I hit rock bottom and lost all my progress HELP
I don’t know where to start but I need to get this out and find people who understand.
I’m from the UK. In October last year everything collapsed. It started after an adverse reaction to A medication called mirtazapine. I had been on sertraline before, came off it after a year, and was switched to 15mg mirtazapine. For about 5 weeks I actually felt alive on it strong emotions, warmth, genuine happiness, caring about people. Then I had what felt like a serotonin overload reaction and had to come off it immediately. The trauma of that reaction triggered a severe OCD episode, harm OCD and doubt OCD alongside depression and severe emotional blunting. I was put back on sertraline specifically to correct this and stabilise my brain chemistry.
I moved to Lincolnshire to be with my surrogate dad I’ll call him G. He’s 745 and became my anchor, my safe person, my entire support structure. I went through the worst parts of my illness there with him beside me. But the PTSD from everything I had been through kept me stuck, and I couldn’t progress in that environment. So G made the decision to move me into his flat in Hemel Hempstead a flat connected to the house where his daughter Laura lives.
The flat already held happy memories for me from before I got ill I had spent time there and it was associated with good feelings. That made it the perfect safe space for recovery. Being there felt like a bridge back to the version of me that existed before all of this. It was exposure therapy in the truest sense learning to be on my own again, gradually getting back to real life. I was doing the hard work of rebuilding, not fully there yet, but genuinely making progress.
The sertraline journey has been brutal. 150mg caused severe emotional blunting I couldn’t feel enough to dismiss OCD thoughts. Dropped to 125mg but that wasn’t enough either. The plan was to step down to 100mg to try to restore emotional salience. I had only been on 100mg for 8 days when the crisis hit I was already in the middle of the initial destabilisation from that dose change, my system already fragile and adjusting, when everything collapsed around me.
Then one night a friend visited and smoked weed in the flat despite being told not to. G’s daughter Laura found out three days later and told me to pack my bag and leave immediately. G supported her decision.
In one moment I lost my home, my surrogate dad, Laura, her husband, her kids people I was close to. Everything. Gone. The entire safe space I had been carefully building my recovery around a place that held happy memories, a place that felt like home destroyed overnight because of someone else’s mistake, I cut that friend off after 10+ years of friendship and his weed addiction that had caused me trouble before. I was the only one who paid the consequences.
The night that followed was the worst of my life. Alone in a hotel, feverish, shaking inside and outside, dissociating, in nicotine withdrawal because I’d thrown my vape away in the crisis. Sleeping in 15 minute broken cycles waking up extremely anxious each time. I called 111 twice. Paramedics checked on me. I sent messages I’m not proud of. I blocked and unblocked G multiple times. By morning I managed to send one calm message “I am safe and found somewhere for tonight.”
Now I’m staying at a friend’s place. I wake up every morning shaking, flooded with cortisol, just wanting the night to come back. I am in constant anxiety all day and just can’t even get out of bed, The OCD is loud again. The emotional blunting is back. All the progress I worked so hard for feels like it’s gone.
It feels like square one. It feels like everything I built got taken away because of someone else’s mistake and I’m the only one living with the consequences.
I just want to hear from people who hit their rock bottom and came back. People who understand OCD, emotional blunting, losing your safe person, starting over