AARON

Age: 19 | USA

“I started taking Prozac (fluoxetine) and Lexapro (escitalopram) for my anxiety and OCD.

I took a low dose of Prozac for a couple of months, back in April/May, followed by one dose of Lexapro. It has been over 6 months since the last dose.

A few weeks into the medication, I noticed loss of emotion, as well as terrible derealization/brain fog. I had never experienced these side effects before taking these meds, but I was 100 percent confident that they would disappear when I got off of them.

After discontinuing, within a week, my symptoms got dramatically worse.

The brain fog led me to quit my job. I lost my social life. I also had to defer my first year of college. I felt drunk and dissociated from my body all the time. Unable to have normal conversations, my short-term memory was little to non-existent.

As well as a complete loss of my emotion and sex drive. Went from being an emotionally driven person to someone who could no longer feel love for my family, cry, feel happiness or romance.

Throughout the next couple of months, my energy began to deteriorate as well. I am not even close to having the energy I had before taking the meds. Went from being able to work out for a couple of hours to barely being able to work out for 20 minutes.

It has been over half a year and my brain fog and fatigue have slowly gotten worse, while my emotions are still not back to normal.”