I thought I would give an update as to how I have been doing. Summary at the end for those who have trouble reading a lot.
Around a year ago I decided to come off all my medication and stopped seeing my psychiatrist and therapist. I couldn’t fully tell you why. I think it was a mix of I knew something was off with my medicine-the Depakote gave me metabolic syndrome so I was gaining weight infinitely no matter what I did and at my heaviest, when I went off the medicine, I was 350 lbs. (I have lost 120 lbs since quitting it and am still losing.) In addition to this, my whole life I had not been 100% convinced I was mentally ill and that my issues weren’t just spiritual in nature. This was like…my test. I hadn’t been off of meds in so long, 10 years. I wanted to see what it would be like off of them.
Big surprise (sarcasm) I went into a major, major psychotic and manic episode. I didn’t sleep for days on end, I just didn’t feel I needed sleep because I was going through a “spiritual awakening”. I ended up thinking I was the avatar of a goddess and that I initiated the apocalypse, first of the gods which I called “Ragnarok” and then of humanity.
Eventually I was ill enough to where my family was concerned and got involved. I snuck into my parents rooms in the middle of the night and told them I was God and all this other crazy stuff. My husband caught me leaving the room naked while we had company over in the morning because I had to go dance (naked of course) to awaken another goddess. I thought the CIA knew I was God and I was trying to work with them. I believed the physical world was just a simulation. I could go on. I was the sickest I have ever been. I was neglecting caring for myself physically and developed a full body skin yeast infection that if left untreated could have spread to my bloodstream and potentially killed me. It was horrible.
At the same time I cold turkey dropped THC from a very high dose of edibles and developed panic disorder due to it. But i managed to treat it because I understood what it was and it went away as time progressed. I would go back on edibles one more time before finally quitting them intentionally for good 2 months ago. I went back on them because I felt they “heightened my spiritual senses” and once back on medicine I felt I was losing access to this senses. But THC was badly messing up my husband and I’s relationship. When we weren’t high we were withdrawing bc of the dosage and when we were withdrawing we were nasty grumpy with one another and unpleasant people to be around. So we both quit them together, but the 2nd time I weaned off over time, so it was not as bad as when I quit them cold turkey but it was still pretty awful coming down from that high a dose. That could be a whole post in itself my process getting sober from my THC problem. Anyways.
I have been back on meds since January. So it’s been about 4 months. And the best I can describe it is like…waking up from an incredibly vivid dream and realizing none of it was real. The process has been very gradual, coming out of the highly delusional state I had been in for months. First I was a goddess. Then I remembered I was myself, a human, but felt I was the human avatar of that goddess. And now finally I am realizing…that was delusion too. I am finally coming out of it and back to myself. Remembering who I actually am. It took 4 months back on medicine just to remember who I actually was. To remember I was even human took like 2 months back on meds.
I don’t regret what happened. It was hell. Absolute hell on earth. A lot of the time during I was experiencing being in hell through my psychosis! But I don’t regret it because now I finally understand 100% that I am mentally ill and I will need to be on medicine for the rest of my life. I also experienced remembering what might have been repressed memories of abuse, but because I was so psychotic and have no way of confirming most of it I’ll never know for sure.
I switched from depakote to a combination of Seroquel and lithium. I also went back on rexulti. I just started the lithium, we will need to go up to a therapeutic dose with it still.
How am I doing now? I am much much better than I was. Like I said I am slowly waking from the dream. My mood is still all over the place and is the main thing we are working on getting stable right now. I think my brain is deleted in dopamine because it was dependent on edibles to produce it, so dealing with the dopamine depletion has been really miserable and a real struggle. My goal is to stay sober (I have been sober from THC for 2 months now), and get my episodes under control so I can finally go back to work as a nurse.
I was badly burnt out before and simply wasn’t ready to get back to work, and then I was too sick mentally to work. I am hoping by the end of this year or maybe even earlier I will be stable enough to basically resume my life that was put on pause due to burnout, substance abuse and mental health problems.
I am very hopeful for the future. I am progressing I think very well now. Just have to tweak my new med regime a bit and give it time and I think all will be well again. So that is where I have been. Very very sick and out of my head and then recovering.
Summary: I went off all of my meds and stopped seeking mental health treatment, had massive psychosis mania depression all of it, my family got involved and got me to seek help for myself again. I am just now after 4 months back on meds starting to come out of a year long delusion and it feels like waking up from a vivid dream to realize none of it was real. I still am working on tweaking my meds to get my mood issues under control. I have been sober from THC 2 months now and my goals are to stay sober, continue to work on my stability and then eventually get back to work as a nurse again once I’m well enough. I am hopeful for the future. I will never go off meds like that again.