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Hello I just joined. My name is Ann I'm 42 and have been under psychiatric care since age 10. I have been on just about every pill or a cocktail of pills since. 32 years later I am no better than I was at 10, in my opinion worse. I am currently still in the system but I lost hope.
I have no idea, because I started therapy so young what the list of drugs are they prescribed for me nor what they have done to my brain and/or body. I do know I no longer can pronounced words that once flowed out of my mouth, my short term memory is shoot, I am having physical problems (high white blood cells for no reason according to my hematologist), it's harder for me to fight colds - I guess because of my white blood cells, numbness for no reason the doctors can find out in one of my fingers, vision problems not normal for a 42 year old, pancreas problems and a fatty liver (but that is probably due to my being a bit overweight and I'm also on psychiatric pills that make you gain weight) and mentally I am the worse I've ever been.
In the past I did experience my share of adverse side effects from various psychiatric drugs one being Buspar which had my body jumping (feeling like a an electrical shock went through it) every few minutes but the worse out of all of them was when I was 15 (I have no idea what cocktail the docs had me on) which almost completely paralyzed my bladder and colon for an entire two months. It took me about 15 to 20 minutes to just urinate. The doctor who prescribed the medications (which I don't remember because I was, as I stated only 15 at the time) told my family, "oh it's nothing to worrying about this side effect is rare but it goes away slowly - looking back now just totally dismissing my discomfort.
I was until about 6 months ago an advocate for the psychiatric community which I hope helps those who actually need it. Now I loath the community and doubt it helps many people. I was not given any test to rule out a medical reason for the way I was acting. My problems are with depression, very bad anxiety/panic attacks and now I feel just totally hopeless.
However I do not know how to move away from it because I need help to slowly take me off of the cocktail of drugs I am currently on - I cannot go cold turkey. I do believe in many ways psychiatrists are legal drug dealers who really don't care if a drug or drugs work, if they don't just prescribe different ones to keep you in the system and therapists are highly paid "best friends" whom talk to you not because they actually care nor know more than you (I had to actually educate my last one on certain subjects) but just sit there looking at the clock.
I just found this community and really wanted to get just part of my story out and to ask the BIG questions, how can I best handle getting myself off these drugs within a system that wants to keep you on them? Anyone been in my shoes, had any experiences like mine - actually any input would be nice.
~ Thanks in Advance Ann
P.S. - Sorry if some parts of this doesn't make sense or I skipped words and such, my writing as well as my spelling/grammar is mush now.
November 12 2011, 12:45:50 UTC 6 months ago
How do you get off the drugs? A little at a time is the only way. Really small changes done in phases that may not seem much at the time, but over weeks or months will slowly add up. Don't expect your therapists to support you, they will probably think it's the last thing you should do.
November 13 2011, 21:51:20 UTC 6 months ago
Icarus Project has a Harm Reduction Guide to Coming off Psychiatric Drugs. Their forum in general is also awesome for finding information about psychiatric medication.
Beyond Meds is one women's blog about coming off her psychiatric medication. It has a lot of amazing and very helpful resources, such as this Withdrawal 101 post.
I would also highly encourage you to listen Madness Radio podcasts (they're also available on iTunes, though that's just the twenty most recent or some such). They're radical mental health, which means they discuss things that also aren't covered in mainstream mental health discourse. There's also a bunch about psychiatric medication and withdrawal: such as this one with the author of the aforementioned blog and this one about coming off meds (which I haven't listened to yet so I can't vouch for it, but their podcasts are generally awesome); for medication info in general there are interviews with Joanna Moncrieff, Peter Breggin, and Robert Whittaker, in addition to a lot more.
I'd also recommend checking out the work of Joanna Moncrieff.
I wasn't on meds nearly as long, but I took myself off all of my medication this year. I asked my psychiatrist for information on how to taper off gradually, which she refused to give me, but once I made it clear that I was going to stop taking my meds regardless of whether she advised me or not she did give some general advice. Asking your psychiatrist for advice is ideal, but that may not always be feasible as there's also the risk of forced medication (I don't know if that would be a risk for you or not) and they simply may not support you in general. In addition, most psychiatrists don't know all that much about coming off medication so you need to take their advice with a grain of salt and most likely go a lot slower than they advise when tapering down.