Psych drugs

Hey AP,

Okay, this is somewhat a personal question, but maybe others could benefit.

Is it possible to recover from psych meds on a spiritual level? I think that it could be. I was given risperdal for about 2 months and also given a halidol injection in the hospital. Never was I in desperate need of any of this; it was against my will. My question is can you fully recover? I know that the brain repairs. Some of these meds have "irreversible reactions" with transmitter sites. Recovery no doubt has to do with environment. The question though is has anyone fully recovered?

This is an interesting blog I found that I agree totally with: http://diffthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... amage.html

Anyway...

I was 23 when given the $#%^. On a side note, psychiatrists must really have #######5 professions: being grim reapers. Society needs to wake up to this crime against humanity.

ativan1 wrote: My question is can you fully recover? I know that the brain repairs.

I think the mind can fully recover, The brain is just a thing but the mind is action like thoughts, beliefs dreams memories a whole long list of stuff that make us who we are.

I recovered after years in psych pill wasteland, it took a long time but I did. Recovery was mostly the changing of my belief systems more than anything else, that took longer than the physical withdrawals from the pills. The physical withdrawals are the brain trying to recover from damage I guess.

I feel ya. Sort of like "environment". I think most of all positivity is important. Too bad a lot of people think these disease are actually a chemical disorder. I mean the brain's chemistry can change by environment.

I too have problems with spiritual death of antipsychotics, but only while on them,,,spiritual death is being seperated from love and joy of god living life with god which opens up to alchmical and evolutionary possablity...according to what I believe, like ascending to be more of god consciousness which is just a higher vibration of the mind,,,,,the kybalion about hermetic thought might help spark you quest to recover....but the biggest thing that happen to me is use of ayurvedic medicine shankhpushpi which awakened my higher mind at least a layer that the antipsychotic blocked, am very happy with it and even had spiritual visions recently,,,the quacks attribute my recovery to their mnediccations, duh only when I use this herb.

try brahmi too, might even be better for you as I think the shankhpushpi awakening is something to do with balance or even purification of chemical interferance....I don'lt want to make the herb famous as find It might be overharvestedd or expensve or banned cos it helps people overcome phamakia

to me brahmi is about god consciousness and improving intellect from the damage of pharmaceuticals.....if you not on antipsychotic gotu kola might also awaken latent ability perceptual awareness...,..they are all indicated also for anxiety and schizophrenia although the quacks dont know how good this $#%^ is

Copy_Cat wrote:I think the mind can fully recover, The brain is just a thing but the mind is action like thoughts, beliefs dreams memories a whole long list of stuff that make us who we are.

The physical withdrawals are the brain trying to recover from damage I guess.

I agree in general. However, let me add some remarks: living 10 years in a "brain fog" will have an impact on your daily activities, feelings for that time and therefore, after stopping the fog, on your biography, which is part of who you are as an individual. Moreover, some effects such as tardive dyskenisia (unvoluntary movements) have an impact on how you feel in public etc., therefore may change your life and with this, your mind - aside from the fact that tardive dyskenisia often goes hand-in-hand with irreparable or only partially reversible cognitive impairment, which also impacts your mind. As the thread opener wrote they had been on their meds for only two months, I would say don't worry about these long-term side effects.

The physical withdrawals come from the fact that the brain likes to have its stuff balanced out. So if you decrease or increase neurotransmitter activity with drugs for a certain time, the brain starts adjusting by increasing or decreasing its own neurotransmitter production or the number of places in the neurons where these transmitters dock on. Therefore, it needs time to readapt to its "natural" state so this is why it is suggested that people don't stop their meds abruptly but better taper them off so your brain can adapt gradually. Neurotransmitters also have lots of impacts on the production of various hormones, other neurotransmitters and what have you not, and these do not only have an impact on your brain but on your whole body.

Which is why I don't buy into the "chemical imbalance causes your disease" metaphor in the sense that there is a constant physically caused imbalance or chemical deficiency comparable to a vitamin deficiency. There are indeed conditions, often genetic ones, where not enough or too much dopamin or whatever gets produced or broken down by the body, but this does not only impact the minds of the patients but also causes lots of physical problems, worse and more varied ones than those you experience in, e. g., major depression.

There is a condition, for example, where people have too much histamine in their system as they lack some kind of enzyme or stuff, I don't remember the exact name of the condition. They don't only have sleeping problems and feel wired all the time, but also have lots of allergy-like symptoms and gastro-internal problems, sweat a lot, have various metabolic abnormities in their blood results etc. Things like this is the kind of problems that I would expect from a "chemical imbalance in your brain" cause. And when these people get treated with anti-histamines or the enzyme they lack, it's not only their mind that gets better - feeling more relaxed, being able to sleep well - but their physical problems go away too. In contrast, if you take an anti-histamine for a "simple" sleep disorder while having normal histamine levels, this can help for your symptom but will not have the other beneficial effects but instead, side-effects.

However, I can imagine that for some reasons and in some cases, before or during a psychiatric condition, specific functional parts of the brain may have changed in a way similar to what drugs do, i. e. the neurons having too many or not enough receptors of whatever in these parts of the brain. So antipsychotics, as "dirty" as they may be, might in some cases not only mask the problem but remede it, at the expence of creating chemical imbalances elsewhere in the brain and body which is why these drugs create metabolic disorders and what have you not. This does not mean, though, that the "chemical imbalance" is the CAUSE, as PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) does also show up with changes in brain functionig, but here the cause is clearly a biographic/psychological one. It is more like a correlation, plus the chemistry and the mind influence one another. I think that depending on the symptoms and course of one's disorder etc., it may be possible to "unlearn" the disorder to a lesser or greater level via the change of amounts of receptors etc., however this may not be the case for everyone. So I think psych meds may be a help, but it's not the best or only solution for everyone especially not administered long-term. This is why I also basically agree to this statement:

ativan1 wrote:I feel ya. Sort of like "environment". I think most of all positivity is important. Too bad a lot of people think these disease are actually a chemical disorder. I mean the brain's chemistry can change by environment.

with the exception that for some people, the most important thing might not be positivity, but learning or re-learning to relax or whatever.

Razael wrote:I too have problems with spiritual death of antipsychotics, but only while on them,,,spiritual death is being seperated from love and joy of god living life with god which opens up to alchmical and evolutionary possablity...

I have noticed that the anti-psychotic I have been on for a couple of months had this kind of effects on me too, apart from the fact that I am a Christian and so the impact on my relationship with God was there too but I would describe it differently. This "spiritual death" decreased along with the decrease in dosage, therefore I prefer to call it "spiritual numbing". I also noticed that this effect is quite similar to when I took older types of anti-allergy tablets for my hay fever. Both meds block histamine receptors (the anti-psych drug blocks a couple of other receptors too). I still don't damn my allergy tablets, but it's a question of what is worse, my allergy and my urticaria or the "spiritual numbing" and sedation. When things get really bad a couple of days a year, I still choose to take them.

Razael. Thanks for your input. I will look into what you have posted.

-- Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:22 am --

I have to say anti-psychotics have the power to put a person more "to sleep" in a sense than ever! Especially with high doses!

MilliPete wrote:

Copy_Cat wrote:I think the mind can fully recover, The brain is just a thing but the mind is action like thoughts, beliefs dreams memories a whole long list of stuff that make us who we are.

The physical withdrawals are the brain trying to recover from damage I guess.

I agree in general. However, let me add some remarks: living 10 years in a "brain fog" will have an impact on your daily activities, feelings for that time and therefore, after stopping the fog, on your biography, which is part of who you are as an individual. Moreover, some effects such as tardive dyskenisia (unvoluntary movements) have an impact on how you feel in public etc., therefore may change your life and with this, your mind - aside from the fact that tardive dyskenisia often goes hand-in-hand with irreparable or only partially reversible cognitive impairment, which also impacts your mind. As the thread opener wrote they had been on their meds for only two months, I would say don't worry about these long-term side effects.

The physical withdrawals come from the fact that the brain likes to have its stuff balanced out. So if you decrease or increase neurotransmitter activity with drugs for a certain time, the brain starts adjusting by increasing or decreasing its own neurotransmitter production or the number of places in the neurons where these transmitters dock on. Therefore, it needs time to readapt to its "natural" state so this is why it is suggested that people don't stop their meds abruptly but better taper them off so your brain can adapt gradually. Neurotransmitters also have lots of impacts on the production of various hormones, other neurotransmitters and what have you not, and these do not only have an impact on your brain but on your whole body.

Which is why I don't buy into the "chemical imbalance causes your disease" metaphor in the sense that there is a constant physically caused imbalance or chemical deficiency comparable to a vitamin deficiency. There are indeed conditions, often genetic ones, where not enough or too much dopamin or whatever gets produced or broken down by the body, but this does not only impact the minds of the patients but also causes lots of physical problems, worse and more varied ones than those you experience in, e. g., major depression.

There is a condition, for example, where people have too much histamine in their system as they lack some kind of enzyme or stuff, I don't remember the exact name of the condition. They don't only have sleeping problems and feel wired all the time, but also have lots of allergy-like symptoms and gastro-internal problems, sweat a lot, have various metabolic abnormities in their blood results etc. Things like this is the kind of problems that I would expect from a "chemical imbalance in your brain" cause. And when these people get treated with anti-histamines or the enzyme they lack, it's not only their mind that gets better - feeling more relaxed, being able to sleep well - but their physical problems go away too. In contrast, if you take an anti-histamine for a "simple" sleep disorder while having normal histamine levels, this can help for your symptom but will not have the other beneficial effects but instead, side-effects.

However, I can imagine that for some reasons and in some cases, before or during a psychiatric condition, specific functional parts of the brain may have changed in a way similar to what drugs do, i. e. the neurons having too many or not enough receptors of whatever in these parts of the brain. So antipsychotics, as "dirty" as they may be, might in some cases not only mask the problem but remede it, at the expence of creating chemical imbalances elsewhere in the brain and body which is why these drugs create metabolic disorders and what have you not. This does not mean, though, that the "chemical imbalance" is the CAUSE, as PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) does also show up with changes in brain functionig, but here the cause is clearly a biographic/psychological one. It is more like a correlation, plus the chemistry and the mind influence one another. I think that depending on the symptoms and course of one's disorder etc., it may be possible to "unlearn" the disorder to a lesser or greater level via the change of amounts of receptors etc., however this may not be the case for everyone. So I think psych meds may be a help, but it's not the best or only solution for everyone especially not administered long-term. This is why I also basically agree to this statement:

ativan1 wrote:I feel ya. Sort of like "environment". I think most of all positivity is important. Too bad a lot of people think these disease are actually a chemical disorder. I mean the brain's chemistry can change by environment.

with the exception that for some people, the most important thing might not be positivity, but learning or re-learning to relax or whatever.

Razael wrote:I too have problems with spiritual death of antipsychotics, but only while on them,,,spiritual death is being seperated from love and joy of god living life with god which opens up to alchmical and evolutionary possablity...

I have noticed that the anti-psychotic I have been on for a couple of months had this kind of effects on me too, apart from the fact that I am a Christian and so the impact on my relationship with God was there too but I would describe it differently. This "spiritual death" decreased along with the decrease in dosage, therefore I prefer to call it "spiritual numbing". I also noticed that this effect is quite similar to when I took older types of anti-allergy tablets for my hay fever. Both meds block histamine receptors (the anti-psych drug blocks a couple of other receptors too). I still don't damn my allergy tablets, but it's a question of what is worse, my allergy and my urticaria or the "spiritual numbing" and sedation. When things get really bad a couple of days a year, I still choose to take them.

Thanks for your response. I think we vaguely agree on most things. I was on about 4mg risperidal for two months and I did receive halidol. I think a lot of disorders that are dealt with in Psychiatry can be healed with spirituality. Adding drugs to the mix though doesn't help you fix the problem, instead as you said, it "masks" it. Western medicine is too much "one size fits all" especially when it comes to Psychiatry. My "worries" were dealing with "irreversible antagonism" in which my research told me that these reactions are irreversible. I have to say though that within time I am pretty sure the irreversibly will go away in one way or another (I hope). I've read that clozapine can "unblock" the 5ht-7 receptor caused by risperdal. Halidol is said to have irreversibilities on the sigma-1 receptor and also inversely at the 5ht-7.

Hi ativan,

I cannot write much about your specific medication as it was neither the meds nor these receptors which I had to deal with in my medication. Are you tapering off, are you completely off, have you stopped abruptly... ? So which irreversible effects did you find out in your research concerning them? I hope 2 months have not been sufficient to mess things up for you forever.

About the spirituality thing, I agree with you, I would also add relaxation techniques or whatever which might be useful in the specific case.

ativan1 wrote:Recovery no doubt has to do with environment. The question though is has anyone fully recovered?

There are many people who recover from emotional distress. Everyone's definition of recovery is different however. There is no "one size fits all" definition of recovery. In terms of recovery from physical difficulties regarding medication you have taken, I have heard some people's accounts of where it took them several months to a year for the physical symptoms from their medications to go away after stopping the medication. It is definitely a frustrating and difficult process.

ativan1 wrote: I think a lot of disorders that are dealt with in Psychiatry can be healed with spirituality.

What about those people who don't consider themselves spiritual? Are you saying that there is only one avenue for seeking recovery? I think it's important to remember that what a person chooses to aide them in their recovery is a completely personal thing and there are no right or wrong ways about it. For some people it may be through spirituality, for others it may be with a combination of medication and exercise, for some it might just be a change in their diet and increasing their social supports. Each person is completely different.