I was diagnosed 16 years ago and it probably took me 10 years to find or rather accept the meds that work as best as can be expected for me.
I was stupid. My mental health and life greatly suffered. I am a whole different person now on olanzapine. I stayed on quetiapine for 9 years almost believing it was safer. It just didn’t work for me.
I’m now on clozapine. Started on olanzapine a good twenty five years ago then I tried most other antipsychotics and ended up on clozapine I’ve been on for fifteen years. They can’t increase my clozapine due to side effects. I still struggle with breakthrough symptoms and anxiety I think I would have been better off staying on olanzapine
They put me on Abilify immediately when I was hospitalised in 2008.
A year later I came off meds.
2 years later I was hospitalised completely psychotic.
Then I was put on seroquel.
I stayed on that for as long as I could, maybe 2 years. It nearly killed me.
Then back onto Abilify in 2014.
I’ve been on Abilify ever since.
After I was diagnosed, I didn’t like the thoughts that I felt the medication were putting into my head so I stopped for a year and then ended up hospitalized and put on the same meds. I have been on Abilify since then… Has kept me out of the hospital and kind of keeps the insanity at bay. It does not stop me from having conversations with people who aren’t there, unless I am busy.
Still looking…
Enough Christmas 
After 10 years of trying different meds, I got on 20 mg of olanzapine and 1 mg of risperidone and they help me calm down enough to go out of the house on my own
I have only ever done really well on clozapine, which i took for 3 years before the cardiac side effects necessitated its discontinuation. I’m on olanzapine now which is okay but not as effective. I’m still a work-in-progress regarding meds, i guess.
It’s sad to think about. I mean the generic olanzapine I was on nearly killed me too. You wonder how many people who actually died as a result of being put on meds.
A year after I was diagnosed I was put in the hospital. They gave me prolixen and I was on it for the next 22 years.
It took me more than 25 years before I found the right cocktail
Was put on seroquel for a few years, then went through a few before finally being put on risperidone, now Im on Paliperidone which is a derivative of risperidone.
Well Invega worked from the beginning. I only relapsed when quitting or reducing meds.
I still hear voices but the meds keep me out of the hospital.
So, you are fortunate in the sense that the first medication you tried works for you!
It took doctors 30 years to find the right meds for me. In all fairness to the docs, none of the meds I’m on now were even invented when I was first diagnosed in 1987.
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