My Personal 24 Hour Log
I decided to make a post of what 24 hours looks like for me, while going through my SSRI withdrawal, so I took note of what I was feeling at different parts of the day. I’m sure those who’ve not been through this know what this looks like or feels like, so I hope this helps give an idea. I’m also posting for those going through something similar. Speaking from experience, it helps to have someone validate this very real process of SSRI withdrawal. Understanding others feel this way can help know it’s not YOU, it’s your brain trying to rebalance itself. It’s chemically induced, and you’re not “going crazy”.
This 24 hour log isn’t even close to a full picture of all of my symptoms, and doesn’t touch on the many others that other people experience. On a scale of 1-10 on a good day vs bad day during withdrawal for me, this 24 hour period is about a 6.
Withdrawal doesn’t happen to everyone, but it does happen to many. It is often played down by the medical community, or mislabeled as a relapse of the original depression and/or anxiety coming back. I know for sure that this is withdrawal for me, not a relapse.
Waking Up
I woke up yesterday the same way I’ve woken up since I’ve started tapering off my serotonin medications, around six months ago. I wake up with a burst of adrenaline. The same kind of burst you’d feel if you were scared awake by a stranger in your room. After realizing there was no real immediate danger and remembering this is just how things are while going through withdrawal, my heart slowed down a bit. Then I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach of dread. Like everything is wrong, and nothing is okay. It’s overwhelming. I think about where my kids are and whether they are in any sort of danger first. Then I go down a list of other people in my head, remember that the last time I talked to them, and remind myself they are also likely just fine. Even though I know there’s no reason for these feelings and thoughts (other than my brain not having certain chemicals it is used to), it’s a process I have to do every morning to get to a functioning level.
I get up and have my morning coffee (because restful sleep is something non-existent at the moment), then organize my thoughts. I repeat things like “you only feel like this because of the withdrawal. This will go away eventually. Others have felt like this and made it through. If you get to the point where you don’t have any control over acting on your feelings, it is okay to stop the taper and start again later. Don’t do anything stupid. You can do this. Everyone is okay.”
Morning
There’s a constant on and off ringing in my ears, but I tried to ignore this. I feel nauseated, dizzy, and have a throbbing headache. This headache is always there, but sometimes it’s really bad, and sometimes it’s mild. I get on and off chest pains that feel like a needle being pushed into my lungs. I sneeze and blow my nose a lot because my histamine response is also currently messed up from this withdrawal.
After doing some work on the computer and finishing my coffee, I got another burst of fight or flight adrenaline out of the blue. There are two kind of adrenaline (at least for me). The kind where you get a boost of energy physically (which can be really productive) and then the kind where you’re exhausted, but your heart and mind are racing in a negative way. This is always the kind I get these days. Sometimes doing something physical helps this, and sometimes it doesn’t. So I got up and cleaned and tried to go through stuff to get rid of, but that required making a lot of decisions about items, which is very hard to do when you’re in a state of fight or flight. After about 30 minutes of trying to decide whether to keep or donate something I started just tossing everything into a donate pile because that was easier than figuring out where to put it, if I kept it. I started to feel extremely overwhelmed with all the stuff I need to go through and get rid of and this was adding to my adrenaline, not helping it. So I stopped. I decided to go for a bike ride, instead. I rode for about 30 minutes. I made sure to get my heart rate up really high for parts of the ride to try to make my body feel it acted on the adrenaline productively and allow me to relax for a bit. It helped a little bit with the physical adrenaline, but there were no endorphins or any feel good emotions I normally get from exercise.
Early Afternoon
I’m trying to remember what used to give me joy and happiness. Then I ask myself if any of those things would help me feel joy or happiness today. I imagine myself doing them, but I have no emotion. I asked myself if someone stopped at my door and handed me $1,000,000 with no strings attached just to do whatever I want with, would I feel any good emotions, excitement? Nope. I still can’t feel good emotions. I would love to have a break from bad feelings, if only for just a moment, but today isn’t the day I’ll get that back. I try to remember the last time I had any good feeling at all. Joy? Happiness? Desire to do a hobby that I used to feel pleasure doing? I can’t remember. I realize I am still very much in the thick of anhedonia from withdrawal, and I contemplate stopping the taper. I wonder how much this is effecting my kids, and start worrying about how they don’t’ really have a normal mom right now.
I eat lunch, then turn on the latest audiobook I’m listening to called “The Let Them Theory” to distract myself. If I can’t do anything to make myself feel better, the least I can do is be productive and learn. Learn new coping skills, strategies to reduce stress, or focus on what I want my life to look like in the future, when this is all behind me.
Evening & Night
The rest of the day is uneventful, and the same. Around 6:00PM I start to dread going to sleep because I know the night is going to be worse than the day. I distract myself from thinking about it. I watch reels, a TV shows, read educational stuff about this process and new things I can try to help the symptoms, and then fall asleep.
Two hours later I wake up in a panic because I’m having a dream that someone is trying to kill me, but nobody believes me or will help me, and I can’t escape. I turn on the TV to try to distract myself and forget the dream enough to fall back to sleep. Over an hour goes by and my adrenaline is still pumping and I can’t focus on the TV at all. I turn off the TV, do deep breathing and lay there in the dark until eventually I fell back to sleep. I don’t know how long it took, but I know it was more than an hour more. A very short time later, I wake up in a panic for no reason. I tried to figure out why, reminded myself that everyone is okay and this is just the withdrawal again. I fall back to sleep about an hour later. Two hours after that I woke up sure someone was trying to break into our house through the porch. I got out of bed and looked, then checked our security cameras. Nothing was happening. By this time it about 5:30AM. I try to go back to sleep, but I can’t. I give up and get out of bed around 7:00AM. The adrenaline is just too much. I’m now entering another day. One that will be just like the one above, just like the previous 6 months.
Special Notes
The most frustrating part of this entire process is that the feelings and symptoms above are entirely due to the brain not having what it once did. Just like you cannot think positively away nausea, ringing in the ears, or a headache, you cannot change the feelings by simply thinking positively or keeping a gratitude journal. Thinking you can “out-think” your feelings is a sure recipe for frustration. Under normal circumstances, a thought comes and thn the brain responds with an emotion. Under these circumstances, a feeling comes without any thoughts to trigger it. You cannot control it or reason with it. Sure, remaining positive, keeping perspective, and all those good things are helpful for other reasons (mainly because doing the opposite can make you feel even worse), but this absolutely will not remove the withdrawal symptoms or feelings. Only time does this.
I plan to make a follow up post to this that lists the resources that have been helpful for symptom management, and another one to help those who have a friend or family going through this know how they can help, understand, and support that person.