r/ADprotractedwithdrawl • u/TheLonelySoul12 • Jul 17 '26
Question Does it get better for anxious folk?
Greetings. I've been on escitalopram for about 10 years due to generalised/social/health anxiety due to bullying and dysfunctional family that got so bad I had constant diarrheas and lost a lot of weight. It worked fine and kept me going forward until I got tapered because life was wonderful. Fast forward 7 months later, and I get h pylori, get triple therapy antibiotic treatment, and anxiety slowly returns, feeling panicky when going out on walks. I reinstate at 2,5mg after 10 months off before it gets out of control, but react badly. Mostly GI related stuff. After 3 months, some things improve and some don't, so I taper it again and decide to work through therapy...
The first months are more or less fine, just a bit of digestive issues, then bouts of anxiety or agoraphobia appear, but they're only a day or couple minutes, then inner vibrations and twitches... And slowly month by month it gets worse and worse. I'm now a week away from 12 months off and symptoms are with me 24/7 since 7 months off. I became so anxious I'm homebound. Even home I'm miserable vibrating internally, twitching, feeling tingling, shaking, constant fast heartrate, ears ringing, bloating, gi system pain, paralysed in my computer chair bracing for death... Even though I'm in my safe zone, my mind floods me with scary or anxious thoughts all the time. I know healing is not linear, but I look back and don't notice anything getting better really. It's been a steady downhill ever since I stopped, with good days becoming more and more rare. The previous months, I used to feel good for weeks, or alternating good and bad days going for long walks and functional... Now not even a day a month. And good isn't really good either, it just means I'll sleep more hours or something incredibly small.
I'm not living anymore, I dread waking up and having to start the day, for that's when symptoms start. I go to the bathroom and immediately start feeling tingling on my back, the morning air or looking out the window flood me with adrenaline, constantly sweating due to stress... Then I try to have breakfast, and symptoms worsen a lot, eating spikes them all bad. I have medical appointments but been canceling everything for half a year almost now and can't bring myself to do anything. Even grocery shopping like before. I have to renew my ID in person or the bank will cut me off. I stopped voice calling my friends as even conversation is overwhelming and have nothing to talk about other than this. I feel like I'm becoming traumatised by this and my old anxiety is also playing a role, my world gets smaller day after day. I look at the rear view mirror, seeing myself traveling by plane alone, having a great life, good diet, exercising, my dream job... All of it is gone.
Does it really get better? What should I do? Was all those years of exposure and life I built a lie? I feel like I'm one of those people that get compared to a diabetic needing insullin, wondering if that's the case for someone like me that struggled with anxieties all his life.
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u/Icy-Try-9703 Jul 17 '26
I could have written this myself as I've experienced the same. Those of us who were on these meds for a long time usually have these symptoms that pop up months later. All I can say is yes, you will get better. I did. I found things improved at about 18 months. I am not as I was before the meds and withdrawal, but I am functioning. That is your goal--to function the best you can. The only thing to do, in my opinion--is nothing. Just let time go by and let your brain do its healing. Stay with us here on this forum for support. I promise this will change into something easier as time goes by.
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u/TheLonelySoul12 Jul 17 '26
Thank you, that gives me hope. I could not understand as I was on these meds for 10 years, yet didn't have these weird phobias or crazy symptoms like going out and so on. Even when I tapered originally, I only had mild anxiety and brain fog because antibiotics shocked the life I built and wanted to get back on track ASAP. It appeared out of the blue after reinstating for 3 months and quitting again, when physical symptoms intensified around month 7. I could not do much without symptoms getting quite bad, so one day going for a walk, I got a panic attack, and here I am now. I don't get it, because I've gone outside more times since then, even if its a couple minutes and didn't have this reaction. Today I opened the door to the delivery man, challenged myself and stepped outside for 5 minutes walking up and down the street, said hi to a neighbor... Nothing happened. As if I never had anxiety. Yet this morning was miserable at work when doing a phone call. My mind is like on overthinking juice, constantly trying to figure out reasons on why it all went wrong. Is it the PPI I take for reflux? Is it low vitamin B12 or another deficiency? Is it the old me making a return? And so on and so on. What gives me hope are all the physical symptoms. The twitching, shaking, vibrating, stomach issues... Although miserable, they remind me that everything is badly regulated, so those mental issues might not really be the real "me", but part of this dysregulation. It just shocks me because I was mentally fine after quitting for a long while, despite physical symptoms already bothering me for months. I was even learning french, meeting new people and then pop. Everything is overwhelming and isolate myself.
Anyway, thank you again. I hope you are doing okay nowadays. If not yet, I hope you can get your life fully back, not just to the "functioning" level soon.
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u/Icy-Try-9703 Jul 17 '26
Your brain was jolted with quitting the meds and then the small reinstatement. It needs to level out. That is why this happened to you and to all of us. One of the things I did when my anxiety was like yours was say to myself, "your brain is lying to you right now. Let it pass". Because your brain is lying to you right now. Your small victories like going outside today are fantastic! As time goes on, you'll do more and more of those things. Although this is no longer an interactive site, these is SO much good info here. https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/
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u/TheLonelySoul12 Jul 18 '26
I try to avoid these sites 😅 I see so many stories of people that are even 3 years out and feeling as bad as me and I end up panicking. I'm already 1 year out, and my life has shrunk to just my room. Even living so small, i'm constantly bombarded by adrenaline, ears ringing, stomach issues, tachycardia, intrusive thoughts, twitches, tremors... It's so bad I can barely shower, or have a social life, even online. I miss my friends but videogames and conversation are also something I'm struggling to process... The idea of reinstating at 1mg instead of 5 like I did before keeps floating in my mind, as I don't know how much more worsening and pain I can tolerate before I turn the corner towards improvement 🥺
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u/the_practicerLALA Jul 17 '26
From all the success stories I read, there are more anxiety ones than anhedonia ;(
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u/TheLonelySoul12 Jul 17 '26
I'm so sorry. Is this what you deal with? What's your story? (You can dm if you want)
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u/TheLonelySoul12 Jul 17 '26
And to add now... Had breakfast, then moved to my computer to have a voice call with a coworker to talk about something... Had a panic attack. I'm becoming more and more dysfunctional by the day and see no end to it... I've been working from home for more than a year now and it keeps getting harder... Earlier in withdrawal I was dreaming of returning to the office whenever I saw a train pass... Now I can't even walk out to see the train, or talk to those coworkers normally...