https://www.mpg.de/8426203/escitalopram-brain
I knew it!!! I took ssris multiple times. In 2018 and 2019 I took Luvox and immediately started having weird things happen to me when I slept. The first several nights I would wake up and feel like I was stuck in a fog. When I took Luvox again in 2019 I woke up and it felt like I was still asleep even though I was awake. Like I could tell I was awake, but I felt like I was still dreaming. It was the creepiest feeling ever. It went away in like an hour. Then I had sensitivity to light. I couldn't drive because the movement made me feel dizzy and uncoordinated. Light would also make me feel trippy. I kept telling my doctors, but they always said I had "anxiety" and kept wanting to increase the dose. I then took Zoloft and I swear it made me see movement slowed down. Like, I had motion lines. If I stared at a red object on the wall and then moved my eyes, I would see the red object on the wall for a split second after I looked away. It was even worse in the dark, I would see lit up objects for a second or two even after I moved my eyes away. I wasn't able to drive for a year. I had the same effect with all SSRIs and also Effexor. I was prescribed Klonopin, a benzo, to help with the "anxiety" and I became hooked on that for a bit because my doctor would just give it to me month after month no questions asked.
I stopped taking the SSRIs eventually, but I still get some of the effects. I can drive now, but I still occasionally get tripped out by movement. I still have difficulty being in big stores with bright lighting because it seems like the light is more powerful. I still get mild motion lines sometimes. I'm no longer hooked on benzos either. It is a tough pill to swallow realizing that big pharma is just a big drug cartel with government authorization. There is proof that big pharmaceutical companies packed FDA review panels with their own people, to help decide which studies even went before the FDA. They covered up the fact that SSRIs caused many suicides. I never felt more or less suicidal while taking these drugs, but I felt like I acted a bit more impulsively while taking Luvox. I would self harm a bit sometimes, but one time when on Luvox I got mad over a small thing and grabbed a knife and started cutting myself before running out of my apartment and downstairs. When I got to the parking lot, I stopped and realized that I did that for no reason really. I always tried to tell the doctors that the meds seemed to give me weird side effects even after 2 or 3 days of taking them, but they would always hit me with the same cliche "It takes a few weeks for them to kick in, you're just being anxious…"
I only had one doctor who one time said that I might be right, but most didn't even believe me. And they wonder why I distrust the pharmaceutical industry…
