xburtonchic
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 17, 2011
- Messages
- 1,003
I wasn't sure if this belonged in BDD or not since it has to do with an anti-depressant, but it also has to do with PTSD and depression so I figured it might belong here instead.
Since the end of October, I suffered a brutal attack that left me as good as dead, luckily someone was able to call an ambulance on time, but it severely worsened my PTSD and I have flashbacks of it almost everyday. This caused me to withdraw from society completely and lose all trust for people. Example: A friend I've known literally for YEARS... I mean, at least 10 years... recently invited me to Hawaii. My first thought wasn't, "OMG HAWAII! I've never been, I'm so excited!" Instead my first thought was, "What's the catch? Why does this girl want to get me out of the state so badly, and what is she going to do to me when she does?" Another time, I was hanging out with a girl that I've known for even longer, and she was talking about this girl she wanted to fight, and I was entirely convinced she was talking about me. It's like since the attack, my brain has switched to irrational paranoia mode. I've also lost quite a few friends because I've been avoiding contact with most people, and I don't go out anymore unless I absolutely have to. I can probably count on both hands how many times I've dared to leave my house in the past four months... and it's usually just to go to appointments with doctors and my lawyer and stuff. On top of that stuff, the concussion I sustained left me with what I believe to be permanent short-term memory loss, my grandmother who I was very close to died just two weeks ago and I still miss her sooo much, I was unceremoniously and coldly kicked off the Bluelight staff because they knew I was planning on stepping and because I defended someone senior staff doesn't like, so they wanted to get rid of me before I had a chance to step down on my own, I'm having family problems, the lawsuit and the charges against the person who tried to kill me have been a major source of stress in my life, I've lost all motivation to work or go to school, my sleeping schedule is now even more out of whack than it was before, I have to have surgery to fix the hearing in my left ear from the attack, and I've started having panic attacks that I didn't have before.
All of these things combined were making my anxiety unbearable and the flashbacks and depression were getting out of control, so I finally asked my doctor to put me on an anti-depressant. He prescribed Celexa. And this is where the title of my thread comes in. I should note that before I was put on Celexa, I had been on Valium for two months and Suboxone for a little over a year. I don't know if that's even important, because the problems didn't start until I began taking the Celexa.
Now, I only started taking the Celexa three days ago, but my behavior has already changed and I'm already having weird side effects. Such as the fact that before, I was lucky if I got to bed before 3 am, if at all. And when I did sleep, I couldn't wake up until late afternoon. Now I'm in bed usually no later than 10, and awake by no later than 6am to 8am. However, I wake up at least twice during the night and have a hard time going back to sleep. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes don't feel tired and I'm wide awake, but my body feels somewhat lethargic. And then I fall asleep somewhere around 11-12 and sleep until 2 or 3pm. Not on purpose - I just sit down on the couch to watch a movie or whatever and the next thing I know I'm waking up. I've always had vivid dreams and have always remembered them in the morning, but since starting Celexa, I can't remember ANY of my dreams. I don't even know if I'm dreaming at all at night. There are other reasons this bothers me - such as the fact that a lot of my dreams involved someone I love who died in Afghanistan in the war and they comforted me, and I miss seeing him... as stupid as that sounds - but my main concern is that all of these signs seem to point to the fact that I'm not falling into REM sleep. Which means, obviously, I'm not actually being well rested.
Aside from the complete change in my sleeping patterns (although the fact that I no longer get sleep paralysis is a very nice touch), my behavior has become erratic. I'll get completely restless at times, even though I feel lethargic. But I need to move around anyway, otherwise I fidget so much and get so anxious that it's uncomfortable. Another thing is that I'll get strange impulses to do things that I would never normally do. Some of them are violent. Like the other day, my brother was being a pain in the ass, and I got SO angry that I was thisclose to throwing a hammer through his windshield. Yeah. That is not me. Other things aren't violent, but they're dangerous. But I'll get an impulse to do them, and it's like I can't stop myself, I just have to do them. Like the other day, I was like... I have to do a front handspring (something I DON'T know how to do)... and I landed on my head. Even though I have a concussion. Another example, like an hour ago, I was watching a movie and I suddenly had an urge to stretch my legs. But instead of stretching my legs like a normal person, I did so by standing up on the freaking chair I was sitting on and watching the movie that way. And then I had an urge to touch the ceiling. And once I touched the ceiling, the urge went away and I was like, "It's okay to sit down again now."
See? Completely whack job stuff like that. I did Google it, but there isn't much information about erratic behavior and Celexa. Most of the stories I found are about people becoming completely different people who can't form attachments to others. That sounds like me, but I was incapable of forming attachments to people even before I went on the Celexa, so that has nothing to do with it. I can't decide if this is a bad side effect or not. I do know from my research that with most anti-depressants, the side effects are most prominent when you first start and then they slowly go away, but I'm worried this erratic behavior is going to continue and I'm going to end up seriously hurting myself. I don't know if I should just stick it out for the next three weeks, which is when it's supposed to kick in and start working, or if I should stop taking it. I don't even know if this IS a normal side effect of Celexa or not. All I know is that I'm being compulsive in my actions, most of which are completely irrational and stupid and dangerous, but it's not something I can just not do. It's like I feel restless until I do it, and most of the time I don't have a choice. It's hard to explain, but it's like my brain just tells me to do it and so I do it without even thinking about it. Ugh. What the hell is wrong with me? No, I take that back... what the hell is wrong with this DRUG? My doctor told me Citalopram is the anti-depressant with the least side effects, but I'm beginning to seriously doubt that.
I would love to hear your feedback on this, and any similar stories or experiences any of you might have/have had with Celexa/Lexapro/Ciprexa/any other version of Citalopram. Or any type of SSRI, really. I assume they all have the same mechanism of action, and so they would generally produce the same side effects. I could be wrong, but meh. Doesn't hurt to ask.
EDIT: I forgot to add a few other things. Like how last night, I crawled under my bed. And stayed there for an hour. Just laying there, doing nothing. Until I got up and decided to sit in my old baby cradle/rocker. It's filled with blankets now, but I was just sitting on top of the blankets rocking myself back and forth, until my mom found me and said, "Honey, what are you doing in there? That's meant to hold a baby." I simply said, "I'm rocking." And then she told me to get out, and so I did a few minutes later. More erratic, irrational behavior on my part. These things don't happen often, just maybe once a day. I'll want to do something that I would never normally want to do.
Also, another thing, is that I had hallucinations one night. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 4 am, and everything I looked at looked like something it wasn't. We have a plant sitting on the coffee table; it couldn't have been more than a few feet away from me and it wasn't dark in the room since I left the light on in the room adjacent to the living room, but it looked like a freaking miniature horse until I looked away from it and then looked back, and it looked like a plant again. Same with the rocking chair in that room. It looked like there was a person sitting in it. It was only when I got up to go get the blanket off of it because I was getting cold that I realized that there was no person there. We also have a large painting hanging on our wall, and it looked like it was undulating. I don't know how else to describe it. I couldn't make out what the painting even was because the picture was moving around so much. And everything looked grainy. As if I was viewing everything in the room through light static on a television. I don't know, but it was weird and not normal. And it didn't scare me like it usually would.
This Celexa shit is weird. I have no idea if I should stop taking it right away or not or just stick it out and wait the three weeks to see if the side effects subside. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how... not normal... this stuff is making me. :/
Since the end of October, I suffered a brutal attack that left me as good as dead, luckily someone was able to call an ambulance on time, but it severely worsened my PTSD and I have flashbacks of it almost everyday. This caused me to withdraw from society completely and lose all trust for people. Example: A friend I've known literally for YEARS... I mean, at least 10 years... recently invited me to Hawaii. My first thought wasn't, "OMG HAWAII! I've never been, I'm so excited!" Instead my first thought was, "What's the catch? Why does this girl want to get me out of the state so badly, and what is she going to do to me when she does?" Another time, I was hanging out with a girl that I've known for even longer, and she was talking about this girl she wanted to fight, and I was entirely convinced she was talking about me. It's like since the attack, my brain has switched to irrational paranoia mode. I've also lost quite a few friends because I've been avoiding contact with most people, and I don't go out anymore unless I absolutely have to. I can probably count on both hands how many times I've dared to leave my house in the past four months... and it's usually just to go to appointments with doctors and my lawyer and stuff. On top of that stuff, the concussion I sustained left me with what I believe to be permanent short-term memory loss, my grandmother who I was very close to died just two weeks ago and I still miss her sooo much, I was unceremoniously and coldly kicked off the Bluelight staff because they knew I was planning on stepping and because I defended someone senior staff doesn't like, so they wanted to get rid of me before I had a chance to step down on my own, I'm having family problems, the lawsuit and the charges against the person who tried to kill me have been a major source of stress in my life, I've lost all motivation to work or go to school, my sleeping schedule is now even more out of whack than it was before, I have to have surgery to fix the hearing in my left ear from the attack, and I've started having panic attacks that I didn't have before.
All of these things combined were making my anxiety unbearable and the flashbacks and depression were getting out of control, so I finally asked my doctor to put me on an anti-depressant. He prescribed Celexa. And this is where the title of my thread comes in. I should note that before I was put on Celexa, I had been on Valium for two months and Suboxone for a little over a year. I don't know if that's even important, because the problems didn't start until I began taking the Celexa.
Now, I only started taking the Celexa three days ago, but my behavior has already changed and I'm already having weird side effects. Such as the fact that before, I was lucky if I got to bed before 3 am, if at all. And when I did sleep, I couldn't wake up until late afternoon. Now I'm in bed usually no later than 10, and awake by no later than 6am to 8am. However, I wake up at least twice during the night and have a hard time going back to sleep. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes don't feel tired and I'm wide awake, but my body feels somewhat lethargic. And then I fall asleep somewhere around 11-12 and sleep until 2 or 3pm. Not on purpose - I just sit down on the couch to watch a movie or whatever and the next thing I know I'm waking up. I've always had vivid dreams and have always remembered them in the morning, but since starting Celexa, I can't remember ANY of my dreams. I don't even know if I'm dreaming at all at night. There are other reasons this bothers me - such as the fact that a lot of my dreams involved someone I love who died in Afghanistan in the war and they comforted me, and I miss seeing him... as stupid as that sounds - but my main concern is that all of these signs seem to point to the fact that I'm not falling into REM sleep. Which means, obviously, I'm not actually being well rested.
Aside from the complete change in my sleeping patterns (although the fact that I no longer get sleep paralysis is a very nice touch), my behavior has become erratic. I'll get completely restless at times, even though I feel lethargic. But I need to move around anyway, otherwise I fidget so much and get so anxious that it's uncomfortable. Another thing is that I'll get strange impulses to do things that I would never normally do. Some of them are violent. Like the other day, my brother was being a pain in the ass, and I got SO angry that I was thisclose to throwing a hammer through his windshield. Yeah. That is not me. Other things aren't violent, but they're dangerous. But I'll get an impulse to do them, and it's like I can't stop myself, I just have to do them. Like the other day, I was like... I have to do a front handspring (something I DON'T know how to do)... and I landed on my head. Even though I have a concussion. Another example, like an hour ago, I was watching a movie and I suddenly had an urge to stretch my legs. But instead of stretching my legs like a normal person, I did so by standing up on the freaking chair I was sitting on and watching the movie that way. And then I had an urge to touch the ceiling. And once I touched the ceiling, the urge went away and I was like, "It's okay to sit down again now."
See? Completely whack job stuff like that. I did Google it, but there isn't much information about erratic behavior and Celexa. Most of the stories I found are about people becoming completely different people who can't form attachments to others. That sounds like me, but I was incapable of forming attachments to people even before I went on the Celexa, so that has nothing to do with it. I can't decide if this is a bad side effect or not. I do know from my research that with most anti-depressants, the side effects are most prominent when you first start and then they slowly go away, but I'm worried this erratic behavior is going to continue and I'm going to end up seriously hurting myself. I don't know if I should just stick it out for the next three weeks, which is when it's supposed to kick in and start working, or if I should stop taking it. I don't even know if this IS a normal side effect of Celexa or not. All I know is that I'm being compulsive in my actions, most of which are completely irrational and stupid and dangerous, but it's not something I can just not do. It's like I feel restless until I do it, and most of the time I don't have a choice. It's hard to explain, but it's like my brain just tells me to do it and so I do it without even thinking about it. Ugh. What the hell is wrong with me? No, I take that back... what the hell is wrong with this DRUG? My doctor told me Citalopram is the anti-depressant with the least side effects, but I'm beginning to seriously doubt that.
I would love to hear your feedback on this, and any similar stories or experiences any of you might have/have had with Celexa/Lexapro/Ciprexa/any other version of Citalopram. Or any type of SSRI, really. I assume they all have the same mechanism of action, and so they would generally produce the same side effects. I could be wrong, but meh. Doesn't hurt to ask.
EDIT: I forgot to add a few other things. Like how last night, I crawled under my bed. And stayed there for an hour. Just laying there, doing nothing. Until I got up and decided to sit in my old baby cradle/rocker. It's filled with blankets now, but I was just sitting on top of the blankets rocking myself back and forth, until my mom found me and said, "Honey, what are you doing in there? That's meant to hold a baby." I simply said, "I'm rocking." And then she told me to get out, and so I did a few minutes later. More erratic, irrational behavior on my part. These things don't happen often, just maybe once a day. I'll want to do something that I would never normally want to do.
Also, another thing, is that I had hallucinations one night. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 4 am, and everything I looked at looked like something it wasn't. We have a plant sitting on the coffee table; it couldn't have been more than a few feet away from me and it wasn't dark in the room since I left the light on in the room adjacent to the living room, but it looked like a freaking miniature horse until I looked away from it and then looked back, and it looked like a plant again. Same with the rocking chair in that room. It looked like there was a person sitting in it. It was only when I got up to go get the blanket off of it because I was getting cold that I realized that there was no person there. We also have a large painting hanging on our wall, and it looked like it was undulating. I don't know how else to describe it. I couldn't make out what the painting even was because the picture was moving around so much. And everything looked grainy. As if I was viewing everything in the room through light static on a television. I don't know, but it was weird and not normal. And it didn't scare me like it usually would.
This Celexa shit is weird. I have no idea if I should stop taking it right away or not or just stick it out and wait the three weeks to see if the side effects subside. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how... not normal... this stuff is making me. :/
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I know how important it is to get therapy for this. The last time I left my PTSD untreated for a long period of time, it turned into disaster in the form of opiate addiction. I refuse to go down that road again, not when I'm doing so well with my Suboxone treatment. What I meant by irrational... is that somewhere in the back of my mind, I know they're probably not out to hurt me, but I think it anyways. I'm not denying that I don't have a good reason to feel this way - in that way it IS rational. But in the way that it's probably not true, just my mind playing tricks on me, and that it probably won't happen to me again... that's what I meant by irrational. It's sort of like the way after I was held at gunpoint - I became extremely paranoid for about a year. The guy who did it drove a white Lexus, and whenever I'd drive next to a white car or be stuck next to one at a stoplight, I'd get a panic attack and the car would feel menacing... like the person inside was pointing a gun at me and about to shoot, and I wouldn't calm down until the car was out of sight. There are good reasons for feeling those things, but the truth is, PTSD does have a way of making you feel like you're never safe, and the triggers are never quite rational... although they make sense in your head, you know somewhere in the back of your mind that you are being irrational. Does that make sense? I don't know. Did you ever get my PM by the way? Did I even send you one? I don't remember.