It’s so unfair, we have to have these side effects to maintain our lives with dignity and without the symptoms.
I am on Abilify 10mgs. I don’t feel like its working enough either. I feel dismissed. Like they don’t take my illness seriously. Like its a sham, it feeds into my paranoia.
I want something to knock out the voices and the ringing in my ears. Partly I feel my illness is neurological and trauma-based. But also episodes cause trauma. It’s just that I’m tired of remembering trauma. I know ECT would probably make me worse, but I want a pill that just blocks things better. Abilify just makes me feel better, its more like a hypnotic or anti-anxiety. But it does not quell the psychosis or paranoia.
Yeah I called and left a voicemail to the “medication” line. I told them again that I want to be put on vraylar. I could deal with taking both vraylar and abilify, or a mood stabilizer and anti-psychotic. I’m certain I have schizoaffective, but the new psychiatrist thinks my addiction caused my mood issues. I have to convey I have had this illness since the age of fifteen, I’ve dealt with the bipolar symptoms alongside the psychosis and schizophrenia the whole time. It’s why I had been put on so many anti-depressants and all sorts of meds to try and figure out things cuz it’s so complex.
I am hoping he will add vraylar in addition to abilify to see if it works. I know I need the Abilify, its the only thing that has helped mask and control the symptoms consistently for 10 or more years. Seroquel was not effective. Geodon was not effective. etc. etc. and I think Lamictal was but im allergic to it.
Thats what I am hoping, so far all he would add was vistaril. Vistaril doesnt really do anything, its like taking cough syrup. I don’t think its right for me. If I can’t get help the last resort would be to go inpatient at the psyche ward. But with the pandemic and all the stress people go through I don’t know or think they will take me and I might not be a top priority but the addiction is probably life threatening, and being that my moods are all over the place one min to the next. I think that my mental health impacts my addiction, Ive noticed that smoking weed triggered me to use other drugs. So I can’t smoke weed.
Even if you find meds that work that is no guarantee of anything. I was on the right meds from the beginning, then after about 15 years they stopped working, then I had to find new meds.It’s all trial and error.
But if it helps you that’s great. I’m not trying to trigger anyone. Abilify does seem to help but I’m just tired of taking it. I dont think its the cure all fixer and many over the years told me if its too good to be true it might be too good to be true, and if I can be off it for a year than that means I’m not ill. But what I did struggle with the year I was off Abilify was the existentialism of being diagnosed with schizophrenia half your life, and an annoying boyfriend who was a user and manipulated me but was also helpful getting me away from my house, and social, he had high confidence and no issues with saying what he was thinking but absolutely ruined things for me and pressured me to use drugs constantly oh and was diagnosed with schizophrenia too and played into it like a psychopath, or maybe he actually had it. He went so deep into his delusions that he convinced others about, and pulled me into his downward spiral every chance he got to do that. He was also jealous of me, I was popular and he was jealous that i was a magnet for people, and then suddenly all those people became enemies and i was left with him who pretended to be a friend than betrayed me. So really, I am mad at the system for the whole mental illness epidemic that they are making it out to be like people were born messed up. NO ONE IS BORN with "schizophrenia’ in that context, schizophrenia is a condition outside the norms, maybe some kind of generational trauma that co-exists with systemic failures of our times or whatever.
BUT no one is born with a broken brain, or sick. No one is sick. They want us to think we’re broken. We’re not and I’m unbroken and now unbreakable I dare you to try and break me down again world, I dare you. Because I will ttake you down with me.
Lurasidone (Also called Latuda) is the best medication I have been on, and I am on a fairly low dose too. My psychosis (Hallucinations/Delusions) is completely gone and I have no side effects. I’ve tried several other meds but they either stopped working, didn’t work and/or had intolerable side effects.
I’m 175lbs. My BMI is 26. I’m approximately 10lbs overweight (according to my BMI) but my doctor said for my build I am fine. But my weight didn’t change when I started lurasidone, it stayed the same. Being a little overweight preceded my use of lurasidone.