Paxil Free

Friday, July 7th, 2000 (continued).

This is an email message I wrote to a professional counsellor I was seeing this past year (just wrote it today).

I went through some traumatic events this past year that eventually led to my taking 20mg of Paxil every day. The Paxil helped get me through the year. After I got my life back on track, I decided I didn’t want to be on the Paxil anymore (I didn’t want to be on it in the first place, but I was completely desperate at the time, and it did work well for me). So my doctor, who has been a good doctor for me and who I trust, said I could stop taking the Paxil cold turkey. He said I might have mild nausea, headaches, a little dizziness for a couple days, but that it would go away. (How many of you are laughing at that sentence?)

About six days ago, I stopped taking the Paxil. And for the past three days I’ve been barely functional. For the past 72 hours I’ve experienced these wonderfully debilitating electrical surges in my brain every time I move my eyes. (Try going through a day without moving your eyes.) I feel like I’m losing my mind.

Here’s the email I just wrote to my counsellor:

I have some research in the past 24 hours. I have acquired information from people who have personally experienced Paxil withdrawal and from professionals in the field.

I have learned the good and the bad about Paxil, and I am astounded by the fact that I was never warned of the possible withdrawal effects — these are extreme reactions, but they are common. (The long-term effects of taking Paxil are unknown.) All the studies I’ve read (i.e., the ones not sponsored by the makers of Paxil) show that at least 35-50% of the people who take Paxil cannot go off it cold turkey — and incredibly the majority of physicians say it’s okay to do just that.

But when 35-50% of the people who follow that medical advice experience electrical surges in their brain which are debilitating for weeks and even months afterwards (and I’ve only had it for 3 days), one begins to wonder about the wisdom of our physicians. Where are they getting their information?

The Paxil may work initially, but for a significant amount of people who go off it cold turkey like the doctor ordered — it’s destroying their lives. I’ve read at least ten articles in the past 24 hours about people who took Paxil for relatively mild depression like me, then became almost psychotic after they stopped taking it. These are the poor bastards who didn’t have a support system of family or friends to get them through it. And that’s not counting the suicides.

I’m doing my research and I’m checking my sources, and what I am learning will come together — and I will do everything in my power to inform the public of the dangers of this drug. It’s killing people, and if I hadn’t been lucky enough to have people to support me through this, I’d probably have a gun to my head right now. This is not mild dizziness or nausea or headaches — this is insane. I have had a taste of what’s tha’s like now, and I wish I never knew.

But now that I do know, I’ll do everything in my power to prevent something like this from happening to other people.

My doctor opened up a book and said, “Oh yeah, you can go off Paxil cold turkey.” He was wrong. The book was wrong. A physician should know better.

I’ll be seeing a new physician soon, and it’ll take me two seconds to know if he knows what he’s talking about. I trusted my doctor, and I truly believe now that he was misinformed. And I’m the one who had to suffer for it.

My life this past year was no walk in the park, but I managed to get through it mostly because of my own determination to live. I like who I am, I care about the people in my life and I’m well-liked by most people who know me. I have a lot to live for. The one thing I did not need was to get a taste of what it’s like to be psychotic.

You might think I’m over-reacting, but let me send a small electric current through your brain every time you move your eyes for the next 72 hours — then we can talk.

Something wrong has happened here. And it happened to me, and it’s happening to other people. How am I supposed to feel about that?

I got a refill this morning and took a Paxil about an hour ago (because otherwise I’ll be losing consciousness soon from the “brain zaps” I’m experiencing every ten seconds). I’m hoping for the best.