Hi, my name is C.
I am 25 years old and I am an Italian woman. Sorry for my poor language, probably 6 months ago I would have written a book but now I have difficulty writing even the short story of my ruined life.
Where do I start? Well, after a tragic event that led me to suffer from anxiety for 4 years, I decided to take a drug, cipralex.
I was very hesitant to take it, I thought about it so much that years passed… years of suffering where I gave up doing normal things, suitable for my age. I stopped going on vacation, I was afraid to even go 30km away from my house…
I stopped sleeping at my boyfriend’s, with whom I have been engaged for 12 years, a nightmare.
Why do I say this? Because what I’m going through now is hell, certainly not before!
I would rather stay home than lose my intimacy, my intelligence, my love for anything.
I used to get excited just looking into the eyes of the man I wanted to marry, the man I wanted to spend my whole life with. Now, well, it’s like I have no memories and he’s a stranger. I feel like I don’t even recognize home, I’ve lost all mental and physical ties.
On medical advice I started taking an antidepressant, little did I know that two weeks later those four pills would take away everything I fought for, everything I loved and stood for.
I no longer take pleasure in sex, I’m dead.
So many times I turn in bed and cry, can something so intimate and beautiful become the worst nightmare?
I have amnesias, moments of real memory lapses…I don’t remember even a small joyful or terrible moment from the past.
I am empty.
I no longer have my intelligence, I loved philosophy so much, I was a romantic, now I am a piece of ice both physically and mentally.
But the most traumatic thing was realizing that I don’t feel anything for anything anymore….
I can cry now, 6 months after suspension of the drug…but that’s all I have left…tears.
Sometimes I think: when I have a child will I get excited? Will I still get emotional looking at my family? No one should have to go so far as to ask themselves questions like that.
Telling it doesn’t feel true and believe me I wish it did….
I don’t know what to do with my life, the only thing I can do is hope to get better and at least get back a little bit of my personality that was ripped away from me by 4 and half pills.
So many times I stop in my car in remote places and scream and cry.
It’s the only thing I have left.
To be able to scream my pain hoping that someone from up there will hear me and perform a miracle. I wish doctors would inform patients so that patients can decide whether to go through a Russian roulette like this.
They robbed me of my 25 years, worse than I was before.
I still remember the words of my doctor “C, take this, it will regulate your emotions and you can get back to doing anything”
I get chills when I think about it.
Think about it before you take anything, you are blessed to read these stories and be able to decide. I pray for you.
Originally published at https://www.pssd-uk.org on February 28, 2021.
