So, to try and keep it short, in 2018, I was put on 3-4 medications by a psychiatrist who I later learned is a complete quack and has a bunch of horrible reviews online.  My sleep, energy, libido, ability to feel happiness, really just emotion normally at all, motivation, and other things tied to dopamine and serotonin were ruined.  I ended up in a psychiatric hospital six times I think it was over about two years, as aggression and irritability are also tied to dopamine and serotonin, and at least two of the medications were throwing those out of wack in my brain/body.  In the withdrawal phase, about a eight months after I went off all of them, I came to feel this mindless aggression I had never known before, only barely kept in check by lithium.  I am bipolar, but as one writer who writes on this subject said, such medications only treat certain characteristic symptoms of disorders like that, and at the same time, alter all other fundamental aspects of personality.  So, these got rid of my hypomanic highs I would get once or twice a month, and then ruined everything else, and now five years after I went off all the medication, not much has really recovered.  Although this is called post SSRI sexual dysfunction, its effects are far more than just sexual, and other types of medications can have them, from what I have gathered.  For instance, SSRI = selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, but typical and atypical antipsychotics affect dopamine, serotonin or both.  

The mindless rage departed 10 months ago about, but I am still more irritable and cannot always control my aggression at the same level I could before.  

Recently, I discovered a website, PSSD network.  I had heard the term a bit before discovering this website, but after reading a bit there, and watching some of the videos of people who suffer from it, it was obvious I have it.  

On the videos section, watch the one titled "Dr. Josef Witt-Doering talks about PSSD and its severity" at the top, a guy who was with the FDA and is helping to try and raise awareness about this gives a brief and succinct explanation of it.  It is not so well known yet, but people in the medical community and outside of it are becoming more aware of it.  

https://www.pssdnetwork.org/videos

Three videos of people who have it telling their stories.  This affects both men and women sexually, emotionally, and otherwise, some have issues with sleep, some don't.  It is often said, and I have seen this with myself, that you can only feel negative emotions, like sadness, or anger, and not positive ones anymore, like happiness.  Some people can't feel much of anything at all anymore.  







and two written experiences, I am too tired out to post the pictures with them, just click the links.  


https://www.pssdnetwork.org/patient-spotlight/greet



This is exactly how I feel, and also, some people with this condition have taken their lives.  


https://www.pssdnetwork.org/patient-spotlight/phillip


Both are terrible, all these stories are.....tragedies, but in some way, it is worse that some people were given these at an exceedingly young age, like in the second story.  You lose all or next to all interest in things, you lose the ability to enjoy anything, you lose desire for sex.....and most or all of the ability, plenty of people have issues with sleep, like me, coffee and caffeine stopped having any effect on me unless I drank enough hard alcohol, interestingly in one of the written stories from Germany, besides the things I already mentioned, the guy was experiencing the same with caffeine and alcohol.  They affect me a bit once again now, but not like before.  

This can happen to pretty much anyone, unless maybe you live in some extremely isolated place and would never come in contact with prescription drugs like these.  You don't want it to happen to you.  I was talking with someone here, and he was too worried to take an SSRI, and chose to forego it, though having a form of depression.  It is difficult for me to admit it, but yes, some people likely are helped by these but have no serious effects, that last....for years, or even the rest of their lives.  I don't think I am as anti-vax as a lot of GD....but from some of the stories I have heard, it is like the COVID shot.  I got them, I only felt sick that day and maybe the next, and then was fine, and I know the shot didn't cause these things, because they had already been with me about two years when I got the shot, and all the symptoms I have match up with this post SSRI sexual dysfunction.  There was a personal acquaintance at a church I go to though, and she told me another member's daughter had died after receiving the shot, and also sent me a story of a woman who had been wrecked in whichever way so badly by the shot in a European country with assisted suicide, that she chose that option, so it is really hit or miss with both these things, medications and the covid shot, from what I know.  

Be forewarned.....even tell others.  Someone posted here, and it was not long after I thought the exact same thing to myself, that one day, this time will be looked back on like we look back at "mental health" from the 1950s and before, with forced sterilizations, lobotomies, shock treatment, and other horrible things, which were carried out here in the US, and beyond.

User Name checks out.

sorry dude. alot of people are messed up with those drugs. they are brutal.

TLDR.  I stopped reading at the point OP said he did not check out the Dr. Before making an appointment.

I appreciate it to an extent when people say sorry.  For the longest time, and still to an extent, I blamed the world in a sense, for this.  I was out of my mind screaming, and they kept sending me to a psychiatric hospital (yeah, I lost my guns, had had them for 14 years, well, the oldest, and never harmed anything but paper and an occasional pest with them, and my 10/22 which I sometimes shot a mouse or bird with I had had for years longer still, but my dad had bought it for me when I was 12.  It's like my world was turned upside down, none of this was my fault, I wasn't myself, and the world had turned on me and blamed me for something that wasn't my fault at all.

If you read those accounts, it is common that people trust their doctors.  The thing is though, most or all of these medications don't have warnings for more than one possible effect, or even any of the possible life altering effects at all.  In some of these cases, it was people who were young or very young and their doctor was chosen for them by their parents.  I did find out the one I was seeing had been suspended way back in 2006 by the state medical board, but only for 90 days, because he had among quite a few other things falsified records he submitted to them.  He should have had his license revoked and never been allowed to practice psychiatry again.

Ssri drugs are bad stuff, I hear a lot of the rampage killers has been on them.

Don't put it in your your body if they're not sure how it even works...

Did/will you get them back are you a PP?

@Inneedofhelp

People want to know why “why don’t you support mental health l” or “increasing mental health resources” etc , this shit here.

Well...I would hear that from time to time too, I don't know the exact number, but definitely, some of the rampage killers, and then people who have just killed one or two people, or maybe just themselves, have been on those.  The thing is, like I said, SSRIs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.  Serotonin controls/affects a lot for us, along with dopamine, sleep, motivation, energy libido, motivation, appetite, more than that, but specifically, aggression and irritability.  I was on one for a time at least, with this cocktail of drugs I was taking, but also the atypical antipsychotic I was on could and very likely did play a role.  I can't know how much of the aggression part was because of the SSRI I was taking and how much was because of the atypical antipsychotic I was taking.  If it messes with either of those, or both of those neurotransmitters, it could have that effect.

There was another site that unfortunately went down some months back, SSRI stories.  Two that I remember from there are of a woman from the UK who, when she was a young girl, chased her friend with a hammer while on an SSRI, and was never allowed to play with that friend again by the girl's mother, who said "you're dangerous", despite the fact that it was the drug that made her do that.  Another I vaguely remember was of someone who was on something, I can't remember what, and was in such a feverish rage that they stabbed a wooden table repeatedly, over 100 times, maybe way more than that, with a knife.

I had two bad experiences with medications going all the way back to 2005 and 2010.  The one in 2005 I was just so lethargic I could only lay on our couch, I was 17 then and with my parents, and in 2010 I was still with them in a new house, and that time whatever I was on made me paranoid, I was thinking my dad was going to shoot me with his revolver, and that kind of thought was never something that would enter my mind.  Also, it was in fall, and the darkness of the shadows in the house seemed unnaturally dark.  I got off of that within a week, because I was able to quickly connect the effects with the medication I had recently started.  With what I was on 2018-2020, the effects mostly set in too slowly, so by the time I realized all these horrible things were from the medications I was taking, it was too late, and I could no longer sleep even a moment without one of them.  The psychiatrist gave me something called trazadone which barely let me sleep, and I tapered off what was probably the worst of them.

Yes, I became a prohibited person.  Yes, people who really shouldn't have guns no doubt end up on the list, and there are also plenty of people who are put on there who never should have been too.  I probably would be all right with guns now, like I said the mindless rage left 10 months or so ago.  This is a sort of hidden problem, even epidemic, and it goes beyond post SSRI sexual dysfunction.  There was a case of black veteran not that long ago that shot some people in the northeast as I recall, and his mom said he had been put on "some sort of messed up medication", by the VA if I remember right.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if he was on something that pushed him into that, that really just made him do it.  

The gun control debate along with really everything else in the world is so far beyond any sort of fixing now.  It is something though that infuriates me, that some of these cases of mass murder, with firearms and maybe even some instances with lesser or for all we know with lesser or greater fatalities (there have been some vehicle attacks on crowds over the last 10-15 years I know) no doubt were carried out by people out of their minds on something.  I am fairly skeptical about this case for some reason, but someone said the Las Vegas shooter was taking an upper, valium at the time, I think, and suggested it could have played a role.  I have no experience with valium and don't know if it is a type of drug that could do that to someone.  

Even stiumlants like caffeine (you can buy it in pill format) at high doeses will turn someone into a rage monster.  When that tranny shot three people to death at that christian school as I recall in Tennessee, I noticed, I had come across one in one of those psychiatric hospitals, who was in there for, lo and behold, attacking someone.  I know they mess around with their hormones when they perform those operations on them, and at least dopamine is both a neurotransmitter and hormone.

I took Seroquel and Prozac for a long time. Dick was in the dirt on the stuff - no desire to have sex, or do much of anything else for that matter. I went off cold turkey and just dogged it out. The withdrawal felt like a bad acid trip, and I still feel "foggy" most of the time in a way I never did before taking the medications. I still think I'm not right, 10+ years later, and I 100% believe whatever the SSRI's did to rewire my brain chemistry has never quite fixed itself. But dealing with all the bullshit is still somehow better than blocking everything out.

To fill in a little detail - I was in counselling for a rough patch in life when it looked like I was going to get bumped out of a job. I mentioned this to a friend and he immediately made sure that I understood the problems with SSRI's which he experienced. He got into personal details because he was never warned about this and wanted to be sure I didn't get the same treatment.

He was prescribed SSRI's, a relatively small dose, and started taking them. Immediately he found that he was no longer able to orgasm. Everything functioned as normal but he just could not finish. He found this more of a problem than the other issues he was facing so he stopped taking the drugs. He said that taught him what they mean when they say "off your meds". It was like the SSRI's had put his mental state on rails, keeping everything within limits, so when he stopped these meds cold turkey (even though he had only been on them for less than a week) mentally it was like a train that jumped the tracks. So he started taking the SSRI's again and slowly reduced the dosage until he stopped altogether.

He said that just that short exposure ruined his sex life. It took him a month to re-learn how to orgasm and even that was with difficulty. He has learned to orgasm again but says it's still not like before (I'm not sure exctly how different). From what he said this has never gone away.

I think that the doctors, big Pharma and others in this circle of pushing these drugs on people should be prosecuted and thrown away in jail forever....

That being said, I pray OP and others find their way...I believe a lot of people out there need help, but sadly these drugs cause more problems than they fix.

keep your head up, op. sorry your feeling the way you are.

it’s ok, we all have our days.


ssri & snri are not good long term and takes time to wean off.


for med people - no methylene blue for pt on ssri or snri.

Similar issue, mostly went a way for me but not 100%, very reduced Labido . One of them made it so I could not pee with any force. Its like I lost all muscle control of my bladder, If i pushed very slowly I could get it started and pee, But if I had to go bad I could not go if i pushed.  Also brain Zaps are a mother fucker and will scare the shit out of you the first time. I woke up and though someone fired a shotgun in my house. I grabbed a gun and started looking, It wasn't until i calmed down and realized that the 2 dogs made zero reaction to the noise I thought I heard, that i realized it was in my head.

Last one i was on made me vomit all the time, cough twice vomit. Drink water in the morning, vomit. Smell something bad, Vomit. Brush my teeth, Vomit. Dr said thats not a side effect and its in my head. finally found a few reddit post with people having the same issue with it. Stopped taking it that day. I was on it for anxiety. I stress over everything and in the end it made everything worse.

Fuck OP, I got nothing.  My dachshunds are very therapeutic, not with sex though.

Someone should be.  There are obviously doctors and others in the medical field that know about this and are trying to spread the word about these dangers, but I have been for too long far far more vengeful than you.  I wanted to kill that psychiatrist for a long time, granted, I was out of my mind with rage in the withdrawal phase from what I had been on, but even after for some time.  I still hate him, and often enough, I would also say to myself or someone like my parents or an acquaintance "he should be thrown in a dark cell for the rest of his life".  

Like that Dutch woman who had her life destroyed by these said, and I quoted here in the original post.  

 

It is hard not to be vengeful when you have had so much taken from you, although getting vengeance wouldn't cure you.  For me though, I had a real desire that the "doctor" that did this could never do any harm to anyone ever again, and since the medical board didn't do anything to him past suspending his license past 90 days, who would do anything?  I found one review that explained he was doing similar to the sister of the reviewer, who is in her 70s, and she had become addicted to the medications he was giving her, which were "wreaking havoc on her system", similar to how I had become addicted to one of the medications I was on just in order to sleep at all at night.

There really is a whole lot of injustice in the world, I was blind to so much of it before all this.

Wow, I knew the stuff was bad but had no idea.  Keep getting the message out there OP.  I'd really like to see a pemanent area under gereral here devoted to health, both physical and mental.  Cant tell you the number of times ive made recommendations for sinus problems or pain management.  And im sure guys dealing with PTSD or issues like yours could use a place to talk.  @Aimless?

Also, I have to imagine these mengeles know about the side effects and I would bet they take working vacations to very nice places to attend conferences paid for by the drug makers.

Bipolar and other serious mental heath issues can be very difficult to treat and control.

Some medications seem to help, some seem to make it worse.

I am not a psychiatrist, but it seems to be a lot of trial and error.

Safe and effective just means they'll profit more than the lawsuits cost them. I won't take any drugs unless there's no other choice to save my life.

This is an insightful post. It's amazing that you can analyze yourself like that. I am so lucky I don't have to deal with that. I wish the best for you brother, keep it together man.

My brother was on SSRIs to treat depression and it was like someone put a hex on him. Everything in his life went downhill until several years after he got off them.

Just for context about how fucked we are:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db377.htm




https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/antidepressant-prescribing-increases-by-35-in-six-years



I wish we could get some studies out in the public about SSRI linkage to mass shootings outside of the Tucker Carlson and MTG headlines that are immediately dismissed as conspiracy theories.  Some people theorize that it is when you try to go off of these meds, some cold turkey, without very slowly weaning yourself off is when people snap. But my belief is that big pharma will never let meaningful studies occur.

Have you tried?

I keed, I keed. Just some dark humor.

OP, this thread is more helpful than you imagine to more people than you imagine.

Let's keep the discussion going. It's important to hear and talk about.

I was on them for a couple years for anxiety.  Anxiety runs like a freight train on my mom's side of the family - everyone either medicates or self medicates.

Lexapro was like being high.  I shit you not my pupils dilated a few hours after my first dose.  I felt fucking amazing.  I had motivation to do everything as my anxiety wasn't shutting me down.  It genuinely was great.  However, after a few days I couldn't ejaculate, big problem, my wife and I screw like rabbits.  Went back to the doc and explained that's not going to fly so I got wellbutrin added to the stack.  Wellbutrin is an SNRI(?) and is supposed to offset the ejaculation problem.  Well it did work.

I was feeling great for months upon months on this combo.  One problem was creeping in - I was craving alcohol constantly.  Up until then I was a 6 pack a week kinda guy, maybe a 6 pack a month.  I started drinking almost daily just 2-4 beers.

After maybe 18 months or so the high was fading.  I felt kinda numb and stuck.  Zero motivation.  My drinking increased SIGNIFICANTLY.  I weened myself off the lex which was easy, then I weened myself off the wellbutrin.  Holy fucking shit coming off the wellbutrin buried me in a hole of absolute depression and misery.  After about a month or two my wife essentially begged me to get back on the lexapro so I did.  It lifted me slightly, but not like before.  Going back on the lexapro put my drinking into over drive at damn near 12-16 daily (this is the REAL number, not the under-played I don't have a problem number).  My labido was gone completely and I couldn't fuck even if I wanted to because I was passing out at night.

A few months ago I absolutely broke down like a baby in my wife's arms.  I knew I had a major drinking problem, I knew I wasn't me, I was numb, I was chasing something and just completely exhausted from chasing nothing.  I had zero motivation and zero feeling, unless I was drunk.  I quit the lex cold turkey.  It was cake compared to quitting the wellbutrin the first time around.  Yeah I had the typical "brain zaps", but for me they were whole body jolts.  I had headaches, nausea, etc.  However, my mood was improving every day.  

Fast forward to now and I'm much better.  I still struggle with motivation a bit and sometimes feel foggy, but I know I'm still going through withdrawal from the Lex as up until last week I was getting zaps daily.  I feel like I have emotions again.  My wife says my eyes look happy again.  My drinking is subsiding as well - I ain't a saint, I still have 6-10 light beers daily, maybe 12 if there's a social event, but it's damn well better than where I was at and I'm working on it.  I don't know WTF the meds did to re-wire my brain to crave alcohol, but it's not uncommon from what I've read.  It makes me a giddy drunk.  Hell, yesterday I had 8 beers, poured one more, dumped it, then took the dog for a jog.

For me, SSRI's got me over the hump, then I had to get out from under the SSRI's.

If not all.

The worst thing about them for me is now I no longer know what is me and what is a result of the drug.

I was forced on them by the VA years ago but eventually got off them. I still wonder if some of the shit I go through mentally is a natural product of my consciousness or some sort of fucked up side effect, this question alone fucks with me more than anything.

I also went through a brain injury, that added even more power to this question.

This is where I'm at.

Dept of Veterans Affairs enters chat

You know how a lot of arsonists are Firemen?

I avoid psychiatrists/psychologists for the same reason...

Consider bupropion, pramipexole, st johns wort.

I believe those "treatments or cures" are worse than the affliction they are supposed to help and the ones prescribing them don't really understand WTF they are doing to people due to "trust the science" and good old money.

SSRIs in my opinion should only be a temporary fix, not a long term solution. Unfortunately they are not prescribed that way. Lexapro has been a life saver and a sex killer. Tried multiple others but the juice wasn't worth the squeeze with the side effects.

I keep about 30 days of Lexapro on hand and have to get prescription if I go beyond that, which unless life truly kicks me to the curb again, I doubt I'll ever use it beyond 14 days. It's a stop gap measure for me. Slows my anxiety and let's my brain work again.

Just remember to reach out when the demons are winning.

I have a friend who was prescribed benzodiazepines for a while.

More or less destroyed his life. Wrecked his marriage of 20+(?) years. Left him unable to function in any professional capacity.


Bad medicine.

Close friend was on some shit.
She got off of it..
Her biggest complaint was she was non stop horny. To the point she almost went back on them.

Dr Peter Breggin's books and substack will be of MAJOR HELP if you aren't familiar.

He's the OG on the subject of dangers of psych drugs and much, much more.

SSRI's
SSR eyes

Ii think a huge portion of this "trans" explosion is directly related to SSRI's as they seek some form of sexual gratification to replace what went missing, and it is undeniable that SSRI's have played a part in the uptick in school shootings.

Drugs are bad, including many of them administered by "healthcare professionals "

For many people, that is why they start taking SSRI

Psychotropic drugs should almost never be the answer to someone’s issues.  Yet they are overwhelmingly the answer in the US.  I’d say less than 1% of people should legitimately be on psychiatric drugs. In the US it’s 25% or 1 in 4.. which is a fucking shame.

It’s well known that psychiatric drugs cause many sexual side effects.  They absolutely affect the development of the unborn fetus in many ways. To include sexuality & orientation.

Hormones in our industrialized food supply is a contributing factor as well.

SSRI's is what they give people if the have a premature Ejaculation issue.

I went down that road years ago it was the only way to handle ptsd.

Thankfully EMDR fixed 90% of my issues but that's a more recent development. A real game changer for me.

Thanks for the ammo, I'm always trying to keep people off drugs.

When one of the potential side effects is “suicidal thoughts,” then I’d bet good money “homicidal thoughts” are probably not too far outside the bell curve.

Quacks give the damn things out like skittles, and don’t bother mentioning that there can be long term side effects.

I understand for some that is the case but the USA has an astonishing amount of people on prescribed drugs compared to other first world nations. Most troubling is the amount of parents I know doping up their kids rather than teaching them to navigate life as who they are

We have it so easy in America that we need drugs when things get just a little bit stressful.

Instead of addressing the source of the stress, we cover it up with drugs.

I shudder to think when things do get honestly stressful in America and the drugs are either not there or aren't enough of a band aid to cover the stress.

The flip side to all of this is that we're not seeing any posts in here from people in the midst of a bipolar manic episode who *aren't* on meds.

The last one I dealt with basically resulted in a SWAT callout as the guy stopped eating food, stopped working/going to church/doing anything, became overwhelmed by hallucinations, and started attacking his neighbors.

I took a schizophrenic kid into custody who had decided he didn't need meds any more. His blood sugar levels were above 2600 and he wound up in the ICU for a week...his mom told me later it was his 13th inpatient stay, and typically took a few weeks to a month to stabilize. Off meds, he was dead absent outside intervention.

20 years ago, I had a doctor put me sertraline for some pain management issues. Apparently he put me on a high dose. I didn't think anything about it. Got the pills on like a Wednesday Thursday and we headed out of town on a mini vacation that weekend. I was a lot younger and the wife got frisky.

We fucked for hours and I could not pop. Crazy shit. I wore that shit out.

It was a little disappointing, but it was a memorable trip. She was sore. Fuck it, I was proud. Take it bitch. I didn't care if I knocked her up or not.

I complained to my doctor a week later and he cut my dose way back. Tempting to mix that with viagra now. My second wife would divorce me if I did that to her.

If you need help, get help. They make all kinds of little pills now for that. Figure out your kink, girls with glasses, thong panties, feet, whatever man. Life is too short.

Huh?

Anywho, seems like the VA is getting close to looking into marijuana and other psychedelics to give besides SSRIs (I guess?)...

IMO, they're probably making the move not cuz they care about our service members, but with all the legalization and taxation of other drugs, they figured "why not?"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2023/12/27/biden-signs-defense-spending-bill-funding-psychedelic-research/?sh=2cfe3b5c488a

While the pot and/or other non SSRI drugs may cause anxiety and other adverse reactions in certain people and I'm not condoning ANY form of drug - I rather have a person mellowed out and controlled smoking pot because I do believe some people have a chemical imbalance and/or lack impulse control and DO need to be on some kind of med.