DOSE:

20 mg

oral

Pharms - Fluoxetine

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

98 lb

I was put on 20 mg of Prozac daily at the age of 16, in an attempt to lessen the effects of bulimia and bipolar disorder on my life. At first, everything seemed to be going fine - the only problem I ran into was the obvious problem of a bulimic taking oral medicine - the medicine induced cravings, which would make me binge, which would make me purge, which would make the medicine for the day useless. After the first week, I got the sense to start taking it in the morning before I left for school, and leaving all food/money at home, so I had no chance of being able to purge. On the weekends, I would stay awake until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more, pop the pill, and go to sleep.

This was when my problems started - when I actually let the pill stay in my body long enough to do its job. It only took two days before I noticed how bitchy I was acting - my temper was definitely shorter than it had been before, and I was constantly on edge. I talked to my doctor about it, who said that it would pass, so I kept on trucking, hoping that it would just go away.

Now, don't get me wrong - it did what it was supposed to do: I didn't have as many mood swings, and, over time, the medicine stopped giving me cravings, and took them away all together. However, because I have anorexic tendencies, this really didn't help me much - I was only eating a little bit of fruit and salad a day, and running 4 or 5 miles a day on that.

I liked losing weight, so I kept taking the Prozac, even though it annoyed me that my temper was so short.

After about a month on Prozac, everything really started to hit the fan. I'm in a Video Production class, and we were at the local bowling alley filming a match; my instructor criticizing my work over the headsets, and after only a few minutes, I told him to have someone else come take over my camera. When someone did come out, I told her that I hated the instructor, stormed to the control room, told the teacher that he was an asshole, and left the alley right in the middle of the game. I am very lucky not to have had my ass thrown out of the class for this outburst.

To me, being criticized was like the end of the world. My emotions were running extremely high, and I felt like I was having an anxiety attack, which I haven't had since I was in elementary school. It was an extreme overreaction, and at the time, I had no idea what was wrong with me, or why I was acting that way.

A few days later, I was plotting how I would kill myself. I can't even describe what it felt like - It was a million times worse than I felt normally, and I felt like there was no way my life could ever get better. Really, I was just waiting around to die, right? Why not speed up the process?

That night, I took 40 Benadryl pills, hoping that it would be enough to kill someone my size. Thank God, it just made me hallucinate, knock me out, and make me wake up with a massive hangover feeling. From all I've read online, a dose that size should have killed me, and I am extremely lucky that, for some reason, I didn't die.

Taking Prozac nearly killed me. I've heard of many people feeling so much better on Prozac, but for me, it wasn't that way, and it's that way for a lot of people. I wish you the best of luck, and that you find the right medication for you - because I really do believe that anti-depressants have the ability to turn a person's life around.

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 88516
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 16
Published: Mar 25, 2021	Views: 1,490
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Pharms - Fluoxetine (80) : Health Problems (27), Hangover / Days After (46), Medical Use (47), Various (28)