Anyone have any luck coming of ssri’s?

I’ve been on a few different medication, klonopin, tried Zoloft that didn’t agree with me now I’m on lexapro 15 mg and I don’t have the same sides I had with Zoloft and the anxiety is pretty much gone but I’m completely flat, no motivation, don’t want to go anywhere do anything more so than usual I haven’t been exercising or watching what I eat so my health is going downhill (and I’m getting fat).

It’s like I’m in a lifeless depression with no emotions at all other than my irritability and that’s probably because I’m not burning off any frustration like I’m used to. I’m done with this already told my therapist she didn’t look like she thought it was a great idea but I’m done listening to them, gonna talk to my DR next week.

With all my ranting aside, what sort of side effects can I expect from coming off, will my anxiety be worse that it was before? I’d like to hear your experience with quitting medication.

So maybe I wouldn't give up on medication just yet. There are different classes of antidepressants and AFAIK they also work on anxiety. So far you have tried one class, SSRIs. There are also SNRIs, SARIs, Tricyclic, Tetracyclic, atypical, etc. Not all will be right for you but I want you to know there are more options out there. Also if you don't have depression buspirone is an anxiety only medication that may work for you.

ZombieZ wrote:With all my ranting aside, what sort of side effects can I expect from coming off, will my anxiety be worse that it was before? I’d like to hear your experience with quitting medication.

Ok, so I am not exactly med compliant and will routinely go off of my antidepressant if I think my depressive symptoms will stay away for a while. When I go off of it two things usually happen; I always get rebound anxiety during the withdrawal and I usually get headaches. I've discovered if I taper slow enough I can mostly avoid the headaches but the rebound anxiety is still there. My anxiety does seem worse initially, but that feeling eventually fades. Oh and a second argument for a slow taper is you increase your risk for brain zaps if you go too fast. They aren't harmful but they aren't fun either.

When I'm off my antidepressant my anxiety rarely gets as bad as it was several years ago in college. This is because I have worked on it with my therapist and also because I removed certain things/people from my life that were making my anxiety worse. My guess is that even if you haven't done anything besides take an SSRI to help with your anxiety there is no reason to think it would be any worse than before you started it unless you have environmental triggers that have become worse over time. So yes you should be able to get off your SSRI without too much trouble but your anxiety could go back to where it was at before.