Student Has Violent, Homicidal Thoughts on Prozac

“I imagined myself going into the kitchen, grabbing a knife and stabbing my mother.”

 

On my 19th birthday I was a silly boy and took an ecstasy tablet, and over the next few weeks suffered a type of drug-induced psychoses. I initially had false beliefs such as someone was going to kill me, and was generally paranoid. I quickly recovered after 10 days, but 3 weeks later thanks to Prozac, the worst was yet to come.

Instead of recovering from the ecstasy I did two University exams, which caused me to become psychotic again the next week. I had anxiety, felt out of touch with reality, I felt as though I did not exist and was depressed. My local GP thought I simply had depression and prescribed me 20mg Prozac per day. The next two nights I woke up in the middle of the night and felt as though I was in nightmare I couldn’t get out of.

After the third dose I felt absolutely terrible, the worst I have ever felt. I saw colours, and thought things like the next-door neighbour was a zombie. I drank water excessively. I thought it was just the ecstasy. All I could do was lie in my bed and wait for this to pass.

By evening I was really scared for no apparent reason, had nausea, a headache, could not eat a thing and the worst of all, everything in the room was overwhelming, and soon objects appeared to move from side-to-side, and my pink blanket was moving like an ocean. This must be similar to an experience on LSD. So I called my mother who is a nurse, and she thought that it could not possibly be the Prozac and suggested that I take the next dose. So I dimmed the lights and went to sleep.

The next morning I felt better and took the next dose. A few hours later I started to feel terrible again, and soon I had violent thoughts. I strongly imagined myself using a knife to harm my neighbours. It was terrible, the thoughts were so strong. I called my mother and told her and she came down and noticed how hot I felt. So she took me to the hospital. We managed to see a nurse who did a medical check-up. My blood pressure was extremely high (160). Being a Sunday we waited for 3 hours but saw no doctor and I started to feel better so we went home. I still had anorexia, was drinking excessively and had a rash.

The next morning I felt better for twenty minutes after waking up, then the strong violent thoughts returned. I imagined myself going into the kitchen, grabbing a knife and stabbing my mother. They were so terrible that I grit my teeth and had terrible muscle tremors. So we went to the hospital again and in my head going over and again was ‘Kill Kill Kill’. We saw a doctor and everything was fine medically except for my bilirubin levels, which is a substance produced by the liver. It is normally 25, but read over 90. Therefore my body could not break down Prozac.

We saw a psychiatrist who did not mention anything about the Prozac, and did not prescribe me any anti-psychotics. The next few nights I still felt terrible and had a sort of a manic-episode with racing thoughts and agitation. Two weeks later I had a check-up by the psychiatrist who prescribed me anti-psychotics, but my body could not handle them. Thus I was referred to a gastroenterolgist who said that my liver function was affected by the Prozac, and so I had to wait a month before I could take anti-psychotics.

3 months after the Prozac I still have not recovered and still have a long way to. I still have violent thoughts occasionally. Taking ecstasy and then the Prozac was not a good combination at all. Well, we all make mistakes.

 

7/28/2002

This is Survivor Story number 18.
Total number of stories in current database is 48

Leave a Reply