Trapped in psychiatry and scared

I was diagnosed with "adjustment disorder with anxiety" in 2011 because of a destructive relationship with the father of my son.

I was naive and believed in psychiatry and was prescribed first ativan, then seroquel, on as needed basis. When I stopped taking them - nobody told me to taper - I crashed into my first psychosis. They told me it was a stressrelated psychosis (much later admitted it was the meds). They used a lot of violence to put me on haldol and ativan.

Because there was still a lot of fear and stress a year later (protecting my son against his father) I was prescribed antidepressants. They explicitly stated there was no withdrawal. I believed them. I stopped meds after a year because they took the depth of my feelings away. Upon withdrawal I had my second psychosis (i did not see the link at that moment yet, believing still fully in psychiatry). I was forced on Ativan and haldol again.

Withdrawal from haldol and ativan caused depression. They prescribed antidepressants. Withdrawal from antidepressants + use of an antibiotic (ciprofloxacin) caused my third psychosis.

I was forcefully drugged again...and lost all my feelings. My happiness, my joy, my spirituality, my love for my son, everything. I finally read about psychiatry and meds and I was dead scared and relapsed everytime I quit the meds... from terror over what had happened to me in psychiatry and withdrawal effects.

They forced me on Zyprexa, withdrawal from which was even more horrible than haldol. Now I'm stuck. I'm back on 1mg haldol. I have constant fear and fearful thoughts about losing my soul, mood swings, anger, anhedonia. I still can't feel any positive feelings and lost my complete personality. Ironically, psychiatry solved this change in personality after Zyprexa withdrawal by giving me a brand new disorder: personality disorder NOS, since I developped mood swings from zyprexa the last months. People of 34 don't just develop a personality disorder they never had before!

I can't live without the meds, because they damaged my brain to an extent that I simply can't function without meds. I can't live with the meds, because i feel like i've lost my soul, my happiness, my love, my personality with them and will lose more and more the longer I use them. And I just principally don't want to buy poisonous meds for the rest of my life, because they made me dependent on them.

It feels like a trap and I'm ready to commit suicide. Not because of illness, but because of psychiatry.

Is there any way out?

I survived Zyprexa withdrawal.

People quit heroin and they have all kinds of withdrawals but are pretty much OK in a week, it took me months to get over the Zyprexa withdrawal sickness. Nausea vomiting anxiety attacks insomnia. Trips to the hospital looking for help with that withdrawal given more of that crap getting admitted to psych , I lived it.

Marian wrote:I can't live without the meds, because they damaged my brain to an extent that I simply can't function without meds.

Marian wrote:Withdrawal caused my... psychosis.

Did the withdrawal cause bad insomnia and anxiety , insomnia and anxiety that then caused psychosis ?? If so Seroquel often works on the insomnia as needed preventing the psychosis.

I suggest the Seroquel cause when I took it at low doses I did not notice any residual anhedonia the next day.

Marian wrote:I was forcefully drugged again...

Learn about how the MindFreedom Shield may help protect members from coerced psychiatric procedures. http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/shi ... dom-shield

And

The Forced Drugging Defense Package developed by the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights for the MindFreedom Shield program. http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/shi ... se-package

Usually when they know that you know your rights and especially if you have a little backup they back off.

Marian wrote:It feels like a trap and I'm ready to commit suicide. Not because of illness, but because of psychiatry.

Is there any way out?

Been there felt like that. Pills and hospitals and more pills and more hospitals. At least a dozen admissions over a few years.

Zyprexa and Ativan and Remeron and Clonopin and WTF the more I took the sicker I got. I forgot what well even was. All I knew was psychiatric drugs and feeling like $#%^.

You can survive this. Tell me if I am right that the withdrawal causes the anxiety and insomnia that brings on the psychosis, that's the way it always went for me.

I feel for you. Don't listen to their rhetoric about "psychosis". It doesn't exist. I know how crazy that sounds but it's true. You are simply going through withdrawls and it does pass. They will try everything they can to get you terrified...of madness. You need to be a fighter. Do you really want your heart and soul taken away by brain disabling drugs? It's your choice. In other words the so called "psychosis" does pass. Stay strong.

Thanks for your responses...! Thank you guys! Good for you that you got yourselves out!

Haldol withdrawal was easier. I was only mildly anhedonic and obsessive. But the Zyprexa is different. It's not only insomnia.. it's more like a physical/neurological feeling of extreme terror and extreme depression/guilt, like I've never felt before in my life, which leads to obsessive rumination about all my past mistakes and the scariest nightmares and a fixed believe that I have lost my soul to psychiatry and will go to hell. Or actually - it feels like I'm already in hell. No, I don't believe it's a normal psychosis...it's withdrawal.

I'm really not sure whether this passes. I wish I knew how long... Somehow I feel it doesn't recover anymore. It doesn't seem to get better with time. Sorry for my negativity..

I currently have two strategies in mind and I'm not sure which one to follow:

1. Stay on haldol 1mg for a while. I can't get any lower at the moment without risking either hospitalisation or suicide. Only seroquel as needed would not be enough at the moment. Haldol works on 2 receptors, zyprexa on some 16 or so. Wait until I'm more stable, out of the extremest depression and fear. Maybe while on haldol some of the other receptors (GABA, serotonin, etc) heal. Make another attempt to withdraw from haldol extremely slowly...like 0.1mg a month...once I'm more stable.

2. Start up saffron, which is a spice and a natural antidepressant. They think it works by raising serotonin ("happy") and gaba ("calm") in the brain. It makes me more happy when I use it. I'm especially sensitive to GABA. Stabilize on saffron. Withdraw from haldol, if possible. Either keep on using saffron...which seems a lesser evil than pharmaceuticals and it's less emotionally blunting. Or start withdrawing from saffron thread by thread.

Any ideas? Advice? Hope? And how on earth did you manage to get through the terror...? It's uncomparable to anything I've ever experienced before.

Marian wrote:But the Zyprexa is different. It's not only insomnia.. it's more like a physical/neurological feeling of extreme terror and extreme depression/guilt, like I've never felt before in my life, which leads to obsessive rumination about all my past mistakes and the scariest nightmares and a fixed believe that I have lost my soul to psychiatry and will go to hell. Or actually - it feels like I'm already in hell. No, I don't believe it's a normal psychosis...it's withdrawal.

The most common words people use to describe Zyprexa and withdrawal from it are hell and that drug is evil.

It is hell and that drug is evil. I know what your talking about. I remember during withdrawal pacing back and forth in my house for hours every day for weeks cause that was the only thing from keeping me from going completely insane along with the occasional relief from the nausea I got from vomiting out my back door onto the steps. Will my mind ever work right again ? Am I going to die ?

"Obsessive rumination about all my past mistakes and the scariest nightmares and a fixed believe that I have lost my soul and will go to hell... "

Did that part of it too.

One thing I would do differently is now that the Zyprexa nightmare has been posted online by so many people is to print out every single last testimonial before going to the hospital and show it to them.

Hi, I am having these withdrawals same as these 100s of desperate people who went online looking for answers to why they are getting so sick. Help me, don't just feed me more of this $#%^. First ER visit I was told "the doctor can give you more Zyprexa if we ask him nicely" Ask him nicely for more of the $#%^ that made me violently ill and full of panic attacks I am in the ER ? I got another 10 pills and tried to taper.

Second visit I get sent up to psych and they tried putting me on ######6 Geodon, No way that high powered drug just like the one that made me sick refused. I did not refuse the 8mg of Ativan a day and went home with an 8mg a day Ativan Rx and the job of finding a new doctor.

If I had to deal with Zyprexa withdrawals again I would try less Ativan and use Seroquel to get sleep to try and avoid benzo dependence and the second round of hell coming off of that.

Zyprexa withdrawal felt similar to benzo withdrawal just more evil and of course the nausea and loss of apatite.

Marian wrote:I'm really not sure whether this passes. I wish I knew how long... Somehow I feel it doesn't recover anymore. It doesn't seem to get better with time. Sorry for my negativity..

I wish I had better answers, I made it throght the hell and thats good but I really don't recommend my path through the hell. I also started on the ADHD drugs to combat the lingering Anhedoinia from the Zyprexa and then spent another 2 years dependent on ADHD drugs to function and the benzodiazapines for at night to sleep.

None of this hell would have happened to me if I didn't go to a doctor with an insomnia complaint.

Thanks for taking the time to answer and understanding my story! Good that you came out alive on the other side! I have dumped my doctor, since he did not believe me and did not have any solutions and was telling me I was probably always like this ... but I will print out these stories for the next doctor I'll visit. Only problem: they know pretty well how to ruin brains, but not how to fix them.

I'm thinking what to do all the time. I've decided to stay on the 1mg haldoperidol for now hoping the most extreme depression and fear will pass. Getting off it is just not an option now...I'll end up in a ward. I'll use the saffron for emergencies only now...it really lifted the depression and anhedonia and obsessive thinking, but I don't want to become addicted to another med.

Sorry, but it's actually "good" to hear that you had the same problems...I've started to worry that I'm really a bad person and my guilt and fear of hell were true...It helps to realize it's just a physical withdrawal thing.

A good thing: the first month or so after zyprexa withdrawal I had extreme hatred and anger towards psychiatry and my parents (who sent me there) and basically anyone else. I used to be a very gentle, empathic person...so this concerned me. The worst anger is gone though.

For you: how long before the worst terror passed?

I think that it's important to remember that once you start using one drug to counteract the effects of another drug you can get into a mindset where you're basically drug dependant and can't see any other way to deal with your problems. In the end it can just lead to more problems. Also, you are told by doctors that they basically have to experiment with different drugs until they find what sorts you out, so a lot of them seem not to help or make you feel worse and you can lose any faith that you ever had in them.

This is maybe changing the topic a bit though because I was specifically responding to complaints about forced treatment in psychiatric institutions and not about whether someone that isn't incarcerated should be following any medical advice. That seems like another matter, even if I did say that about telling someone that they should take a valium. I might have believed that it would sort her out but I wasn't going to force her to do it. I'll grant you though that if you did have to cope with someone with serious mental problems that her taking her medication could be something that you would want her to do if you felt that she needed to.

Thanks. I do think I've become more and more drug dependent and shouldn't add another drug and another to cope with the side effects and withdrawals. It's just that I don't think it's a good idea to end up in a ward or at the bottom floor of my flat either. Which is a bit of a dilemma. Withdrawal-emotions are different in intensity and feel (f.e. complete hell-level-terror instead of anxiety, "near-homicidal" anger instead of being a little irritated) than normal emotions, so my usual emotional-regulation-techniques are sort of failing. I might just be dependent on drugs for life... but it's a rather hard thing to accept. It feels like failing.

I actually do understand that if someone is really in trouble you want them to just take a valium, don't worry...My parents have at times begged me to just take an ativan and get to sleep instead of walk out at night in a very vulnerable state and in retrospect it might have been a good idea to just take a single valium instead of ending up in a locked ward. I tend to get into black and white thinking because I'm rather desperate about what I caused in myself by trusting psychiatry for all solutions...but I understand that you're not some drug pushing person