your words -- All was well until an inexplicable gloom overcame me. So I jumped back up to 50mg. , fearing that horrible threat of deep depression -- really hit home. I have had depression my whole liefe, treated it with various antidepressants and managed okay, but the pristiq did not suit me and I am now withdrawing from it and the sadness is almost unbearable. I guess it is bc my depression isn't being treated any more although my doctor did start me on 20 mg prozac (not the same doctor who took me off pristq and didn't prescribe a replacement andi-depressant) -- I don't know how long it will take the prozac to help with the depression but so far it's not. I just have to keep telling myself that the negative, self-hating thorughts are part fo the withdrawal and yes, suicidal ideation, but bc my mom tried to kill herself when i was 16, i know i would never to do to the people who would be left behind. So this has been going on for about two months now, starting with one mental health NP who took me off cold turkey, then me trying to do and couldn't and then trying again and then fnally finding a doc who seems to appreciate the severity of the situation. My biggst fear is it is never going to end. My symptoms were the brain zaps and sloshing brain and hard to focus, concentrate or thnk, and being extremely jittery at the beginning and now the brain zaps are about gone but i'm stil having hot flashes (i'm 74), my top of my head still feels like it's just going to separate abd fkiat awat leaving my brain just exposed. Hard to describe really but it's not good. My coordiantion is off, my vision is blured, and im getting the shimmering in frojnt of my eyes that i understand sometime come with a certain type of migraine but i dojn't have a migraine headache, just pressure on both sides of my head like it's being squeezed. Not a very cheerful note, but i imagine people going through this want to hear the good bad and ugly. I should add that my doctor suspects that I am bipolar and should have been diagnosed as that from the beginning, instead of just chronic depression. She said that antidepressants like the Pritiq family and wellbutrin can actually increase pump up the mania, if you are bipolar. otherwise they act as antidepressants. So I guess I am bipolar, and she is going to prescribe lacimal (sp?) for that. Ai Yi yi yi yi - hang in there, y'all. I don't cry easily but feel like i'm on the verge of tears all the time. and then i worry that I'm making it all up and I'm just a drama queen or a bad girl. . Have to keep telling myself and my doctor has to keep telling me it's real. and it will get better.