Brain Shivers

You feel like you’re coming down when you haven’t taken anything unorthodox. My personal experience meant I lost my peripheral vision and couldn’t access any higher level brain functions. It feels like you’re melting and that you’re only halfway there.

Brain shivers or brain zaps occur when one is trying to micro-dose or stop taking antidepressants such as zoloft, sertraline. Your brain synapses are responding to a chemical change fueled by these little pills that are meant to control and numb anxiety. It only makes it worse in my opinion. Going on them is a turbulent ride that you know won’t end for a good few weeks, months and then the sudden drop afterwards in life after they have ‘saved’ you.

Everyone around you tells you to ‘man up’; a facetious phrase which is dated anyway. Depression and anxiety are an illness on their own. No one tells you the process or aftermath of having to understand your own mind and deal with the system. You live with yourself everyday and you trust an ‘expert’ to tell you what to do and what to put into your body. Why don’t you trust yourself? Because you're too busy thinking and buzzing about everything else. You need a distant acquaintance to tell you what to do with your life.

They advise you not to drink on anti-depressants as it will 'numb' the effects of what the medication is meant to be doing. I never wanted to be indoors, being alone made me worse. So, when the opportunity of having a crisp cool cider in the beer garden was offered... I wasn't going to say no. It's ironically depressing in itself when the time you must take your medication comes around and you have to make excuses to 'go to the toilet'.

The people that surround you can be so casual and toss phrases around like 'I just don't understand mental health' or 'I'm glad I don't have a mental issue', are simply toxic. Sometimes, they are sadly the people that are meant to be close to you, meant to look after you but they are just simply blasé to your condition. How de-humanising.

Life after medication… you feel ‘normal’ in the sense you aren’t relying on anything and you can be one of the people again that are ‘glad I don’t have a mental health issue’. However, you still have all those memories of when you were on them and the moments you had when you stopped taking them. The mood swings, the crippling anxiety attacks and the brain shivers. You have all those mixed emotions because you followed the advice of a medically trained professional who helped you start them and would help you finish them. I did about three months, upping the dose every time I went back to see my doctor, listening to her advice. I knew I had apparently signed up for a roller coaster of a ride when within the first two weeks I would occasionally lose my peripheral vision. I knew I had to get off this medication and I knew it was going to be tough.

I went to America after going cold turkey the day before, coming off 100mg of sertraline. Needless to say, being out there for 3 weeks was more up and down, on and off than Ross and Rachel from Friends.

Music helps,

Family are a blessing,

Friends are a saviour.

Disclaimer: This was my personal experience that I have decided to share in order to document this experience. I realise some people need such medication for their mental health. I am an advocate for understanding and talking about mental health as it’s important.