After reading Lily Villain's hilarious writing, I had to throw in my two cents. I'm writing this during the sixth day of full-on Paxil withdrawal: the electrical surges, the nausea, headaches, severe insomnia...in a way it feels like a permanent hangover. Lucky for me two things: I'm not working right now and have the bills covered until my last year of graduate school starts, and I quit drinking FOR GOOD two months ago. The other, probably most important thing, is that I've stopped hanging out with the destructive people I've collected in the past five years of drunken stupory, and have turned my mind towards things that (going to sound gooby) inspire peace...at least my kind of peace...waking up to Led Zeppelin's first album, putting my bitchen stereo behind my bed so I get the full speaker effect, sleeping and waking when I feel like it, using power tools, curing my dog's perpetual yeast infection, making curry, eating ice cream, etc. etc. etc. I've been working on my dissertation (a collection of poetry) these last few weeks, not showering often, and wacking off like a fiend. I have to say that masturbation is one of the best ways to stop the side effects. I have a feeling that regular sex, even if it's with yourself, is a good Paxil substitute in general. That was why I wanted to get off of it...not being able to come without extensive electrical support. Having sex with a guy was like doing homework. Also, I think many of the reasons why I went on Paxil in the first place had to do with the complications of leading an alcoholic lifestyle (that chickenshit thing: you are ballsier in all ways...getting in your prof's faces at parties, dragging young poets off to the bushes). Anyway, I had a breakdown in 98 when one of those young poets gave me herpes and then tromped off to Wisconsin to be with his girlfriend blah blah blah. Let's just say Paxil saved me back then and I'll always think fondly of it, even though right now I can't sleep etc. Ok, what did I want to say...yes, that I started noticing in the last few months that I had gone back to biting my nails down to stubs, was having small panic attacks...in short, a lot of the problems I was having before I went on the drug. So I thought: all this and no orgasm? 30 bucks a month also. ALSO, I hadn't written any new poems in three years. Paxil's great for the revision process. You can take long steely looks at your past work, etc. But it sucks for new inspiration. I was kind of dead in that department too. Since I'm finishing a 10 year collection right now, I'd like to start thinking about the new stuff...which requires a bit more anxiety? I don't know. I may be back on the drug next week. But I want to try to go off it and see if the other changes I've made in my lifestyle can be substitutes. I've also been in therapy which has helped me see how my fucked-up relationship with my father has influenced certain obsessional tendencies I've have toward men. Yuck. But it also made me see that having the feelings was normal...they were just displaced onto others. Well. Anyway, so I'm trying to ride out this truly awful withdrawal. Last night I finally got together with a person who was a friend for a long time...sober, I initiated it, and he was fucking loving, I genuinely wanted to kiss him...not just getting my rocks off...but kiss him because I cared and he makes me laugh and he's a real soul, not a dud like 90% of the other guys I've ended up with. Having that work out and spending the night (even though I lay there with the headache, pulsings, insomnia) was great. He just went off Paxil a few months ago so can definitely relate. Let me tell you, I want to have orgasms with this person, deep, tooth-filling rattling orgasms with him. I would hate to make my Ben Wa egg a permanent third-wheel in the bedroom with him. Anyway, I guess a lot of my life has come into focus this summer. I lost a lot of friends, got dumped by a pretty boy in March, my ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend have teamed up to generate lots of bad karma in my direction, and I up and left the bottle and now the pill bottle. And I'm lying in the arms of someone I'd overlooked for a long time...funny the way booze can make clear signposts into clothes racks. God, the way we fuck ourselves! I just saw that movie "Whatever" last night and it just shook me: it was my high school life exactly. I see how far I've come (not to toot the horn, but I'm in the #2 creative writing program in the US getting a doctorate, won a big prize last year, own a nice house on my own, have lots of weird shit in it, have deeply important people in my life, hopefully will continue with this fantastic lover) in spite of such dismal odds. I'm a woman kicking a certain amount of ass, am very competitive, but I've fucking suffered too and had to kill demons at every step of success. Five years ago I was married to a guy who looked great on paper: theoretical physicist, rich, foreign...but I was living trapped in a luxury penthouse in Barcelona, Spain. My mother in law used to tell me that being an ESL teacher there was "a very good career." Yeah, after an MA, after getting my mother and sister and myself through my parents' divorce, grandfather's death, after finally feeling free of certain nasty paternal influences and living in a gorgeous cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains with three dogs and a pear orchard, having newly discovered that I wanted to be a "professa," I'm going to be satisfied with teaching CEOs how to say, "What are you wearing under that skirt?" in English. Fuck that noise. How did I end up there? Booze and not knowing how to say no. Anyway, sorry for being so long-winded, but I have to say that in the last month or so I've figured out some shit. I'm finishing out my doctorate, probably going to accept a one-year postdoc here in Houston, TX after that, then I'm going back to Santa Cruz with my dog and whatever profit I make off my house here. I'm going to help my mom buy some acreage in the mountains and we're going to grow apples and pears and I'm going to teach come hell or high water, not drink, and play my stereo really fucking loud. And when I hit 35 or so I'm going to have some kids, on my own if I have to, and write poems and play Scrabble and drink coffee and have good friends visit. Just make it a beautiful place with lots of greenery and places to sit and think. Doesn't everyone want something good to happen to them? If I have to go back on drugs for anxiety, I'd like to try something different that doesn't affect sex. I think I have to be strong and keep the other parts of my life in check in order to figure out what drugs, if any, I need. So Lily, you rock. I'm going through some physical hell right now, but I'm going to try to muscle through it. I'll let you know what happens. Bucket
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Comment : Unbeliveble ! Now everyone can get Paxil.
ahem.
test. test. thump. test.
my intention just at the outset was to attempt something charming and witty, but at the moment there doesn't seem to be much worth laughing about while I brace myself for yet another attempt to wean myself off paxil. the withdrawal, even gradual, is for me HORRIFYING. after finding quitpaxil.org, I have found new determination in my resolve to rid my body once and for all of this poison. I will not give up. discontinuation of an anti-depressant medication should not be a nightmare of physical withdrawal for which medical professionals continue to deny existence of proof. the mental anguish and physical suffering of tens of thousands of individuals due to lack of disclosure on behalf of Glaxo Smith Kline, of the clear and documented risks of taking this addictive substance- is a DISGRACE. For shame, to the manufacturers, the marketers, the lobbyists, the prescribers. For shame.
and for sake of christ and all others, bucket, get over yourself.