I forgot I had this blog.  Here it is, just a scrap of all that happened last year. 

I did successfully withdraw from all those psychiatric medications and did not take medication of any kind for over a year.  As time went on last year, I realized that I hadn’t ever needed to be on those medications.  I went through the devastating discovery that my husband had been unfaithful and the agonizing months of trying to make a marriage work that was over without “losing it” and without medicinal “support.”  When my husband and I finally parted late last year, I did seek medicinal help to sleep and I occasionally use sleep aids even now.  Overall, I am able to live without psychiatric medication.

I still sometimes endure very low moods but life is full of suffering, as it should be.

As I look back on my 18 years experience with the mental health care system, I can see clearly that one HUGE obstacle was always in the way of getting proper care.  It is easier to see how different it could have been now that I have lived in Belgium with it’s socialized health care system. 

Here in the U.S., nearly every time you change jobs, you change insurance carriers and must find a new “preferred” provider.  Because of the depressions and the sicknesses brought on by the “cure”, I changed jobs more times than I can remember in the last 18 years. 

Each time I saw a new doctor, we were starting from scratch.  I wasn’t the best patient and didn’t keep track of my symptoms or the drugs I was taking and it always seemed like shooting in the dark.  The lack of a proper medical history never seemed to worry them much and so I guess I didn’t let it worry me either.

I read on Gianna’s blog that she collected all her various records some time ago.  I wouldn’t begin to know where all my records are.  I can’t remember the names of all the doctors. 

It’s crazy that these people with whom I had so little  contact made such a huge impact on my life with seemingly little care for me as a whole person.

Flicker Me

Originally uploaded by tessaincali

Me on a perfect day. I am standing on a hilltop which overlooks a medieval village in Luxembourg. It is surrounded by a river that looks like and serves as a moat. The village is called Esch-sur-Sure. I would love to be there now.

A discussion on another blog prompts me to give some background on my medication usage history.  I was originally prescribed anti-depressants in 1989 or 90.  It started with Prozac.  Over the next ten years I was prescribed Paxil, Remeron, Zoloft, Lexapro, Wellbutrin and Effexor.  Those of you who have had experience with the psychiatric system know all too well what that was like.  Everytime I went in and complained that I was still depressed or that the side effects were preventing me from functioning, they prescribed another drug. 

After a few years of anti-depressant usage I started to experience anxiety, sleep disturbances, mood swings and other symptoms I can no longer remember.  My ability to function, which had been very high, was decreasing with every year.  As a result, I started being prescribed Xanax and Valium.  By 2000, my depression and anxiety had reached an all time high and I was prescribed Prozac again.  This triggered a severe mania which led to a bipolar disorder diagnosis.  I was prescribed Lithium and placed on disability for a year.  The lithium made me feel like an absolutey desperate zombie.  I stayed on it for perhaps six months.  I sat in the house for a year trying all sorts of medications for bipolar disorder and hating myself.  I believed my life was over.  I was broken and irreparable. 

Since 2000 I have been given anti-depressants intermittently and what I now know are neuroleptics.  I have been on Clonazepan,  Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, Lamictal, Klonopin and a few others I can’t remember. 

So, in all I have been medicated for 18 years on at least 15 different medications.  I have been hospitalized twice but only overnight.

It was suggested elsewhere that perhaps because of my youth ( I am 39) or because I had not been on medications very long (18 years); the cold turkey cessation worked for me.  I don’t know why it worked or if there will be problems down the road.  I am hopeful that I am indeed one of the lucky few but I have no way of knowing what long term damage was done. 

When I decided to discontinue use of the psych meds, I tried to do the responsible thing and called my psychiatrist.  It was my intention to taper off the meds under doctor supervision as had been recommended to me. 

I had only seen this psych on two other occasions…both times he prescribed new medications based on a 50 minute interview.  When I needed to see him this time he was on vacation and I was referred to another psych.  I came armed with my list of side effects and other information I had gathered regarding the possibility that I did not need to take these medications.  After 30 minutes of talking to me, this new psych tried to diagnose me with a new disorder.  This time it was borderline personality disorder.  When I asked him why he was jumping to that conclusion he said often times people are misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder who actually have borderline personality disorder and I seemed agitated to him which was a symptom.

Here I was trying to explain that I thought I had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder due to a reaction to Prozac,  spent the last 8 years suffering from the side effects of more than 15 different meds and believed I didn’t need any medication.  He was fast on his feet trying to keep me popping pills.  It was the same old thing.  The drugs aren’t working?  Must be something else wrong with you we didn’t notice before. 

I left angry with a script for a reduced amount of my medications.  I did not fill that script.  That visit was the final straw.  I decided to quit cold turkey and hopefully never see the inside of another psychiatrists office.

Despite the admonitions I received from doctors, friends, and husband I decided to quit Lamictal and Seroquel cold turkey 7 weeks ago.  The first week I was very physically ill and missed most of the work week but by the end of that first week I was feeling much better and now I feel better than I have in a very long time.  I know that cold turkey is not the way to go for many but it seems to have worked for me.  I  was lucky. 

Out of utter frustration with the way my psychiatric medicines were making me feel I started looking around the web for others who were having similar problems.  It didn’t take long at all to find others who were questioning the efficacy of these drugs and had made the decision to stop taking them and try to find out who they were without them.

I have made the same decision.  I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 8 years ago after being prescribed Prozac for depression and having a manic reaction.  I’ve been on a whole host of medications since that time and none of them have significantly improved my life or my mood.  I experienced more happiness and joy before I was ever prescribed any medication.  I have no bipolar symptoms.  I am flat, numb, without joy and I am paying $80 a month to feel this way. 

From the little bit of research I have done, I realize that discontinuing use of psychiatric meds is a risky proposition that needs to be done very carefully and over time.  I am still figuring out exactly how to go about it.

Fortunately, I am currently on a low dose of Lamictal, 100mg and a very low dose of Seroquel, 25 mg.  I stopped taking the Klonopin ages ago and hopefully the Risperdal and Lexapro that I was taking last year are gone from my system but who knows.