Zoloft-Zombie
- Seminarverwaltung Support
- 17.01.2020
- living with autism
It has been a while since I wrote my last post about living with autism..
In my other post I already talked about the phases of depression and after my loss I went into one of those again and was applying to day clinics since I didn’t feel capable of handling my day to day life - only this time I was sick of being helpless on how and when to get out of it so I decided to try a new medication to help me stabilize quicker.
I did a lot of research in my autism community and talked to others with same issues and wanted to give Zoloft / Sertralin a try. In the first two weeks i felt better, the crying stopped and I even was able to get a good night sleep here and there and wake up rested, but I slowly realized that it changed me too much !
I had NO EMOTIONS whatsoever anymore, no motivation and no joy (also no libido) nothing touched me and buried emotions inside me couldn’t surface!
I had no impulses and could not do any of my SI. Even though it helped to interact with people since it calmed my anxiousness I had no interest in conversation or people in general or anything to be honest...
I felt like a Zombie inside and out !
For so many years in my life I always wished to be “normal” to stop having this emotional roller-coaster, to be able to interact with people without feeling stressed out or overwhelmed but as soon as I realized that this also means to not be able to have my deep emotions, strong senses and creativity and how much of ME! was missing :
I finally understood that being autistic is who I am and want to be !
I was really unhappy but unable to even feel it like I am used to or cry about it
I tried to get slowly off it but was so inpatient to be “me” again that I only gave it an other week until I dropped the doses to zero
What came after that was even worse than zombie because I felt everything so strongly and all at once - I struggled with panic-attacks , meltdowns and shutdowns multiple times a day for days in a row !
I felt tired and sad and frustrated 24/7.
But even though it was horrible I thought if that is the price to feel again I’ll pay it !
And it got better after a few weeks- all my feelings came back and balanced out , I had impulses again and started being more creative than ever!
I was motivated to do stuff and in social interactions I worked on my coping skills to manage them better and worked on getting my routines back to avoid getting overwhelmed ...
I felt so stabilized that I decided I don’t need to go into a day clinic for depression anymore and even took more hours with “my” child.
And even though being a Zoloft Zombie and getting of it was horrible I am glad I made this experience !
I learned to appreciate my autistic traits even more and it made me realize that my normal is way better than “normal” and I am happy with who I am and wouldn’t want to be anyone else ever again !!!
I came out of it stronger than I would have thought possible and I am enjoying my deep emotions, creativity, impulses, SI and being different to the most every single day !