Gaslit by the System: One Man's 20-Year Battle with Psychiatric Medications and Withdrawal

Kevin Gundersen's story begins at age 12 when a doctor prescribed him Celexa for school anxiety. What followed was a two-decade nightmare of medication side effects, new symptoms, and medical gaslighting that robbed him of his youth and health.

With raw honesty, Kevin recounts the vicious cycle familiar to many psychiatric patients: medication side effects misdiagnosed as worsening mental illness, leading to higher doses or new medications, creating even worse symptoms. His original anxiety transformed into debilitating panic attacks, vertigo, severe blood pressure spikes reaching 260/150, and the torturous movement disorder akathisia after starting psychiatric medications.

Kevin's experience reveals how medical gaslighting extends beyond patients to families. "My parents were also gaslit," he explains, absolving them of blame for decisions made without true informed consent. This crucial insight highlights how psychiatric medication harms ripple through entire families, creating multiple victims from a single prescription.

The podcast takes listeners through Kevin's medical journey, complicated by Graves' disease and Lyme disease, and his repeated attempts to taper off medications. Most powerfully, he describes his December 2023 breaking point: "I am going to do everything in my power to get off these drugs. I don't care if I suffer every day for the rest of my life. I'm not giving any more money to these companies that have fucked me up."

Now slowly tapering and rebuilding his life, Kevin offers a profound insight that challenges psychiatric orthodoxy: "I feel the best I've felt in a long time, and I'm at the lowest dose I've been on since I was 16." His story is both a warning about the dangers of psychiatric medications and a beacon of hope for those seeking their own path to healing.

Follow Kevin's continuing journey on TikTok and YouTube @fightingback203 and share your own e

The Gaslit Truth Podcast will be live and in person at the Feed the Recovering Brain Conference in Dublin, Ohio

Join us with the top names in brain health, including Christina Veselak, Hyla Cass, and Julia Ross, author of The Mood Cure.

We’ll be bringing you interviews and behind-the-scenes content as we explore how nutrition transforms mental wellness.

Chapters

• 0:42 Introducing The Gaslit Truth Podcast
• 1:47 Kevin's Story Begins at Age 12
• 10:19 School Anxiety and Early Medication
• 18:48 Grave's Disease and the Cycle of Trying to Taper
• 27:53 The Breaking Point with Lexapro
• 36:39 Finding Clarity and Beginning to Fight Back
• 46:15 Living with Akathisia and Looking Forward
• 55:34 Feeling Better at the Lowest Dose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

you've been gaslit into believing that fighting back from withdrawal and other things would be easy. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Before we start one more shameless plug for my book.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Shameless.

Speaker 1: 0:42

self-promotion Shameless self-promotion, your best brain. Yes, and I wanted to point out one of the chapters here, because I think this is a chapter that jazzes me up the most, because it's all about amino acids and neurotransmitters and things like that, and these are the things that nobody taught you in school, nobody taught us in school, but have become so pivotal in our practice period. So this would be chapter four. It's called prepare to be mind blown. The mind is a source of all suffering and it is also the source of all happiness. I love that quote because it is literally reclaiming your own agency with your mind. And then we talk a lot about neurotransmitters and amino acids how to influence your neurotransmitters without psychiatric medication.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Yay, that's it. That's the ticket, people. That's the whole deal.

Speaker 1: 1:36

If everybody knew that before they started psych meds, I think the world would be a better place.

Speaker 2: 1:40

Oh man, if that would have only been the treatment plan right here, correct. Go ahead, jen, and I want you to go look at like your serotonin.

Speaker 3: 1:47

Maybe you need some vitamin D Maybe you need some 5-HTP.

Speaker 2: 1:51

damn it, let's look at that.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Yep, or maybe not. Maybe you don't need any of that stuff. Maybe you just need to change your life. I don't know. Maybe you need to change your lifestyle a little.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Our guests would agree today too that we've got on the show so we got to bring bring him in. Can you bring him in from the weight room? Bringing him in, bring him hello slide him in.

Speaker 1: 2:08

There he is there's kevin hi, so we've been. We've been following kevin for a while on over on tiktok um. His name is kevin gunders. I was gonna say it's not gufson say the name of my financial advisor but this is not my financial advisor, kevin Gunderson Shout out my financial advisor watches this. He's going to get a kick out of that.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Anyway we have a special guest, kevin, and he's an advocate for fighting back and he has a great story that I am glad that we've been wanting to get him on the show for a long time but because of mental health conditions and things like this, it's been really tough to get him here. So I'm glad that you're maybe feeling better. I don't know, maybe you just felt obligated to be here. I don't know, but we're going to find out.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Maybe it was all the emails I keep sending going hey be a tenacious little shit when it comes to stuff like this.

Speaker 3: 3:09

No, it wasn't that at all, like you said it was. Definitely it's been a struggle to even just function. So yeah, I'm glad I'm here, I'm glad to finally meet you guys and to talk about, about talk about all this stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:25

That's been a struggle for a long time yeah, so I think we just need to start from the beginning, the beginning let's jump in kevin all right, well, yeah, um, like you want me to start from the beginning, beginning sure?

Speaker 1: 3:43

well, let's start with the comment that you made off air, yeah, gas lighting um, because we were talking to him about what the hook for the show was going to be and he mentioned other ways that he was gas lit, and I said please save that for the show and we'll, we'll start it off there, and so maybe, if you can recall what you had said otherwise, we can prompt your memory a little bit on this. But maybe start there with how you were.

Speaker 3: 4:07

I think I think I mentioned, I think you said something about being gaslit about the withdrawal from psychiatric drugs. I said well, my, my parents were also gaslit.

Speaker 1: 4:21

Yes, yes it?

Speaker 3: 4:28

yes, yes. Um, I know I've been asked many times over the years and I've like do you? Do you blame your parents?

Speaker 1: 4:31

because I was put on at such a young age how old were you?

Speaker 3: 4:32

I was, I was. I believe I was 12. I was either 11 or 12, um, and people have asked me that and I I reply with the same answer. I say I do not. I do not blame my parents at all. They were also gaslit, manipulated whatever you want to call it into believing that this was going to help me and that I needed this medication, and they are also victims. I truly believe that.

Speaker 1: 5:02

I believe that too. That hit me where it hurts, actually, when you said that yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Tell us how it started, Kevin, with that. What was going on with you in your life that you and your parents got to that space of starting a psych med that young?

Speaker 3: 5:21

So the year was 2001. And I believe it was August of that year and I've talked about some of this on my channel on my videos, but I believe it was August 2001, and I had a really good friend at the time and his sister passed away. His sister passed away and that was sort of like the start of just a bad year, to say the least. That was sixth grade for me and I was going off to middle school for the first time. I had, you know, learning disabilities that I was dealing with over the years, but I would say the start of of her passing away was that was when things started to get really rough, and then I went right off to middle school and I started to develop school anxiety. Um, the teachers there were awful. Can I drop f-bombs on here? Sure.

Speaker 3: 6:27

You can drop whatever bombs you want. They were fucking awful. Yes, yeah, the teachers there were just awful people, and there was a certain way that I needed to be taught, and I think I can speak for other people when I say that, uh, having learning disability can be difficult. It can be hard because not everyone understands why you have to learn a certain way and, um, you're made to believe sometimes that you're stupid or you know whatever, but it's not the case and I think that my confidence, just it just dipped that year because of the, because of the teachers and, you know, because of the situations that I was in. So I started to get really bad school anxiety and and then it was like nine, 11. And then you, you know, only like five months after that, my aunt passed away.

Speaker 3: 7:29

So you had all these things happening that year that were really difficult, and my parents were kind of struggling to find a different school for me because they were like I don't think, you know, public school is going well at all for him, so let's try to find something else.

Speaker 3: 7:50

And they did end up finding the perfect school for me. It was it's a private school in Fairfield, connecticut, but, um, I would say that year was the start of everything and at some point I know I my my memories, kind of I have a great memory, but sometimes it gets a little lost At some point during that year they brought me to a doctor who my older sisters had both seen, and I'm not going to drop any names, but it was this specific doctor who basically said he needs to be on Celexa and it's going to help him, and you know, blah, blah, blah. So I think it was around March or April or May, sometime around there of 2002 is when I started antidepressants and I believe that that was the start and I went up to about. I think I started at 10 milligrams but then I was up around 20.

Speaker 1: 9:02

I will say I just read a thing on Celexa I'm pretty sure it was Celexa as being one of the worst.

Speaker 3: 9:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:10

For not withdrawal but side effects and things like that.

Speaker 3: 9:15

The side effects were brutal. Yeah, for sure, and I know that Lexapro is like a newer version, or whatever they want to call it. Jen knows this.

Speaker 1: 9:23

Yes, Newer Lex side effects or whatever they want to call it.

Speaker 3: 9:26

Jen knows this, yes, and I want to address something.

Speaker 1: 9:28

Well, I said you had mentioned like my memory is a little sketchy, and yes, my memory is a little sketchy during the time that I used psychiatric medications too, so that could have been one of the side effects. For you just saying, or you were 11, and I can't remember a lot about when I was 11 either. So, from there though, what happened? Have you stayed on Celexa or have you changed something?

Speaker 3: 10:02

Yeah, I mean, how much time do you have?

Speaker 2: 10:08

uh, yeah, I mean we. How much time do you have? Uh, you switched several times, right?

Speaker 3: 10:11

to. So you got to to your your drug of choice, my current, my current, my drug of choice, yeah my current, my current medication is is afexor, uh, and I take a low dose of Klonopin daily.

Speaker 3: 10:26

I don't want to be, but that is the current situation and that will not continue to be the situation as I'm trying to. It's weird Benzos have never affected me the same as the SSRIs. And the SNRIs I've had a history with. You know the bet, the benzos too, but I've always taken them as needed, never really had a problem, um. But yeah, I'm getting off topic here. Celexa for four years, um, from 12 to 16. And during that time I that was actually when my panic attacks got really severe. When I was on the drug I had more anxiety and depression when I was first put on the medication, but I think that when I actually started, it is when the panic attacks got worse. But here's where the gaslighting comes in. You go to the doctor and you tell them they say okay, well, that just means you need a higher dose.

Speaker 2: 11:43

Yes, yep, yep.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Or it's the wrong med. We need you on something different, or a booster or so.

Speaker 2: 11:51

So so, kevin, your, your anxiety and your depression. You're saying it got worse after starting a medication, but the thing that really popped even more so was panic attacks, which you did not have.

Speaker 3: 12:11

So you're saying you did not have panic attacks prior to I would say, if you want to call them panic attacks, I don't. I don't know if they were panic attacks, they weren't like before the medication. They, they were more. It was more just bad anxiety, right, um, and it was, and it was school anxiety and it wasn't normal it wasn't debilitating physical symptoms, which I deal with now.

Speaker 3: 12:35

It was more just like um, a constant state of of just I don't want to go to school and and you know the social aspect and being afraid of the teachers and all that stuff. But now it's just all physical manifestations and you know whatever you want to call it that have developed over the years.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Okay, yeah, and I'm thinking, because every time we have a guest on here like I, you know you do retrospective things, especially when you're talking about kids, and all this stuff, like the learning disability, played such a huge role. I believe in all of this because it sounds like it wasn't addressed in a manner that was suitable for your learning. So of course, you're going to enter into sixth grade anxious because I'm going to guess that your learning wasn't up to par, and I say this because that's exactly what happened to my son. And so when he entered sixth grade, everything changes in sixth grade. Socially, it changes.

Speaker 1: 13:54

What you're expected to know has changed, and so when you're struggling with a learning disability, there is like heightened anxiety and things like that. So, knowing what I know, now I look at that and I think that seems expected, that seems like it would be an anticipated response, with somebody who's going in with a learning disability and going into sixth grade. Looking back on that now, what do you think about that kid's self going into sixth grade at 11 having some anxiety? What do you think you could tell him now or what did you learn about him now?

Speaker 3: 14:25

Well, you know it's such a big jump. You know, fifth to sixth at least in Connecticut that just that jump from elementary to middle school and just the way you go about your day and how you go from different, you know, at least here it's like you go to math and you have a different teacher for science, you know, et cetera. But yeah, that whole process was just so different for me and I just remember being so overwhelmed by the entire thing and, just like I said, the teachers were just not nice, they didn't understand me.

Speaker 3: 15:07

Like, try harder difficulty understanding why I was the way it was. So having these, these people, basically make everything worse. Of course I was going to develop some sort of you know anxiety, social anxiety, school anxiety, do you?

Speaker 1: 16:25

do you remember did? Did some of the pressure for medication come from the school, if you recall?

Speaker 3: 16:32

I don't remember. I do know that the doctor made that clear that this will help in school when he was telling my parents that I needed Celexa. But, like I said, I stayed on for four years. I had really bad panic attacks at the time, those four years, but I I was functioning. It would just be like I would have three or four weeks of severe, debilitating panic attacks and I actually developed a phobia of vomiting at the time, which is I don't know where it came from, but it happened, and anytime I got it like any sort of stomach ache, I would just go into full-blown panic attacks.

Speaker 3: 17:23

Uh, when I went off of the drug at 16, it was pretty, pretty easy to get off then. I don don't remember why, but maybe my you know my brain I was still a kid, maybe my brain just hadn't been damaged yet, but, um, I remember going off of it and feeling the best I'd felt and since I was like 10, um, you know, tons more energy. I felt happy. Uh, and I I clearly didn't need the drug. You know hindsight's 2020, but I just uh, I look back at those years and I'm so many. Things could have gone differently, you know, and it's it's an unfortunate thing, but so many people have dealt with this and I'm not the only one. That's something I keep telling myself over the years is you know, there's tons of people who have been through this and it's unfortunate, really. It's sad.

Speaker 1: 18:24

It's just a sad situation that we're at this point in this country that we're at this point in this country, especially not especially, but I do think especially with children, because there is no informed consent for a child. They can't. You know that goes through the adults who, as you said, are being gaslit into believing that if they're a good parent, they would do this for their struggling child. And that is how it's presented.

Speaker 3: 18:53

That's how it?

Speaker 1: 18:54

was presented to me as a parent. I never did it for my kid. I'm so thankful that I did not, but the pressure was immense. The pressure to be a good mom, the pressure for him to learn differently was so immense. So I really I feel for your mom and your parents having to sit there and, you know, make these massive decisions for their child on in an adolescent body during that time that was impacted by these medications negatively. And you said, you know, when you were 16, you got off of it and it was relatively easy. And in my mind I'm thinking like I wonder if it was easy because you had hormonal surges and you know your hormones were kind of picking up the slack here, trying to help you get through all of that. Plus, you're probably more active at 16, like doing. I remember 16, it was fun. You know there's a lot of sports and, yes, all of those things were happening simultaneously to help your brain get through that time.

Speaker 3: 20:09

Yeah, I do remember coming off pretty quickly at the time, at 16, and I had no problem, and I've mentioned this in my fighting back videos that I felt unbelievable and unbelievable, you know good.

Speaker 3: 20:27

And I would say, four months after, three or four months later, I developed throat, throat reflux, and then, about five months after that, I started getting symptoms of Graves disease. And I always think back, I'm like did, did this drug do something to my brain, to my body that brought out all of these, these physical, um, physical problems that have developed over the years? I mean, I don't, I don't know, but the throat reflux was, was bad, but then I got graves about, I would say it was about nine months to a year after, about nine months to a year after, after I stopped, uh, the Celexa and I had just gone back to school. I was up at boarding school at the time and I started to get, you know, sweating, like just profusely sweating, itching all over my body, migraines. They tested me for Lyme disease. It was negative, but then they ended up testing me for thyroid and it came back positive and both my sisters had actually also had graves and both had also taken psychiatric drugs.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Interesting.

Speaker 3: 21:50

Both had also taken psychiatric drugs. Interesting Both my parents did not have Graves, no history of thyroid with them, so very strange.

Speaker 1: 21:59

Very.

Speaker 3: 22:01

And two months after the Graves diagnosis so now we're up to December of 2006, diagnosis so now we're up to December of 2006. I started to get horrible joint pain all over my body and this is when I became essentially paralyzed, could not move. I was in excruciating pain and they told me at the time that it was probably due to the drug I was on for Graves' disease. But looking back, I think that was when I got Lyme disease. Yeah, there's so many things I wish I knew then. But you know you can't look back and just it'll drive you crazy.

Speaker 1: 22:49

You were also a kid and just it'll drive you crazy. You're also a kid, you know you were. You're still a kid, struggling with these um, pretty major disease states too, right? Yeah, so, and so when we're kids, we're also reliant on the adults around us. That's how it works. Like we're, we're not inquisitive to our own body. We leave that up to our parents and our care providers. You know so.

Speaker 3: 23:12

So you're, yeah, I mean we can't go back and hold our childhood selves accountable for what we know today as adults, or to do something different it is true, yeah, but I I did have this severe episode of of arthritis and my parents were trying to figure out, the doctors were trying to figure it out, the doctors were trying to figure it out and, of course, my stupid fucking doctor at the time psychiatrist said oh, he's under a lot of stress, we got to put him back on Selexa. Um, so that was when I was put back on Selexa and I remember the arthritis got better and it took maybe four or five weeks. It just slowly started to fade. I had issues over the year like remaining high school years. I was back on Celexa, still had panic attacks, was back on Celexa, still had panic attacks.

Speaker 3: 24:17

And 2011, I was done with high school. It was like summertime. I still had Graves' disease. Graves is something that I just dealt with. It was always there. It wasn't terrible. There's worse things to have, obviously and I, I I just dealt with it. It was just part of my life at the time and I was like I talking to my mom. It was like summer, 2011.

Speaker 3: 24:42

And I was like I don't want to be on psychiatric drugs my entire life. You know my entire life. You know I don't know what, how, I don't know how I came to that realization, but I remember saying that to her and she. She agreed, and that was when I started trying to taper. And this is when things got horrible my, my thyroid levels, for whatever reason, every time I try to mess around with psychiatric drugs, my thyroid levels go way out of range, my body gets under intense stress and it is just a horrible cycle of just bullshit, to say the least, yep. Bullshit, to say the least, yep. But. But I was kept being told by doctors that that it was like fall of 2011 when I was doing this taper. You know, you just have anxiety. It's just anxiety, like anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. I'm like, well, I, I've been fine, you know they're like well, well, you know it's anxiety because you're coming off the drug. Well, I'm like, well, my thyroid levels are way out of range.

Speaker 3: 26:00

Couldn't that be something? Couldn't that have something to do with it? Um, but it was always just no, it's anxiety. So I get to December of that year and my nervous system and my adrenal glands, everything just felt like it failed in my body. That was what it felt like. It was the worst I've probably ever felt in my life and at this point I became bedridden for a few months, could not move. The most severe fatigue I've ever felt in my life, the stress of trying to come off of this drug and dealing with graves. It was just not a good combination. And, um, I I remember my doctor saying something like you know, it's not the drug you can. You know you can, you can alternate, you can alter you like you can go from. You know you can take 20 milligrams one day and then 10 the next day. It was something. It was something ridiculous like that, like looking back, like, like that is so bad for your nervous it's, it's.

Speaker 2: 27:19

I just like.

Speaker 1: 27:19

I can't even understand, like the silence has been broken right now.

Speaker 2: 27:24

It's so bad, I'm just sitting here so quiet. It's so incredibly asinine. Not only is it disproven in research which is out there and has been out there I mean, it's not like this was 70 years ago you're talking about here, kevin, right, okay, but the idea that it's okay to play with that and to encourage people to play with that, knowing the mechanisms of action, right, the half-life of these drugs in the body and what they do, right, um, how they bind to the serotonin receptor sites, um, oh my gosh, it just it doesn't. It's so incredibly illogical. And it was illogical then.

Speaker 3: 28:12

Yeah, and I think that you know, like I said, the graves playing a part in this and potentially Lyme disease.

Speaker 2: 28:24

Oh sure.

Speaker 3: 28:25

It was too much for my body.

Speaker 2: 28:28

You're so young, you're 18, right At this point, point you're about 18, I was.

Speaker 1: 28:33

I was a little older, I was 20, 21 okay, all right, still for a 21 year old to have to go through all of this like, yeah, talk about being robbed of you know yeah, the best times of your life and your central nervous system is still not developed by the way at this age, yet you're still not quite there so I I went back up to my normal dose of select.

Speaker 3: 28:56

So when I was became bedridden- they were like, okay, just just stop.

Speaker 3: 29:01

You know, stop the taper. So I did that and then my thyroid was so diseased that my parents took me up to a surgeon, could barely walk into the place that's how sick I was and they came to the conclusion that the thyroid needs to come out. It is incredibly diseased. So we did make that decision to do a total thyroidectomy. This was March 21st of 2012. So the whole thyroid came out and I had been back up on my Selexa dose for a few months and I did start to heal a little bit and I felt a little better. I started to actually go out more and I was able to drive a little bit. I started to actually go out more and I was able to drive a little bit. Um, that was sort of the I still feel like I'm at the beginning parts of this entire story. That's how long the whole story is and I, uh, that summer I was like I want to try again. I want to try to get off Selexa again. Same thing happened Thyroid levels go out of range, become sick for months, ended up switching over to Zoloft.

Speaker 3: 30:24

Actually, I tried about three or four other drugs before Zoloft. Ended up on Zoloft and it was a little bit better than all the other ones I had tried and I felt actually pretty good. But what happens with these drugs is you get the poop out effect, and that started happening two or three years after every drug. I would start the drug and then, you know, a few years later I I started feeling horrible again and I started feeling worse than before I even started the drug. And then it's, it's the gaslighting. It's like this is just your anxiety disorder. I'm like, well, I didn't feel this awful before the drug, so how can you say that?

Speaker 1: 31:12

That's the whole. But can I just intervene, because that's the whole thing. When it's different, like this isn't the way I felt, the reason that I got on it. You know, suddenly I'm worse, suddenly my symptoms are very different, suddenly, all these things. Oh, it's just the return of symptoms, but it's not because it's. Those symptoms aren't what I had. So how is that a return?

Speaker 3: 31:36

I didn't have debilitating physical symptoms.

Speaker 2: 31:40

No, exactly, I didn't have akathisia.

Speaker 3: 31:42

I didn't have vertigo, I didn't have all these things that developed with the drugs Right.

Speaker 1: 31:51

That doesn't even make logical sense to say that because we're not evaluating then what were the symptoms and the reasons that you got on this in the first place are not the same as what's happening to you now and it's a complete dismissal of well, that doesn't seem right. This seems different, wildly different. You know, worse than originating symptoms Like I don't know, like how we can, how we keep perpetuating that is I don't know, I can't even cause, I can't even keep perpetuating that idea because it is so illogical to me.

Speaker 3: 32:37

Yeah, I mean, mean. I mean it's just and it is what we do all the time blood money.

Speaker 1: 32:40

I mean really yeah really like.

Speaker 3: 32:42

That's what it comes down to, in my opinion. It's just all about money and it's about it's not about, um growing as a society. It's about money and it's about power. Um, do I think that all doctors are evil people? No, I don't. I think some of them have I don't know how many, but some of them do have the right intentions. They want to help people.

Speaker 2: 33:20

But we are definitely not at the right place that we need to be so. So here you are now, kevin, on another titration journey whatever I don't know what word you want to put on it with this effects, or that you're on and off air. Before we started, you and I were talking about the start of that for you, which was December of 23.

Speaker 3: 33:47

Yeah, the start of the taper.

Speaker 2: 33:49

Start of the taper. So what got you to a space then of going okay, I'm going to try this again, as I'm assuming there's more events that happened in between you know this time span Right Um.

Speaker 3: 34:02

I do want to jump ahead in the story too. So Zoloft ended up having that poop out effect, yep, and I sort of spent about two or three years. I did have a few years of of normalcy. It was about 23 to 26 where I actually got my life back and I I was playing hockey, I was, I was working, I was, you know, I was doing normal things.

Speaker 3: 34:33

Um, and then I would say 2017, I started to notice that I could not catch my breath, debilitating shortness of breath. Um, and then it was like brain fog and I had akathisia for so long and I didn't know what it was. Excuse me, I did not know what it was. I didn't know what akathisia was until probably two or three years ago when I started to actually dive into. Okay, what the fuck am I experiencing? But I'll get into that more. But I remember just being like I don't want to mess around with with this drug. I don't. I was like scared, I w it was a post-traumatic stress response at this point where I was like I don't want to taper, I don't want to try something else, so I'll just, I'll just keep taking it, even though I feel horrible. And then we jumped to 2019 and Doctor at the time Said you know, we got to try something else. This is like you're clearly the.

Speaker 3: 35:46

The Zoloft is not doing anything anymore, so I'm switched to Lexapro, and Lexapro was the worst drug I've ever taken in my life. I spent eight months straight in and out of the hospital with severely high blood pressure, um, severe vertigo, the the most debil. I mean. They were panic attacks, but this was beyond panic. This was something is going on in his body, my body, that is causing my blood pressure to skyrocket, and that's that's being caused from something that that started with the, with the, the Lexapro and I also. This is when I discovered that I did actually have chronic Lyme disease. When I discovered that I did actually have chronic Lyme disease, so I started to take an approach to handle that and my microbiome just got completely shot because I tried antibiotic treatment, which was a terrible idea and, at the same time, trying to adjust the Lexapro. So yeah, to adjust the lexapro. So yeah, 2019 was a complete disaster sickest I've ever been in my entire life.

Speaker 3: 38:25

There was one point during the summer, I think. I think I know the exact date, because I'm weird like that, but september, so I think it was september 10 of 2019. I kept being told this whole summer by doctors that you were having these are panic attacks. And while they were, they're panic attacks because of the fucking drug. They're not panic attacks because I have panic disorder Cause I wasn't having these severe episodes before you put me on like I felt awful on on Zoloft, but I wasn't having these severe episodes before you put me on Like I felt awful on Zoloft, but I wasn't at this level of suffering.

Speaker 1: 39:00

There's never a but why? But why am I experiencing these intense, debilitating panic attacks In the mental health world? There's never a but why. It's just well.

Speaker 3: 39:10

Here's the diagnosis, that's why I remember being I. I was screaming for help. I was, I was this was a point. It was september 10th and I was screaming, my parent, I was like something is wrong. This is, you know, fucked up. Something's wrong. I need to go back to the hospital. I I think I was in the hospital over 50 times that that summer and every single time, you know, it's just a panic attack. Every single, every single time I went in there, they, they, started to think of me as just like the crazy guy who comes in with panic attacks, yep um so, yeah, my we're on our way to the hospital for the millionth time and my mom, I actually couldn't make it.

Speaker 3: 40:00

I was like mom, you gotta pull over, like I think I'm actually dying right now, like that's how awful I feel, and we're right by the firehouse. So she brings me into the fire station and she, she's talking to the, the firefighters, and they have like a blood pressure cuff. They call an ambulance, but they put the cuff on me and my blood pressure is 260 over 150.

Speaker 2: 40:26

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3: 40:32

And I turned to my mom. I'm like what is going on? I was like this is absolutely insane. Like that, these doctors are saying that this is just a panic disorder, that that is just in my dna, you know, I just I just have panic attacks. I was like what is going on? Like I was like I can't do anything, I can't drive a car, I I'm literally confined to one room. Right now, the only the only rooms I knew that summer were my bedroom and in the fucking hospital rooms that I were in. And, yeah, thinking back, it's just, it's a horrible time to think back on, but I I am so glad that I eventually I think it was only about a month later I switched to Effexor and once I got onto Effexor, all this horrible shit went away.

Speaker 3: 41:35

Thank God Still wasn't great on Effexor by any means, but it was not what I experienced on Lexapro at all. Lexapro was a different level of suffering that I did not know existed. So I was put on Effexor and I definitely did gain some of my life back, but of course, the poop-out happened again in 2023, but of course, the poop out happened again in 2023 and I developed, uh, severe vestibular migraines, night sweats, um, all the side effects that you can probably have with a fixer I.

Speaker 2: 42:22

I had them.

Speaker 3: 42:22

Vexer. I had them and I was waking up every morning just drenched in sweat. My wife was like what the what is wrong with you? I'm like it's the drug Like it's, you know. I don't know what's going on, but I'm pretty sure this is a side effect of Vexer. And then it stopped working. I started to get all the same problems back. You know all the physical symptoms that I was experiencing, but this time I had vestibular migraines, which I never had in the past, and vertigo, and I ended up bedridden again, and this was September of 23. I think this is like the fourth or fifth time I just ended up in bed over a 12 year period. Um, I'm trying to remember.

Speaker 3: 43:14

I gained a little bit of progress those next few months, but then December hit. I tried to go up on effects or I was like maybe I'm not, you know, maybe the dose isn't enough. And then I came to this realization. I was like, maybe I'm not, you know, maybe the dose isn't enough. And then I came to this realization. I was like, all right, I am going to do everything in my power to get off these fucking trucks. And and that was. That was december 26th of 23, and since that date I have been working at this for the fifth or sixth time. I was like enough is enough. I was like I don't care if I suffer every day the rest of my life. I'm not going to give any more fucking money to these companies that have fucked me up. I was like I'm not, I'm not doing it. I'm not, I'm not willing to give any more of your life that I definitely could have been doing more productive things.

Speaker 2: 44:41

I'm curious, kevin, so this started for you at age 12 on Celexa? Okay, fast forward. Now you're in your 30s 34. 34. Okay, 34 years old, so you got 20 years right of this on and off.

Speaker 1: 45:02

Yep.

Speaker 2: 45:02

In that entire time, which you were a psychiatric patient for a very, very large chunk of that time. Right, yeah, Okay, start a conversation that got shot down on the idea that this could all be coming from antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. Was that someone who holistically a practitioner who goes okay, let's go back to age 12 and see where this started? Was there ever a conversation about these? Psychiatric drugs are fucking with your health. They're messing with your central nervous system.

Speaker 2: 45:51

They're creating symptoms you never had? Was that part of a discussion at any point in this?

Speaker 3: 45:57

time, Not from doctors, not from any doctors. My mom hates medication. She's had a long history of not herself, but witnessing what these drugs have done to me, to her own mother, who had MS and was addicted to all these pain meds. So my mom hates meds and she always said over the years, like this is probably, you know, the drugs are probably causing a lot of this. Yeah, she has said it to me and we've had conversations about it, but I think, at the same time, she feels so much guilt, Sure, but I think at the same time she feels so much guilt about about being one. You know me being put on at 12. She has so much guilt about it and I'm like mom, it's not your, it's not your fault, You're a victim in this too.

Speaker 2: 46:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 46:58

But no, not from doctors, not from any doctors.

Speaker 2: 47:01

Cause there's a common denominator that just floats throughout your entire history. Yeah, and it's the presence of some form of an SSRI, snri. You've got a benzo on there now, right Like it exists. It's always been there for the most part.

Speaker 3: 47:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:16

On and off, Different drugs, different trials. Then you got medical pieces that float in right.

Speaker 3: 47:22

And the medical stuff, like the physical stuff, just makes it all worse the lime, the, you know thyroid, trying to regulate my levels and yeah, that's definitely something that is just added to it. It's just I gotta figure it out, you know, I gotta figure out a way to to handle it the best I can what was?

Speaker 1: 47:42

when did you put the pieces together entirely that. My truth is this it's not what everyone else is saying.

Speaker 3: 47:51

That's a very good question.

Speaker 2: 47:55

He's going to know the date, aren't you? You're going to know the date.

Speaker 3: 47:58

I know a lot of dates.

Speaker 2: 48:00

I know you do. I'm very jealous for this right now because I can't remember shit from the last 20 years of my venues. So I'm sitting here going damn good for you. It's almost, I'm glad you have that, Kevin, Of all the other shit in your life. I'm glad you have the ability to retroactive.

Speaker 3: 48:13

It is a nice thing to have, it's also kind of a curse, because it's like I remember every little detail and that just contributes to this PTSD.

Speaker 2: 48:24

It's true, it's true detail, and that just contributes to to this ptsd.

Speaker 3: 48:28

It's true, it's true, that's probably why I don't have as much of that because I can't remember anything. Yeah, yeah, the, the realization I, I don't, I don't have a date but, I.

Speaker 3: 48:35

I think that there there were many times over the years that I thought, you know, you know, maybe this is just I. I need to like, really jump the gun and just try to figure out a way to really get off of these drugs. But I think it was. It was this last flare up in 2023 with the vertigo and the migraines and the effects are having the poop out effect. I think that was probably it, especially December when I tried to go up and I felt like I was on fucking speed.

Speaker 2: 49:15

Yep.

Speaker 3: 49:18

And that was when I was really like, okay, what am I doing here? Like this is ridiculous. And and I've said it to you know, the past six months, eight months, whatever, whatever I've gained a lot of my life back. Um, that's, you know, that's another story that we can get into, but I've gained a lot of my life back over the past six to eight months because I haven't touched my dose of effects here since April of last year I'm down to 37.5.

Speaker 3: 49:51

I went way too fast in the beginning, had debilitating panic attacks, akathisia, you know, but right now I'm at a point where I'm still suffering, but I'm functioning, if that makes sense. Yep, um, the suffering has come down, but there are still days where I suffer horribly. Two, two days ago I had my first panic attack since December or November and it was. It was debilitating, and you know my nervous system, my limbic system is just injured, so it comes debilitating, and you know my nervous system, my limbic system is just injured. So what it comes down to that I mean that is that is the realization that I've come to is that I have drug injury, you know from from years and years and years of just different drugs and the length of time that I was on these drugs and, um, and and I'm not saying the Lyme isn't a part, I'm sure Lyme is a part of it too Um, I'm sure that there's other things at play and but I do think that the main problem for for me personally, the main problem has been the drugs and I'm still healing.

Speaker 3: 51:10

I'm every day I'm trying to figure out, figure out a way to just heal. You know, how can I get through today, feeling the best that I can possibly feel, um, some day, like I said, some days are a lot worse than other days, but the, the functioning part has gotten better. I'm able to function, um, you know, got back into some working and finally got my own house and you know my family's obviously thrilled about that. Um, cause I was was living in my, I was literally in my parents basement a year ago suffering, you know, like just debilitating, debilitating symptoms. I mean, this was obviously the acute withdrawal phase, but it was also just, you know, I think, just like I said, limbic system injury. You, know?

Speaker 2: 52:10

Yeah, how do you, Kevin? How do you know when you're ready to go down again? How will you know when you're in that spot?

Speaker 3: 52:20

You know, I've, I've been asked that uh, many times from family members, from people on social media. It's, it's, it's tough to know, cause it's like is what I'm feeling now Cause I'm still on the drug, or is it because I went too fast and my nervous system is still healing? Yep, or is it both? You know, is it a little bit of both? Um, I think I'll just know in my gut, in my heart, when it's time to make that jump and I I do not, I do not feel that yet.

Speaker 3: 53:01

could it happen in the next month, two months, six months? Yeah, I think it could, but when I do start the rest, because going from 187.5 to 37.5 in two or three months is completely insane.

Speaker 2: 53:20

I think we can all agree.

Speaker 3: 53:24

As deprescribers. We would say yes, kevin. I think Dr Mark Horowitz would probably.

Speaker 2: 53:29

Mark's pissed at you. Let's just bet He'd be like did she read my book? Damn it Right.

Speaker 3: 53:34

I actually talked to him about a year ago actually.

Speaker 1: 53:38

He's in his own struggle with this.

Speaker 3: 53:40

He is he is, but he's got the right approach and he knows exactly what he's doing. And I, I do think that you know he would probably be like wait, no, why did you do that?

Speaker 3: 53:53

I think I do think that at the time I was just pissed off and I was like I was like I'm going to just start jumping down really quick Cause I don't want to take this shit anymore. Gonna just start jumping down really quick because I don't want to take this shit anymore. Um, that that was my mentality at the time. It was not the right mentality to have it by any means. But a lot of, like you said, a lot of us, I think, have done that or they're just they're pissed off and they're like I just want off of this shit I feel that to my soul and when I got the 37.5, I was like this is probably a good point to just stop for a while and to let myself start to heal again.

Speaker 2: 54:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 54:34

But yeah, that is my story and currently I deal with akathisia every single day.

Speaker 1: 54:43

Could you describe that just a little bit for people who might be new to the term? I know we talked about how it's so difficult to put words to it, but I think we need to have discussion about it a little bit.

Speaker 3: 54:57

So for me personally, akathisia is a constant urge to move parts of my body and apply pressure to parts of my body. I get it really bad right here. I get it in my gut area and I it's a lot of doing, this, tapping, I, and it's just this, this urge. I can't really describe it other than this intense urge to I have to put pressure there and then at nighttime it's the pacing I have to pace and I pace, I pace back and forth, sometimes for hours at night. Um, some nights are worse than others, some days are worse than others. Like I said, it's. It said it's very up and down right now, but that's better than just being down.

Speaker 3: 55:52

So, yeah, the agathesia is. It can get so bad that I'm like, you know I'm doing this while I'm walking and I'm like I can't stop Yep, I cannot stop what. I'm doing, this while I'm walking, and I'm like I can't stop Yep, I cannot stop what I'm doing right now. And you know, my wife tries to help. She'll do anything to try to like calm my nervous system, just like rub my back or like just anything to try to just calm myself. But at the end of the day, it's like akathisia is so terrible because it doesn't seem to have many Right Um, what's the right word? There doesn't seem to be many things that help akathisia, um, and that's why so many people have suffered from it, and there's been what seems like a pretty high suicide rate with akathisia, which is a terrible, terrible thing.

Speaker 1: 56:58

I want to point out one quick thing about akathisia, because it was historically only talked about with antipsychotics and possibly like benzodiazepines, and we're talking about it with SSRIs and SNRIs like the typical things that most people are prescribed. So I think this is helpful in this conversation because it can happen in any class of medication.

Speaker 3: 57:23

Any psychiatric drug Any psychiatric drug.

Speaker 1: 57:26

this can happen to, and so when we just isolate it into one, then people who are suffering with it are like that can't be that, because this is only for this classification or that. But we're here to say it does not discriminate.

Speaker 2: 57:42

Yeah, not at all. It's an equal opportunity employer across any class of drug, which a lot of people don't like to believe. Um, yeah, but we're here to tell you it's, it's a thing absolutely had it on on just the ssris and oh yeah, you talk about it all the time on your channels.

Speaker 1: 57:58

Yeah, yeah, I I do take.

Speaker 3: 58:00

Like I said, I take a low dose of klonopin right now but I've seemed to come. I I come off and on benzo's. Fine, it's very strange because I have all these problems with the ssris, but I think maybe that's just because the the length of of use has not been the same sure, and you didn't start it when you were 11 exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3: 58:24

That's a key point in all of this. Um, I did develop also I don't know if you're familiar with mass cell activation syndrome, but that is another thing that I've developed over the past year or two uh, histamine intolerance. I I believe that all of these things are are from the drugs. I 100 believe that and I don't need a doctor to tell me otherwise or tell me that I'm wrong, because I know better than then the doc.

Speaker 3: 58:56

I mean, I know what I'm feeling yeah, you've lived in your body for a very long time you can't go to a doctor and say, hey, this is what I'm feeling, and then he, he knows you better. In what 20 minutes? He knows you better than you know yourself. That's not how life works. You know. You got to trust yourself and you got to be your own doctor.

Speaker 1: 59:20

Your intuition is big, started this when you were so young. Again, you know outsourcing, you know your information to other people that when you got to a space where you're tapping into your own intuition, right, you're like connecting dots and you know putting it all together. That's an interesting time because that's when you're like I want off of this and I want off of it. Yesterday I got to that space. I remember that and I think this is where people then start gaslighting you more. Well, if you feel better, what would it be like for you if you were off of it? You know what I mean. Like what? All these, all these gaslighting conversations that we have about reasons to stay on.

Speaker 1: 1:00:01

Well, in your case, you weren't feeling better. You weren't. I wasn't either. I was feeling like a numbed out rock. That's what I was feeling. But it's interesting because I think when people, we come out of the fog and we tap into our intuition again and we make these connections, and that's when we're like enough, I have had it Enough, had it enough and one last thing I want to mention is that I feel right now.

Speaker 3: 1:00:30

I feel the best I've felt in a long time and I'm at the lowest dose I've been in since I was 16 years old. So I mean, what does that tell you?

Speaker 2: 1:00:41

Right.

Speaker 3: 1:00:43

I feel the best. I've felt as awful as some days are and as awful as that cathesia is, and as awful as all these things are still. I do feel the best I've felt in that long. I have, like I said, I've had years where I've been okay, but there's always that poop out effect with these drugs and that's how they get you. It's like you know you'll feel good for those two years, You'll feel decent, and then you feel worse than before you even started.

Speaker 2: 1:01:12

Forever consumer.

Speaker 1: 1:01:13

Forever consumer.

Speaker 2: 1:01:14

Yeah Well, this is a good spot I think for for us to wrap up, because we've got like about a minute left before we, the whole world implodes and we need to do way too much editing that that, terry, just does not want to do, because you know she's tasked with that, so we are gonna. Let's wrap up here. Kevin, thank you for coming on the show and telling the world your story yeah, um we are the guest truth podcast and um.

Speaker 2: 1:01:39

Make sure now, kevin, we will tag all of your. We'll get your socials in our. You've got a youtube channel and you're on t fightingback203. Is your TikTok handle? I don't know what your YouTube one is.

Speaker 3: 1:01:51

I think it's the same, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 1:01:53

I was watching on TikTok except for that, like 12 hours where we didn't have TikTok and then it was back, but you can find us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. We are the Gaslit Truth. If you want to send us your Gaslit Truths, you can email us at thegaslittruthpodcasts at gmailcom. And please make sure you rate us. Tell us how you feel. Give us all the stars.