Can antipsychotic medicine be the cause of psychosis?

I have been taking antipsychotics for about 8 years and keep on wondering why my symptoms won't go away even though I'm taking the heaviest antipsychotics in combination. I am taking Clozaril and Zyprexa. The Clozaril dosage is 300mg and Zyprexa dosage is 20mg. Both are taken at night. Now before I state the symptoms I want to include a brief history of my past 8 years. I was send to the doctor when I got caught using drugs. (In high school, my friends and I partied on the weekends. We drank and used drugs.) I drank cough syrup for the first time to try to get high and hallucinate. It did not go well. In the middle of the drug induced terror I decided to tell my mom what I had done believing I would soon die. I thought I was having serotonin syndrome which was the first thing that came to my terrified mind having read about it the night before. My mom immediately took me to the emergency room where I waited two hours before seeing a doctor. There, a counselor came to determine whether I had tried to "hurt myself" or not. The counselor came to the conclusion that I had tried to hurt myself because I had become psychotic. The next day, I went to a doctor. I told the doctor that I thought people were laughing at me at school which was partially true as I was bullied in high school at times. I also told him that people were looking at me strangely. I think I was ashamed because of my actions and that is why these thoughts were going through my mind. The doctor put me on Risperdal. This is when another big turn of events happened. I started getting thoughts that my friends from high school tried to hurt me. I thought I had these memories in my mind, but they were repressed since the experience had been traumatic, and I had been under the influence of alcohol and marijuana. I had a few very bad experiences with marijuana while partying, when I got extremely scared-very similar to the cough syrup experience. I thought I was lucky that I had walked away from the experiences unharmed. To continue, these thoughts of my friends having hurt me lasted a few hours and usually went away when I explained them to my parents. My parents were very supportive every single time and they still are. I continue to have these thoughts that people had hurt me in the past. I could define these thoughts as delusions. I also keep thinking of conversations that had never happened. They are quite painful. I do not hear voices during these conversations, instead they come as thoughts. If you can imagine talking to someone in your mind then that is what it feels like, except that person is constantly trying to punish me for my wrongdoings in the past and now. These thoughts always go away and I feel normal, but they happen multiple times a day, every day. I kept switching medicines in the past eight years because the thoughts wouldn't go away and I eventually ended up taking Clozaril and Zyprexa in combination since my symptoms were controlled the best. Now after suffering daily with these symptoms I realize that I may have to take these medicines for life. This puts me at even greater distress. I am definitely going to have to switch the Clozaril with another medicine because of heavy side effects. This makes me worry that my thoughts might become worse and I won't be able to feel okay. I wish I could handle this without medicine and that brings me to the point of this question. I have never seen what my symptoms feel like without medicine, because I've had my symptoms only while on the medicine. (I've stopped using drugs and go to NA.) Every time I've tried to lower the dosage of the Clozaril, my thoughts come back much stronger after two or so weeks. I keep wondering, is it possible that the medicines are actually causing these thoughts? Is it possible that if I stop taking the medicine and endure the period while I have withdrawal and increased amounts of these symptoms I am describing, that I could live my life without these symptoms and be free finally?

It's possible even if dangerous. I foung out at long term antipsychotic were causing me some psychotic symptoms like visual hallucination, cognitive and negative symptoms, after I stopped them only remained my psychotic symptoms, which are less.

there are medicines that can cause psychosis

Drugs that may cause psychiatric symptoms
1. anabolic steroids
2. antidepressants
3. barbituates
4. calcium channel blockers

heres a list there are many
http://secure.medicalletter.org/w1301c

Yes antipsychotics can cause psychotic symptoms specially in young pantients and usually at the begining of the treatment.


Another theory is the hypersesivity psychosis theory which postulates that due to the strong dopaminergic binding of the drugs the body becomes too sensitive to dopamine and that triggers psychosis.

Source: I took clozapine (300 mg just like you). I was misdianosed with schizophrenia because I had a paradoxical reaction to risperdal. And when I mean a paradoxical reaction I mean just what you are trying to explain, antipsychotics causing just the opposite effect of what the drug is meant to do.
Remember the name antipsychotic is a bit ambiguous and what the drugs do is just rise or stop pre and postsynaptic activity of D2, D1 or D4 receptors ( in the case of clozapine also 5ht receptors speciall 5ht 1A).

Going on an antipsychotic and then quickly coming off it can cause withdrawal and psychosis.