Those Brutal Psychological Symptoms in Meds Withdrawal

Psychotropic medications, that I’d been a long time, some for 2 decades continuously, were suddenly stopped by the psychiatrist.

I shouldn’t happen this way, ever, no matter the reason.

But here’s how I can best estimate that it did happen.

At a psych unit 2 weeks previously, the inpatient psychiatrist discontinued quetiapine because he said I was too sleepy. I was off it for a few days, then at home, I started taking it again right away. Shortly after, within a week, I met with my regular psychiatrist. I reported to her about the quetiapine being stopped briefly and that the other psychiatrist had concerns about me being on it. She decided, right then, that I should cease taking quetiapine and 2 other meds, benztropine and gabapentin, and to bring in what I had left for disposal the next day, so I did. Several days later I was sick, mostly with intestinal problems and dizziness, and unable to think clearly, but did manage to make a call for transport to a hospital. I was in severe meds withdrawal, which I didn’t even know about until it happened to me. After an overnight in ICU and an overnight on a medical floor, I went home to deal with the remaining withdrawal by myself.

I weighed 20 lbs. less at my appointment, 2 weeks later, with the psychiatrist. She wasn’t alarmed at all, offered no explanation, no apology. In fact, she told me to stop pramipexole and desvenlafaxine too, and I did, had to, because she would no longer prescribe them.

My thinking was returning, I started to get a clue, and I realized this psychiatrist endangered me. I filed a complaint and requested a different psychiatrist, but the investigation concluded that I’d handled meetings with the psychiatrist poorly and that she hadn’t discontinued meds, but the inpatient psychiatrist had done so, and no, changes of psychiatrist are not granted, or everybody would be asking every time they had the tiniest disagreement about treatment. To end this story and get on with the next part, I did eventually get a new psychiatrist who wouldn’t agree my withdrawal was withdrawal, calling it a return of bipolar, discontinuation syndrome, and telling me I needed to treat my chemical imbalance, so I ceased to have any psychiatrist, which meant I was no longer taking monthly Vivitrol injections to temper self-harm urges and no longer taking lithium either.

I really want to talk more about the psychological symptoms of coming off psych meds, but without saying how and why I did stop them, there would be questions.

After I cleared the worst of the initial withdrawal, the most prominent symptom facing me was learning to sleep. Quetiapine had reliably knocked me out for 20 years and at first, without it, I couldn’t sleep. The deprivation meant I’d suddenly fall off for a few minutes, jolted awake by strong fear and disorientation. That lead into a desperate sort of sleeping, and I wrote this during that time:

Learning to sleep without the help of a pharmaceutical is rough. Every night, Stage 1, is the hallucinatory. I'm asleep, but my psyche thinks things are actually happening. Examples: The cat has jumped on the alarm clock and set it off & I punch at the clock trying to stop the noise. Or there's a bright light & noise oh the power problem again and the crew is here working on it. I am certain this is real, then I wake up, and it is not real.

Stage 2 is the horrible nightmares. 2 men are trying to rape me & I can't scream loud enough. The earth is going to be annihilated by an asteroid & I will burn up painfully. American Nazis are about to capture my family.

Stage 3, finally some sleep, but my body hurts, can't figure out how it connects & moves.

The good news is that my brain wants to do sleep naturally. The demons in my head are fighting back, but the kind souls & shamans who also dwell there are guiding me through.

During this phase of chaotic sleeping, I’d also dream that I’d woken up and was walking around my apartment, everything in slow motion, my vision clouded in static. And then I’d tell myself, “You’re not awake. You’re not. Wake up.” And then I would, for real, feeling very disoriented.

In addition to sleep issues, I was experiencing highs, moving too fast, getting several projects in process at once, hypersexuality, and a sense of infinite knowledge.

Twice I just couldn’t keep myself grounded enough to be home alone and ended up on psych units. Psychiatrists and staff there didn’t know what to do with me. They didn’t want to deal with me. Basically, in both hospitalizations, I was injected with benzos to keep me out or groggy until I could dress, eat food, and get out the words that I was ready to go home.

After a few months of whirling around in this psychological turmoil, my mind and body cooled down some, remembering how to doze off without fears, manic behaviors waning and fading.

My best help through these first months was my dad, clear across the country. (Side note: I lost friendships because people couldn’t comprehend the wildness I experienced as drugs left my body.) But my dad held in, and he’d listen to me and talk with me for at least an hour every single day. He’s my rock.

The most important thing I did was to tell myself this:

Give it time, because it’s lots of drugs that affect not only mood, but every part of you, suddenly leaving your body.

I held on to that thought, like a mantra, because I didn’t have anyone in the psych or medical professions offering assistance. Sure, doctors could hook up an IV, give me some oxygen, prescribe an antibiotic and when the UTI turned out to be kidney stones, remove them. They could test for influenza, run bloodwork, analyze my urine, and they always told me to get back on psych meds.

I didn’t because I was starting to have a clear mind and find fascination in my art and writing, huge interests of mine that were inaccessible when I was on so many drugs and hospitalized so often. The grey haze lifted, and I saw all the colors of the world.

It’s still a struggle, 3 years on, still a struggle. My mood dips into exhaustion and not caring, then lifts back up and I clean house, cook some meals, and feel the sparkle in the air. But the lows aren’t as low, meaning I still make art and write during them, and the uplift stays at happy instead of propelling me into the stratosphere.

I made it through extremely bad withdrawal, the pummeling of my mind, by depending on myself and knowing that life without meds would be better than life on meds, for me, for these years that I’ve now done it my way, my time, my body.