Fairwell to Fluoxetine

When I was a teenager, the medical field's understanding of mental health issues in young people was only just developing, to the point that it was burgeoning on non-existent. My parents and doctors tried, but the resources available to me were limited as I didn't fit into the categories that were usually set out for young people. The people I saw didn't really know how to help me, even though they really tried.

One of these good intentions was the idea that medication was the right choice for me from very early on. Lamotrigine saved my life, but it took a long time for doctors and psychiatrists to find the right medicine for my condition, and I was prescribed multiple different medications and dosages until I found the right one. One of the ones that they tried, the very first one they tried, was Fluoxetine. 

Commonly known as Prozac, Fluoxetine is an SSRI or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor that I was first prescribed when I was 15. Although I was prescribed multiple other medications throughout my diagnosis journey, I stayed pretty consistently on fluoxetine to the point that I didn't really know what it did anymore. A quick Google describes long-term SSRI use as anything over two years. I was taking fluoxetine for 18 years.

After a lengthy conversation with my doctor and a rather stupid incident whereby I cut my dosage by two-thirds overnight, it was decided that slowly reducing my dosage and eventually weaning myself off the drug was a good idea. I began lowering my dosage in September and eventually stopped taking them in February. 

It turns out, even after 18 years, fluoxetine was still doing its job by treating my anxiety. I was very young when I started to experience feelings of anxiety, too young to really know what anxiety was. After working this hard to wean myself off of them, I really don't want to start taking SSRIs again, and so now I'm having to find my own ways of managing my anxiety.

In the past, I would simply have used drugs or alcohol; nervousness was often one of the reasons that I drank. Now I'm getting sober, this method isn't an option, and so I'm having to find other ways of calming myself down. Pain helps, which is what has led to an increase in alternative methods of self-harming such as biting my arms, but that's not a healthy choice either. After all this time medicating with prescribed, legal and illegal drugs, I'm having to find healthy ways of making myself feel better, and it's proving to be a harder task than I thought it would be. 

So far, I've been working out what triggers my anxiety and what helps ease it. Being late, for instance, really upsets me, as does spending money. But listening to Agatha Christie books read by Hugh Fraser on Audible and watching Cleanwithbea, a lovely woman on YouTube who cleans people's houses for free, calms me down. I've still been getting quite upset, but I'm doing my best to remind myself that what I deem "bad" things aren't punishments, and that I don't need to hurt myself to feel better. 

But that's a conversation for another day

xXx

Sober stories, the first gig.

As of tomorrow, I will have been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for 12 weeks. This is the longest I've gone without alcohol since University, and is coming pretty close to the longest I've been sober since I started drinking in the first place.

The alcohol free part hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be. Not to say it's been easy by any means, but it hasn't been the hardest part. One of the things that has helped me stay sober is by telling people I'm sober. Not in an "I'm vegan" way, but just by saying that I don't drink if the subject comes up. By telling people that I'm sober when I've been in situations that involve alcohol, it's been easier to stick to soft drinks or alcohol-free beer. By not keeping it a secret, I don't have to worry about slipping because I'm trying to keep it a secret. 

Friday night, I went to my very first sober gig and saw Mojo Risin' - The Doors Experience at The Crowbar. The irony of the fact that it was a Doors tribute band was not lost on me. I was anxious about going because I didn't know if I'd be able to stay away from alcohol when I was in a situation where I'd normally have a drink. I can stay away from pubs, but seeing live music is something I really enjoy, and I don't want to give that up. I knew I'd enjoy myself, but I was scared that I'd be too tempted and try to rationalize why one shot of whisky or a pint of beer would be okay. Worrying that I wouldn't have a good time without alcohol didn't factor in as much as I thought it would. 

Staying sober that night was hard, but I managed it. Turns out Heaps Normal make a decent alcohol-free lager, and I chewed so much gum to keep my mouth busy that I woke up feeling like I'd spent the night gurning my tits off on speed. I'm not usually a huge fan of being around drunk people, and the people standing behind me were high, which drunk me would have seen as a segway into getting high myself, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I enjoyed myself and, more importantly, I was proud of myself. 

J

Brisbane updates

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I didn't want to move around as much in 2026 because of how much I travelled in 2025. Obviously, this didn't quite go to plan, and in March, I moved to the third city I've lived in in 3 months and headed to Brisbane. This was partly due to an amazing Pulp gig I went to and partly because Cairns kind of sucked. 

When you live in a city filled with backpackers, it can be difficult to find work. After applying for over a hundred positions I was only successful at one position that I absolutely hated due to my being terrible with numbers. Cities where international travellers can extend their visa through working in hospitality are difficult to find work in because employers know that they can treat them like trash and they won't leave. They're there not just because they need the money, but because without the work they have to leave Australia. Work aside I found it difficult to settle in Cairns and, as Brisbane is the largest city in Queensland, it made sense to hop on a plane and head over. 

Brisbane has been good for me, but I'm still struggling. I'm using this move to get sober and I thought that finally quitting drugs and alcohol would mean that I would finally feel in control. Finally feel at peace. This hasn't been the case and I'm feeling worse than ever. I feel so ugly that I want to hurt myself every time I look in the mirror and spent a morning not too long ago smacking myself around the head and biting my arms because I felt so hideous. I was telling myself over and over that I'm so ugly I should be dead and, no matter how many days of sobriety I have under my belt, this feeling isn't going away. 

I have nobody to talk to here either. My friendships from back home are disintegrating and I'm realising more and more that it's not just people I date that I let treat me badly but a lot of people in general. People say things that are spiteful and vicious and mean and I just sit and take it because I'm so afraid of being alone or rejected. Even though these people say things that they know will hurt me I sit and take it. Because if I stand up to them and they decide they don't want to be my friend anymore I will be alone. 

I'm also exhausted. I'm working two jobs to get by and I still can't work my sums out. I feel stupid and useless and pathetic and alone and although I'm trying to make sure my job isn't my entire personality I still find myself stressing about how many hours of work I am getting. I can't talk to people about my job though because they mock it, say I'm going to quit or tell me it's toxic. People are so hell bent on telling me my life is bad and I have no idea why. 

Not drinking is actually proving to be easier than I thought. It's still hard and the temptation is still there but the longer I go the more I want to continue. I went out for drinks when my friend left work the other day and I only drank alcohol free beer, which is disgusting by the way, and I made it through my birthday and April 20th completely sober. Tomorrow I'll have been sober an entire month which is probably the longest I've been without a drink since before I moved to Toronto. It's nice to not feel hungover, to know what I've said or done and to not be afraid to re-read the conversations I've had the night before when I wake up but I still feel the same. I'm still broke. I'm still out of control and I still want to hurt myself. 

I also don't remember the last time I craved cocaine this much. 

Brisbane is lovely though and I've been doing lots of fun things that I haven't been able to do in other cities. I went to see a screening of Toy Story played by a live orchestra, I have tickets to reading of the sequel to a book that I really love in June and next week I went to see Jeff Goldblum's jazz band.

I'm just working hard on focusing on my sobriety, being more present and not making my job my entire personality. I think those are good goals to have. 

Jess