A year ago today my life was ruined

[celexahell]

I have another horror story to share.

Back in April, after suffering a severe anxiety and depression episode (which is nothing compared to what I deal with now) spurred on by numerous relationship and job issues, I was prescribed Citalopram HBr (Celexa) by by doctor, @ 20mg/day. I wish, wish, wish I could rewind time and never step foot in the doctor’s office that day, or at least had done more research as to what damage these drugs cause.

The first day that I took the tiny pink evil little poison tablet, I didn’t notice much originally, and then it grew into the most severe, terrifying anxiety attack in my chest. It felt like it was actively burning and deleting whatever emotions were living in my heart. I remember going to sleep that night, and barely sleeping. It caused severe, debilitating anxiety and insomnia.

Finally when I woke in the morning, after getting maybe an hour or two of sleep, I felt like the world had lost all meaning. This was the beginning of anhedonia, little did I know. I went to work that day and it all felt pointless. Just absolutely void and pointless. I’m someone who used to be happy, engaged, dare I say intellectual, dare I say a humanist; and I just felt so dead inside. I thought, “maybe this is just the depression”. And I kept hearing that it “takes two week for the pills to kick in” and other such “common wisdom.”

So I kept taking Citalopram for approximately the rest of the week. Only about five or six total days. During that time, I had transformed into a completely different, empty, hollow, shell, monster of a person. I vividly remember having a nightmare one night, maybe after day 3 or 4 of the pills, that I looked into the mirror in my parent’s bathroom and saw not my face looking back at me; but a human skull. As if to say that my personality and soul had been deleted and completely removed.

Add to all that, I became absolutely asexual and castrated. It was like the neurons/synapses in my brain that control my cock and balls and sexual power had been fried.

Being in my mid-20s, I used to be a libido powerhouse. I loved everything about a woman’s body; having a lot of sex with women. Hell, seeing a woman’s exposed bra-strap could cause me to get hard. After about three days of Citalopram (“treatment”), I noticed genital numbness, erectile dysfunction, and a general dis-interest in women at work – women that I normally thought about f—ing all day long, I barely even looked at them or thought about them anymore. I remember going into the work bathroom and trying to masturbate and my penis simply didn’t “work”. It felt numb and didn’t respond to touch; nevermind trying to think sexual thoughts.

I normally live alone, but after this Citalopram exposure, I was spending all of my time at my parent’s house. I was terrified to be alone. I wanted to kill myself. It was all I thought of every moment of every day — when your emotions are deleted and your sexuality is deleted, the entire range of human feeling and experience forcefully removed — there is no longer a point to get out of bed. There’s no longer a point to do anything. I ended up losing my job because of the anhedonia.

I would stay in bed all day, feeling extremely sick, low-energy, fatigued, and crushed by the complete lack of anything approaching an emotion. The world felt static, dead, and desolate; as if there was “another reality” outside of my window that I couldn’t touch. I had entered this state of non-existence where no emotions or sexuality exist. In addition, it removed my hunger, thrist, and I swear I was suffering some sort of IBS as well. (Apparently there’s a lot of serotonin in the gut, so it isn’t surprising that SSRIs cause digestive issues.)

My only exposure to anyone would be when I’d go outside once every so often to get a coffee, just to see people. But it felt like nothing. It felt like a foggy dream each time I would go outside. Seeing people happy, laughing, clearly looking forward to sex, clearing enjoying themselves, in their convertibles and motorcycles on sunny Spring and Summer afternoons… and not being able to feel a single drop of emotion, or anything.

I stopped talking to my family, I barely talked to friends. My mom would message me in the morning and at night with smiley faces and hearts trying to cheer me up. I would talk to her so many nights before bed where she would cry her eyes out telling me that “She feels like she lost her son”. But I couldn’t cry. I felt nothing. I remember going to the endocrinologist which completely ignored my concerns, and seeing my innocent sweet mother in her Betty Boop shirt, with tears in her eyes, saying to the doctor, “I’m afraid I’m going to lose him” (clearly implicating that she thinks I’m going to kill myself.)

My brother would call me crying, telling me how worried he is about me. Nightmares he’d have about me.

I turned into heartless person. I started saying crazy things like I wish I could stab certain people. All of my empathy disappeared. Yet, I used to be the most emotionally connected person that would cry reading poetry, or hearing a touching song, or even thinking a powerful enough of a thought.

It has been about a year since I was exposed to just a few days worth of Citalopram. I am still not back to my old self. My cognitive function has improved, and while I can articulate myself again, and don’t feel as “brain dead”, my emotions have not returned to their once powerful state. Sexual function is also still extremely damaged. No more daydreaming of having sex with women, numbness in genitals, poor quality erections, and orgasm doesn’t feel as earth-shattering as it used to. Basically, my life has been destroyed, thanks to a haphazard choice by my doctor to prescribe, and by me to be enough of a fool to believe this shit would “help”.

What is going to be done about this?

[Ghost]

I thought that you recovered and that it was samE that really did you in? Or was that another user?

[celexahell]

I thought that you recovered and that it was samE that really did you in? Or was that another user?

No. That's someone else. You're thinking of a user named "Riley" I believe, he also goes by a couple other usernames.

I've never use SAMe. I have however tired several supplements, herbal supplements, etc., to no real avail. Huperzine A. and choline kind of help, and I've noticed minimal improvement from, e.g., tongkat ali, tribulus, and arginine/orthinine for erection quality, but nothing really too promising.

[Ghost]

ok I'm sorry. Yea I was on escitalopram for only 4 days. Terrible drugs. It's horrible.

[celexahell]

Yeah so, I pretty much have come to the conclusion that this is nerve damage.

[Ghost]

Yeah so, I pretty much have come to the conclusion that this is nerve damage.

All of the nerves in your penis are ok. It's in your head. Are you talking about neurons there? I have never seen any evidence (although it could be out there) that SSRI's can damage the nerves themselves. I can see how something like a surgery or a burn could literally sever the nerve endings, but I don't see how Celexa could.

[Ghost]

Yeah so, I pretty much have come to the conclusion that this is nerve damage.

All of the nerves in your penis are ok. It's in your head. Are you talking about neurons there? I have never seen any evidence (although it could be out there) that SSRI's can damage the nerves themselves. I can see how something like a surgery or a burn could literally sever the nerve endings, but I don't see how Celexa could.

I'm also very interested in how you are doing. You and I are some of the only people who are damaged after only a few days. So we have a different story than most with PSSD.

[future-recovery]

My story is very similiar. I am also young. I got PSSD after only 2+4 days.
I got PSSD after 2x5 mg Escitalopram 9 months ago, but it was a very light PSSD, so I didn't know that it was PSSD. So one month later I took it again: 4x2.5 mg. One week after the last 2.5mg (and one day after a vitamin d pill, but probably just coincidence) my symptoms worsened extremely(!!). Only a few symptoms like insomnia, nausea and chills disappeared or got better weeks later.
Emotional numbing and asexuality are probably the worst symptoms which I have at the moment. But I got a lot of other symptoms.
Though there is still hope for us.

I don't know whether it is nerve damage. But I often feel that I don't have access to some parts of my brain anymore. That's why I don't call it emotional blunting.
Rather blocking of emotions.
I made a MRI from my brain months before I got PSSD. It doesn't make sense to make a new MRI?

[celexahell]

In just a few months it'll be two years since I landed in this mess. What the FUCKING FUCK is going to be done? My life is pretty much empty and pointless now.

[celexahell]

Yeah so, I pretty much have come to the conclusion that this is nerve damage.

All of the nerves in your penis are ok. It's in your head. Are you talking about neurons there? I have never seen any evidence (although it could be out there) that SSRI's can damage the nerves themselves. I can see how something like a surgery or a burn could literally sever the nerve endings, but I don't see how Celexa could.

I'm also very interested in how you are doing. You and I are some of the only people who are damaged after only a few days. So we have a different story than most with PSSD.

I'm doing bad. Virtually no improvements.