Parnate ruined my life — be careful about demanding it if things haven't truly hit rock bottom for you.

Hi. When I was first treated for depression with medications, it took a couple to stumble on something that actually helped. That first helpful medication was venlafaxine. It provided a fairly substantial boost to my mood, but I was fairly lazy and inactive on it. I did some research and stumbled on MAOIs, which seemed quite great, so I asked my doctor for one. He was a fairly open minded physician, so he agreed to let me try it.

That was a big mistake. Parnate caused a lot of problems for me. It didn't work consistently, often working fantastic, even better than the venlafaxine for about half the day and then wearing off and making me completely emotionally blank for the other half of the day. I needed super high doses way above the FDA max to get any positive effect at all, and it caused some substantial issues with my health. I tried augmenting with many other medications, but nothing could fix the problems I had with that drug.

So in the end, I decided to go back to what worked alright for me: the venlafaxine. Too bad stopping parnate was one of the most horrific experiences I've ever had in my entire life. Once we got to the last 40mg, every 10mg dose reduction led to horrendous, unbeable night terrors that caused me to scream and flail in my sleep. It was terror beyond words; I cannot communicate through language how harrowing that experience was. Once I was finally off for a few weeks, I started venlafaxine again.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. I stayed anhedonic and emotionally blunted no matter what dose I tried, and not a single other drug was able to fight that emotional state off. I stayed that way for over a year, trying medication after medication to try and bring my hedonic function back.

Nothing worked. Eventually in desperation I turned to ECT, as my fear of never feeling joy again started to overweigh my fear of cognitive damage from the electroshocks. It helped a little bit. I feel happy occasionally, now, far less than the typical person does mind you, but it was still more than the flat zero Parnate had left me with. I don't know if I'll ever reach the highs I could before trying it again.

So what's my point in saying all this? It's to warn you that taking Parnate when it isn't your last resort, your true final hail mary, is incurring unimaginable risk. While it's true that 9/10 or maybe even more of the people who try it are benefited greatly by it, there is a nonzero risk of things turning out like how they did for me. And that risk is not worth it. Total anhedonia is a curse so oppressive, so torturous, so unbearable that you should not risk it for anything. I hope by making this post that I can protect even just one person from the same fate that befell me.