Sabrina’s Story

Sabrina, 23 years old,

Italy

PSSD for 3 years

I took SSRI (Cipralex) for chronic muscular pain, before taking the drug I was very sad and cried for this condition, I had a very active sex life at the same time, I felt strong emotions when kissing my boyfriend. I took the drug for 6 months and during that time I was already experiencing the first signs of sexual dysfunction. I reported this to the psychiatrist and he told me that it was depression and that in time everything would return to normal, when in fact I had no sexual problems before that time. After removing it (the drug) my sexuality did not return, I was depersonalized all the time and did not feel any emotion. My sexual symptoms are "external and internal genital anesthesia, weak orgasm, chronic depersonalization and apathy. I did NOT have these symptoms before the medication , so I am sure that is the problem.

Afterwards I was so desperate that I had to resort to other medications to compensate for the damage and I took Brintellix, it helped me with motivation, energy and a bit sexually. But unfortunately after taking it off everything went back to the way it was. I stopped Cipralex in the summer of 2018, now I'm in 2021 and I'm still like this unfortunately. It has a strong impact because in my case it not only affected the sexual sphere but also the emotional one in a big way.. so I can't feel good emotions towards people. Unfortunately I have no idea what can improve PSSD, I just hope that the solution will be found and also quickly because it is impossible to live with as a condition.