Alright, just a little bit of a brief history about myself and my illness. I had never really experienced anything you could describe as psychosis until I was 23 years old. At that time I had just gone through the worst break-up of my life; I was horribly depressed, only left the house to go get fast food, and just sat around at home smoking marijuana, eating, and watching TV all day. I was living in a tiny, cramped two bedroom apartment with three other roommates. It was at this time I started feeling intense paranoia about the sounds all around me; it began with thinking I could hear my roommates muttering about me, then advanced to thinking I could hear the neighbors complain about every little noise I made, every footstep, every time I rolled over in bed, etc. I chalked this up to paranoia caused by the marijuana.
It wasn’t until I did a small amount of methamphetamine that my first real “psychotic break” occurred. I had used methamphetamine in my teen years fairly frequently, but I had been clean from it for years at this point. I know it wasn’t simply amphetamine psychosis or sleep deprivation because it began immediately after ingesting it, and it was a relatively small amount. Anyway, ended up in the psych hospital and eventually got a diagnosis of “bipolar type I with mania and psychosis” or schizoaffective disorder.
Okay, onto my question about medication. The very first medication I was put on was Risperdal, which was VERY intense for me as far as side effects go. It was very effective at preventing the symptoms, but at first I slept all day, every day, and ate like a pig. When I started to get used to the side effects enough to go to work, I found that I was constantly agitated, anxious, while at the same time just felt this weird “non-feeling,” like the world was just a vast expanse of grey, and everything was meaningless. Nothing was fun, I didn’t look forward to anything, and I had absolutely no motivation to do anything. It got so bad that I began having suicidal thoughts, and even made a suicide attempt.
After getting out of the hospital for the suicide attempt, the doctor put me on Abilify. On Abilify, the side effects aren’t so bad, and I started to feel a little better; I began to enjoy old hobbies again (somewhat) and my social life picked back up a bit. However, it wasn’t completely effective at blocking symptoms of psychosis. I still heard faint voices from time to time, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t deal with it.
The main thing that tipped me off that something was different with my brain, however, is the fact that around the time I started Abilify, I also started experimenting with methamphetamine again. However, it was different; I never really got “high,” so to speak. It gave me a little bit of energy and got rid of any remaining feelings of emptiness or “greyness,” but I didn’t get euphoria and the high that most meth users seek and that I knew from past experiences. I also didn’t get the side effects of meth; I didn’t grind my teeth, my pupils didn’t dilate, and I didn’t lose my appetite or suffer from insomnia. I basically went about my life completely normally, just feeling a mild boost in energy and positive attitude.
Then I eventually decided to taper off of Abilify. I know it has an extremely long half-life, but I haven’t taken any Abilify (or any other medication) whatsoever for the past 3 or 4 months, and I still don’t get high when I use methamphetamine on occasion. Also, when I don’t use meth, that “grey” empty feeling starts to creep back in a little bit (but not as bad as it was on the Risperdal).
Does anyone know why this might be? Is it really possible that Abilify has somehow permanently altered my brain chemistry, like in my dopamine receptors or something? Has anyone who felt like their antipsychotic made them a “different” person stopped taking the drug and gone back to normal? Or do you still feel the same as you did when you were on the meds?
Thanks for any input.
Can I get an Amen? Thank you in the back.
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