Ghost Intro

[Ghost]

THANK YOU SO MUCH MOLOCH!

Here's the most recent update to cap off the thread.

Jan 21st, 2015
I found out that the old forum was closed right as I was posting the update below.

I'm ghost. College Freshman. Took Lexapro 5mg for 4 days 4 months back. Been having some problems ever since. Used to suffer from anxiety, no longer do. Now I deal with depression for the most part.

Most of you already know me. Here's the update I tried to post 3 days ago...


It has been one day short of 2 months since my last update. A lot has happened, not all of which is bad or good. Luckily, I keep a spreadsheet of how each day goes (which I’ve started to slack on, but still get a few times a week), so I can give a good summary of what has been happening.

It’s 134 days since I quit 4 days of Lexapro. So when I last wrote we were at about day 74.¬ The next few days I had a few problems. Day 75, I had a bad run of form with erections for the next few days. 6-7/10. This was around thanksgiving time. These days my numbness was at about 40%. Then I had a better run with erections culminating in (at that point), my best day yet. (day 91) This was 3 days into a trazodone run that I continued for the rest of the week when I had genital discomfort and had to stop. Things remained pretty good, and after this week of trazodone, I had increases in semen amounts that have been permanent. Now we’re at day 97. This was during finals week. At this point I get on zinc 30mg for my first time consistently in about 30 days. I start Zinc day 101. I don’t have any records until day 104, when I have a great day. Days 105/106 I have sex, and it’s the best period of remission I’ve had yet. I hooked up with 2 girls, and neither noticed PSSD in the slightest. I noticed things were still 20-25% number than before, but functioning was totally good. This is when I was 85-90% in remission. I really thought things were gonna be better for good. The next few days, things went in the crapper again. Although I didn’t try having sex again until day 115. I had had a lot to drink, but was still about to get 90% up after I had sobered up a bit. I smoked that night, and orgasm was great, and sex felt good. So that was another pretty good day in a run of some bad ones. At this point, my trajectory stopped going up, and has stalled or gotten worse since. I haven’t seen many improvements in the past month, despite recently having a few good days a week ago. (I haven’t charted anything since 4 days ago), it’s been alright. Currently, I’m on a 15 day run of Zinc, and 5 days in on CDP Choline 250mg. I do not currently need trazodone for sleep. I’ve also been trying to have more caffeine. Some days, orgasms are INCREDIBLE, and some days, they are kinda bland. It’s…ugh. Kinda how it goes for a lot of things for me. Sometimes I’ll jut get this sex drive that will hit me like it used to…and somedays…jack shit. Everytime however, my penis is always a bit 20-30% numb, I have soft glans problems, and it takes longer and more stimuli to get erections although I can get it up after a bit most days. Especially really late at night when it’s rock solid. Morning wood usually isn’t as solid as it used to be. I’m at a functioning level, but I’m 18, and I still want that missing quarter or my sexuality, and that chunk of my emotions back. I want myself back. I hold out hope for more treatments, and time.

I think that I’m going to be getting into another relationship soon…Which is good. It’s something that I think will move me in the right direction at this point. In the sense that this shouldn’t be something that I allow to keep my life totally on hold for. I need to learn to live this way, because although I hold out hope for recovery with time, I don’t want to wait till then to live life. There’s no way to phrase this and make it sound good. My ex and I were all about sex. I was extremely attracted to her, and even with PSSD, I still was turned on by her. The girl I am currently with is still really cute, but I’m not overpowered with sexual thoughts when with her. She’s just not into that as much I think. That scares me, because I don’t know how things will go if we try sexual things. Also, it’s so hard now with some anhedonia to tell who I really have feelings for. Sometimes I can feel spurts of love or emotion, but sometimes it still feels kinda dead. And that sucks when someone is really into you, and you really want to be into them too. You can’t tell if it’s depression, PSSD, or just how you feel for a person. It’s shitty. I guess that should go in the relationships section, but I guess it pertains to my current status.

Cheers,

Ghost

[Ghost]

It's been a few months, so maybe time for an update. It's been 7 months now since I took the 4th and final Lexapro 5mg last fall. Nothing has really changed PSSD wise since my last post. I still have a libido, sometimes it's even high. Probably the least affected symptom from PSSD.That being said, I Still have erection problems, mainly more time to get, or more concentration and soft glans issues even when I can get one from having sexual thoughts. Partial penis numbness. Increased depression. I think some emotional blunting (could also be from depression). I still never feel rested in the mornings like I used to.

Since my last update I think all I tried was Curcumin. I took it for 8 days, and stopped. I thought that it was making things worse libido wise.
Caffeine helps. Doing some of the pelvic floor exercises has too. I'm going to look more into that and maybe see a specialist on it.

I've been working on a large project that has nothing to do with PSSD or depression, and that's why I haven't posted as much recently. It's good to get your mind off things a bit. I'm gonna change a lot of things around in my life, and try and get adjusted to my future and adult life.

Besides that, I think that in the right settings I could make this all work. I'll need to find the right girl, at the right time, and seek some other form of effective treatment for depression.

It's been hard. But then again no one said it would be easy. Fuck PSSD.

Really excited about some people on here posting improvements.

Things I still wanna try: piracetam, maybe curcumin again, and SJW possibly.

Hoping you all the best, and will probably post another update in a few months.

Ghost

[Ghost]

It's been another two months for me since PSSD. That puts me at almost exactly 9 months since I took Escitalopram.

I'm looking over my last post and thinking about what has changed...

Life keeps on.

The big thing that I have tried since last update was SJW. I definitely saw some changes in things, but my experiment was cut short due to being very sick. I waited a couple weeks, and now I've been on SJW 300mg daily for about 2.5 weeks. Either the fact that it's summer or SJW has really been helping my depression. My anxiety is still nothing like it used to be, so if I can just get this stupid PSSD to resolve...then we're golden. ...If only it were that easy!

The past week I've had really good erections. and I feel that they were between 80-90% of pre-PSSD. Part of this is likely due to sleep deprivation early in the week. 5-4-6-7-7 were my past five nights of sleep in hours. The first 3 were bad, but erections seemed to be better then.

Hoping you all the best, and will probably post another update in a few months.

[Ghost]

A positive note for my update for once. I think I've totally fallen in love with this girl I've been seeing recently. I really couldn't tell you how love feels now from before PSSD, but how I feel now definitely can't be ignored. It's not always consistent, and sometimes isn't as strong as others, but I care about something for the first time in a while. Honestly, she's such a great person. We get along incredibly well.

I've been able to have sex, although it's hard and not much PSSD-wise is better at all. I can get hard boners every time we make out, but I have soft glans, decreased sensitivity, and have trouble maintaining an erection through intercourse. She hasn't noticed anything yet, but I feel that I will soon tell her a bit about my struggles, something that I've never done with anyone before.

The flip side of all this is the extreme frustration of having someone who is willing to do anything for you, but you're not able to give everything to them. I wish I could enjoy the same sexuality with her that I once had. That's really hard. Things still aren't "right".

At least I am able to enjoy the company of another person. Where I used to be sexually selfish, I'm now more in tune to her sexual/emotional needs, which makes me a better partner in many ways.

As always, I'm unbelievably thankful for this forum, which I attribute to helping save my life and turning me from an absolute mess to a man transforming shambles into a functional and rewarding life. If there is anyone reading this who thinks that life isn't worth living, I want them to know that it is. For me there were (and are) times that it seems painful to be alive, but then you get surprised by something like this and you realize that people can move beyond their struggles, because no one goes through life without any problems.

[Sonny]

That is awesome, I am so very happy for you! I'm also touched by what you said at the end there. I'm glad that had such an impact on you. And now you're helping me out at a time when I really needed it.

[Ghost]

I was really surprised when I looked at the calendar today and noticed that it was September 1st because that means that I've had PSSD for a year now. 1 year. That seems so weird. I never thought I'd see this day. But here I am!

I was planning to write a big one year anniversary post summarizing my journey form the past year for anyone who wanted to read it. But then I realized that I've been leaving pretty in-depth updates in the thread over the months. The reason that I originally wrote them is because I was so intrigued by reading other people's stories of PSSD last fall when I first fell into this fucking mess. I wanted to leave a new chapter of knowledge for the next poor 18 year old that stumbled upon Lexapro. I never thought that I'd look back at them and enjoy (what a odd use of the word, "enjoy") the knowledge that I'd preserve in them. I've spent much of the day sorting through my private PSSD journal/notes, and it's been very...emotional, I guess. I've done a lot this part year. Traveled, dated, lived, cried. I went though some extremely dark times, but I also had some of the most profoundly beautiful moments of my life. Times when things finally "clicked". I view the world so much differently than this time last year.

I started thinking about things differently after the darkest days of my depression. Having come to a point where I could have tossed in the towel and given up on life, I now have come to view each moment differently. Because I so easily could have ended things right there, I see every moment after those as a gift. It's almost like free time. It doesn't matter if some days are hard because all the good moments are a bonus. When you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain.

I'm so incredibly happy with my current relationship. Sexually and emotionally. I've been able to successfully re-gain my sexual ability to an acceptable level nearly every time we hang out. I'm now able to maintain my erections for longer, and they are harder. I think it's because I'm finally comfortable with her, so I'm at my sexual best. I don't want to sound like a love-struck teenager, but for the first time I think I have a relationship that might actually last. It doesn't feel childish and stupid like the others. Part of that comes from all the perspective that I have gained through my pain the past year. I still wish that I could go back in time and change this, but I’ve now lived 1/19th of my life this way, and it’s slowly just becoming who I am. I guess if there is such a thing as destiny, maybe this has been mine.

Thanks to Sonny, Catalunya, and all the others that I've met along the way. I feel honored to be able to give back to the forum and help run it. It's something that I care deeply about.

Ghost

[Ghost]

2015 passed as the first year that was made up of 365 days of PSSD. I can remember last new years sitting and asking myself how I would be feeling in a year, and again I do the same.

There's much more normality to PSSD now. I've become used to this life, and have problems imagining what things were like before. Maybe it's for the better. When I started this journey I was posting updates every 3 weeks, then it was every 2 months, and now it's been 4 months since I last wrote. It's been 16 months since I stopped my 4 days of Lexapro. Time surely is passing rapidly.

I remain positive for the future, but find that my current situation would be acceptable if things don't change. It's the uncertainty that gets me.

Taking Zinc the past 2 weeks has re-sparked hard morning erections, and has made things better all-around I'd say. I'm able to have sex quite normally (from an outside perspective), and I still have the same amazing girlfriend. I'm proud to say that I'm doing better in school than this time last year, and have a lot of fun plans coming up.

I couldn't have predicted the past year in the slightest. So many things have changed, and that's a beautiful aspect of life. So when I ask myself where I'll be this time next year, I can happily say that I haven't the slightest idea.

Ghost

[Ghost]

It’s been about 2 years now since Lexapro. Time continues to fly by. It’s been 9 months since I last wrote.

I really can’t tell what has or has not changed. Since I last wrote I think I had one occasion where I couldn’t get any erection when I wanted, but other than that I’ve been quite functional. I think that my sex drive is there (more horny than my GF who never took an SSRI) , but the functioning and sensitivity lags behind a bit. I also definitely still have soft glans.

I still can feel emotions, but have lost touch with how they felt before. So I don’t know how much I am missing out on.

I’m doing well in school, have a great relationship, and remain relatively happy compared to my dark days 2 years ago. My anxiety has come back a bit, I have some brain fog, and I’m not satisfied with where I am, but have accepted my current state quite a bit. I’ve been a bit less active on the forum because of that.

I’m continuing my research in the coming weeks, and will write another update when I deem it necessary.

Wishing everyone the best,

Ghost

[hs1312]

You seem to be doing quite good. You have a girlfriend and you have very little symptoms. Dont uou think you have completly recovered?

[Ghost]

No, I'm the same as when I started. I'm at the level where I can function well enough sometimes, but it's not the same and doesn't feel the same either. I've gotten better at dealing with it though.