I’ve done that numerous times. Looking back on my behavior when I was off the med’s, I’m lucky to be alive. I can start to do that even now, though. I sometimes question the need for them to put me on an anti-psychotic in the first place, but now that I’m on AP’s I’m dependent on them and I can’t get off.
Yes. HELL YES.
What I thought was a punishment turned out to be an adjustment to a better way of living, but that’s a view that one only gains with distance from the problem. My advice to those struggling with meds is to hang in there, it does get better!
10-96
Yeah. For a while I even thought they were keeping me sick.
When i was taking fanapt, risperidone or invega i thought i was being punished for going to get help instead of just dealing with the illness like i was suppose to.
I have seen people getting short acting injectables on the ward - in my opinion I felt these were often used as punishment.
Well maybe not punishment but certainly used as crowd control - making life easier for the nurses.
If a med worked for me I would not feel punished at all.
I take my meds because I felt punishment.
While some probably do become “dependent” on anti-Ps in the same manner as those who are dependent upon opiates or stimulants (owing to relatively gross physiological pathology in the linkages between the pre-frontal cortex and the limbic structures link the amygdala… or dopaminergic “saturation” caused by over-production in the substantia nigra and/or ventral tegmentum, or, or, or), others appear to be far less so.
And those who are less “physiologically” – and more “cognitively” – psychotic seem likely to be less physiologically dependent or “addicted.”
I see the same evidence of this spectrum among those who participate here on the forum as I do among psychosis sufferers offline. The more one appears to be “grossly physiologically impaired,” the more one seems to require anti-Ps now and probably forever. The more one appears to have been “programmed” by environmental influences (e.g. in the family of origin and/or as the result of PTSD-inducing stress), the less one seems to require anti-Ps now, as well as over time.
I seem to fall into the latter bracket. Throwing myself into the REBT, CBT, SIQR, DBT, ACT, MBSR and MBBT psychotherapies seemed to correlate over time to continued reduction of med dosage… as well as the sfx. I appreciate that this will not work for everyone, but do see it as significant enough to continue to make noise about it and hope that some will at least experiment with the psychotherapies to see if they get enough relief from them to de-titrate at least to some extent.
At first I was insane and thought they were trying to poison me. So I didn’t even fill a prescription.
Now I’m addicted to a big handful of sedating medications.
And upregulation of dopamine receptors is gonna ■■■■ you over if you go off your meds.
We’re stuck on the ■■■■. I just learned to accept that yeah it might have shitty side effects but being drunk or on stimulants at any given moment is worse.
I remember thinking that when I got my first prescription when I got released from hospital the first time… I was sure that family was trying to control me… and since I was ill… trying to kill me to make their lives easier.
It wasn’t until I didn’t have any fight left that the meds got easier to take… If they were going to poison me… then fine… it was time… but then the more compliant I got … the more life came back to me.
When I say “dependent”, I don’t mean addicted because of some pleasurable sensation. It stands to reason that if you’re taking a med that suppresses dopamine in one area of the brain, the brain will flood that area with dopamine when you come off the med’s. I mean that you hallucinate worse than you did before when you come off that med.
To me it points to manifestly different conditions. & also says a lot for giving some peoples access to genuinely comprehensive psychological approaches.
Okay, you lost me. Think we would sweet talk you into an Acronym Glossary Post that can be pinned? Suspect this is worthwhile info that should be shared. ![]()
10-96
They’re all just primarily very basic cognitive psychological approaches.
Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in general, including REBT, SIQR & Schematherapy
Self-talk Identification, Questioning & Revision
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Mind-Body Bridging Therapy
As Apotheosis noted, they’re all cognitive therapies, though the latter group (and depending on whose administering it, SIQR) include mindfulness training in addition to critical thinking.
I would have labeled 90% of those as common sense, but, thank you. Good to know! 
10-96
Are you sure that sense is common?
The first medication I was on was in 1994, and the doctors speculated I had depression. They gave me some Paxil, and it did nothing, so they raised the dose. When that didn’t work, they tried Zoloft. When that didn’t work, they tried Wellbutrin and Lithium. I became increasingly anxious about what they were doing to me. They kept pumping new chemicals into me, and I became very frustrated. My voices just got worse and worse, and I started refusing meds.
The first time i refused, I took the pills into my mouth and spit them into the nurse’s face. That was not too smart of me, as two staff members tackled me and put me in restraints! Whoops. Anyway, bottom line is I was eventually discharged and took my fancy-schamcy sparkling new prescription for an antipsychotic and wistfully placed it in the trash can outside the front door where the cigarette ashtray was. Sorry. I’m babbling.
Anyway, I was convinced the meds were an imposed punishment from society for being a “consumer” and not a “producer.” It took me 15 years of being on and off meds before I became compliant years later in 2009. It took about 20 admissions and lots of patience from my family, but we got it worked out finally. I used to think I was being poisoned whenever I got those shots in the hospital. I fought so hard, but they outnumber you. It really doesn’t take much to get access to someone’s rear end muscles to administer a shot. Or 3 as the case was.
It you were actually suffering from sz (or bipolar) at the time, it’s hard for me to think of a worse combo of meds, excluding the lithium. I was also put on Paxil + Depakote (in place of lithium)… and driven slowly into both acidosis-induced GERD (from the Depakote) and florid bipolar 1 mania (from the Paxil) with very unfortunate consequences.
If I had not encountered a female MD who went to a med school in India, actually understood the autonomic nervous system, and straightened things out, I’m not sure I’d even be writing this post.
That all started during my first hospitalization. I wasn’t honest about my symptoms, so they figured I was depressed. I didn’t tell them I was hearing voices. Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Sometimes I omit important details. I have a hard time putting my thoughts into printed words.
Oh, yeah. If you were presenting with core sz symptoms, it’s unlikely any knowledgeable psychopharmacologist would script any anti-D unless your symptoms were blatantly negative… and then only along with an anti-P. Anti-Ps work almost diametrically opposite the way anti-Ds work, albeit way around Robin Hood’s barn. Sigh.
Did you say whether or not you experienced mania on the anti-Ds?