Hello forum friends!
I've spent the past several weeks having yet another "excellent adventure" (not!) in my crapalta recovery ... this poison is most definitely the "Hotel California" of drugs ...
I checked out of the Hotel Crapalta in early December of 2013. (I quit cold turkey, had no other option. What followed was about 9 months of being hellishly sick, with enough recovery by late last fall that I could return to work, with a temp. work-from-home gig.)
At almost 2 years off the stuff (20 months), I've been feeling great, and figured that I was free of the crap's repercussions in my life.
But, in late July I learned, the hard way, that even though I'd checked out of the Hell Hotel, I had definitely not left its premises.
I was cleaning out some papers and stuff that had been stashed in drawers for years, and found my old diaries ... from the early 2000's ... and I read them ... and I was horrified to learn what had been going on in my life back then.
You see, Cymbalta blanked out my memory for all the years that I was on it. Last year I had a similar experience, when I'd recovered a bit and I suddenly -- again to my horror -- realized that I hadn't filed income tax returns for 6 years ... plus a bunch of other stuff I'd not done ... I thought that would be the extent of my memory recall for the bad stuff.
But nope. This time around, by reading my diaries, I found out that I'd been put on Crapalta when it very first came on the market ... and the reason I was put on it was to treat the side effects I was having from a very, very adverse reaction to generic Wellbutrin ... Bupropion ... I was having massive panic attacks and deep depression ... the doc thought it was a "breakthrough" episode, and told me about this new "wonder drug" called Cymbalta ... and gave me a bunch of samples ... 
He also put me on benzos ... and let me take them "as needed" ...(addiction !) and, he increased the bupropion dose to 500 mg ... 450 mg is the maximum recommended ... (This was the Teva brand bupropion that was finally taken off the market in October of 2013.)
The diaries detailed, day by day, my descent into madness ... psychosis .... and several hospitalizations ... won't bore you with details ... 
While I knew a bit of this, the dates and details were overwhelming ... as was the stark recognition of the severity of what had happened to me ...
So, I've basically have had to spend the last few weeks sorting out the pieces of who I thought I was, and who I really am ... and then reconstructing / reintegrating my self ... and, as a bonus, I had a recurrence of the optic neuritis that hit me last year during hard withdrawal ... 
But, I'm back in action again ... and back to the forum ...I gleefully destroyed those journals ... and I now have more of my memories back where they should be ... actively accessible ..
And, wonder of wonders, I'm feeling even better than I did before all this happened ... 
To sum up this long story I've just inflicted on you ... I now know that even though I officially checked out of the Hotel Cymbalta many, many months ago ... I quite possible that I'll never actually leave it ... it is the "gift that keeps on giving" ... little "surprises" ... much like what my cats barf up and leave for me to step in during middle of the night bathroom runs ... 
And that, forum friends, is what I did on my summer vacation !
)
