“I just know they will want to give him SSRI’s and I can’t let him go through that again.”
I’m writing to you about my son’s experience with three of the SSRI’s. First I give you permission to use this story on the Internet, but I don’t wish my name to be used and I don’t wish my e-mail address to be used.
My son was diagnosed with OCD when he was in the fifth grade. He was 11 years old at the time, but he’d had OCD for a couple of years before we took him to a therapist. He is now 17 years of age and doesn’t take any SSRI’s because of the bad reactions he had with Zoloft, Prozac, and Luvox.
The first drug he was given was Zoloft. I forget what age he began taking it but I believe he was 13 at the time. The first day he took Zoloft he began feeling much better which they said was unusual because it usually takes a week or more for it to take affect. After about a month of taking Zoloft he had bad reactions so they took him off it. After awhile they gave him Prozac and in about a month he was having reactions to it also.
He always was such a loving child, but he started to change before our eyes. He had always been so nice with our dogs and cats but now he was trying to mistreat them. We had to watch him all the time for fear of what he might do to them. He was going to therapy at the time and of course, they didn’t believe that the Prozac was the culprit. In fact the therapist told us we should call the police if he kept mistreating our pets. He said they wouldn’t take him to jail but would talk to him and tell him what he was doing was wrong.
We couldn’t do such a thing to him so we just kept an eye on him when he was outside alone. Finally, they decided the Prozac wasn’t working and decided to try Luvox. By this time he was 14 years of age. As usual the drug worked for about three weeks then all hell broke loose.
We had to watch him all the time. We had a very large dog and it loved to watch our son when he’d go out to practice basketball, but Ryan didn’t like that anymore so one day I was watching out the window and there he was lifting the doghouse, which was one of those dogloos, with the dog in it and turning it over. It scared the dog so bad that from then on whenever Ryan came out the poor dog would run into his doghouse and hide.
We also have cats and whenever they noticed Ryan coming near to them they’d run, for fear of what he might do to them. He also changed toward all of us. Sometimes if I was sitting at the table with my back to him he would come up behind me and put one hand on each shoulder and press down as hard as he could. He also did this to his older sister.
It got to the point where we were becoming afraid of him, but we didn’t let him know that. I should tell you here that Ryan’s OCD ritual consists of repetition of speech, it’s too difficult to explain, but suffice it to say it’s a very aggravating thing for him and for his family.
He depended on us to answer him in a certain way so we were drawn into the ritual with him. One day when we went to therapy the therapist pulled me aside and told me when Ryan did the ritual I should say to him that I wouldn’t cooperate with him anymore. One evening I decided I’d try it because the ritual he was going through at the time had gone on for over an hour and I really couldn’t stand it anymore.
So I said to him what the therapist had told me to say and he began acting like he was totally crazy. Believe it or not, our entire family which consists of one older brother and one older sister and my husband and myself were up the entire night with him ranting and raving and running all over the house and trying to run outside.
At one time he went to the drawer where I kept the butcher knives and got a knife out and acted like he was going to stab himself. We got it out of his hand and then he took off running to his bedroom which was upstairs. I don’t know how I did it, but I was right behind him and made it in the door before he could lock me out. It was a nightmare for all of us.
We didn’t have any sleep all night and neither did he. He talked every minute for almost twelve hours. We had an appointment with the therapist and doctor the next morning and took him in early. He was pacing in the waiting room talking constantly. He was actually talking out of his head. When we went into the doctor’s office Ryan’s therapist was sitting in the room also and Ryan didn’t even notice him being there.
They wanted to send him to the hospital but I wouldn’t let them because I didn’t want him to be drugged up even more. We quit the therapist and haven’t been back since. That was almost three years ago. I did take him off the Luvox slowly. Now he doesn’t go to any therapists because I just know they will want to give him SSRI’s and I can’t let him go through that again.
Years 2000 and Prior
This is Survivor Story number 53.
Total number of stories in current database is 96
