I want to express how I ended up with schizoaffective, but in a manner which is slightly abridged but also to include how medications were involved.
In 2008, I was diagnosed with either unspecified or generalized anxiety disorder. Later that year, my doc put me on Zoloft/Sertraline, and it made me act slightly suicidal and violent. When I would return to appointments, she often asked me if I was hearing voices, but I said I wasn’t, because I didn’t know if they were thoughts or actually voices, because I could only hear them with my mind, not my ears. After bothering me many times about it, I finally said I was hearing voices, and she referred me to another doctor who, a few weeks or months later, added Seroquel/Quetiapine to the mix. This combo made me even more violent, but it seemed to quiet the “voices.”
In 2013, due to a change of insurance companies, my doctor that I had since 2009 or so, called me and told me to stop the Seroquel, so I stopped it after a few weeks. In the fall of 2013, I weaned myself off of Zoloft, and was finally off of medications altogether. I had been hospitalized two times for being a threat by destroying household items since I started Zoloft and Seroquel. After I stopped the medications, I gradually became less and less violent, but in 2014, my anxiety and OCD symptoms came back, so I was unable to continue my Computer Science degree in community college, so I took Automotive Technology instead.
In 2016, I had insomnia and anxiety for several months due to being exposed to mold and finally went back to the doc, and I told her that I was afraid of having sz, and told her that I thought I was hearing voices, but she told me they were just thoughts, and said I only have anxiety. I also had a new therapist with whom I agreed that I would take medications again and change my major back to Computer Science, so I did.
In 2017, I changed my doc, and this one put me on Zoloft, as per my suggestion. I suggested it, because in the back of my head, I knew it gave me a cognitive boost in the past. I had done my research and found that Zoloft is considered to be a weak DRI (dopamine reuptake inhibitor), although it is mainly an SSRI. After taking it for the first time in more than 3 years, at 50 mg, I heard “voices,” and after taking it for a few weeks, it made me slightly more paranoid and delusional, but it gave me the ability to concentrate, so I kept taking it. In late April of 2017, my doctor, who I changed back to, put me on 75 mg, which made me more alpha, irritated, and delusional. It even made me repeatedly yell at my mom angrily.
In the summer of 2017, my mom threatened to kick me out, so I scrambled to get a job, even when I was going to summer school, so my anxiety and stress levels skyrocketed. On the day of my job interview, I arrived late, to the wrong building, and after a worker telling me that I was at the wrong place, I started to do donuts in the parking lot, after which I was arrested. When I was in jail, I told the psychiatrist there about my medication history, diagnosis of anxiety, and my prescription of Zoloft, so she put me back on it after several days of not taking it as a result of being in jail. This time however, after a few days being back in my jail cell, I constantly yelled and showed symptoms of delusions and hallucinations, which the nurses noted and reported to my pdoc. My insomnia came back, and I finally had ongoing audible voices.
After a few days or so, the nurses gave me liquid medication which I thought was still Zoloft, but was actually Risperdal/Risperidone. After a few months, my pdoc told me I was on Risperdal, and I finally realized that I was “tricked.” In January of 2018, I was released from jail, but no longer had the cognitive boost that resulted in taking Zoloft. Even worse, when I look back, I feel that I lost 10-15 IQ points (I had a report from the pdoc in 2011 that I had an IQ of 108, if I remember correctly). In 2018, several months after my release, my new pdoc told me that I was either schizoaffective or bipolar. It truly wasn’t worth it going back to Zoloft just to pursue my dreams of finishing with a degree in Computer Science.
Has anyone on these forums ever taken Zoloft or another medication which worsened psychosis as a result?