This is a Survivor-Survivor story, that is to say a relative of a survivor dated 10/18/97.

bill' My husband and i have been married 19 years all of them good. we have three children ages 7,16 and 18. In 1992 we bought a 2 family house with his brother and wife and thier 2 children same ages as my older ones. we lived a good life my husband worked at the same job for 30 yrs and he loved his work.

well in December of 1995 my husbands nephew who lived with his family in our 2 family house was playing with a lighter under his bed and caught the matress on fire. This was horrible in itself but in the next few weeks we found ourselves living in a trailer on our property hoping to rebuild quickly. Wrong first the town informed us we couldn't rebuild the house as a 2 family because the zoning laws had changed even though the house was eighty yrs as a 2 family.So even though we only had five yrs left on our mortgage we had to buy out his brother and start all over again with a new $100,000.00 mortgage then we had to continue to fight with the insurance company for every penny to rebuild.

Well in april of 96, still in the trailer my husband went to his primary care physician for a renewel of his bood pressure prescription. His Doctor asked how he was feeling,my husband said a little depressed wham he caome home with a prescription for prozac i questioned hubby on this because i read some very bad things about prozac but he started to take it anyway. Well he was normal for the first few months come beginning of sept.97 I watched him become withdrawn and quiet. Next thing i know Oct. 4 1997 work calls he passed out at work and hit his head.

Here starts the terrible przac decline into hell. He came home like a baby after a day in the hospital in a totally confused state of mind he was having panic and anxiety attacks, tremors muscle spasms,horrible dreams,dreams of suicide,going out for walks for hours in the freezing cold walking in front of cars walking on train tracks waiting for trains to run him down. He started drinking i kept finding bottles of alcohol hidden away. He kept saying he had electic shocks rising through his body popping out his head. I called his primary care physician many times he kept adding more and more drugs. He declined even more. Then i noticed he was spending more and more time with my brother's new 20 yr old wife of 2 months. My husband was 51. everyone mentioned it to him he poohed it off. Things became hell he was leaving home saturday and sundays for hours at a time. by this time he was seeing a pschologists whom he didn't like. He went back to work and started going back at night to work on our cars which he had neglected for months he used to come home sweating like a pig and this from a man who we used to tease about loving hot weather and never sweating. Well after awhile i became suspicious and started following him. Well i found him one night with my brothers wife who is kind of a social misfit to begin with extremely shy speaks to noone but her husband. Come to find out they have been having sex for about 2 weeks by this point. He told her if anyonefinds out to blame it all on him. He was writing her letters which i found and read and thy were all in a dream like state. I confronted him. All the while he is still ahving panic attacks tremors electric shock feeling, still attempting suicide.

One night in early jan 97 he threatened to kill himself for all the stuff he had done to me,the kids and my family so i had to have hem commited to the pschiatric ward. He was in there 4 days they put him on some medications he persuaded them he was doing better and was released. Well he was home for 10 days when he took off at six o'clock on a friday night and left a note that he couldn't take the pain in him and the pain he caused us. That was another complaint he had throughout this entire thing about a pain inside him that wouldn't stop. A constant burning pain he could pinpoint. Well the cops picked him up the nest day with a pool hose in his car that he had tried to kill himself with exhaust fumes from his tailpipe with but it kept melting thank god. He was extremely agitated and his face was swollen and red at this point when we picked him up at the police station.

that afternoon my brother found out what his darling little wife had been up to all these months and told her to go back home to france to her parents. when my husband found out he went nuts i mean literally crazy he jumped in my van and i jumped on the running board to stop him from going he pulled out of the driveway and dumped me off. He went to find my brothers wife he threatened my best friends children about teling him where she was so they called the cops. Then he came back home and was screaming at me and threatening me telling me to pick up the phone and tell me where she was. Then the cops showed up at our door and took him to the hospital again for 10 more days in which time the found a combination of pills that pretty much numbed him. He was like this for months until the psychiatrist tried to wean him off one that made him extremely tired.

Well on Aug 30 1997 he tried the hose tailpipe thing agiain in our driveway luckily i woke up and realized he was missing. his reason for wanting to die now was the pain he caused me and my brother who he misses his friendship with horribly. Back in the hospital again for 5 more day and a new medication adjustment they let him out so quickly because his health insurance ran out. He wasn't ready to leave he was still having suicidal thoughts. Ready or not here you go is the hospitals policy. Well hes home now doing psychological visits 3 times a week that we pay for out of pocket and psychiatrist visits once a month. Mean while my family once close is torn apart no holidays together for us this year. My husband has tried to apologise to my brother but he just hangs up. All the insurance money we had to furnish our new home is gone we are indebt up to our heads hubby is working again but still not all there. All because he was a little depressed in april of 96 after our house burned and his doctor put him on prozac without monitoring him at all.

This hopeful update was sent to me on New Years Eve 1997.

Hi Bill

Let me update you on what has happened. I have done alot of talking to Dr. Anne Blake Tracy about my husband journey into hell on prozac, I have read her book and it saved my husbands life and we are finally after 2 years of hell on the right track. Against Dr. Tracy's advice in person and in her book my husband decided on October 31, 1997 he had enough of being overly medicated.

Remember in December of 95 our house burned down and in april of 96 after fighting with the town and insurance company about rebuilding our home. in april 96 my husband went to his primary care physician for his blood pressure pill refill prescription. The Doc asked how are you doing, Hubby says a little depressed ( he's never been depressed in his life, but who wouldn't be after the trauma we had been through.) So the doc gives him 20mgs of prozac a day. I said that stuff makes you kill people and go nuts. (little did I know how true this was.) Well he went totally bonkers by September 96. the suicide tries were horrible. (never had them before. These continued after going off prozac and onto Annafranil, effexor and melaril. Well you can read the rest in survivor story #3.

But on Oct.31 1997 he went off all his meds cold turkey. He said if he didn't do this he was going to die by his own hand. So his choice was go off now or die. He went through total hell ( withdrawals for about 1 1/2 weeks, e;ectric shocks running through his body, crying spells, rebound depression, Physical pain, nauesea,and much much more.) But guess what off all meds now 2 months and my husband has mentally returned to the man I use to know. Physically will take alittle longer. But he is doing great right after he went off the meds we increased his carbohydrates drastically. which helps make you own serotonin. He still occasionally gets slightly hyper and has electric shocks but they are far and few between. Bill I want to thank Dr. Tracy even though she warned us not to go off cold turkey she helped us understand what happened to my husband and how to get him through the withdrawals. remember Dr. Tracy does not recommend going off any meds cold turkey it is dangerous.

I was just telling Dr. Tracy that I know 8 people who are or have been on prozac. #1 is dead (suicide) #2 my husband you know his story #3 is his x-stepmother who while on przac walked around thinking of the easiest way to die.( we hadn't seen her for years and she told us this before she Knew my husbands story. #4 is my neighbor and ex sheriff officer who while on prozac used to sit at his kitchen table with his gun to his head ( the only reason he didn't do it is because hes 16 yr old daughter would have found him. #5 Is a man My husband has worked with for 32 yrs he has been on prozac for about 1 1/2 years and he is now cheating on his wife, has lost his second job that he has had for 17 yrs and is on the verge of losing his regular job of 34 years. #6 Is a cousins wife she is obsessive compulsive and prozac is the only drug that gives her the freedom from this disorder to live a normal life. #7 Is a friends sister who went from being a relly mean and nasty human to a pretty nice person while on prozac. #8 Is my hairdresser who was on it for a while and it did nothing for her good or bad so she went off thank god.

Five bad reactions to prozac, 2 good and 1 no change. What would you call these odds. I would say not to good. People are put on prozac and not monitored The Doctors and psychiatrists should know what the advere reactions to these drugs cand be and they should watch the patients extra careful for these things but they don't have any Idea what can happen to people. The pharmacuetacal companies on't tell them about the adverse reactions. It has to be up to the doctor to read up on these drugs and what the reactions cand be and what to look for.

Hopefully our trauma is over. Healing my extended family will take years. Christmas was horrible we spent it alone without my family for the first time in 20 yrs. But at least my husband is alive. How many others are not or have killed someone else or ruined there lives completely that they can't be repaired. sorry to go on so long Maybe one day when were healed I can write a book on the pleasures of Prozac (yeh right).

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