How much will I likely recover from antipsychotics?

I was first on geodon for two months, and then invega for one month. Both caused pretty bad anhedonia and akathisia/inner torment sensations and sexual dysfunction (and very significant loss of pleasure).

I was allowed to stop, and I was off all meds for about five months. My sexual dysfunctional slowly improved, but the anhedonia and inner torment sensations persisted.

I then had another episode and was forced to take invega in shot form for three months. Invega worsened the anhedonia a bit, and it caused pretty bad akathisia that was only partially alleviated by a beta blocker.

I was then allowed to stop, and my anhedonia, for the first time, seemed to improve and improve, albeit very, very slowly. I've long used marijuana to gauge the extent of my anhedonia, and I was getting higher and higher as time passed. My highs were pretty much empty of real pleasure or well being, but I felt high...music sounded better, food tasted better, showers felt better, etc. I was getting somewhat high.

I was off invega for about five months until I sent bad emails to my psychiatrists, which led to a 5mg long acting injection of haldol. Even at a low dose, it seemed to really crush my anhedonia. I got very significantly less high. I sent even more emails to the psychiatrists, which led to a 10mg quick acting injection of haldol, which absolutely crushed me. It caused inner torment sensations and it really, really messed up my head an anhedonia.

I've been free from antipsychotics for about a month, and I've recovered a bit from the haldol injection, but current status is as follows:

- really, really bad anhedonia. i get maybe 5% high from weed. it's actively somewhat annoying every second. it's like i'm in a mental prison.

- significant loss of sexual functioning, and a great loss of sexual pleasure

- inner torment/nerve pain that's somewhat bad, but i take a medication for it that helps about 90%



so my main two concerns are the anheodnia and sexual dysfunction.

how long is it likely going to take for the anhedonia to improve? an what's the cap? will i eventually mostly fully recover, or are people who are affected by antipsychotics like me often limited to something like a 50% recovery?

a year? two years?

how should things look for me by five years?

i dont known, ive been off zyprexa for 7 months and still havent seen any improvement. Just curious what was the emails you send to your psychiatrist

You found 'anti-psychiatry' , your chances are now way way up .
I survived the Zyprexa sickness , the lingering anhedoinia and the withdrawal trip to hell.
Check this out http://igotbetter.org/ people get better and survive psychiatry.

You should recover, perhaps see a psychologist about it.

Exercise should help the most, also quit caffeine if drink it.

Copy_Cat wrote:You found 'anti-psychiatry' , your chances are now way way up .
I survived the Zyprexa sickness , the lingering anhedoinia and the withdrawal trip to hell.
Check this out http://igotbetter.org/ people get better and survive psychiatry.

So the anhedonia no longer really lingers anymore, you're fairly better now? How long were you on the drug, and how long did it take off it to start to feel mostly recover?

Are you really not doing anything about the anhedonia except waiting for it to pass by itself? Not judging just saying it won't happen like that.

SBBro wrote:Are you really not doing anything about the anhedonia except waiting for it to pass by itself? Not judging just saying it won't happen like that.

i'm running as much as i can, trying to eat healthy, smoking weed (i'm not sure if this will help or hinder), and listening to loud music.

what else do you suggest?


were you in a state as bad as i am, and did you mostly recover? how long did it take?

I've been to a psych ward. I have a schizotypal cousin who's been to a ward, we are both pretty good right now. On meds, doing cbt and managing our PDs.

Can you describe what in the dsm is wrong with you?

I'm guessing you may need an snri. You should also be doing the appropriate cbt. I can't comment on the weed. If you are cluster A I can ask my cousin.

You should at least be doing breath focus and be on an anti depressant.

You should also do act so you stop acting on your thoughts sending provoking emails to people who can lower your dopamine.
Sounds like you might be legally insane and they want you vegged out.

-- Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:10 am --

Don't listen to loud music, listen softly so you need some level of concerntration. The music should evoke a positive emotion, classical is good.

Looked up haldol, your psychiatrists hate you.


Do you have trouble sitting still without blinking too much?

the email:





had the decision been up to you, i would have been forced to take invega (a heavy duty as ###$ antipsychotic) in shot form (which, in my case, was more potent than oral, and has a massively long half-life) for many more months against my will as a very self-aware mildly psychotic person. Had the decision been up to you, I would have, quite literally, had to kill myself in a non-depressed state after suffering unnaturally badly for over a year. That is a significantly worse punishment than the normal death penalty. and i'm not dramatically and emptily claiming i would have killed myself; i would have, quite literally, had to kill myself entirely regardless of fear and instinct and effects on loved ones had I stayed on invega for any significant length of time longer than I was on it. i came very close to killing myself countless times while on antipyschotics, but I never did because of fear and instinct. Had I stayed on invega, there is a 75%+ chance I would have actually killed myself, probably even higher; I'm being conservative. And for what? To guard against MILD AS ###$, relative to the rest of your patients, psychosis. And even if the medication would have helped me overall, it still would have been unethical to force treatment on a self-aware mildly psychotic person. you are ###$ up. ###$ up. ###$ you, you stupid ###$. you stupid fat ###$.



(this was also sent to the other psychiatrists)





To Dr. Clay at Perspectives:

you stupid fat socially inept ###$ face: my case, if the pills are indeed the main or exhaustive cause of my extreme suffering for the past seventeen months (and counting); and believe me, because I hold much, much more accurate views about antipsychotics than you, it will take a very, very long time to mostly fully recover, if I even will - some people don't), which to the non-idiotic and severely biased segment of the population is no doubt the case (because I've improved so much, although I'm still highly miserable, just not absurdly miserable, which says a lot about how miserable I was while on invega, everyone in my family now believes, despite the false claims of all the cult members I've had for psychiatrists, that the pills are, as has been abundantly obvious the entire time to anyone with a hint of objectivity and discernment, the cause of my suffering) strongly suggests that you have practiced very unsoundly for a very long time. yes, you've made many, many very unsound decisions throughout your career, completely unnecessarily, because you are a fundamentally self interested piece of filth. you are not interested in practicing as soundly as you can; you're instead significantly interested in securing your own belief that your job is very, very noble and good, that you greatly help your patients, and rarely harm them (and even if you do harm some of them a little, the side effects surely quickly go away after stopping in all cases) --- most of which is laughably far from reality. you care about your own ego and beliefs more than the well being of your patients, which ought to be your sole concern. but the well being of your patients isn't the sole thing you care about, is it, because you're a STUPID ###$. but do not feel so badly: psychiatrists of your sort exist in great abundance.

I was ###$ by antipsychotics, and people who are ###$ by antipsychotics typically take much longer to recover than people who only encounter relatively minor side effects. It usually takes 6+ months after the drug is eliminated to notice appreciable improvement, although some people with my side effects never recover. yes, never recover. reality doesn't conform to the desires of self interested cult members, you stupid ###$. the reality is that antipyschotics frequently carry significantly negative side effects, sometimes life destroying side effects. And your idea that my side effects from invega sustenna should have cleared up within four months' time is LAUGHABLE given the severity of my side effects and the vast variance in half life for each patient. for some patients it takes three months for the drug to clear, for others it takes TEN MONTHS for the drug to clear. it's highly variable, you ###$. you're a clown. and you think the Springdale hospital is the place to go? you're sooooooo deluded it's ludicrous that your job is to hand out, in many cases force, these medications to innocent people. The Springdale hosptial is the most cult-like mental hospital I've been to, and I've been to four different places. They are ###$ IN THE HEAD over there. Rubenow for instance is as ###$ up as a psychiatrist can be. He's such an extreme cult member it's actually interesting, from a psychological standpoint, how ###$ up he is. You're ###$ up too, but Rebunow makes you look objective and sound and sane.


AND I ONLY HAD MILD PSYCHOSIS FOLLOWING A LARGELY CIRCUMSTANTIAL PSYCHOTIC BREAK. Mild psychosis. But you were never interested in investigating the possibility that I don't even need antipsychotics very badly, were you, because, once again, you're not interested in sound practice. You're a stupid ignoble ###$ face worthy of extreme contempt. You should kill yourself, you fat stupid ugly ###$. I really fail to see why you don't. Oh, and let's not forget socially inept, you #####&.







To Rhonda:

You probably don't remember much about what decisions you made in my case, but understand: you're a stupid cult member, and you made the wrong (and extremely cult-like) decision in just about every case. I threatened my dad physically with a guitar because he was unethically FORCING a medication on me that was causing me to suffer greatly, so you thought it best to force me to go to the hospital again? How ###$ up are you? You're ###$. Your medications were the exhaustive cause of nearly everything bad. Your medications have potential to be extremely harmful. I wonder why you're reluctant to believe that. Could it be because you hand out the medications for a living? Could that be? It's understandable why you're so deluded, it's understandable why many psychiatrists would be non-objective in their practice, but it nonetheless remains worthy of extreme contempt. Go ###$ yourself.

Also, you suspected I might have autism? HAHAHAHA. What you observed was the exhaustive cause of the antipsychotics. If we say for illustration that my social ability was 3/10 before taking geodon, after geodon, which SHATTERED MY SOCIAL ABILITY due to the massively ######6 side effects, my social ability became in the negatives. No one who interacts with me now thinks I'm autistic. But when I was on geodon at the beginning? I'm sure many people probably that I might be autistic, because geodon SHATTERED my social ability.

Your medications were the cause of quite literally EVERYTHING NEGATIVE. You are ###$ up.










To Dr. Rubenow:

You are ###$. You're so ###$ up and wrong and unethical that I won't even bother to explain. I don't even care if you maintain the exact same false and incredibly cult-like beliefs about your medications, which you most certainly will regardless of whatever I say, because I know you're so wrong. You're so wrong and so ###$ I don't even care to elaborate. You are ###$.


Dr Clay and Rhonda, understand that Rubenow thought it best to give me 120 mg of geodon, at a weight of 155, for what he himself considered "mild psychosis". Mild psychosis, and he gave me a fantastically heavy dose of an antipsychotic.....let's not forget against my will, hahahahahahahahahahah. stupid #####&.

There are many more things I can say about him, but that by itself demonstrates how radically cult-like he is. He deserves to be in prison.












Examples of what antipyschotics can do:




I had a psychotic episode last December, and in January 2013 I was given the normal starting routine for Invega Sustenna - 1 234mg shot (1/7/2013) followed 1 week later by a 156mg shot (1/14/2013). This was the worst thing that has ever happened to me - bar nothing. Not the episode! That was bizarre, to be sure, and I'm worried about my medical condition.... but it's the drug that was so horrifying and destructive. I was dying to find the same information you're seeking Narshe and jjasonn, earlier this year, and I still am. All I can report is from my experience in the last 11 months and my research of the drug label and articles I could find online. I have learned some things. I never got another shot after 1/14/2013. That was against the recommendation of my doctor. We'll see how it turns out. Taking this torture as a precautionary measure, when it's far far worse than delusions themselves? That calculus didn't make sense to me. I hope I'm right. For one thing, it's absoultely clear that my doctor did not grasp the potency of this drug.

Here's the bottom line Narshe: it has been 11 months. I'm still messed up from the drug, but it has improved dramatically over time. I would say I was devastated through July (6 months out), transitioned from devastated to "heavily impaired" from July to October (9 months out), and since November I've been "impaired" (11 months out). I'm plenty messed up now, with cognitve issues, sexual function issues, anhedonia etc., but its nothing next to the hell I was in in February. Each month I can notice significant improvement in my cognitive function, my mood, and emotional sensation ... my sexual interest and testicular function, twitching, weight gain (20 lbs), dizziness upon standing, restlessness, inability to think or focus or engage watching tv, listening to music or playing games; difficulty conversing, feeling pleasure and being generally in perpetual deep boredom, having no motivation at all. My only experience with feelings as low as suicidal ones, in my entire life, was in January-February. That has certainly passed. Some of the effects in that incomplete list went away before others. And I didn't feel that great or aware about my improvements each months until after about 6 months. At the very beginning I was urinating every 30 minutes and couldn't move my face. Most of the list was ongoing after two months. Anyway, I didn't feel like I was appreciably improved until around September - so that's 8 months later before I personally felt any real hope of recovery. I hope knowledge of that date helps you. This (11 months) is the first month where I feel I can "pass for normal" to an average person. They might think I'm tired, but would never think I'm way off/drugged, even if they know me, actually. I can still tell I'm messed up, of course. But I can also tell that I've gotten a lot of abilities back. It's very exciting actually. I also lost the 20 lbs I gained from the drug through vigorous exercise from July to September. (recommended) I still have many of the same feelings you have: I'm hoping I'll improve all the way, maybe 90% or something, maybe more. And I'm very worried about the permanent effects. I'm personally very focused on the cognitive effects, but I'm also wondering if my tongue will stop twitching when I stick it out and so on. Thinking was the name of my game, 24/7, and it was just snatched away. But I can tell you that you won't remain devastated forever; that it at least improves to "impaired". And in 6 months maybe I'll be able to tell you that you'll improve all the way or almost all the way. Also, DO NOT be discouraged by people telling you that you're exaggerating, that there is nothing wrong, or that they can't tell (which may be true); that your complaints are actually of the condition and not the drug, etc. These people have no idea what they're talking about. I have a supportive and attentive girlfriend, who was able to see many of the subtle things (to an outside observer) of which I complained. That was very helpful to me. My father on the other hand, thinks this has all been exaggeration and a hypchondriac's prattle. So I had to deal with that and it's tough. The drug is devastating for real; don't be BSed out of knowing that.

My diagnosis was psychosis NOS (not otherwise specified). That basically means I didn't get a "real" diagnosis cause they weren't sure what I had / had happened. My psychosis consisted entirely of paranoid delusions and it lasted about 45 days - I had no hallucinations, no difficulty thinking (delusional belief formation aside), etc - I definitely had paranoid delusions though. I also separately have depression and high anxiety. I normally take no medications of any kind and I never do any drugs, including alcohol, with the sole exception that I sometimes smoke tobacco. I'm a physicist with advanced degrees and I went to/ worked at some of the very top schools in the country. That's diagnostically relevant, but I'm also hoping to get a cred. boost. I'm 29 years old. I still am trying to figure out what my underlying diagnosis is... bipolar perhaps? I don't think I have schizophrenia, but I'm not certain. Statistically, it would be a late onset. I really just don't know, and neither did my doctor(s). But I was told to continue taking antipsychotics just in case I was schizophrenic and I disregarded that advice. I recovered "100%" from my psychotic delusions in late January, which I was told is rare. So far I've had no recurrence of any psychotic symptoms.

As far as I could find, there is nothing that can be done to speed the removal of the drug from your body. I suspect that obesity makes the drug last longer as it gets stored in fat, but that's a bit of a guess. My intuition says drink a lot of water and exercise if you want to try and speed up the removal. According to the label for Invega sustenna, enzyme CYP3A4 might be important for eliminating paliperidone. It says that if you take an inducer of CYP3A4 you may need a higher dose for paliperidone to be effective. It later claims that this result is contradicted by other studies, so its unclear. You could try to induce that enzyme. Capsaicin is the only food I found online to induce that enzyme. I never tried it, and I certainly didn't want to take another drug for this purpose, but I wouldnt mind spicy food. Kind of an aside I guess, but it might be worth trying. St. John's wort is a major inducer as well, but its a drug.

After the amount of time I've been off the drug (better put - since last injection), I'm not sure anymore if I'm still heavily drugged, or rather if my brain chemistry hasn't normalized (or if there is permanent and irreversible damage). A bit of both I expect (or all three). But FYI the half life for a 234 mg dose is 49 days. My dose was essentially 400mg in some sense. Your dose (naively at least) is 100 mg plus what was left over before that; probably another 200 mg or so. So permanent damage from duration of use aside, we probably quit from similar dose amounts. Since the half-life decreases with quantity, using 49 days should give you conservative estimates of the amount of palmitate left. I remember finding 15mg to be the best conservative estimate of my equivalent oral daily dose at injection time. SO, 2 months later, its about 7.5 mg/day and so on. I'm not sure how useful or accurate this method is though because it doesn't align with my experience that well. One thing to keep in mind is that 49 days is a median. That means for some people they still had 85% after 49 days. I found something a while back that had actual raw data and the variance was very high. I personally set my expectation at double the median to be very conservative. With the time of "brain recovery" though, I mean... this is pretty much guess-work. The main thing is the my personal "raw data" - which is that I know how I feel. And you do get better over time. I would be interested in getting a blood test to see how much drug is still in me (and how much prolactin), but I never did that. You could consider that if you were very curious. Another kind of raw data.

Anyway, I've learned a lot about paliperidone from obsessing about it online the past 11 months. Bipolar patients can expect decreased cognitive funtion, including poor verbal recall, poor working memory, and slow processing speed. Switching to abilify can reverse hyperprolactinemia, for anyone having sexual issues and wanting to stay on anti-psychotics. That first tidbit points out that the underlying condition can have a big impact on your experience of paliperidone, since the drug apparently improves thinking for some schizophrenics. This is already too long and I think it hits what you wanted to know already, so I'll end here. Hope this helps. You just have to wait it out... for you know, maybe 18 months total? It's a while. Good luck. And as far as permanent effects I'm in your boat completely. Anyone out there have information about how things look past 11 months?




My story is I took injections of Olanzapine for 6 months, I felt foggier and foggier during this time, like my brain was burned from the inside out.

I stopped taking any form of anti psychotic 11 months ago, and here is a list of how I feel now compared to before 'treatment':

- Every night I have nightmares
- I never feel rested
- I have no motivation
- I have no ability to multitask, plan 'ahead', organize my life
- My body feels drained and permanently erased
- I always have fright of sound, and I cant stand bright light
- I wear hearing protection all the time
- I can't read because I can't focus
- All my interests are erased
- Typing on a keyboard is markedly slower and I misspell more frequently
- I 'lose thoughts' all the time, even when I think "when I finish writing this sentence the next will be..." and it's gone
- My sense of taste is changed, everything tastes bland and diluted
- Coffee tastes like water, and ciggarettes like air with 'dirt' in it, my brain does not process any reward from caffeine or nicotine
- I lose words, I struggle to express myself in writing because my active vocabulary is very much fewer words (<= example of it being hard to express things because words are gone)
- I never become sleepy, I go to sleep because of exhaustion from living in a tortured state, and then it's back into a very light sleep with the worst nightmares imaginable
- Everything is foggy, gray, tasteless, and nothing gives me stimulation, literally no task
- I am not depressed but since nothing I do gives any form of reward or stimulation I have to just sit and stare or lie with my eyes closed until I'm to exausted to be awake
- My body has become like dough, that was how it felt progressievely during the injections, like my body was disssolved more and more and never came back
- I am always resteless, never at peace, and yet I have 0 ability to focus, or drive to do things
- All memories of my upbringing have become corrupted somehow, I can't relate back to my childhood, which was so complete and the best
- Apetite is basically not there, I eat much much less than before

That's a list of how I feel 11 months after taking neuroleptics. I can essentially hardly motivate myself to make basic food, otherwise I just lie in bed and am in despair because nothing 'feels', nothing relates, nothing is meaningful, and my ability to think and my motivation to do anything is erased.

Before meds I used to lead a happy, active, outgoing student, life. with a lot o interests and being happy about the present and the future.

Can't think of much else to write. I have done basic stuf like try to meet friends, go for a walk, eat regularly, it just doesn't give me my sense of taste or motivation or ability to think back.

I have no prospects of a career, meaningful relations with others, as long as I cannot experience 'reward' from any task (something everyone takes for granted).

I think a lot of people recover from neuroleptics, but it seems I am not one of them, I think some basic neurological thing like the dopamine reward system has been irreversibly erased.

I lost my life to these drugs.

I'm not really looking for advice on "become more active", or "take these drugs", I've tried both and I know what options there are. Maybe I'm looking for someone to write "My life was destroyed 1+ year after completely stopping neuroleptics, then recovery started".

I know I won't heal ever to a life I'll ever recognize. Anyway maybe this thread can be info to take into account ppl using neuroleptics for sleep disorders and such, although I think it takes pretty high doses to become like I am now, the state I became from these meds exemplifies how serious this class of medication is.






Hello, drugs-forum! Here's my story. After a scandal with my mother I got admitted to a hospital, where I was immediately put on aminazine. Naturally I'm a very calm person and always know better than to respond to provocations, but this time I just failed. So to cut a long story short I've been kept in the ward for 40 days, being fed with haloperdiole, aminazine, and even stelazine injections for 1 week, then two weeks of resperdal and 1 shot of resperdal consta. I knew I was f*cked when I woke up one morning and just couldn't make my bed beause of the lack of the willpower. During the first few days I wondered why so many people didn't do it, It's such an easy thing to do. So the thing is, when I finally got home, besides obvious changes in body health (gained 10+ kg, muscle fatigue weakness, loss of libido) I noticed some small changes in perception. First of all, everything seemed a slightest bit different, I didn't get that warm feeling of coming back home. Secondly, I've lost all my motivation to make things look nice and clean. I no longer clean my room, wash the dishes and that sort of things. I've lost all apprehension for music, and I was a great music fan, have a $1000+ audio-system, music always changed my mood in one or another way, no it's just some background noise for me. I was also keen on fashion, had a taste in clothing, now I just don't have the desire to check the blogs and buy anything new. Moreover, I've started just sleeping in my clothes, because I've become too lazy or don't really care how I look. I don't enjoy sunny wheather anymore, don't even want to leave the house. Don't feel the freshness outside, don't enjoy the green grass and birds singing. It's like my perception has been slightly changed and I can't percept things the way I could. I've also lost the ability to experience any emotions, sometimes I just don't care to respond to people, even my parents, cos I don't feel anything. My mom said like 1000 times that she's sorry, she's constantly crying, and I just don't feel anything and don't care to calm her down. I remember my old self, a funny outgoing guy, remember my hobbies, the series I've watched, I play my favourite music, and I feel nothing. My head is constntly empty and there is no single thought in it. All I really want to do is sleep, because I've started to see these vivid dreams with my old friends which are actually better than this blank grey reality. So I just wanted to ask whether these effects go away and you come back to your old self or this is permanent and is a result of treatment? I've been off the drugs for 40 days, the shot of consta was 8 weeks ago. The thing is I don't really see the point in iving a life like a vegetable, without the ability to enjoy things and with the sense of accomplishment lost. To me it's a neverending nightmare.






"I was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia last year and was forced under the Mental Health Act in Canada to take Invega Sustenna at 100mg a month via injection for 10 months. A week or so after my first injection I began to develop severe anhedonia that only gotten worse over time. My doctor finally took me off it and it has been three months and a half since my last injection. I have yet to feel any improvements. My current condition is as followed:

- Inability to experience pleasure, joy, happiness, sadness, or any type of emotions.
- No appetite and never feel hungry anymore. Can go for days without food and when I do eat it tastes bland.
- No motivation, willpower, or desire to do anything. I spend all day in bed or pace around my apartment.
- Substances that used to give pleasure all have stopped working, i.e., cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, etc.
- Constantly feeling restless, despair, uneasy, and extreme boredom. Nothing I do can change this.
- Cannot formulate complex thoughts. Difficulty reading and writing.
- Memory problems. Both short term and long term
- Zero sex drive.
- Music sounds flat.
- Difficulty finding things to say in a conversation. I feel mentally incapable of holding a conversation.
- Difficulty planning things for the future."




Zyprexa caused in me "anhedonia".

Music I had loved sounded flat and had no feel good effect at all, the same thing with driving the car, a fun hilly curvy road had no "fun" effect at all on that neuroleptic "antipsychotic" brain poison called zyprexa.

The motivational anhedonia was the worst, nothing feels good so why do anything ? was the feeling of that.





I am an artist and used to be motivated, happy, and outgoing. Soon after having started antipsychotics I noticed I have lost my creativity and find it difficult to concentrate on anything. Everything became worthless and I have no willpower or motivation to do anything. I wasn't like this at all before I started antipsychotics. I sure had some minor delusions and they are gone now. I don't even think it was the medication that got rid of it too, I felt like I just figured out that the ideas were crazy on my own.



The medication took everything from me. I can no longer function and I cannot find joy or pleasure from anything. I have lost my job and just spending my days feeling like dead inside with constant feeling of despair and anxiousness. All I can think about is how much longer do I have to feel like this and fear that it is permanent. I have read many posts from many different people about antipsychotics and found only bad news about it. Many people don't recover after a year of stopping the medication. Many reported permanent side effects of the med years after stopping.

The reason I am so obsessed about getting high off weed is because I use it as my marker for recovery. I figure the day I can get high again would mean that my brain has recovered. So far I haven't noticed ANY improvements after having been off the med for a month now. I am scared to death that my dopamine and serotonin receptors or my mesolimbic pathway are permanently damaged.









-----

There are many cases like that which can be found online, and antipyschotics were the exhaustive or nearly exhaustive cause in the large majority of those cases. A very common attitude held by people who've taken antipsychotics is that they are nasty, horrible drugs that should only be used when absolutely needed. And my data doesn't come only from online; the majority of other patients I talked to at hospitals who were on antipsychotics spoke negatively about them, and one of them was even suffering like me, though not as badly.

My case was worse than most of the above cases. Before antipsychotics, my quality of life was about 2/10. And it was 2/10 because of ego sufferings; my well being independent of life circumstance was perfectly normal and fine.

After taking antipsychotics? It's been a range of -3 and -8/10, and those numbers are in no way exaggerations. And, while on antipsychotics, because I felt so incredibly terrible from many different angles all at once (inner torment/akathisia, extreme anhedonia, head discomfort/tightness, sexual dysfunction), my ego sufferings vanished: I no longer cared about ego stuff. Life became a matter of survival and endurance.

So, if we ignore 'ego sufferings', my quality of life before antipsychotics was about 6 or 7/10. After antipsychotics it was a range of -3 and -8/10.

Yes, all of this is true. All of you are ###$ up. All of you are terrible people. All of you are willfully deluded about your practice.






Copy and pasted from an email to Dr. Clay last Novemeber:


After an at least partly circumstantial psychotic break (weed; unipoloar depression; extreme malnourishment primarily due to peakly bad IBS at the time and simple, typical of me, airheadedness; some objectively absurd coincidences and happenings; sleep deprivation at the peak of the break) which had manic elements I was put on depakote. My mental illness (motivational problems, which I've very long had + mild psychosis after the break) and quality of life remained roughly constant afterwards on depakote. I did rebel three times to try to get off depakote (partly because I was in denial at the time, partly on principle because I believe forced treatment is clearly immoral for non-extreme cases, and partly because I am, or used to be anyway, phobic of taking psychiatric medication for completely nonrational reasons), the first time about a month after the psychotic break, the second time a month or two after that, and then the third time several months later. But, again, my mental illness and quality of life remained constant throughout.

My third rebellion led to my hospitalization at the Springdale hospital. I do not believe my third rebellion was indicative of magically worsened 'mental illness'; I did it, for the third time, because I incorrectly assumed that my dad would be unwilling to pay for yet another hospitalization. I just wanted off depakote because it made me very lethargic at points, slightly sexually dysfunctional, slightly dumber, and, again, I was somewhat phobic of taking it. Given the nature of my rebellion (trying to appear crazy, empty knife threats) and my prior psychotic break I was put on geodon. At first geodon made me optimistic, more inclined to be social, and it even forced me to feel happy in a very chemical/fake sort of way. But this only lasted for about two weeks, and the side effects increasingly turned for the worst.

(main) geodon side effects:

- weird breed of akathisia/agitation (walking/moving used to help at the beginning, but it later morphed such that walking did/does little or nothing)
- profound anhedonia (I have experience with anhedonia due to depression, which wasn't even close)
- sexual dysfunction
- head tightness/detachment (this is much worse than it probably sounds)
- stupidity/worsened memory/increased mumbling (geodon made me incredibly stupid at the very beginning; my IQ would have been tested at about 87)
- loss of social confidence (which is worse than it sounds because I have profound social problems)


All of that was very, very new, felt very significant and unnatural, and surfaced for the first time ever in precise correlation with geodon, a heavy duty medication which affects every patient differently known to cause all the above side effects.

I was on a full dose of geodon for 1.5 months, and then I started to try to secretly taper because the side effects were simply unbearable. I tried to go down from 120mg to 80mg to 40mg to 0mg over the course of four weeks. The 40mg to 0mg transition was impossible and far too unbearable, so I had to go back up to 40mg. I spent the next 1-2 months in a constant battle to get off geodon, trying to go from roughly 40mg to 35mg to 30mg, and so on. I initially failed, trying it too quickly, and had to go back up to 40mg again because I was too miserable (the primary torture mechanism during withdrawal was the akathisia). But I finally succeeded, and I was entirely off geodon for a total of eight days before I was caught. By the eighth day the akathisia had mostly subsided. But I had to go back to the hospital again, and I was put on a different antipsychotic. Invega seemed to enhance all the same side effects which were starting to go away after stopping geodon. Invega enhanced the akathisia, sexual dysfunction, head tightness, and basically everything else. I was on invega for almost a month before I was able to finally successfully rebel and convince my dad and family to allow me to stop. I withdrew from invega cold turkey, which led to intense suffering, having to stay awake for 4-5 consecutive days at one point with severe akathisia torture.

So, all the side effects, known side effects of antipsychotics, surfaced for the very first time in my life in precise correlation with taking geodon. When I went from 120mg to 80mg the side effects lessened in precise correlation. And they lessened (all the side effects besides the akathisia/agitation, that is, which was aggravated by withdrawal), albeit infully, in precise correlation with going from 80gm to 0mg. Then the side effects were enhanced/restarted (in slightly different ways in a few cases) in precise correlation with starting invega. And then the side effects, in precise correlation with stopping invega, lessened, albeit, again, infully. After stopping invega all the side effects did get better, but none of them fully improved. My intelligence seemed to come back a bit, my sexual dysfunction very slowly came back a bit, the akathisia improved a bit, my social confidence was slowly improving, pleasure came back a bit, the head tightness didn't really seem to improve at all. Nearly everything got better after stopping, but not even close to fully.

I believe I reacted fairly unusually badly to antipsychotics, and it's my intuition that the more extreme the side effects the more likely they are to persist longer than typical. I think we have additional good reason to understand why they persisted in my case longer than usual: I tapered quickly, variably, and probably completely wrongly from geodon with two restarts, and I cold turkey withdrew from invega. Perhaps my erroneous, desperate, and foolish methods of withdrawal were causative. (I've found many people online who reacted very similarly to me say the effects go away very variably: less than a month, one to four months, one year, or never.)

I recently went to the Springdale hospital again after rebelling yet again, this time in an attempt to get marijuana to use medicinally (and believe me, it would be almost solely medicinally because weed highs are only about 10-20% as enjoyable as they used to be since taking antipsychotics) to relieve the weird breed of akathisia/agitation/torture (at the time I thought weed was the only plausible solution because I tried propranolol, benadryl, cogentin, a benzo, and something else, and none of them helped, half of them even made it worse). I was given ativan at the hospital, which actually and very surprisingly helped quite a bit. It was the first drug to work, and it helped about 90%. But I was then forced to take invega (oral, at first), and, in precise correlation with starting invega again, all of the following happened: akathisia-ish torture seeped through the ativan, worsened sexual dysfunction (my doctor checked my blood levels and confirmed it was due to invega), decreased intelligence yet again, and a significant loss of social confidence yet again. At the hospital I could only sit in on groups for 5-10 minutes at a time before having to walk in the hallways or throughout the group room. I was very miserable at the hospital, but I anticipated home life would be better, and I hoped the side effects of the shot would be less extreme than oral. But the side effects on the shot are 1.5-2.0x as bad.



------

Dr. Clay was too stupid to see the obviousness of the above.


(Then, in precise correlation with going off the shot, which I've now been off for almost five months, my quality of life has gradually gotten better and better each month. My quality of life was around -5 on the shot. Now, almost five months later, it is about -1. Do keep in mind that recovery is glacially slow for side effects like mine.)






All of you in many cases overrate the badness of the 'mental illnesses' of your patients, you overrate how much you 'help' your patients; and you vastly underrate the badness of antipsychotics. You're all stupid scum ###$ worthy of contempt.

Go ###$ yourselves.







Of course you help many people, but the truth of your practice is that you also harm some of your patients. You help some people, there is a neutral efffect for some people (that is, the side effects roughly neutralize the benefits), some people are negatively affected overall, and some patients, yes, receive life destroying side effects. I am one of those people. None of you practice remotely soundly. You don't even attempt to. You don't attempt to actively seek out negative information and cases on antipsychotics with as open and objective mind as possible. You're instead biased stupid ignorant cult member #####&. You're all worthy of extreme contempt.









Go ###$ yourselves, stupid ###$.

-- Sat Oct 11, 2014 12:22 pm --

SBBro wrote:I've been to a psych ward. I have a schizotypal cousin who's been to a ward, we are both pretty good right now. On meds, doing cbt and managing our PDs.

Can you describe what in the dsm is wrong with you?

I'm guessing you may need an snri. You should also be doing the appropriate cbt. I can't comment on the weed. If you are cluster A I can ask my cousin.

You should at least be doing breath focus and be on an anti depressant.

You should also do act so you stop acting on your thoughts sending provoking emails to people who can lower your dopamine.
Sounds like you might be legally insane and they want you vegged out.

-- Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:10 am --

Don't listen to loud music, listen softly so you need some level of concerntration. The music should evoke a positive emotion, classical is good.

I had a weed induced psychotic break, put on depakote because they at first thought bipolar. I then rebelled to get off the nasty drug, and was put on an antipsychotic, which have demolished me the entire time.

i was on an anti depressant, but i quit it. it wasn't helping, and i've never seen one person say an anti depressant help with anhedonia caused by antipsychotics.

i listen to bach a lot.

i don't think i'll recover. my brain is unchanged since the haldol injection two months ago.

-- Sat Oct 11, 2014 12:25 pm --

SBBro wrote:Do you have trouble sitting still without blinking too much?

i don't