depression and my experience with medication

[oneirology]

this is more or less just a platform for me to vent and get some thoughts off my chest. ive been home alone all weekend and havent left the house since i went to work on friday. now as i sit here on my 4th day of effexor withdrawal im left with racing thoughts, crippling physical effects and no one to turn to.

ever since i was a young child i've dealt with depression and anxiety. it wasnt until i was in junior high that my parents decided to try therapy and medication for me. it took me several different doctors until i finally found one that truly felt had helped me. i'd been on and off several medications all throughout grade school, until i had finally settled on effexor. it helped my anxiety significantly but unfortunately my depression worsened.

eventually things got so bad that i stopped getting out of bed to go to school and dropped out during my junior year of high school. i no longer felt any emotion. i didnt care about anything, or anyone, and suddenly my relationships with friends and family crumbled to pieces. and i didnt care, not one bit. i didnt know it at the time but i now feel that it was the effexor that severely surpressed my emotions, turning me into an indifferent, apathetic shell of my former self.

then came the suicide attempt that left me hospitalized for weeks. i went home and kept on going about my days as if nothing happened. still overly medicated. still living an emotionless, soulless existence. now after all these years, my life is in worse shape than it was before taking effexor.

i finally informed my doctor that i wished to begin the tapering process off of the effexor. as anyone who has taken effexor or similar drugs knows, it is far to dangerous to quit cold turkey, as the mental and emotional state can become quite a rollercoaster ride. not to mention the debilitating physical withdrawal symptons.

so that leaves me here, at almost 24 years old with no college degree (i recieved a HS diploma through an alternative program) and still living at home, hoping that with the absence of effexor in my body i will finally be able to live my life again, the way i did before the medication. though i still had anxiety and depression then, i maintained a great deal of healthy and fulfilling relationships that i no longer have. i cared about people then. i cared about things, and most importantly i cared about myself. and i miss those feelings.

[sara12345]

If I were your doctor, I would have first recommended that you increase the Effexor.  I was nearly suicidal while on Effexor which went away entirely after I increased it.  It took the full month later as the doctor predicted.  But I had a lot to be suicidal about, which a certain percentage of people with my problem do commit suicide.

What you describe as no longer feeling any emotions is a classic symptom of depression.  Maybe the Effexor is not the right anti-depressant for you, but I doubt that the Effexor was the cause of your emotional state.

At your young age, your depression could have easily worsened on its own.  It worsened a great deal for me during those same years.

If you have any long term problems with depression, then you need to stay on some type of anti-depressant because otherwise it is even more difficult to get the medication to work again and you may need a higher dose to treat it.  

Depression also causes a number of physical problems, such as early aging diseases such as osteoporosis, dementia, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.  It is now thought to be "An ailment of the entire body" as reported in the Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2012.

So I do wish you the best.  Just another viewpoint.
Sara

[mmerose]

I am also going through Effexor withdrawal; so although I don't have any advice to offer, I wanted to say that I understand your need to vent. They've named this "discontinuation syndrome", maybe they don't want to scare away new patients with such a harsh word as withdrawal. It is one of the worst things I have been through - and I'm a cancer survivor; chemo was easier than this.
In the moments when my brain is clear enough to think, I'll send good thoughts your way. Good luck to both of us.

[RainLover71]

Sometimes meds can make depression worse.I hate to sound like a parrot but it's trial and error with medications.I'm sorry that you have suffered like this but life is cruel sometimes.Keep the faith.You seem determined to get your old life back so go for it and feel good like you used to.I wish you all the best.