Hello there. My name is Annie D and I am 69 living with a very painful disease from using SSRI's for 20 years. I am also a survivor of clergy abuse and developed CPTSD when I was 12.
However, the memory did not surface until 2019 when I moved back to my hometown after a 35 year absence.

It was quite a shock to my system yet it all made sense. Now, I understood why I struggled so much in life physically and mentally with relationships and career. Drinking had become an issue so I decided to get sober at 35. However, I was still struggling with CPTSD. I saw a psychiatrist who put me on SSRI's which I would take for the next 20 years. Sadly, there were high dosage back then. I was able to go back to school and get a teaching degree, yet, I would feel suicidal several times a year and have to check into a local psych ward. I had no idea why that was happening and the doctors couldn't tell me either.

I was able to go back to college and attain a teaching degree through all of that. I was proud of myself and had begun teaching at University in 2001. I loved every minute of teaching Art and was able to teach at USF and SUNO until 2004, when I became so sick I could no longer walk up Lone Mountain to class. I was devastated. I had become disabled with gut disease and osteoporosis. I could no longer work and would not receive a pension. I grieved for months. It was then I decided to wean off all the SSRI's the doctors had me on. This was difficult and I lost appetite from the leaky gut.

Then in 2018, I had a near death experience. I went to the hospital and there was nothing they could do but offer more medication. I was literally starving to death. I had a hole in my gut. I went home and called a dear friend in tears. She suggested I get on the GAPS protocol to help seal the gut asap, which I did. I have been on it every since to stay alive.

I am struggling to stay alive as the food I need to thrive costs more than I can afford and I cannot eat from food closets as I am on a highly restricted diet. Please, please help me to stay alive as I am healing from the irreversible damage of SSRI's.