I Feel Like the Forgotten Psych Patient in Med Debates
I don’t want to interfere with anyone’s desire to try or continue taking psychiatric medications. Depression, anxiety, manic states, intrusive thoughts, and more cause suffering and are hard to manage. Certainly, I tried finding my help there, and these days lots of people defend that choice, rightfully so, but I feel forgotten. Why? It seems if I'm not in the absolutely defending taking psych meds group then I must be in the attacking group.
I took psych drugs for a long, long time. I followed each psychiatrist’s instruction, believing the drugs could
provide relief, and they didn’t. But still I tried. I tried more and more, in
and out of psych units and psychiatrists’ offices and therapists’ offices and
therapy groups, and yet I progressively became worse. How is that so, and yet no
mental health professional stepped in to evaluate what the heck was going on
there?
There’s no clear answer, but now, after sometimes wild, sometimes debilitating withdrawal, I don’t take psych meds. Things are going okay.
I write about my experiences, and part of that is my own recovery, and part of that is because I feel a responsibility to tell others that psych medicating rolling out over the years like mine did makes no sense and is frankly unacceptable.
Often, for my efforts, I might be classified as anti-psychiatry, lumped in with radical conspiracy theorists, or called a pill-shamer, or told I’m dangerous as I might keep people away from seeking needed help.
Don’t ignore your mental health, and any way you feel comfortable treating it, on my account.
But please, consider and respect my account of what I’ve been through and survived and the usefulness of that to others. I’m here to tell people to be informed and in control of their meds. Get a prescriber who partners and respects, is honest about what meds can or can’t do, and is careful around switching meds and proper tapers off them.
The remainder of this post is a listing of all my psych hospitalizations along with meds I was prescribed in those periods of years. Following that is a list of all psych meds I was prescribed over this same 4 decades and the problems I personally faced with each one. It’s my data, open to interpretation certainly, but it can’t be erased. And it won’t go away by ignoring me or labeling me as a propagandist or treating me like a forgotten person.
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All My Psych Hospitalizations (66
total)
1980-1981 -Fairfax (once) -Arlington (2
times) 1986 -Northern VA
Mental Health Institute (NVMHI) (once) 1989 -Georgetown
(once) -St.
Elizabeth’s, District of Columbia (once) for 2 weeks, then transferred -to NVMHI for 2
additional months
2000-2003 (these
were all in northern California) -Alta
Bates/Herrick (4 times) -Mt. Diablo (3
times) -Fremont (4
times) -St. Helena
(once) -John George (4
times) -Telecare
Solano (once) -Fairmont (3
times)
2006-2010 -Adventist, in
Maryland (once) -Dominion (2
times) -Dominion,
again (3 times) -Linden Oaks,
Illinois (went for 30-day self-harm treatment inpatient program) -Psychiatric
Institute, District of Columbia (3 times) 2016-2019 -Mt. Vernon (5
times) -Dominion (8
times) -LAMPS (7
times) -Fairfax (3
times) -Spotsylvania
(2 times) -Chippenham
(once) -NVMHI (2
times) 2021 -Fairfax (2
times) |
Meds Prescribed no meds prescribed imipramine different meds
tried/switched include: carbamazepine,
divalproex, haloperidol, risperidone àstopped
seeing psych/got college degree largely
medicated on: quetiapine,
lithium with trials on: nortriptyline,
bupropion, lurasidone, lamotrigine, fluoxetine, paroxetine, zaleplon àgot
clean & sober/moved in with parents/meds cut back to lithium, small dose
quetiapine largely
medicated on: quetiapine,
lithium with trials on: olanzapine, ziprasidone still on meds: lithium,
quetiapine but all kinds
of med switching outpatient and in on: aripiprazole,
benztropine, cariprazine, gabapentin, desvenlafaxine, duloxetine, naltrexone,
pramipexole until I ended up on 7 at once plus 2 other meds for health issues
they caused, and not to mention some ECT thrown in no longer on
meds; withdrawal issues |
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Psych Meds I’ve Been On (over 40-year Period) and My Issues with
Them |
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|
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-Aripiprazole (lost effect after a month, then set off
autoimmune disorder IgA vasculitis) |
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-Benztropine (part of 7-drug psychotropic cocktail) |
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-Bupropion (made me excessively horny) |
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-Carbamazepine (tried for bipolar and it did nothing) |
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-Cariprazine (set off IgA vasculitis even worse – caused form of
sleepwalking) |
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-Divalproex (tried for bipolar & did nothing) |
|
-Desvenlafaxine (part of 7-drug cocktail;
ramped up self-harm) |
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-Duloxetine (set off worst IgA vasculitis outbreak; scary itchy rash
all over) |
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-Fluoxetine (destroyed any ability or desire to have sex) |
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-Gabapentin (part of 7-drug
cocktail) |
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-Haloperidol (rough drug; made me spacy and foggy) |
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-Imipramine (did nothing for me) |
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-Lamotrigine (did nothing for me) |
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-Lithium (part of 7-drug cocktail; bad on kidneys already
compromised by vasculitis) |
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-Lurasidone (did nothing for me) |
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-Modafinil (given to me to combat how sleepy quetiapine made me) |
|
-Naltrexone (part of 7-drug cocktail; was supposed to temper
self-harm but failed) |
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-Nortriptyline (did nothing for me) |
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-Olanzapine (restless legs so bad I jumped from bed, hit head,
got concussion) |
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-Paroxetine (killed sex drive) |
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-Pramipexole (part of 7-drug cocktail to treat RLS from
quetiapine) |
|
-Propranolol (don’t know why I was given this, but it dropped my
blood pressure) |
|
-Quetiapine (weight gain, constant drowsiness, killed natural
ability to sleep; part of 7-drug cocktail) |
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-Risperidone (did nothing for me) |
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-Zaleplon (dd nothing for me) |
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-Ziprasidone (did nothing for me) |
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-Zolpidem (didn’t help with sleep after that was already messed
up by quetiapine) |
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