Mina Starsiak Hawk Opens Up About Treating Her Anxiety and Having ‘Little Brain Seizures’ After Medication

The star of HGTV's 'Good Bones' candidly discusses her mental health journey in the latest episode of her podcast, 'Mina AF'

Mina Starsiak Hawk opens up about her mental health journey in the latest episode of her podcast, Mina AF, sharing a recent experience with an adjustment to her medication.

Starsiak says that in her mid-20s, she started feeling “a little bit more stress, a little bit more anxiety” as she was faced with adult decisions around the time she started filming her HGTV series, Good Bones.

She began undergoing talk therapy in addition to taking the antidepressant Wellbutrin, though she notes she wasn’t depressed. Under her doctor’s supervision, she later started pairing the drug with Lexapro, which is used to treat certain types of depression and anxiety.

“I was on Wellbutrin and Lexapro for the longest time,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is great, this is the perfect combination for me. It keeps me myself, but just not as high level anxiety.'”

“I physically manifest my anxiety,” she added. “My jaw locks up, I clench my fists, I get nauseous because my stomach is clenched. So, the addition of the Lexapro was really, really helpful for me to just make all the feelings still there, but the unproductive anxiety part of the feeling kind of much more manageable.”

However, she and husband Steve Hawk discussed one downside of taking Lexapro, an SSRI that can cause sexual dysfunction.

According to the Mayo Clinic, some of the medication’s less common side effects include decreased interest in sexual intercourse and loss in sexual ability, desire, drive, or performance.

Realizing that they couldn’t change the other stressors impacting their sex life, such as being parents to two young children, Mina decided to wean herself off Lexapro earlier this year.

When she discussed the decision with her therapist, the doctor recommended adding the anti-anxiety drug Latuda before gradually reducing her 10-milligram dosage of Lexapro every 10 days.

When she’d been completely off Lexapro for a couple weeks, she thought she was “in the clear” and her anxiety felt manageable, she says. But then she started having “crazy” physical symptoms.

Related: Mina Starsiak Hawk Says She and Mom Were in ‘Challenging Place’ Filming Last Season of ‘Good Bones’ (Exclusive)

“At the time, I said it felt like I was putting my tongue on a D battery inside my brain. It was like these zaps, but they were like misfires. It felt like my brain was having these little zappy seizures all the time, all day, and this had been going on for a month, along with lethargy and nausea.”

She eventually started researching SSRI withdrawal symptoms and made the connection with what she was experiencing since stopping the Lexapro.

“Steve’s like, ‘Screw this, it’s not worth it, get back on the Lexapro, we’ll figure out sex. I'm not worried about that, you’re having little brain seizures,’” she said.

By that point, she had been coping with the symptoms for two months, and decided she could deal with them for another month or two. And over that time span, the side effects did fade away, she said.

According to a 2017 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, about 20% of patients develop antidepressant discontinuation syndrome after stopping the use of antidepressants taken continuously for a month or more. One possible symptom is sensory disturbances, which can include burning, tingling and "electric-like" or "shock-like" sensations.

Related: Mina Starsiak Hawk and Husband Steve Share How a Family Tragedy Led Them to Give Up Alcohol

Earlier this month, Mina opened up to PEOPLE about how she’s been trying to use her podcast to share the “non-pretty parts."

On one recent episode, she and Steve had a candid conversation about their decision to give up alcohol.

And on another, Mina shared a dilemma over whether to address conflicts with her mom and Good Bones co-star, Karen E. Laine, and brothers, Tad and William, ahead of her 5-year-old son Jack’s birthday party. (She and Steve are also parents to a 2-year-old daughter, Charlie.)

“That was a tough episode, because I got so many comments back,” she says. The standard ‘You only have one mom. You only have one family. Figure it out, bury the hatchet.’”

In August, Mina used her podcast to reflect on the end of Good Bones, which is currently in its eighth and final season.

“It’s the end of an era,” she said. “I mean, I had to say goodbye to some people today that I have spent my last almost 10 years with.”

“Something I’m super, super proud of, and really grateful to the network for, is making a show for the last eight years that, for the huge majority of the time, has been super representative of who I am, who the boys are, what we’re doing, and it was really important to me from the beginning to do that,” she added.

She noted, however, “The end of anything is just hard.”

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