Since I'm currently going through withdrawal symptoms (withdrawing from two medications at once) that sometimes make being able to function an achievement, I've decided to start this thread and talk about some of the things I've experienced since I first saw a psychiatrist in 2014. Maybe there's even a chance that someone else going through something similar will see this and find it useful, even if slightly.
This is the timeline so far:
July 2014: First psychiatrist visit. Prescribed one SSRI after diagnosing me with unipolar depression.
August 2014: Replaced the SSRI with two others.
September 2014: Added a third SSRI because the two I was on weren't working out well.
October 2014: I ignorantly stopped all three SSRIs cold turkey because, at the time, I didn't know that quitting psychiatric medications abruptly is harmful.
I experienced a surge of suicidal ideation in the following month, and then I realized that stopping the meds cold turkey was a bad idea.
I then saw my second psychiatrist, who put me on two mood stabilizers after diagnosing me with bipolar disorder (which would later turn out to be a misdiagnosis, as I'm going to delve into below). He said all four meds I had tried had been based on a misdiagnosis.
I don't remember exact dates from October 2014 until September 2015, but during that time I was prescribed an antidepressant, which was replaced by an atypical antipsychotic, followed by another atypical antipsychotic. The psychiatrist I was seeing from October 2014 to September 2015 suddenly left the city I'm in, so I had to find another one.
In the last three months with this psychiatrist, I was also seeing a psychologist who worked with him. At first she tried to convert me back to religion when she asked why I was depressed and I told her that social factors, especially some of the prevalent social and religious values, were a major contributor to my deteriorating mental well-being.
When I told her I wasn't going to convert back and that it was basically like asking me to believe Harry Potter was real, she stopped trying and focused on other options that had nothing to do with religion. I eventually stopped seeing her because she turned out to be unhelpful.
November 2015: First session with the new (now third) psychiatrist. Per my request, he replaced Risperdal, the atypical antipsychotic I was on, with Zyprexa. Risperdal made life extremely difficult, both mentally and physically, and it had the worst effect on me out of all of the meds I've tried so far.
December 2015: I saw the same psychiatrist who put me on Zyprexa, this time asking him to guide me through the process of tapering off Zyprexa both because I still experienced some hassling side effects (such as strong sedation, which was especially bad for me because I was studying engineering at the time and needed to not oversleep) and because of potentially irreversible, disabling side effects such as akathisia and tardive dyskinesia.
He refused to take me off the med because he believed I needed it and that taking me off it would cause a lot of harm, so I had to remain on Zyprexa until March 2016 because I knew how harmful it could be to mess around with antipsychotic medications without professional guidance.
The reason I was on antipsychotics in the first place despite not having psychosis or schizophrenia is that atypical antipsychotics are sometimes used to treat bipolar disorder, which was still my diagnosis up to that point.
To be continued in the next post.
This is the timeline so far:
July 2014: First psychiatrist visit. Prescribed one SSRI after diagnosing me with unipolar depression.
August 2014: Replaced the SSRI with two others.
September 2014: Added a third SSRI because the two I was on weren't working out well.
October 2014: I ignorantly stopped all three SSRIs cold turkey because, at the time, I didn't know that quitting psychiatric medications abruptly is harmful.
I experienced a surge of suicidal ideation in the following month, and then I realized that stopping the meds cold turkey was a bad idea.
I then saw my second psychiatrist, who put me on two mood stabilizers after diagnosing me with bipolar disorder (which would later turn out to be a misdiagnosis, as I'm going to delve into below). He said all four meds I had tried had been based on a misdiagnosis.
I don't remember exact dates from October 2014 until September 2015, but during that time I was prescribed an antidepressant, which was replaced by an atypical antipsychotic, followed by another atypical antipsychotic. The psychiatrist I was seeing from October 2014 to September 2015 suddenly left the city I'm in, so I had to find another one.
In the last three months with this psychiatrist, I was also seeing a psychologist who worked with him. At first she tried to convert me back to religion when she asked why I was depressed and I told her that social factors, especially some of the prevalent social and religious values, were a major contributor to my deteriorating mental well-being.
When I told her I wasn't going to convert back and that it was basically like asking me to believe Harry Potter was real, she stopped trying and focused on other options that had nothing to do with religion. I eventually stopped seeing her because she turned out to be unhelpful.
November 2015: First session with the new (now third) psychiatrist. Per my request, he replaced Risperdal, the atypical antipsychotic I was on, with Zyprexa. Risperdal made life extremely difficult, both mentally and physically, and it had the worst effect on me out of all of the meds I've tried so far.
December 2015: I saw the same psychiatrist who put me on Zyprexa, this time asking him to guide me through the process of tapering off Zyprexa both because I still experienced some hassling side effects (such as strong sedation, which was especially bad for me because I was studying engineering at the time and needed to not oversleep) and because of potentially irreversible, disabling side effects such as akathisia and tardive dyskinesia.
He refused to take me off the med because he believed I needed it and that taking me off it would cause a lot of harm, so I had to remain on Zyprexa until March 2016 because I knew how harmful it could be to mess around with antipsychotic medications without professional guidance.
The reason I was on antipsychotics in the first place despite not having psychosis or schizophrenia is that atypical antipsychotics are sometimes used to treat bipolar disorder, which was still my diagnosis up to that point.
To be continued in the next post.
