Zoloft Suicide Attempts and Still Rebuilding My Life

“I will never trust such a self-serving inhumane profession as psychiatry.”

 

Dear Ann Blake-Tracy,

This is my story…if you decide to publish it online or anywhere else, please keep my e-mail, name and ID confidential. I am filing a complaint against my doctor with the state regulatory board and hope someday to find some closure on what was absolutely the most traumatic, horrific experience of my life. Thanks for reading!

First, I should tell you about myself before Zoloft. I have always enjoyed working and being around people. My favorite things are having dinner parties, going to art shows and theatre events. I have never collected unemployment or accepted any type of handout in my life and I take a great deal of pride in both my self-sufficiency and sociability. When I experienced some depression in my late 20’s it confused me. I felt like I wasn’t myself and didn’t really know what to do. So after trying everything from exercise, acupuncture, St. John’s and so forth, I did, for the first time in my 28-year old life, what I thought was the responsible thing to do: I sought “help”.

After six months of psychotherapy, the therapist told me my problem felt “organic” to her meaning not related to psychological problems. I was subsequently referred to a psychiatrist who prescribed ativan and told me I might be unipolar depressive, dysthymic, or possibly bipolar. Actively suicidal after considering what the effect of this diagnosis would have on my life and long-term treatment, I was hospitalized and prescribed Zoloft (100mg/day). Within a month on Zoloft I had experienced my first suicide attempt. This happened after I spent a six hour period running down the street naked underneath a fur coat in the pouring ran without realizing the ridiculousness of what I was doing because I was feeling high all the time, taking ativan liberally, and experiencing intense alcohol cravings. My behavior alienated my family and friends and ruined numerous lifelong alliances I had prior to Zoloft. Everyone thought I had gone off the deep end, including me to some degree. I trusted my doctor completely at that point when he said I had a “chemical imbalance” and that I would take prescribed drugs for “the rest of my life”. After a series of numerous mood-stabilizers and other drugs used to treat manic-depressives I was not doing any better. In fact, my situation had only continues to deteriorate. It was a year later before I started to say to my doctor, “hey! You know what? I’m not getting any better and in fact I’m getting worse!” He couldn’t have agreed less. Said I didn’t have any “insight”.

After frantic calls to his office begging for help to get off the drugs then trying (unsuccessfully) to go off the drugs without his help, I suffered one more suicide attempt. Enough was enough. I knew it was the drugs and didn’t care if no one believed me. I went from gainfully employed, intelligent and self-sufficient to reckless, unemployable, brain-dead and dependent all in a matter of two years. All I can say is, it is your life to lose. If you choose to take Zoloft then realize that your life could seriously be put in danger – and nobody, not even your doctor will be able to save you if all hell breaks loose because he/she doesn’t even really know what the long-term side effects are.

The good news is that I have been off the drugs since and knowing what I know now will never trust such a self-serving inhumane profession as psychiatry. My doctors only stood to make more money by keeping me in the prison of psych drugs so there was little incentive for him provide alternative healing or to try and get me off the drugs he prescribed until it is too late. (By the way he never admitted that he failed to monitor my side effects or reported any of my suicide attempts to the FDA).

Until doctors admit failing their patients miserably on this issue and take strides to prevent drug companies from propagandizing drugs and myths about depression and its treatment, then more and more people like me are going to start coming out of the woodwork. If you care about your families and loved ones please get the word out! SSRI’s can be extremely dangerous and can even be deadly. Take it from me, I know from first hand experience and was lucky enough to survive the ordeal, however many are not as lucky as me.

 

3/14/2002

This is Survivor Story number 39.
Total number of stories in current database is 48

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