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#1
Aug 30, 2026, 10:20 PM
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Dear Friends,
 Today I had a long phone conversation with my loved brother. He has had clinical depression since about age 10. He's 81 now. He's been on antidepressants for at least 20 years. He told me when he first started on an antidepressant, it was abdsoultey wonderful, but now, and for the past many years, the pdoc has not been able to find one that works for any length of time. He wants to taper off his meds, with his excellent pdoc's support, but is wondering if he does that, would he be worse off than he was before he ever stasrted the meds?s I've had depression since age 3. Our parents thought I had "manic depressive tendencies" when I was in high school. So whatever, I've had bipolar since high school, if not earlier. The only psych med i'm on at this time is Lexapro., For the past several months I have had terribvle terrible rages, screamikng loud and long. Terrible technostress almoist every morning. I wake up cheerful and happy, then read emails and text, discovering that one or more technical electonics are malfunctioning (with no fault of my own, nothiong I'd done wrong), and I get estlremely frustrated and upset, scream a lot, and it ruins my whole day. This is new, ever since I moved from my old apt building to this one, at the end of Feb. this year. My health care rep thinks all thse things are due to my; move. The new building is much nicer, but I livled at my old bldg for 23 years, and had to move because fo a new mgt comp;any that was overbilling me and a lot of other dysfunctional things about it. My dear significant other lives in this buildin and it's one I'd wanted to live in for a longtime, anyway. So I am considering asking my pdoc about tapering off Lexapro. Then I would no longer have any psych meds, and they aren't helping me anymore anyhow. I'm 'treatment resistant." For decades we've tried many psych meds, and nothing really helps. But I wonder, like my bro does, if I get off all psyhch meds, would I be worse off than I ever was b4 I started taking them? And by the way, for much of my of my life I was in abusive marriages, and my dad was invading myh life, too. I have not had any abusive people in my life for nearly 15 years.
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Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman |
 Ruftin, ThatOtherMike
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#2
Aug 30, 2026, 11:16 PM
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Those are very tough questions. You're probably going to have to make the decision all on your own (which you should right?) and then wait to see what comes from your decision. I don't have much knowledge about the sea of psyche meds other than what I've been prescribed. I've been taking generic Effexor XR and clonazepam since sometime in the 1990s. I've stopped both twice.
I don't want to influence your decision with the details of my experiences but I don't mind sharing if you think you want to hear how it turned out.
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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti |
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#3
Aug 31, 2026, 09:09 AM
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Dear Sweetie, TheOtherMike. Ulp. Yes, Ulp, if you don't mindi sharing, I would definitely like to know your experience when you tapered off your psych med/s.
Love, WantToShare
__________________
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman |
| ThatOtherMike
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#4
Aug 31, 2026, 10:32 AM
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If your brother is in his 80’s I’m guessing you’re up there too. Meds at an older age are a different can of worms.
Though I don’t advise going off without a doctors help, a good strategy is a straight forward honest discussion of meds.
__________________
Nammu …Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. …... Desiderata Max Ehrmann |
 Ruftin, ThatOtherMike
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#5
Aug 31, 2026, 12:07 PM
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Okay, I'll just add back the part I deleted from my post.
I just googled Lexapro so I know now it's an SSRI. Effexor (my med) is an SNRI. I think SSRI meds are a little easier to come off of than SSRI meds. I don't know that for sure but I found people talking about using a very low dosage of Prozac (SSRI) to ease the withdrawal effects when tapering off Effexor which is an SNRI. My first time stopping Effexor was a nightmare. It made benzo withdrawals seem like a Sunday picnic. My doc and I used very low dosage Prozac the second time to help with the so-called discontinuation syndrome. It helped but the end results were the same. I was soon scoping out easily accessible high buildings without safety rails. I was back on Effexor within two weeks. Effexor to me is a bargain with the devil.
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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti |
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#6
Aug 31, 2026, 12:14 PM
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The withdrawal symptoms were typical. Severe anxiety, brain zaps that were almost nonstop, occasional anger progressing to rage, eventually deep depression. Maybe all that would have subsided over time but I wasn't in a position to find out. I was in a situation where I had to function.
__________________
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti |
| Nammu, Ruftin
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#7
Sep 01, 2026, 09:23 AM
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Quote:
Possible trigger:
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| ThatOtherMike
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#8
Sep 01, 2026, 09:58 AM
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Ohhnhh all this sounds so horrible!!! Thanks for sharing. I'm terrified.
TheOtherMike wrote: "I was soon scoping out easily accessible high buildings without safety rails. " Very funny ,but not really. Me, I consider buying a gun. The other day, when I was screaming likle this, if I'd've had a gun, I definitely would've put it in my mouth and pulled the trigger. I wouldn't even care anymore if blood and brains splattered a;ll over the room. It woulds've been too hard to put a pillow case over the guns so my loved ones would not see such a mess. Yesterday, I deleted the gun shop's phone number from my phone''s contact list. I have a techno emergency plan, and I will read that now, because I'm upset all over again. Today at my therapy appointment, I'm going to work with my wonderrful therp to create a safety plan so I don't off myself. I already tried once; I'd planned it for years. It didn't work, and the result of the overdose was that I fell/fainted and broke my; collarbone, three ribs, and my pelvis. My friends and family reported me as a missing person with the police, and friends have told me they saw me on TV as a missing person. I would never do this to them again. I ended up first in one hosp, then in a psych ward which was absolutely miserable and a complete waste of time, and then in rehab for my broken bones, whidh was a nightmare.
__________________
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman |
| Ruftin, ThatOtherMike
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#9
Sep 01, 2026, 02:40 PM
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Damn... scaring you was exactly what I wanted to avoid. That was why I originally deleted what I wrote.
The second try using (10mg I think) Prozac wasn't hard at all. The plan was a small dosage of Prozac to prevent the worst effects of Effexor withdrawal and then taper off he Prozac. It just didn't work out. It may work for you but Lexapro is very similar to Prozac. Yes, a bullet makes a huge mess. Even with a pillow. Your family will have to clean that up bc the police and EMS workers won't do it. I've considered suicide many many times but that first time coming off meds was one time I didn't even consider suicide. I was my mother's caregiver at the time. The only people I wanted to shoot were the people in my state government who cut funding for mental health care and the doctors/administrators who made the decisions about which patients to end service for. I didn't make the choice to stop taking my meds at that time. The choice was made for me by politicians and the state mental health agency. Fortunately my mother's primary care doctor stepped in and prescribed my meds. The second time was my choice. I just didn't want to be on meds anymore. I hated the thought of dependency. Dependency is a weakness. It's something I can't control. Why do you want to stop your medication? There are worse things than dependency. And you may still need/benefit from the Lexapro. Antidepressants don't make life wonderful. That isn't their purpose. Antidepressant meds make it possible to remain functioning. Life is seldom 'wonderful' unless one has a complete lack of empathy, compassion, and sensitivity. Quote:
__________________
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti |
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#10
Sep 01, 2026, 03:05 PM
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Dear The Other Mike,
; Thanks for more of your story. You asked: "Antidepressant meds make it possible to remain functioning. Life is seldom 'wonderful' unless one has a complete lack of empathy, compassion, and sensitivity.:" You asked why I want to get off my meds. I'm going to wait till my pdocappt tomorrow to figure out what to do. But I think the meds have made me extremely and suddenly irritable, and screaming. This was never how I was before recent meds. Do you know if meds can cause this? My life is out of control.
__________________
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman |
| ThatOtherMike
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#11
Sep 01, 2026, 03:45 PM
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Well, yes would be my guess. Medications can have side effects and can cause adverse reactions. If these things only began after you started taking Lexapro that would be what I would suspect is the cause. I'm more knowledgeable about my own meds than yours so I am aware that Effexor can cause side effects that are pretty much the same as I felt on withdrawal.
About ten years ago my then girlfriend was prescribed an antidepressant. I think it was Lexapro. She had awful reactions to it. Long ago I was prescribed an anti-psychotic medication by an ER doctor. It was by accident I assume since I have never had any symptoms of psychosis. By the third day I think I was actually beginning to feel psychotic so I stopped taking it. My own doctor at the time said she couldn't imagine why the drug had been prescribed. I hope you and your doc can work this out tomorrow. Quote:
__________________
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti |
| Ruftin
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#12
Sep 02, 2026, 11:08 AM
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@WantToShare Illnesses like a urinary tract infection for example can cause sudden uncontrollable anger/agitation out of the blue. Even if you don't have typical UTI symptoms. You might want consider having some blood work, a "urinalysis and urine culture " done. Please ask your p-doc about this possibility. This would be an easy fix. As we get older infections like these can affect us in ways they didn't when we we were younger.
__________________
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| BeyondtheRainbow
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| BeyondtheRainbow
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#13
Yesterday, 10:15 PM
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Quote:
Regarding your brother's woes, this is colloquially called antidepressant pooping out. It is very common. I am lucky in that I am stable on an antipsychotic monotherapy (and a low dose suffices, to boot), and antipsychotics do not have this tendency to poop out, unlike antidepressants. It is a real trouble for people with MDD when medications they came to rely upon poop out. Plus, as @Nammu said, the age factor.
__________________
Bipolar I w/psychotic features Last inpatient stay in 2018 Zyprexa 3.75 mg, back to Zyprexa but at a reduced dose Naltrexone 25 mg Vitamin B-complex (against extrapyramidal side effects) Long-term side effects from medications, some of them discontinued: - Hypothyroidism - Obesity |
| Ruftin
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| Ruftin
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#14
Yesterday, 10:28 PM
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Update: I had made some unlateral decisions to cut back two meds. My pdoc has put me on a regime that I think will help a lot.
Love, and thanks for all your good caring and feedback. WantToShare
__________________
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman |
| Ruftin
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| Ruftin
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#15
Yesterday, 10:37 PM
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All the best with the new regimen. Glad you and the prescriber work well together.
__________________
Bipolar I w/psychotic features Last inpatient stay in 2018 Zyprexa 3.75 mg, back to Zyprexa but at a reduced dose Naltrexone 25 mg Vitamin B-complex (against extrapyramidal side effects) Long-term side effects from medications, some of them discontinued: - Hypothyroidism - Obesity |
| Ruftin
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| Ruftin
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#16
Yesterday, 11:40 PM
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I agree with @tartCherryJam as for your move causing tremendous stress.
The top five most stressful life events include: *Death of a loved one. *Divorce *Moving *Major illness or injury. *Job loss So you've got the move coupled with the psych issues/meds so that's 2 major stressors on you right now. Hopefully your meds will level you out. Be kind to yourself because we want you well.
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