I really hope someone out there finds this helpful in any way, always remember to reach out❤️
Hello everyone welcome back to my channel or welcome to my channel um i’m not sure what number video this is going to be it could be like my third one might save it for the future who knows and sorry my hood’s up i have bad hay fever today i feel i’m feeling a bit rough makes you feel a bit cozy you know you know what i mean um i love saying um so i thought i
Would do a video talking about my experience with antidepressants if you follow me on twitter uh you might know what i’ve been going through recently i’ve come off antidepressants and i’ve been dealing with the withdrawals and the symptoms of that so i thought i would go through some of them because i feel like it’s not really spoken about when you’re kind of
Advised to go on antidepressants or the option is given to you so i’ll start from the beginning where something quite traumatic happened in my life and i’d always dealt with quite bad anxiety just in general like couldn’t really talk to people things like that bad social anxiety but this thing happened it really um pushed me over the edge i couldn’t leave bed
Couldn’t go to uni things like that and i was just really anxious all the time so i went on citalopram and i just reacted horrifically like was throwing up over and over again and with madison’s disease i’m not really meant to throw up because i can’t keep my steroids down i can’t tell if i’m speaking really quick i’m not used to talking to a camera but yeah so
I started onto teleprom and then i decided that i was gonna stop taking it i took one tablet and was ill for days and i was like no i’m gonna wait until the christmas holidays when i don’t have uni uh so i tried waiting till then and i just kept feeling worse and worse because i was probably dealing with slight withdrawals after just that one tablet as well and
As my brain chemistry was adjusting so i rang the doctors again i was like i feel awful really heightened heightened anxiety headaches nausea constant nausea so instead he put me on slow release venlafaxine which was a lifesaver for me it the symptoms of um starting antidepressants aren’t fun i won’t lie you get a lot of nausea uh dizziness um headaches things
Like that and your eyes are a bit more sensitive to light because your pupils go really big mine are quite big right now um stop saying them but so yeah that is something that you should consider um and people say that they can experience heightened levels of depression anxiety once you go on them for a little while that didn’t really happen to me because i
Think i was so in desperate need of just some help oh i should also mention i was doing therapy as well for the specific event it wasn’t for like general anxiety that i had the tablets helped a lot with that but for the the event the trigger i was getting counselling and um things like that which also helped so it doesn’t work for everyone a few of my friends
Have said that counseling doesn’t didn’t work for them at all but it really did for me personally so i think if you are if you have the option given to you to go to counselling as well as taking antidepressants i would advise that because they do help you through the process as well so i was on them since from january and it’s august now so eight months and no
That’s a lie i started them in december so nine months almost whatever and it helped me so much with the event and helped me with just general anxiety i could speak to people i could even order my own food which was a massive deal to me because i doubt my whole childhood even just being so anxious for no reason i used to i went to the doctors for anxiety when i
Was i think i was 12 because i was throwing up every night and i had terrible acid reflux it was just i don’t know what it was just not very good like there are mental health issues in my family so i don’t know if it was coming off of that and also being a bisexual um that gave me a lot of anxiety when i was younger uh like being around like boys at school that
Weren’t very nice to me things like that um obviously i wasn’t out then but i used to get called gaylocks i had a little high-pitched voice and i didn’t get my like first girlfriend until year 10 or something like that so until i gained like popularity and uh moved into year 10 11 i was picked on a bit which caused me a lot of anxiety um so yeah there was that
But in terms of the positives and negatives of antidepressants i took mine in the morning uh but they were slow released so they released out the day not instantly like some people’s do because then the vaccine has the shortest half-life which i’ll get on to later which they really need to tell you that um so it was slowly so i didn’t get that nauseous in the
Morning after taking it but a lot of people do and they recommend you take it on a full stomach but i have iced coffee for breakfast so i never really did that but i do recommend that because it does like affect your stomach lining and things and i had other medications take at the same time with my addison’s that also affects your stomach lining so um any stomach
Pains and things i experienced i don’t think are universal symptoms but you get some dizziness at times uh greater fatigue i think and i had some trouble concentrating whilst on them it didn’t last that only lasted like a month or the majority of these symptoms only lasted a month at most but other than that i never really had any problems with them except
They made me feel better and i think there is a statement around antidepressants where people see it as a sense of giving up like you’re just gonna rely on a medication but it saved my life and i don’t think anyone should ever be put down for choosing an option that at the end of the day without it you could i might not have been here um because it was a really
Dark time in my life and i dealt with suicidal thoughts and things like that and just the feeling of not wanting to get out of bed or do anything and it gave me my life back i was able to travel i’d never got a train by myself i’d always been too terrified um for no reason and i was able to do that i actually ended up with a relationship in a relationship with
Someone that lived in liverpool and i could never imagine that like i never would have had that for myself if i hadn’t gone on these habits i don’t think because i wouldn’t have had the confidence to even get the train there or to meet them i never met anyone um without other people there anything like that which you know don’t recommend if you don’t know them very
Well but they helped me so much through that and i was able to go on holiday with my friends and be so much less anxious the whole time and have a good time obviously before corona which wasn’t ideal but then in lockdown i was going through a breakup there were family issues and i ended up in a really dark place again despite being on antidepressants i was on
75 milligrams which isn’t a very high dose so i asked the doctor if i could move up um and they gave me 37.5 milligram tablets to take it as well as my 75 milligrams so that’s what math not my strong point um that’s something and i’ll see if i put it on the screen if i remember in like crazy soon but yeah so i moved them up and it did help it did help a bit
But i was a bit shocked because i hadn’t really dealt with prolonged anxiety since i went on them but locked down at my home at home because now i’m at my uni house and i live with six other people so i get to socialize and things but it wasn’t very good i was drinking every night i was being sick from anxiety um sleeping outside it was just really strange and
That’s another thing with alcohol your tolerance is lower well for me it’s all i don’t know if it’s there for everyone i think it is it takes less to get drunk and it’s a different kind of drunk it’s i don’t think you’re meant to drink on antidepressants but i did and ben lafaxine i think is one of the ones where it’s okay to drink moderately but you don’t want
To drink with addison’s either but you know and so yeah it was a dark time i was going through some shoes wasn’t great even with the antidepressants and i think i realized then i was like if i feel this anxious on them i want to see what it’s like not on them so i gave it a couple months and then the other week i decided that i was going to start weaning off
Them now this is where the short half-life comes into play because it really annoyed me so it turns out benefaction is the shortest half-life which means it stays in your symptom for the least amount of your symptom stays in your system for the least amount of time and that means that you have to it takes the longest to wean off them and they recommend 10 months
10 months of withdrawal symptoms well they’re meant to ease it because you do it slowly but i was like i cannot do that i don’t because i wanted to experience what my brain was like what my body was like without them like now like i didn’t want to have to wait 10 months to feel how like to feel how my body can cope now with my anxiety after i’ve been on them and
Had some healthier coping mechanisms and been to therapy things like that so i weaned off them in about three weeks i did like little bits of tablets every day horrific really bad um i can see why you’re meant to take 10 months i was in contact with a doctor at the time but they didn’t approve of my methods but i wanted to come off them brain zaps are one of
The worst things it’s it feels like an electric shock in your brain and that’s a withdrawal symptom nausea really bad nausea um lightheadedness and i experienced something quite scary which is delirium where you don’t have a clue what’s going on basically like someone could tell you something and they could be right in front of you and tell you something and
You just like walk away like they don’t you don’t um have any recollection of what they’ve said and things like that and just insane dizziness i had to just lay down and like ride out really and i was taking little bits extra when i felt really really bad but i went um campervanning with my friend that lives with me and i decided then i was just not going to
Take any tablets at all because i managed to wean down to like a tiny crumb a day but i did need that to help with the brain zaps and the nausea and um i was sick a couple times as well and headaches and eye aches really bad eye aches to like you know when a headache starts behind your eye it was like that uh trouble sleeping i’m really not making this sound very
Good but at campervanning i was like i’m not going to take any and now i’m completely off them i’ve been completely off them for a week now and i’m feeling good the withdrawal symptoms have gone and yeah so although it wasn’t a very good experience i think being in lockdown was a good chance to do it as well because it means i didn’t have to take time off uni
Or anything like that but yeah so that’s my story of going on them what it was like on them and now coming off coming out the other side and me coming off them in no way is slating them at all um because as i said they saved my life they save a lot of people’s lives there is no shame in relying on a medication for that i if i stayed on till i was dead like to
The end of my life that wouldn’t have been an issue and i have so much like respect for people that do that because it’s also i think it’s a bit of a mental challenge knowing that when you take these tablets in the morning it’s for your mental health it’s it’s hard to have to rely on things like that sometimes and i know i dealt a lot with that um getting upset
At points that i needed these tablets but if you need them you need them and i’m lucky in the fact that i felt okay to come off them now and that my anxiety is much better now i’m off them i don’t really know how that’s happened but i’m really grateful i can buy things and order food and get on trains alone i got a train back from campervanning so i wanted to
Come back early and that was like a three-hour train with a couple changes and i was absolutely fine so i think it’s really important to weigh up the positives and negatives of antidepressants but i also want to mention everyone’s experience is different there is no one that you will speak to that will have the exact same experience as you with antidepressants
They are a personal thing um because everyone’s bodies are different and so i’m not saying make your decision based on this video that’s what i’m saying but i just want to help in any way i can because with the withdrawal symptoms people didn’t tell me about that when i went to the doctors and um went to like counseling and i was offered these things no one told
Me that they would not be very fun to come off of they say that you’ll get bad symptoms starting them as your brain adr adjusts but if they had told me that venovaccine takes 10 months to come off otherwise you have some bad withdrawal symptoms i probably wouldn’t have chosen those ones and i just think that’s something that they need to work on but i hope this
Video helps even if it helps ease your mind or actually i don’t know if i’ve helped do that i mean they were really good when i was on them so hopefully that makes you feel a little less anxious about going on them perhaps if you’re making the decision or if you’re in the process of making the decision just stay in contact with your doctor whilst you’re on them
As well and um let them know how you’re feeling let me know how you’re feeling if you’re in a dark place at all i’m always here i’ll leave my twitter and instagram and that below and yeah i hope you’re all doing okay this is a much longer video than the last one i posted but thank you for watching and please subscribe goodbye
Transcribed from video
My Experience with Anti-depressants: Side effects, benefits, withdrawals (venlafaxine) By y4rrum
