 Hi there. Welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal here. I want to record one more video today on the whole subject of mental health. Now, this is a video that I think is really, really important to do, because there are a lot of videos on YouTube about the withdrawal process from selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, better known as SSRIs, videos about SNRI withdrawal, and some of them say some people have really, really bad experiences to say and get crazy, crazy brain zaps and all these symptoms. Now, the reason I wanted to do this video is because I was on the medication, a SSRI for a period, and I had very, very little in the way of problems coming off the drug. So my attempt here is just to basically say that not everybody goes through a terrible withdrawal. The reason I am pushing myself to put this up on YouTube is because as a general truism in life, but especially on the internet, which is magnified, people are much more likely to share a negative experience, unfortunately, than a positive one. If you have no trouble whatsoever coming off Zoloft, your motivation to do what I am doing right now and record a video to put on YouTube or write a post on Reddit to say that really wasn't so bad, just think about it. You probably got better things to do than to share that you had a fine experience. So there's a lot of people out there who, if you ask your friends, if you happen to know any friends who are open about the fact they've had anxiety, depression, or another mental health problem. Now, I grossly underestimated how many people, even in my smallish social circle, I know who have taken these drugs, and once I found a couple of real people to ask, I got very different perspective than what I found on the internet. Now, the reason I'm saying this is because I just did a video. My mental health journey is one involving ADHD, depression, and it's taken me about 14 months to find a medicine that I'm hopeful, if I can find the bottle, wherever it's gone, I'm hopeful will be the one. But I could have got going with the process four years sooner if I'd taken an SSRI the first time I had the idea that maybe I've got anxiety or something going on and a drug like this could be useful. The reason I took, it took me like breaking point, basically. I had my gallbladder out, started having horrible digestive symptoms, and on top of everything else going on in my life, I just reached kind of the point where you're like, no, I need to get help for this. But if you can avoid getting down to that point, I think it's better and I could have avoided reaching that sort of like mini crisis point, let's say. Has I gone on an SSRI a few years ago? And the reason I didn't, which is what I was about to get into, is I read so many bad things about these drugs on Reddit. I read about brain zaps. They sound like the worst things in the world, your brain's electrocuted or feels like your brain's being electrocuted. I read about a PSSD, permanent sexual dysfunction that some people who lose their sexual dysfunction, who lose their sexual function while they're on an SSRI, never get it back. And I'm not devalidating or denying anybody's experience using these drugs. I'm sure there are people who've gone through impossible withdrawals and protracted withdrawals. I'm sure there are people who have developed PSSD and permanent sexual dysfunction as a result of using SSRIs but I'm also sure that there are other people who have not developed PSSD who have not had scary withdrawals. If you want to hear what my withdrawal was like. So I started out with Vivance and we were trying to figure out well, is energy issues you could say coming from ADHD or coming from depression. So I got on Vivance. Most stimulants have made me a bit depressed. So we added on a SSRI. Zoloft took that for seven months. I think approximately, don't quote me on it, in that region. And at some point I decided to come off the drug. I did tell my doctor that that's what he really wanted to do and he was like, it's your body. But it was kind of my decision and it was a bad one. I was convinced at the time that Vivance was the be all and end all. And if I just continued taking it, I would just kind of hammer through any depression and it did not work out like that, unfortunately. But so that's why I came off it. And when it came off, what was it like? I mean, I did not get any brain zaps, not even one. I did not experience it. I'm actually honestly kind of bummed out about that because if I had had one brain zap, I'd at least know there was so much anticipatory anxiety, reading these threads on Reddit about brain zaps and coming off these drugs that honestly, if I had one, I kind of would have been like, ah, so that's what a brain zap feels like. I still don't know what a brain zap feels like. And yeah, so coming off it, I basically felt a bit blue, depressed for a bit a week or two, nothing crazy, really nothing crazy. It was a difficult time to do the drug withdrawal because I just went on a trip to the US, so not ideal timing at all. I could hardly sleep for a couple of weeks for more than like a few hours. What else did I have? I felt really sick for a few days, like almost like physical nausea. But it really was not that bad. And I guess being actually being on a trip to New York probably actually helped it because they didn't really have time to think so much about my health. I just kind of tried to get through it the best I could. But basically, how bad was my withdrawal on a scale of 1 to 10? 2, potentially 3. It really was not that tough. Now again, I'm not saying that people don't have terrible withdrawals from these drugs. I'm not saying that you might not. There are people who are rabidly against SSRI drugs and I'm going to leave comments open on this video, but just bear that in mind. Some people might leave comments like that. My experience was fine. And here's the last thing I want to say. I would not hesitate for a minute to take one again. If I needed, if I thought that what I'm trying now while butchering isn't going to work and an SSRI would be better, I would start Lexapro or Zoloft or Paxil or Prozac tomorrow. I think they can be life-saving drugs. I'm sure a lot of people owe their lives to these drugs. So that's my thoughts anyway. I just really felt the need to put this on YouTube because just to try and create some balance because there's so much more information coming out there from people who have had really difficult experiences and I just feel it's my obligation almost to share an experience that I would say was really not so bad. Thank you guys for watching this video and wishing everybody good mental health.