huge chunks of their memory as a result of undergoing shock therapy, and I’m afraid the neurochemical withdrawal of Paxil from my system had a similar, though much less pronounced, effect on my cognitive abilities. This is definitely the one thing that makes me want to go out for blood.

But I’m not dead, and I guess that’s something I should be grateful for, because I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have killed themselves while going through the horror of Paxil withdrawal, and probably more who survived it like I did but never found a place to rest during the experience, and they’re probably so mentally exhausted and messed up right now that just being a civilized human being is a struggle for them. These are the people I can relate to. They know the worst kind of loneliness — not having a single soul in your life who can relate to what you’re going through.

It is a horrible and terrifying experience.

This is stuff that scares people off. This is the stuff that makes people look at you like you’re crazy. There’s a good reason I’ve avoided writing about this experience for so long. It’s not a pretty picture. I’m still not sure I have any answers. All I can tell you is that I lived through it, and I’m doing alright now.

If you’re going through Paxil withdrawal, maybe you won’t feel so alone after reading what’s on this site (and there are places like paxilprogress.org where people can relate to what you’re going through).

If you know someone who is in the midst of Paxil withdrawal, maybe this website will bring you closer to understanding what they’re going through.

The original version of this website was read by more people than I can count. I used to get 10 or 20 emails a day from people writing me simply to express how much they appreciated knowing they weren’t crazy, and to say thanks.

I’ve decided to put the website up again because one of those people contacted me recently to say thanks. I realized there is still a need for websites like this. I did some research and discovered the problem of Paxil withdrawal — and the problem of doctors not properly informing their patients about the withdrawal effects — is just as bad today as it was 5 or 6 years ago when I was going through my withdrawal.

How is it doctors still don’t know about the withdrawal effects of Paxil? It’s astounding that they continue to prescribe Paxil without providing adequate warnings about the withdrawal effects.

So starting today, I’m going to re-post the entire Paxil Free website. I will make revisions along the way, and jump in with additional commentary when necessary. Once it’s all done, I’ll probably disappear again. I will not provide my name or email address, because I’m still not comfortable giving advice. I would rather remain anonymous. Go to the paxilprogress.org forums if you have any questions about withdrawal. It’s a great resource and I’m sure they know much more than I do.

This is simply a record of one person’s experience of Paxil withdrawal. It seemed to do some good before. Maybe it’ll do some good again.

Here we go.