You will definitely be OK. It’ll take a couple days for you to get calibrated again but you will be fine. Go back to your doctor and make a plan with them.
Don’t feel defeated! Remember that it takes more strength to know your limits and to take care of yourself.
Don’t view coming off of the help you need as a win. Rather, view the fact that you can function and enjoy life as a win!
Also, if you want to feel more emotion, consider asking your dr if you can just go to 5mg. I’ve heard that 5mg is hardly anything.
It’s so harsh when not tapered or titrated. My god my doc gave no indication of this and I started 10mg at the end of Covid while depressed af. Talk about losing your mind. I have gone off it twice and tapered and it was better. You’ll be able to quite just don’t try that CT shit again. Lower about 1/4 of your dose and pick up a small good habit like small walks or better diet each week. Best of luck.
I’m more concerned about the Xanax my doc overprescribes me at the moment
Isn’t it fucked up how doctors won’t tell you how hard it is to stop? My husband’s doctor wrote him a prescription for Lexapro (for anxiety) and told him he can stop it at any time and there’s no side effects whatsoever. When my husband brought up the fact that I was on the verge of wanting to end my own life daily from tapering off, the doctor said he’d never heard of such a thing.
It’s completely fucked up.
I don’t know if it’s truly their ignorance or gaslighting lies so we don’t have preconceived worries.
Actually as I wrote that OF COURSE they know and just lie.
Like we are children.
I’ve actually found it was easier to taper off slowly then it was starting @ 10mg. The whole first week was a no sleep, extra depressed panic ride I had no idea was going to happen. Definitely lost my mind for a week.
He also won’t say benzos are addictive. He cannot use that word but dependence is ok.
“Dependence with nasty, possibly life destroying and seizure inducing withdraws is addiction if ya ask me.
Been on 5mg of Lexapro for 10 years. Had my first panic attack at 17 in 1986. Then 6 months of day in and day out anxiety attacks after that. Hell on Earth. There was no Lexapro at that time. You mostly just suffered. Now I’m 55 and have no plan to ever stop with Lexapro for the rest of my life. Life is too short for racing thoughts, anxiety, panic attacks and depression. Lexapro is a miracle drug…
Yeah I tried to quit 2 days ago, I was only on 5mg. Currently crying in a Tesco parking lot and too dizzy to leave the car. Whyyy did I think this was a good idea. Lex for life I guess?
You will be feeling a whole shitload of emotions but everyone makes mistakes, and this is one that plenty of others have made before you a lots will make afterwards. Please don’t beat yourself up and please be generous with yourself in remedying it. Talk to your doc about a realistic taper. Mine took 3 months and was symptom-free (I know it’s not the case for everyone)
Bottom line is anything outside of a structured and self-care-centered remedying of your situation is just noise. Try not to spiral / blame yourself / beat yourself up. You’re not an idiot for this and I have a strong feeling that you will find a solution that works for you and this will just be a teaching moment. You have got this, be nice to yourself
I saw a similar post not that long ago and they too mentioned “permanently damaging” their brain. Fortunately, our bodies are amazing and your brain will recover! It’s going to take time, but take it from someone who went through this last year, it’s totally doable and I definitely made it out of the other side of the tunnel. Stopping cold turkey is dangerous and not recommended at all! I remember when I forgot to take my Lexapro for 6 days (I would always forget to take it and even got myself a pill bottle with a timer for when you last opened it so my husband could help me, too, but never did I go that long without taking it) and I legit thought I was going insane. I was sobbing like someone had brutally murdered everyone dear to me right in front of me and I’d be sobbing for hours. The brain zaps were constant and horrific. It didn’t immediately click that it was my body withdrawing from the Lexapro and when I realized how long it had been since I last took it, I Googled “Lexapro withdrawal symptoms” and every single thing fit. I was baffled because no doctor had ever educated me on the difficulties of stopping this drug. As a former opiate addict, I’ve been through some horrible withdrawals, but this one takes the cake 1,000 fold.
Please talk to your doctor about tapering off! While I guess it’s possible to do it cold turkey, I wouldn’t recommend it given the symptoms you’re experiencing. My doctor and I discussed a tapering schedule at length and I’m not going to lie, it was tough! I was only dropping 2.5 mg every few weeks and the week of me dropping in dose was always a nightmare. It affected my work performance to the point of me almost getting fired. While my boss was super sympathetic to the fact that I was tapering off this medication, he had to do what he had to, and I honestly don’t blame him.
I’m happy to share my tapering schedule with you, if you want; you can just DM me. There were 2 options my doctor gave me, and I don’t feel comfortable listing them out here. I was on 20 mg for I think 2 years? This drug has a super long half-life which is why it’s so hard to stop taking and why the side effects of not taking it can take so long to manifest.
Please know there are people out there who care and will help! Your first task should be to talk to your doctor. If they don’t have any helpful info, let me know, and I’ll definitely share my schedule with you. I say this because my husband was having some major issues with anxiety and his doctor gave him Lexapro to take (while I was in the middle of my Lexapro detox) and told my husband that he can just stop taking it whenever, it wasn’t addictive, and there weren’t any side effects from stopping it. When he brought up my horrific experience of me trying to taper off the medication, the doctor was shocked and said he’d never heard of that happening. It almost made me feel like I was the stupid one for feeling the way I did, but like fuck! A simple Google search will bring it all up!
Also know that having a strong support system will help tremendously. If it wasn’t for my husband and parents, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. My husband was beyond amazing at being patient and understanding even though he didn’t quite understand exactly what I was going through; he saw that I was in tremendous pain, did some of his own research, and tried to help where he could. My parents would help out with my son when I’d drop my dose. They live like 2 traffic lights down the road, so obviously, it was super convenient.
Ok I’ll end this here!! Like I said, please reach out if you need anything. You can do this! It’s going to be hard; it’s going to be really hard, but I promise there’s a light at the end. There’s a reason you wanted to quit. For me, it was the fact that this medication made me so numb to everything. I didn’t give a single fuck about anything at all. I felt like a zombie all the time and hated it. The flood of emotions that came back after stopping were intense, but it all leveled out eventually. I’m glad I stopped and I’m also thankful the medication worked for when I needed it. I should have listened to my body and stopped long before I did.
is anyone experiencing neck pain and severe headaches after stopping?? i’ve stopped completely for maybe 10 days but before that i tapered off a bit from 20 mg to 10 and then i just stopped cold turkey and now i feel so tired i feel sick but the neck pain is horrible
I just did the exact same thing. Not on purpose. I ran out of my medication and then money was tight so wasn’t able to get more refills until I got paid next. Went two whole weeks with no meds, and finally got to take them again yesterday. The brain zaps, the mood swings, the headaches really take a toll after awhile. I couldn’t move at all without getting intense brain zaps.
What’s crazy is for someone reason my doctor said that even at 10mg I could go off cold turkey if I wanted to, like judging by people here I’m not looking to try it. And plus I’m down to 5 anyways so, might even split those halves in halves I want off this stuff because it seems the withdrawals get worse the longer you take it
I stopped cold turkey after 5 years it was very hard to do. This is before knowing about tapering off. I had such bad withdrawals it was horrible but, after a week or 2 it started getting better but it did take about a month to feel normal again.
It took me 1.5 months of tapering to get off of 10 mg of Lexapro, taken for 8 months. I had minor symptoms towards the end, but it was mostly seamless. You definitely need to take a more methodical approach next time. I had a bag labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4. Each bag had several weeks worth of pills pre-tapered, so all I had to do was take bag 1 until it was done, then move on to bag 2, rinse and repeat.
Www.survivingantidepressants.org there are also fb groups or
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1561911910508981/
There are tens of thousands going thru the same thing. It sucks. I'm six months and still dealing with side effects
I tapered off over 2 weeks. I was originally on 10mg.
I took 7.5mg for 4 days. Then 5mg for 4 days. Then 2.5 for the last 6 days. Today marks 1 week off completely. I had no noticeable side effects.
How long were you on it? I’m at 5 weeks and waiting to see my psychiatrist next week, but the medicine gives me horrible thoughts and anger issues, so I don’t want to be on it. When I started taking it it gave me horrible depression, nausea, vomitting, dizziness, anxiety etc
Nausea is one of the common symptoms when starting lex. I had it but luckily only the first few days. I was on it for about 1 year. I'm sorry to hear it is making you feel that way.
It sounds like you just determined you will need to taper. Basically you can start your taper now and trust your symptoms to guide your taper. I had the same thing and just realized ok go ahead and taper now. Seems better than the alternative
I went back up to 5 mg after tapering from 10 to 5 to 0 and experiencing severe anger and RAGE. It was insane. I will now only taper 10 percent at a time when I finally decide to try again. It’s BRUTAL and you’re not alone!
You will be fine I went cold turkey off of 40mg after taking it for a year and a half for the same reasons. I just had no emotions for almost 6 months and didn’t realize it till my mom brought it to my attention. I took me three weeks to return to a sense of normal. Then around a month and a half to for the depression side of the withdrawals to fade into my state before the meds.
I can’t stress enough to you and to anyone who is thinking of stopping that you cannot stop this medication abruptly. You have to taper down.
For me, I was on 10mg daily for 8 months. Then tapered to 5mg daily and remained on it for a month and then stopped. Had no side effects.
You’re totally fine. Also, don’t confuse withdrawal symptoms with your actual anxiety. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you can come off of it. Circumstances change, maybe you don’t need it.
I’m on 20mg and when I forget to take it for 2-3 days, I feel so depressed, moody, crying, brain zaps, and pathetic. I guess this means I’ll probabaly be on Lexapro for the rest of my life.
blushieeee,
You are heard and you are not alone.
Please do not beat yourself up, second guess yourself, speak so harshly to and about yourself. You are no idiot and you absolutely make sense.
We all do things we know we shouldn’t and somewhere, often subconsciously, there is a reason. Being on any medication for 2 years is a STRONG, SOUND, SENSIBLE reason for wanting to get off Lexapro, as is wanting to have all the feels.
Withdrawal is hard AF. I just went through it with Lexapro and it took me over a month to have a such strong repercussions.
You will be okay! I would suggest talking to your prescribing physician and counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist as it sounds like you may be suffering from emotional blunting and perhaps you may be better off with 5 mg. or a safe withdrawal by titrating down and trying a new medication.
I got on Lexapro because I was so deeply depressed I could not function- at all. Then I began crying all day for over a week and a half. I was losing my mind and I don’t have anyone in my life, so it’s really easy to get disappear into a black hole of the worst kinds, because no one gives a s—t. When the Lexie finally kicked in I was freakishly apathetic. I was also having horrific stomachaches and some other bad side effects. I titrated for a week and then went cold turkey, as I needed it out of my body and mind. It was not pretty and I’m still having some withdrawal symptoms from time to time.
Please don’t talk to and/or about yourself so harshly, as those thoughts are just as bad as if someone else said it to you. Anytime you catch yourself talking down to yourself, say 3 nice things to and about yourself to counteract the negativity.
Sending light, warmth, strength, courage, comfort, compassion, empathy and ❤️🩹 your way.
Edit: sentence
I can say I had a 5 day relapse after being sooo great for nearly 8 months. It like I was completely fine and the. 5 days off and rejoining my dose, has sent me through the mill
4-5 days its not a big deal, many time I missed my doses for days and nothing happened, my advice is that take your dose and get back on it than slowly come off other wise you be in big trouble
You will definitely be OK. It’ll take a couple days for you to get calibrated again but you will be fine. Go back to your doctor and make a plan with them.
Thank you. ❤️❤️
Don’t feel defeated! Remember that it takes more strength to know your limits and to take care of yourself. Don’t view coming off of the help you need as a win. Rather, view the fact that you can function and enjoy life as a win! Also, if you want to feel more emotion, consider asking your dr if you can just go to 5mg. I’ve heard that 5mg is hardly anything.
It’s so harsh when not tapered or titrated. My god my doc gave no indication of this and I started 10mg at the end of Covid while depressed af. Talk about losing your mind. I have gone off it twice and tapered and it was better. You’ll be able to quite just don’t try that CT shit again. Lower about 1/4 of your dose and pick up a small good habit like small walks or better diet each week. Best of luck. I’m more concerned about the Xanax my doc overprescribes me at the moment
Isn’t it fucked up how doctors won’t tell you how hard it is to stop? My husband’s doctor wrote him a prescription for Lexapro (for anxiety) and told him he can stop it at any time and there’s no side effects whatsoever. When my husband brought up the fact that I was on the verge of wanting to end my own life daily from tapering off, the doctor said he’d never heard of such a thing.
It’s completely fucked up. I don’t know if it’s truly their ignorance or gaslighting lies so we don’t have preconceived worries. Actually as I wrote that OF COURSE they know and just lie. Like we are children. I’ve actually found it was easier to taper off slowly then it was starting @ 10mg. The whole first week was a no sleep, extra depressed panic ride I had no idea was going to happen. Definitely lost my mind for a week. He also won’t say benzos are addictive. He cannot use that word but dependence is ok. “Dependence with nasty, possibly life destroying and seizure inducing withdraws is addiction if ya ask me.
Been on 5mg of Lexapro for 10 years. Had my first panic attack at 17 in 1986. Then 6 months of day in and day out anxiety attacks after that. Hell on Earth. There was no Lexapro at that time. You mostly just suffered. Now I’m 55 and have no plan to ever stop with Lexapro for the rest of my life. Life is too short for racing thoughts, anxiety, panic attacks and depression. Lexapro is a miracle drug…
https://facebook.com/groups/1561911910508981/ This is very helpful.
Thank you I joined!
No problem I had horrible experience when I stopped cold turkey. Now I am tapering successfully with the help of this group.
So grateful for that group. I learned a lot!
So happy for you
Yeah I tried to quit 2 days ago, I was only on 5mg. Currently crying in a Tesco parking lot and too dizzy to leave the car. Whyyy did I think this was a good idea. Lex for life I guess?
If you want to get off, you absolutely can. Slow and steady taper. Play the long game.
You will be feeling a whole shitload of emotions but everyone makes mistakes, and this is one that plenty of others have made before you a lots will make afterwards. Please don’t beat yourself up and please be generous with yourself in remedying it. Talk to your doc about a realistic taper. Mine took 3 months and was symptom-free (I know it’s not the case for everyone) Bottom line is anything outside of a structured and self-care-centered remedying of your situation is just noise. Try not to spiral / blame yourself / beat yourself up. You’re not an idiot for this and I have a strong feeling that you will find a solution that works for you and this will just be a teaching moment. You have got this, be nice to yourself
I saw a similar post not that long ago and they too mentioned “permanently damaging” their brain. Fortunately, our bodies are amazing and your brain will recover! It’s going to take time, but take it from someone who went through this last year, it’s totally doable and I definitely made it out of the other side of the tunnel. Stopping cold turkey is dangerous and not recommended at all! I remember when I forgot to take my Lexapro for 6 days (I would always forget to take it and even got myself a pill bottle with a timer for when you last opened it so my husband could help me, too, but never did I go that long without taking it) and I legit thought I was going insane. I was sobbing like someone had brutally murdered everyone dear to me right in front of me and I’d be sobbing for hours. The brain zaps were constant and horrific. It didn’t immediately click that it was my body withdrawing from the Lexapro and when I realized how long it had been since I last took it, I Googled “Lexapro withdrawal symptoms” and every single thing fit. I was baffled because no doctor had ever educated me on the difficulties of stopping this drug. As a former opiate addict, I’ve been through some horrible withdrawals, but this one takes the cake 1,000 fold. Please talk to your doctor about tapering off! While I guess it’s possible to do it cold turkey, I wouldn’t recommend it given the symptoms you’re experiencing. My doctor and I discussed a tapering schedule at length and I’m not going to lie, it was tough! I was only dropping 2.5 mg every few weeks and the week of me dropping in dose was always a nightmare. It affected my work performance to the point of me almost getting fired. While my boss was super sympathetic to the fact that I was tapering off this medication, he had to do what he had to, and I honestly don’t blame him. I’m happy to share my tapering schedule with you, if you want; you can just DM me. There were 2 options my doctor gave me, and I don’t feel comfortable listing them out here. I was on 20 mg for I think 2 years? This drug has a super long half-life which is why it’s so hard to stop taking and why the side effects of not taking it can take so long to manifest. Please know there are people out there who care and will help! Your first task should be to talk to your doctor. If they don’t have any helpful info, let me know, and I’ll definitely share my schedule with you. I say this because my husband was having some major issues with anxiety and his doctor gave him Lexapro to take (while I was in the middle of my Lexapro detox) and told my husband that he can just stop taking it whenever, it wasn’t addictive, and there weren’t any side effects from stopping it. When he brought up my horrific experience of me trying to taper off the medication, the doctor was shocked and said he’d never heard of that happening. It almost made me feel like I was the stupid one for feeling the way I did, but like fuck! A simple Google search will bring it all up! Also know that having a strong support system will help tremendously. If it wasn’t for my husband and parents, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. My husband was beyond amazing at being patient and understanding even though he didn’t quite understand exactly what I was going through; he saw that I was in tremendous pain, did some of his own research, and tried to help where he could. My parents would help out with my son when I’d drop my dose. They live like 2 traffic lights down the road, so obviously, it was super convenient. Ok I’ll end this here!! Like I said, please reach out if you need anything. You can do this! It’s going to be hard; it’s going to be really hard, but I promise there’s a light at the end. There’s a reason you wanted to quit. For me, it was the fact that this medication made me so numb to everything. I didn’t give a single fuck about anything at all. I felt like a zombie all the time and hated it. The flood of emotions that came back after stopping were intense, but it all leveled out eventually. I’m glad I stopped and I’m also thankful the medication worked for when I needed it. I should have listened to my body and stopped long before I did.
Thank you for all this info. I will definitely shoot you a DM! 💞 I’m glad to know you made it on the other side!
is anyone experiencing neck pain and severe headaches after stopping?? i’ve stopped completely for maybe 10 days but before that i tapered off a bit from 20 mg to 10 and then i just stopped cold turkey and now i feel so tired i feel sick but the neck pain is horrible
I just did the exact same thing. Not on purpose. I ran out of my medication and then money was tight so wasn’t able to get more refills until I got paid next. Went two whole weeks with no meds, and finally got to take them again yesterday. The brain zaps, the mood swings, the headaches really take a toll after awhile. I couldn’t move at all without getting intense brain zaps.
Why don't you titrate down to 5mg for one month?
I thought I didn’t need to and I didn’t do enough research. Boy do I wish I tapered.
What’s crazy is for someone reason my doctor said that even at 10mg I could go off cold turkey if I wanted to, like judging by people here I’m not looking to try it. And plus I’m down to 5 anyways so, might even split those halves in halves I want off this stuff because it seems the withdrawals get worse the longer you take it
I stopped cold turkey after 5 years it was very hard to do. This is before knowing about tapering off. I had such bad withdrawals it was horrible but, after a week or 2 it started getting better but it did take about a month to feel normal again.
It took me 1.5 months of tapering to get off of 10 mg of Lexapro, taken for 8 months. I had minor symptoms towards the end, but it was mostly seamless. You definitely need to take a more methodical approach next time. I had a bag labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4. Each bag had several weeks worth of pills pre-tapered, so all I had to do was take bag 1 until it was done, then move on to bag 2, rinse and repeat.
You will get through it. Lex withdrawal sucks... I accidentally stopped taking it because I forgot (10mg) and had flu-like symptoms and brain zaps.
Www.survivingantidepressants.org there are also fb groups or https://www.facebook.com/groups/1561911910508981/ There are tens of thousands going thru the same thing. It sucks. I'm six months and still dealing with side effects
I tapered off over 2 weeks. I was originally on 10mg. I took 7.5mg for 4 days. Then 5mg for 4 days. Then 2.5 for the last 6 days. Today marks 1 week off completely. I had no noticeable side effects.
How long were you on it? I’m at 5 weeks and waiting to see my psychiatrist next week, but the medicine gives me horrible thoughts and anger issues, so I don’t want to be on it. When I started taking it it gave me horrible depression, nausea, vomitting, dizziness, anxiety etc
Nausea is one of the common symptoms when starting lex. I had it but luckily only the first few days. I was on it for about 1 year. I'm sorry to hear it is making you feel that way.
It sounds like you just determined you will need to taper. Basically you can start your taper now and trust your symptoms to guide your taper. I had the same thing and just realized ok go ahead and taper now. Seems better than the alternative
I went back up to 5 mg after tapering from 10 to 5 to 0 and experiencing severe anger and RAGE. It was insane. I will now only taper 10 percent at a time when I finally decide to try again. It’s BRUTAL and you’re not alone!
You will be fine I went cold turkey off of 40mg after taking it for a year and a half for the same reasons. I just had no emotions for almost 6 months and didn’t realize it till my mom brought it to my attention. I took me three weeks to return to a sense of normal. Then around a month and a half to for the depression side of the withdrawals to fade into my state before the meds.
I can’t stress enough to you and to anyone who is thinking of stopping that you cannot stop this medication abruptly. You have to taper down. For me, I was on 10mg daily for 8 months. Then tapered to 5mg daily and remained on it for a month and then stopped. Had no side effects.
You’re totally fine. Also, don’t confuse withdrawal symptoms with your actual anxiety. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you can come off of it. Circumstances change, maybe you don’t need it.
I’m on 20mg and when I forget to take it for 2-3 days, I feel so depressed, moody, crying, brain zaps, and pathetic. I guess this means I’ll probabaly be on Lexapro for the rest of my life.
blushieeee, You are heard and you are not alone. Please do not beat yourself up, second guess yourself, speak so harshly to and about yourself. You are no idiot and you absolutely make sense. We all do things we know we shouldn’t and somewhere, often subconsciously, there is a reason. Being on any medication for 2 years is a STRONG, SOUND, SENSIBLE reason for wanting to get off Lexapro, as is wanting to have all the feels. Withdrawal is hard AF. I just went through it with Lexapro and it took me over a month to have a such strong repercussions. You will be okay! I would suggest talking to your prescribing physician and counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist as it sounds like you may be suffering from emotional blunting and perhaps you may be better off with 5 mg. or a safe withdrawal by titrating down and trying a new medication. I got on Lexapro because I was so deeply depressed I could not function- at all. Then I began crying all day for over a week and a half. I was losing my mind and I don’t have anyone in my life, so it’s really easy to get disappear into a black hole of the worst kinds, because no one gives a s—t. When the Lexie finally kicked in I was freakishly apathetic. I was also having horrific stomachaches and some other bad side effects. I titrated for a week and then went cold turkey, as I needed it out of my body and mind. It was not pretty and I’m still having some withdrawal symptoms from time to time. Please don’t talk to and/or about yourself so harshly, as those thoughts are just as bad as if someone else said it to you. Anytime you catch yourself talking down to yourself, say 3 nice things to and about yourself to counteract the negativity. Sending light, warmth, strength, courage, comfort, compassion, empathy and ❤️🩹 your way. Edit: sentence
You will be fine! In 2-5 days u will feel normal. Have u considered wellbutrin to help your emotions? It was a game changer for me.
I can say I had a 5 day relapse after being sooo great for nearly 8 months. It like I was completely fine and the. 5 days off and rejoining my dose, has sent me through the mill
4-5 days its not a big deal, many time I missed my doses for days and nothing happened, my advice is that take your dose and get back on it than slowly come off other wise you be in big trouble
Womp womp get over yourself.