Paxilated

Things are getting wormy around here.

I'm in the final throes of a long wean off Paxil, the SSRI I started when Kelan was an infant. Even with the very gradual step-down in dosage over the course of the past 5 months, taking that final step off the good-times train is a motherfucker.

There is the nausea and the headaches and the sweating and the chills.
There is the crying and the irritability and the mood swings and the anxiety.
There's the "holy shit I'm losing my fucking mind" factor, generally attributed to the hallucinations, both visual and aural. I've heard Kelan calling for me when I knew for a fact he was not home and I've seen faces, scary faces, in the walls.
There is the crushing self-doubt. The inability to deal with sensory input and the loss of social skills. I struggle to look people in the eye, and if I do, it is pretty likely that I will say something totally lame because I feel like my brain is not attached to my body when I'm trying to come up with polite conversation.

My personal favorite are the "brain zaps" (this is the technical term), which are essentially electrical shocks going through the brain. I can feel them and I can hear them. Its the brain's way of saying "whatthefuckisgoingon" while trying to adjust to the change in neurotransmitter levels brought upon by the wean. They are related to seizures, but not considered dangerous in and of themselves.

The best way to quit this bitch is to couple the withdrawal with a full intestinal and liver cleanse. So I've given up coffee, sugar, ibuprofen and booze (minus an occasional glass of vino, because 'holy shit I'm losing my fucking mind') and am taking handfuls of nasty-ass herbs many times a day.

All this to try and get my groove back. Hope it works. It has to. Otherwise, hook me up with some fuzzy slippers and shuffle me off to the nut house because I'm pretty sure this is what it feels like to be insane.