I've stopped taking medication

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I have an appointment in ten days. I stopped taking Abilify about 2 weeks ago. I can’t afford to get a refill atm. My dad is coming home in a couple days. He’s been gone for three weeks on an around the world business trip. I feel a bit sharper and more alert. I also feel a little depressed and tired. I came home the other night and thought my mom was in danger because her purse and credit card was left on the counter but her car was gone. I also saw the ladder against the wall from when they were working on the house. So I called 911 and reported that I thought someone had broken in. She came home 10 minutes later before the police arrived and she handled it well when the officer asked if everything was ok. The officer didn’t get upset and I apologized. I guess that would be a sign of paranoia. I haven’t been paranoid about anything else though. I haven’t heard voices or seen things. But when I first got off them I kept seeing animals in the road and others didn’t see them, but then when I got someone else to drive she saw the same streak fly across the road that I felt was a hallucination.

How can shared hallucinations be possible? What does that implicate? How about a manifested one? I’m not trying to make excuses. I was watching the movie “Strange Voices” which kinda felt like an advertisement for the drug companies. When my ex and I had a fight, I started yelling and then it started pouring down rain as soon as I got upset. Then both my ex and I had the same cold/cough without being around each other for the past few days. His mom’s not letting me back at his house because I called the police on them for not giving me by stuff back. The police never showed up at least, and I got some of my stuff back like my moped but he didn’t give me back my key to it yet.

I haven’t been having nightmares either. That’s the main issue. I’ll have really scary nightmares and sleep paralysis when I am not on the medication more frequently than when I am on it. Sometimes I’ll get a nightmare the same night I miss a dose. The more often I’ve taken it the harder it’s been to withdraw from the medication.

I don’t know what to do. I haven’t been presented with alternatives or recovery models which would help me. I haven’t been taught to recover. I’ve been taught to see myself as sick and damaged. I went the other day to a few temp agencies to start looking for jobs with a couple people.

I’m not getting back on Abilify if I can help it.

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Because you’re usually dealing with some sort of spirit phenomenon. I just posted about that on another thread where 2 or more people all witnessed the same thing…

Unlearn what you have been taught if people have taught you to be sick. A lot of your stuff is spiritual, and some of it might be paranoia because of some of the people you have said you’ve been around with the drugs and using and taking advantage and all that. And personal traumas you’ve talked about also can cause paranoid thoughts at times.

You know what I think about Abilify… I don’t know if you remember someone on the other forum called it “Akillify” as a joke… and it was funny when he posted that, but not funny when it manifest like that for real…

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I’m ok I’m just physically ill right now. I don’t know if it’s related to withdrawing from Abilify. Every time I cough my head starts pounding with pain. I’m sneezing non-stop too. It’s probably just a bug.

I need to find something natural, like melatonin, to help me sleep. But I’m minus $9 and I can’t get ahold of my dad whose overseas so I can’t even get any food or flu medicine or sleep medicine.

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Could be withdrawals…
natural things like melatonin, iodine, vitamin Bs, fish oils, all that stuff helps, but if you can’t afford to get it…
Have to rely on Spirit for now…

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I have some fish oil and B-vitamans though. Good thinking. Maybe the B-vitamins etc will help with my immune system too. I need to connect to Spirit but I’m so worn out. I pray so much and do so much, but I’m kind of detoxing now, with the fear that I’ll just be convinced to take Abilify again and the cycle will continue.

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Just have to get through a short period of time…just think, get through it now, or else go back as you say and the same cycle all over and when you want to get off you have to start from the beginning and go through all the withdrawal again :frowning:

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The second video is a really good commentary by Robert Whitaker.

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Here’s one for you…and don’t need the psychedelics they talk about…because you’ll see it’s there without them… he doesn’t advocate their use anyways, he just refers to some who have used them…

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I think psychedelics are a quick fix and I have no plan to do them especially since I’m in a more fragile state withdrawing from an anti-psychotic. I’ve quit drinking alcohol almost completely, and this could be contributing a lot to my wellness.

I already feel like I’m lighter and less sluggish.

It’s been a battle. I’m drinking lots of water, not smoking as much, not drinking, trying to start up the fish oil and vitamins. I’ve realized that eliminating alcohol and weed almost completely has had the most impact on my stability.

I’m nervous. I think I’m just going to cancel my next appointment and tell them I’m not coming back. Is that a good idea? I mean they’ve canceled on me like IDK 3x in a row now? I waited a month for my new doctor and he canceled the day before my appointment. I had to schedule for a month later. My female psychiatrist was very condescending. She would glare at me, she told me that it was not “her fault” that I was put on the “same-day-sick policy” and told me to stop acting like it was her fault. It felt patronizing. Also, she recommended Abilify injections AGAIN and AGAIN I told her I wasn’t interested. She started sounding like a sales rep not a professional or doctor of medicine. She put me on Buspar about 4 days before I found out I couldn’t make appointments. I left 3 messages: one to the nurse, one to the front desk, and another with the secretary and none of them somehow got through of my cancellation. One was for my birthday, another was due to the snowstorms. I argued and argued my point and I was ignored. They were extreme in their advocacy of hospitalizations. One time I did show up there stoned, and they made me wait for hours in the office until my dad came from work and tried to convince him to hospitalize me. It’s not exactly illegal but it was intimidation since I drove myself there. She had a nurse watch me. It was like a set up. Granted I was stoned as F and a little manic, but not a harm to anyone and it was only her patronizing that made me feel upset.

the therapist and her welcomed me a couple years ago, with sugary smiles and told me that I was high functioning for schizophrenia, put me on Adderall, told me a client once said that she didn’t like the person she was when she wasn’t on medication, that people didn’t like her as much. It was so artificial. I wrote a letter addressed to schizophrenia and my therapist almost teared up, advocated me becoming a counselor. Then I was on adderall for a year, messed up college because I was lashing out secretly against this artificial system that I don’t belong in.

I met a diverse set of friends who were outspoken, homosexual and lesbian, open minded and free spirited. They welcomed me as a friend and we all kinda drank our problems away, I met my ex bf through that clique too. Then one by one we all kinda dropped out. My therapist got aggravated, though I don’t think I told her much about it. One day I took myself to the ER in the middle of the night a year later, and told intake counselor about my heroin use and drug use, and begged for her to hospitalize me but they refused and sent me away in tears after writing it all down and probably sending it to my psychiatrist. Then a good friend of mine died of a drug overdose.

I’ve met so many pill junkies etc. and honestly, like this is what psychiatry has created. A society in which drugs are OK, where abuse is JUST FINE, where alcohol is an ESCAPE. I never had a drug history before my hospitalization. I never abused drugs until AFTER my diagnosis of schizophrenia, and that was at 15/16. Technically 15 because I was put on an adult unit at 15.

Even AFTER my diagnosis…it was only when I was 2 months into being an adult and 18 years old, that my dad hospitalized me for getting in a fight with my mom that apparently scared her, but more-so angered her because I broke her antiques. I felt guilty. It wasn’t like I was psycho, I was just tired of the emotional and verbal abuse…

It’s an emotional thing, but I’m not allowed to express emotions, or regrets or discontent? I’m supposed to act slap happy about Abilify being the miracle cure while they saturate my already lobotomized history with more lies and fabrications?

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I did quit completely and I found that a lot of stuff that was going on must have been due to alc…Besides, native American and Irish-Scots and drink? LOL! Should know better from just all the stories. I did not get in that ‘wanted to start a fight’ frame of mind like many guys do, but it would open the door to negative visions from lower realms, and I would be outspoken about many things, and take on things verbally and with written words and spiritual battles of high intensity.
Anyone who witnessed this would think psychosis, and I would say it was psychosis, but temporary, brought on by alcohol. This also included paranoia for a few days after i drank, even sober, because I would worry I crossed some line somewhere.

I don’t socialize but I have occasionally met them. Something is going on when guys want to buy someone elses Seroquel or Xanax, all psych meds. Kida on Ritalin are usually taken off around age 12 or 13 if they were diagnosed hyper as a child, and they are taken off cold turkey, or used to be. I’ve read a few reports where the kids then start using drugs that same year because they have been conditioned to have a chemical in their system…I’ve met a few people who have done meth (never did that myself thank God) who said they had been prescribed to Ritalin before, and even said Ritalin is legal meth…Guess what? “methylphenidate” is Ritalin, a “mild” stimulant…but in larger doses like 5 or 6 pills it is not mild!

“Methylphenidate has similar pharmacologic actions as amphetamines and both are apart of a large group of drugs called substituted phenethylamines. Methylphenidate was derived from amphetamine however it is distinctly different and NOT classified as an amphetamine or a substituted amphetamine, it is a piperidine. Actually the chemical structure of methylphenidate is more similar to cocaine than it is to amphetamine. Cocaine, methylphenidate, and amphetamines all act on the dopamine system however cocaine and methylphenidate have significantly different actions compared to amphetamine but all three drugs increase dopamine.”

Have you ever wondered why there has been a proportional increase in methamphetamine addiction and the prescribing of Ritalin?

"Stimulants such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) or amphetamine (Adderall) are broadly prescribed for children and adults with ADHD.

“Methamphetamine abusers with ADHD often say that abusing methamphetamine helps calm them down and helps them to maintain focus,” said Catherine Fassbender, a researcher with the MIND Institute, Imaging Research Center and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “This may be a reinforcing factor in their continuing to abuse meth.
As there appear to be links between early-childhood attention deficits and exacerbated clinical symptoms among methamphetamine abusers, this study has the potential to increase our understanding of this relationship,”

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Good luck! I wish you all the best. Hope it works out. Being on meds sucks!

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I’m doing well. I have been getting de ja vu a lot though.

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atypical antipsychotics have terrible withdrawal. It should be done under a doctor’s supervision. Cold turkey on these meds is never going to end well.

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I only take 15 mg of Abiify and some Lexapro, if it weren’t for the horrid withdrawal symptoms I’d probably be off of this as well. No side effects (won’t tolerate them) but I’m not convinced that 15mg of Abilify was keeping me from having symptoms of schizophrenia for two years. My dad however is absolutely certain that it was my medication that made the symptoms subside.

Now some symptoms are back, not out of control at this point, but back. I’m going to be seeing a psychiatrist again (I’m terrified of them) as I’m now signed up at a community mental health center and I’m a little worried that they’ll want to screw around with my meds again. I’ve had a terrible experience when it comes to psychiatrists beginning with the first one who I saw off and on for nine years until I realized what an idiot he was (he was convinced I had dissociative identity disorder and had a multiple personality…named Matt.

Anyway, the only thing that happens to me when I come off of this stuff (I’ve tried nearly everything) is withdrawal symptoms. I don’t even know why I’m on Lexapro as I haven’t been severely depressed since I was young. Just made sense at the time I suppose.

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Yeah I’m still doing ok. I cleaned and reorganized my room. No severe withdrawal other than feeling tired all day and kind of stomach sick. I can’t have caffeine now I noticed. I’m about to make some kava kava tea because I feel on edge. I only use half a table spoon in a beverage. It works wonders for nerves and anxiety. I got a response about kava kava choice.

Also I’m in a “pharma free bipolar” community on google plus that I just joined:

"Excellent choices. I love kava kava, and it’s been found to stimulate the growth of more GABA receptors, which it acts on to calm you. I’m bipolar and we have been shown to have lower levels of GABA, an inhibiting amino acid, so the boost in receptor sites helps keep mania at bay."

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@StarryNight Kava is good, just dont overdo it…In much higher doses it can cause a semi drunk condition and also can be toxic to liver…but what you say you are taking is fine.

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Oh I’ve read up on Kava. I don’t take more than a table spoon a day.

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I’m glad to see it’s not just me who is terrified of psychiatrists. I feel that they are a threat, not an ally to me. I’ve been getting my meds from an MD for almost 2 years. I feel that some pdocs do what they THINK is in your best interests, but in the past this interfered with my own objectives.

Also, they don’t show me my respect. I demand respect! And I’ll keep shopping until I get it. I deal with a lot of crap, managed to hold jobs for years, and now struggling in college and working weekends. We all deserve respect. This disease stinks, and we need allies, not enemies.

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Ooh! I love this post! I’m a seeker myself, and take GABA supplements, taurine (another inhibitory) and glycine. Not been enough! I might try that kava kava. Thanks. Today I’m not pharma free, but I hope I find the answer someday. I was wishing I had something else for my anxiety, turned to Ativan again. Don’t mind Ativan, but I could be making matters worse. I don’t want to be on Zyprexa even though it would make me more comfortable, it might make me fat and stupid when I’m trying to work and go to college-which is causing mega-anxiety.:slight_smile: