Inpatient abuse “I am sorry that happened to you” WTF ?

My doctor told me that I had to come off the medication that I was on gradually though and it was
only an antidepressant. Whether they tell you that it's addictive or not seems like a moot point. Stop taking it abruptly and you're going to get an abrupt change in brain chemistry. That may be the definition of a chemically induced psychosis but it's also an example of someone that neglected to follow their doctor's orders and suffered the consequences of it.

It's not that I don't believe you. I do think though that people are responsible for taking their medication properly. Unfortunately the mentally ill tend not to be the most disciplined of people. I knew one girl for instance that said that she didn't have enough hours in the day to take her medication three times a day, so she just took everything at once. This was a person that didn't even have a job, so kind of a BS excuse.

NoM8s wrote:That may be the definition of a chemically induced psychosis but it's also an example of someone that neglected to follow their doctor's orders and suffered the consequences of it.

Three things:
1. You can also have a withdrawal psychosis with careful tapering. I tapered efexor and I tapered zyprexa and both gave me withdrawal psychosis. People have withdrawal syndromes even with careful tapering.
2. Many doctors don't know or don't tell about careful withdrawal. When I first started meds I was not told to taper or to discuss changes with my doctor.. I was told to use it "as needed". Which I did. And which resulted in me having my first psychotic episode. Many people do follow their doctor's advice but are adviced to use meds as needed, to go cold turkey or to withdraw much more quickly than is safe.
3. Many doctors would like you to be on meds forever and don't do withdrawal advice.

Of course... patients have their own responsibility... I hate myself for not looking into meds more carefully before I started and not withdrawing more slowly even. But I think doctors have a responsibility as well, because they are the experts and they know what the meds do...and I think they have an obligation to warn people, so there is informed consent. Not every patient has the capacity to dive into this by themselves...

NoM8s wrote: The thing with doctors is that their main priority is saving lives. You may feel that you would be better off before you took the medication but they could reason that you're a suicide risk when you're unable to control your emotions.

My trust in doctors is not so big anymore that I believe they are mainly interested in saving lives... why f.e. are they still prescribing antidepressants so easily to teens when it is proven they increase suicide risk?

I think the problem with doctors is that they:
- Have been trained in drug dealing only and can't look outside of that paradigm.
- Are mainly interested in money and career and ego and not so much in the subjective wellbeing of the client.
- Look at the shortterm rather than longterm results. Some meds are handy for the shortterm, stopping symptoms abruptly, while making people chronically ill and braindamaged on the longterm. There are even studies showing that people on antipsychotics have in the longterm (2+ years) way more risk of psychosis than people off antipsychotics (like 68% to 8%, google Wunderink or Harrow).
- Look at the outside behaviour rather than the inside experience. They like to have people calm and emotionless while the patient themselves might prefer to have a rich and emotional inner life.
- Wish to prevent risks at all costs, because a risk to the patient is a risk to their career. Some people are completely drugged and locked up in seperation rooms for months or years only to prevent suicide. They have no life at all. But they are at least prevented from dying. Is that humane? Wouldn't it be more humane to allow the patient to commit suicide?

I would rather have risked dying as myself than living as the emotionless zombi I am now.

Hmz. Sorry. I realise I'm overly sceptical. I just used to be really naive and trustworthy and idealistic and have some really bad experiences with doctors who were only interested in themselves and their own career... not in the least interested in a good longterm outcome for their patients. Wanted to edit the last post but was too late.

I'm sure that we've all had bad experiences with some doctors. I think that things are changing though. Here in the UK if you're not happy with your GP there's no problem with changing to another one. Sometimes you have to do it because they only have limited interest in your problems and when they think that they've done enough it's then time for you to just get on with it yourself. My old doctor became extremely reluctant to prescribe any drugs at all and even said not to bother with those mild sleeping pills that you can just buy over the counter. I did have substance dependency problems though.

I couldn't get a valium script for love or money now because it's a drug that they're reluctant to prescribe these days, supposedly because it causes brain damage or something. Also there's the fact that it's highly addictive. Even if I went out and got hooked on it they wouldn't give me a script to wean myself off it. I know people that have been on it for years though just because the powers that be hadn't changed their thinking about it back then when they handed them out like sweeties.

I think it's good that they are more careful with those.. Here they still hand them out like candy I'm afraid. Especially in a ward everyone is automatically put on sleeping pills, even if they don't need them, no idea why.