I feel low after just starting 10mg Olanzapine right after a psychotic break. If I continue to take this 10mg Olanzapine for 3 months or more, is there a possibility I will feel happy and alive again? Will I feel this way forever? What if I push my dopamine levels naturally like listening to music every day?
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No one can predict the future. The best thing you can do is work together with your psychiatrist and keep communicating. For me things got better when I added an antidepressant to my antipsychotics.
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ok thanks 151515
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Medication alone does not work for me. I have to take a holistic approach.
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Time is the best healer. APs can’t always make us happy again but they can help. Rest and relax and just waiting for a good day is what I do. But @TheFountainPen is right - an antidepressant can help too if one is depressed.
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Although antipsychotics do have some antidepressant properties they are not going to make you happy. Nor will antidepressant for that matter. The standard dogma of is that they rebalance your neurochemicals commonly serotonin in the case of ssri antidepressants and dopamine in the case of antipsychotics. Whether on not them rebalancing a chemical inbalance is true you can think of these drugs working in this way. Antipsychotics aren’t going to make you feel happy they are going to prevent you from hallucinating and getting paranoia, along with other posative symptoms. Negative symptoms include depressive type symptoms and while I’ve seen that antipsychotics show small improvemwnt negative symptom scores, they are not the answer. This is a common untreated area in schizophernia spectrum disorders, negative symptoms. That is why many pharmaceutical companies are trying to develop specific drugs to treat poor mood/cognition associated with schizophernia.
My general/personal feeling is that antipsychotics don’t really aid in the negative symptoms. The sedation of antipsychotics means it is hard to live an active lifestyle. It’s hard to have a good mood without living a healthy and active lifestyle.
Experiencing a psychotic episode your brain has probably gone on a bit of a roller-coaster ride dopamine wise. Dopamine is also linked to feelings of positive mood. Additionally there is the ‘awakening phenomena’ where once you are given antipsychotics then symptoms subside. As the symptoms subside you develop insight. Being crazy you are unaware and thus have no reason to feel low in mood. It’s once you realise how meaningless and destructive your psychotic episodes was that your mood essentialy hits rock bottom. This is aided by the addtion of antipsychotics.
The biggest mistake you can make it doing things that will trigger another psychotic episode. Namely doing drugs and not taking your medication. In first episode psychosis your chances of making a full recovery are pretty fair, most people do. Meaning you won’t need to take the medication forever. Antipsychotic are commonly prescribed for a decently long period after first episodes. A common mistake is to not take your medication because you don’t feel like you need it. Medication adherence is commonly low because antipsychotics have terrible side effects. I urge you to not make this mistake and listen to the medical advice of your doctors. If you don’t have a distinct recollection of a trigger which caused your psychosis then I would say take your time with the medication. Psychosis is normally cause by a combination of factors anyway, drugs, truma, stress, genetics, isolation ect.
If you want to improve your mood focus on what has been shown to work. Isolation is deleterious so focus on social connections and building a support network. Work through your truma and anything you feel like is an uncomfortable conversation in your life, seek help and lean on your supports. Schizophernia has been linked with low educational attainment. I cannot stress enough how important it is to exercise your mind. Read a book, teach your self a skill, engage in art or download a brain training app. Whatever you do challenge yourself to think. Being a migrant has been linked with schizophernia so become a master of your environment. Learn how to talk to people, learn how to navigate your environment, challenging yourself to explore but never put yourself fully out of your comfort zone. Obviously exercise, eat healthy and sleep hygiene.
By sticking with the program you can avoid relapse which trust me might not feel like it but is much more important. Destress your life, go easy on yourself and take time to recover. Every time you have psychotic episode statistically speaking it worsens your symptoms and decreses your chances of making a full recovery. Because schizophernia is linked with both pre and most morbid changes in iq, you can essentially think of each psychotic episode as a form of brain damage because it literally is. By the time you’ve had multiple episodes you’ve probably done a lot of damage so really priority number one is make sure you don’t have repeat episodes.
Antipsychotic aren’t going to make you feel better if anything most people’s experiences is the opposite. People take them because wellness and being functional is more important then how they make you feel. If you take them for however long your doctor says and you take care of yourself likely you will never need them again in you life ever. Which is the outcome you should be look for. Play the long game!
It is your job to make yourself feel better and no one is going to live your life for you. Implementing well in your life is challenging, hard and time consuming. Don’t think that connecting with your friends is something that is arbitrary in the healing processes. There is evidence behind it and it take a long time and a lot of reflection to realise how and why. Isolation for example is linked to changes in brain structure and neurotransmitters. Set outside of the box in terms of how you think about wellness and apply it in your own life. Step count not necessarily causal but is corrolated with mood. If you literally put in work you will get results. People think depression is a uncontrollable artifact but it’s not. Your mood is a product of how you structure your life and the things you do everyday. If you keep doing the same things you get the same result and unfortunately people are creature of habbit. Good luck!
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Get a hobby and go deep into it. Take the parts of your brain your illness is squatting on back from it by keeping it busy with enjoyable things.
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I’m sorry for the late reply:
I think Olanzapine will remove your positive symptoms after a few months, then you should reduce your dosage with a pdoc which will give you back a love of life.
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