I am now well enough to talk “THEM” into my stopping medication. Had anyone else tried this and succeeded?
I tried when I hadn’t had any symptoms for several years. As soon as I went off then I completely lost my mind. Lost my job. Lost friends. Ended up completely disabled. I will never go off meds ever again.
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I think you should stay on your meds
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I’m attempting to get off mine.
So far, off of Latuda and cut Lexapro in half.
I’m feeling fine 
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@martinhersey1 I wouldn’t suggest you stop taking your meds.
Listen to your doctors.
Stopping your meds could set you back years.
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Don’t do that. It is hell not being on them
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I think going off your meds is probably a bad idea. It ends up that way for an awful lot of people. That’s why i stay on mine.
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Everytime I stopped it ended badly
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every time i have tried to stop my meds it has ended badly but i never have done a total stop of all my meds with a doctors permission.
i know i’m younger than you and you might not feel that my advice is worth taking but please try to be careful.
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I’ve been Sz for almost 2 yrs.
The 1st yr I went off the meds after being stable for a few months. It was a hard year and I had to go back to the meds normally after 1-2 months, but then I’d try again. Each time I’d stay off them a little longer than the last, but I DID go back to them as needed and didn’t let myself get too psychotic.
Since Jan I’ve only been on the meds 3 times for about 2 weeks each time, and sometimes I have light symptoms (ones I can still fully function with) but when they get bad I go back to the meds. This year has been much better for me, still struggle sometimes but I’m trying to use other tools as well.
I also made major life changes (a little a a time). Better life habits (body, mind and spirit). Starting going to the gym, making more meals (eating better), church, charities, traveling, ted talks, gratitude journals and some self help stuff, lots of training myself to see the signs of useless fears and stop them from trying to control me. I still have good and bad days but much better than last year and I’m hopeful.
I will say its hard, and you will more than likely need to keep going back on them from time to time.
But if you do it please don’t go off all at once, take less for at least a week or more - and advise with your Dr about it- some meds take longer to ‘kick back in’ when you need them as well - so your Dr can tell you more info about them. Also if you live with someone tell them that your going off the meds, so they can let you know when you start to ‘space out’ because your hearing things or act odd. If they do tell you, DON’T get upset (it’s easy to think you can handle it when you really want to) - they want the best for you - you can always go back on and try again.
I’m not advising you to stop or not stop, just letting you know how my progression to stop is going.
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if them was something special we wouldn’t need meds.
It’s possible to stop if the cards are in your favor. If you’re doing well and feel the need to stop make sure you know why you want to. You’ll need to make sure you have a safety net in place and you can catch any symptoms that come up before they’re a problem. Even if you aren’t on a high dose now you need to take it very slowly. My taper off lasted about 5 months. Each dose cut is an adjustment and sometimes it will throw your body into a tailspin. The withdrawal is highly unpleasant and most people don’t prepare you for that. If you have approval to stop you should start by cutting the most minimal dose possible. Your body will start to tell you if it’s a good thing or not. Withdrawal symptoms are similar to street drug withdrawal so it’s definitely not pleasant. If you are going to go off and be successful you have to be smart about how you do this. Years before I successfully discontinued I tried to cut my dose and never could make it so I knew it wasn’t the time.
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@wayward you are encouraging man to completely go off meds.You are still on clozapine.
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Hi @martinhersey1 good to see you
we’ve had some good convos in the past
sounds like you want to try it
good luck, hope it works out
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I stopped taking medication for 6 months now, but lately i have being having slight headache which i suspect is a sign of withdrawal and slowly relapse am beginning to think it was a bad idea, i stopped earlier on cos it affected my sexual stamina
I’ve lived in an assisted living center for the mentally ill for eighteen years, so I have a large sample size to choose from. Just about every time someone has come off their med’s it ended badly. Every time I have come off my med’s it has ended badly. A few times I was lucky I didn’t get badly beaten up. The police did kick my ass pretty good because of the way I was acting when I was off my med’s. I don’t know if I got ptsd, but I was kind of dazed for a couple of weeks.
Maybe you should just lower your dose instead of stopping them all together. I know someone from this website who was doing so well on abilify for many years so he decided to stop. Few months after, he was having relapse. He tried to go back on abilify but it never work again. He had to spend the next three years to find the right med again. What was the reason that you want to stop med?