I presume Paxil is the American name for paroxetine. Over here it's called Seroxat, and I lost nearly a decade of my life to it. The withdrawal has been widely reported in the UK, which is great for me because when I say I was on a bad prescription drug people will actually say "was it seroxat? I've heard about that." I wouldn't know where to start in explaining my seroxat hell and the full ramifications it had on my life, but I'll try to summarise.

The worst thing for me in fact, was not the horrendous cold turkey. It was the years of being dosed up to the eyeballs, paralysed with side effects that the doctors claimed didn't exist. OK, my mental problems were blotted out, but so was my entire personality. I had no sense of agency. I was literally zombified. I'm a very proactive, responsible person and I was destroyed. The weight gain was horrendous in my twenties when I should have been out meeting people and enjoying my youth. I was so dead all my friends drifted away. The career I'd been trying to build in between bouts of illness was killed off. I lost all my contacts and prospects. I had no capacity for thought or activity. And it was definitely the drug that did it because within a couple of days of coming off it, my 'real' personality came back with a vengeance. My GP couldn't believe what was happening. And most of the weight just fell off without even trying.

I had been on very high doses of seroxat, over the recommended limit, I found later, and it took a good five to six months before I could consider myself properly functioning. Even then I would regularly have seixures which I never had before being on the drug. The immediate withdrawl was very frightening and I was totally isolated and alone in coping with it, with the sole exception of my lovely GP. Memories of physical pain fade, but I remember the pain filling my legs was so bad that I seriously considered sawing my legs off because I thought that would hurt less.

To be fair, a lot of what I suffered was probably a massive upsurge of supressed ptsd and anxiety, plus the limitless rage and fury I felt (still feel) that my most energetic, ambitious years had been stolen from me. I will never get that time back. When I came off the drug, I literally felt that I was the age I was when I went on them. The intervening years were a useless blur.

I feel that the destruction of my friendships, career and network of existence caused more damage to my life than the original problem would have. I have had terrible times since coming off the drug, but all the time I feel that I am alive, I'm a spirit in a body making my way along the big journey. And it's got a massive hole in it that I can't stop mourning. I am middle aged and Ididn't have the chance to enjoy being young.

Psychiatrists continue to deny that the damaging effects of their treatments can be counter-productive in 'helping' the people they are prescribed to. I have met other victims of long-term seroxat damage who have had the same story as me, but not for so many years because they had people close to them and I was totally alone. There was no-one to speak up for me. Some people take it for a while and it's good for them. But others have not been so lucky and they're still not being believed.


:angry-fla :angry-fla :angry-fla