Thread by @Altostrata

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 Not at all, Sanil. Among my site members, many people come off #antidepressants & other drugs with slight or no withdrawal symptoms except an emotional anesthesia, which they may describe as depression, anhedonia, various kinds of malaise, even "relapse" but.... /1

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 ....it's a "relapse" unlike anything they've experienced before. While they may use #psychiatry's vocabulary, because that's all they've got, this emotional anesthesia is actually a result of long-term psychotropic exposure, not "relapse"..../2

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 Post-drug emotional anesthesia is well known among those who have gone off psychotropics classified as addictive & considered a feature of those protracted withdrawal syndromes. There is no reason to think chronic #psychiatric psychotropics are exempt..../3

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 Since some members stay in touch with us for years, what we've seen is in the absence of drug treatment, that this emotional anesthesia very gradually fades, same trajectory as other post-acute withdrawal symptoms. It can take years...../4

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 I experienced this emotional anesthesia myself, for a very long time. It was absolutely nothing like my original depression. Feature was a lack of sense of reward from anything, no moments of joy, no interest in anything, which was not at all true of my original depression..../5

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 I doubted I would ever be able to love again. It was a vast emotional nothingness. Still, very disturbing.

(I also had many, many withdrawal symptoms in protracted withdrawal. Took 11 years to recover.)..../6

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 I believe this phenomenon is a legacy of long-term psychotropic use, evidenced across psychotropics. Other than cultural investment, there is no reason to believe #antidepressants are a protected class exempt from the pharmacological laws that govern other psychotropics..../7

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 This is only one of many reasons people who seem to have no problems going off #antidepressants & other #psychiatric drugs seem to "relapse" months later. Quite often they ignore vague symptoms for a very long time until they become troublesome or prominent..../8

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 Or they simply may not report mild or vague symptoms to you because they very much want to believe drug treatment is behind them. It's a tragedy that many no longer need #psychiatric drugs & want to go off them, but cannot leave them behind due to iatrogenic post-drug effects. /9

@sanilrege @markhoro @SenadHasanagic1 fyi @sanilrege "I had a “psychotic break” after abrupt discontinued use of [50mg] Zoloft....it may have been a misdiagnosis. I have struggled with symptoms of anhedonia, apathy, lack of interest in everything I used to like." survivingantidepressants.org/topic/25906-ma…