My mind and my body saying different things, my brain might be damaged from the withdrawal, my digestive organs might be broken, so many diseases that exist, that's what scary, not knowing what's wrong with you and not wanting to find out and no one believing you.
Your brain isn't damaged from withdrawals. SSRIs don't work like that. Your brain has adapted to the fact that it's neurochemistry is consistently altered by the SSRIs, and it can take a long time for it to readjust. There are also effects on the immune system and other parts of the central nervous systems that are complex and can take a lot of time to fade. But they do fade, provided that there's not still an underlying condition that's also causing symptoms.
It is scary not knowing what's wrong, and it's frustrating when "professionals" are unable to provide a reasonable diagnosis or even decent support. It's demoralising when people don't believe you. Personally, that's the line I draw at where I drop a doctor. When they tell me that I'm imagining my own symptoms, I say thanks very much and move on. It's why I've gone right off psychologists, because they tend to pick and choose which symptoms they'll accept in order to fit me into a diagnostic box.
But do you really not want to find out what's wrong with you? To me, that would be the best outcome I could imagine (bar it all magically disappearing, which seems unlikely). If I actually knew for sure exactly what was wrong and why, then I can take steps to address that. The fact that the diagnostic "tests" for mental illnesses are so awful is a major frustration for me. How are you supposed to diagnose something that you can't test for?
And personally, I don't buy a lot of the "it's all in your head" stuff that floats around. Your self, the part of you that you think of as
you, is
entirely in your head. In that sense, mental problems are more destructive than physical ones, as it attacks your sense of self. But western culture (and most cultures, to be fair) have a long history of ignoring mental illness as though it's weakness, or laziness. Particularly with men, in whom emotional or mental weakness is really poorly tolerated.
Stuff that's in your head has causes just like "physical" diseases do. It's just that mental health is poorly understood, and so for less diligent or intellectually honest professionals it can be easy to use that excuse to write symptoms off. It's bollocks. Personally, this has become the centre of my quest at the moment; my disease has a cause and I will track it down.
As an anecdote that may or may not be relevant, I decided to get off Lexapro as a result of my own testing. I came across a body of research that suggested that often depression is linked to heightened inflammatory markers in the body. Basically, your body thinks it's sick (which it may or may not actually be) and the immune system is responding as such which (naturally) has flow on effects to both how you feel mentally and physically. I had a blood test that indicated that my inflammatory markers were low, and so I asked the doctor how we would decide when to stop taking SSRIs.
My doctor is actually pretty good and straight up with me, so she said that there's no protocol for telling when to stop. What's more, the withdrawal effects can do a pretty good job of mimicking depression outright, so you can't tell simply by stopping for a wee while. You have to stop taking them, and then eventually either you get better or you don't. To her credit, we both think that this is an awful way to practise medicine, but that's what they have at the moment. So I figured that I'd start getting off, and at worst I'd get new information on my disease based on what happened as I did. I honestly expected to get crushed and be back on them within a fortnight.
I seem to have been lucky in that I probably should be off SSRIs (bar the odd wacky episode where my brain just throws **** at me, but they usually don't last longer than a day). It seems to be working for me. That may not be the case for you. Your continued struggle may suggest that there's still something there that needs to be treated, and despite the side effects the Lexapro was at least doing something for you.
Have you been put on other medication than Lexapro? It tends to be the first line because it's effective and the side effects on average are lower, but some people respond poorly. I was one, I ended up on a cocktail of stuff in order to mitigate the side effects that I experienced with the Lexapro. The other primary choices at the moment are Zoloft (SSRI), Effexor (SNRI), and Remeron (atypical). Wellbutrin can also be good, either in combination with an SSRI or on it's own. St. John's Wort is usually available over the counter, and it's basically an SSRI as an extract from a plant. You may find it more tolerable, but beware that the same restrictions on taking it in combination with other mental health drugs apply as to SSRIs.
If you were mentally doing OK before the withdrawals and the problems were mostly physical, I'd definitely be looking as switching to another drug as at least a short term solution. Then you can put together a plan to get yourself to whatever final state you desire while you're not having to fight through your current mental anguish.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a doctor, I'm just someone who has spent a lot of time on my own mental health. Please take my advice as some things possibly worth investigating yourself, rather than absolute recommendations on what will work for you. Your illness is not the same as mine, and so all I can do is point out things you may want to consider.
