Dead Inside: What SSRIs Really Do To Your Brain
A New Book Exploring the Truth about SSRIs & Mental Health
This isn’t another soft-glow blog post about “finding balance.” This is where we drag SSRIs into the light
As an SSRI survivor, I’ll reveal exactly how SSRIs alter your brain-chemistry, your drive, your emotions… your you-ness.
So, if you've ever felt emotionally numb, disconnected, or like a ghost inside your own skin after starting medication… you're not imagining it. You're not broken. And you're definitely not alone. This is the truth about SSRIs no one told you, because they were too busy calling it “healthcare.”
What Doctors & Big Pharma Don’t Tell You
The longer you’re on an SSRI, the less you recognize yourself.
At first, it might feel like relief... a softening of the noise, a quieting of the panic. But over time, something else starts to happen. You stop feeling much of anything.
Your feeler chemicals... dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine... are the neurotransmitters that once colored your life with excitement, connection, creativity. They gave depth to your joy, urgency to your purpose, and presence to your relationships. But under the influence of SSRIs, these chemicals don’t rebalance.
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They get dulled.
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Distorted.
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Eventually, dysregulated.
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You’re not balanced.
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You’re chemically flattened.
What doctors rarely tell you is that the longer this goes on, the harder it becomes to feel real joy. To cry when something truly deserves grief. To fall in love without wondering whether you’re faking it. This isn’t just numbness... it’s neurological erosion. The kind of slow, quiet damage that only becomes visible when it’s already too late.
They call it emotional blunting. Some researchers now call it SSRI-induced neurotoxicity. Most doctors just call it “in your head.”
When you finally decide to get off the medication, you’re hit with another half-truth: That you can just stop taking them. That it’s no big deal. That if you’re feeling symptoms, it must be your depression coming back... not withdrawal.
But what you’re actually experiencing is discontinuation syndrome. Brain zaps. Dizziness. Panic. Suicidal spirals. Insomnia that breaks your spirit at 3 a.m. It doesn’t feel like “your old self” returning... it feels like a neurological collapse. And it isn’t because you’re broken. It’s because your brain is trying to function again without synthetic interference and has no roadmap.
Even if you want to do it right... even if you know you need a slow, careful taper... good luck. Most doctors have no idea how long it actually takes. Pharmacies won’t compound the liquid doses you need. Insurance doesn’t cover it. And online, you’re left piecing together protocols from strangers in Reddit threads that feel more informed than your psychiatrist.
This is why so many people stay on SSRIs for years. Not because they’re healing. But because the exit feels worse than the drug itself.
You were never broken. You were never low on serotonin. But they’ve made it nearly impossible to reclaim the parts of you that got dulled, flattened, or chemically forgotten along the way.
I'm Not A Doctor, But I After My Journey, They Don't Know #$@!
Citalopram For Lupus?
My doctor put me on Celexa to help treat Lupus pain. I didn't ask enough questions. Because that moment? It ruined my brain, and made me, not me anymore.
It was okay at first, but when Emotional Blunting hit, the man I used to be quietly disappeared.
Libido & Drive Disappeared
My sexuality always defined me. So when I couldn't get turned on, or care to, it made beyond angry for ever listening to my doctor.
Weaning Is A Science
My identity fractured as I went through Discontinuation Syndrome. That's when the brain can't regulate Serotonin or Dopamine on its own.
After many weaning attempts, I ended up in the ER with a TIA event. (Yes, Serotonin & Dopamine regulation is that dangerous.)
Mental Health Isn’t a “Part” of Health. It Is Health.
We talk about mental health like it’s one branch on a tree. But without it, the entire system collapses.
You can have a strong body, good labs, a clean diet...
But if your mind can’t make sense of your life…
If your thoughts feel hopeless, your joy is flat, and your drive is gone…
Then none of it matters.
Because mental health is the meaning-making system.
It’s what lets you feel love, purpose, safety, direction.
It’s the part of you that says,
"This all means something. There’s a reason I keep going."
Without that?
You're alive… but unanchored.
Here's the truth nobody talks about:
Your experience of self... your motivation, your emotional resilience, your capacity to care... is neurochemical.
Serotonin and dopamine aren’t “mood molecules.”
They are your interface with the world.
They govern how safe you feel in your body…
How connected you feel to people you love…
How much you believe in your own future.
When those systems are disrupted... by trauma, stress, medication, or neglect...
Your identity, your perception, and your will to live all start slipping away.
That’s why this book doesn’t treat mental health as a footnote.
It treats it as the foundation.
Because the moment you lose your ability to care, to feel, to hope?
You’re not just in pain.
You’re in danger.
And the only way out is through the mind...
Not around it. Not beneath it. Not numbed out of it.
Through it.
That’s what Dead Inside is here to show you.
SSRIs Don’t Fix the Problem, They Disconnect You From It
They don’t heal trauma. They don’t regulate your system. They chemically suppress your ability to feel the very emotions that are trying to guide you out of suffering. The cost? Your intuition. Your creativity. Your desire. Your soul.
Emotional Blunting Gets Worse Over Time, Not Better
The longer you’re on SSRIs, the more muted your emotional range becomes. You don’t just lose sadness, you lose joy. You lose the spark. And for many, it doesn’t come back right away when the pills stop. Sometimes, it doesn’t come back at all unless you fight for it.
SSRIs Didn’t Just Numb You, They Took Your Life Offline
If you’ve felt yourself slipping away... from your relationships, your sex drive, your sense of purpose, your voice... it’s not a coincidence. This book will show you how that disconnection happened, why it’s not your fault, and what to do about it.
Reclaim Your Brain’s Natural Rhythms
You don’t need more medication. You need the frequencies your brain forgot how to produce.
After years on SSRIs, or even just months of emotional shutdown, your brain’s natural rhythms can go dark. These 3 tracks were designed to help you turn them back on.
Pure Alpha restores calm clarity when anxiety hijacks your nervous system.
Pure Theta opens access to emotion, memory, and your subconscious… so you can actually process what you've been holding.
Pure Gamma reignites your consciousness, creativity, and connection to self.
These aren’t music tracks.
They’re frequency-based neural repair tools.
Use them like medicine for your mind, and a compass to find your way back to yourself.
Pure Alpha
Alpha Supports Serotonin-Dopamine Balance
There’s evidence that alpha activity is tied to serotonergic tone. Meaning the natural release and reuptake rhythm of serotonin. But more interestingly, alpha also supports dopamine regulation indirectly through:
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Stress reduction (less cortisol, more dopamine activity)
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Improved sleep onset (crucial for dopamine repair)
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Better prefrontal function (decision-making, drive, and emotional connection)
In plain English: more alpha = less neurochemical chaos.
Pure Theta
Theta Is the Door to Emotional Release
You don’t heal trauma through logic. You heal it through access; access to the felt layers of memory, pain, and emotion that got suppressed or cut off.
Theta is the rhythm that opens that door.
Without it, you’re locked out of your own emotional basement.
SSRIs often shut down theta.
That’s why people say they “can’t cry,” “can’t feel,” or “can’t remember what it used to feel like to care.”
It’s not psychological.
It’s neurological.
Pure Gamma
Gamma Gives You the Feeling of “Being You”
When gamma activity is flowing, people describe it like:
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“I feel like myself again.”
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“I’m clear. Present. Lit up.”
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“The fog is gone.”
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“I’m actually connecting to people again.”
SSRIs may dull this. Withdrawal absolutely wrecks it.
The flattening you feel? The disconnection? The sense that you’re watching life instead of living it?
That’s low gamma.
Real Experiences, Real Impact
"I kept saying ‘I’m fine,’ but nothing felt real.
This made me realize it wasn’t me, it was the meds."
Steve J.
"I didn’t even know SSRIs could do this to you.
Reading this felt like someone finally saying what I couldn’t."
Andrea N.
"My doctor said it was safe.
Big Pharma said it was necessary.
But they never told me I’d lose my ability to feel alive."
Tom C.
