Furious Seasons

January 13, 2009

Regular People Wrestling With Anti-Depressants And Antipsychotics

Over the last few days, I've run into some gut-churning pieces written by two youngish people, each wrestling separately with demon medications (or at least they are for them). First up is Zachary Taylor (God, I love that name), who's having a very rough go of it getting off Lexapro, which he was put on for panic issues not depression. His doctor told him he'd have no trouble getting off 5 mgs. Taylor ran into loads of problems including:

"For the first time in my life I feel like I could just die. Like, not really kill myself, but kind of just let something bad happen to me, maybe take risks, like drive my car of the road or walk out into an intersection. Never had any thoughts like this ever before, and don’t plan on acting on them either!"

He's back on the med short-term and I think hopes to get off it again in the future. I've noted before that the whole issue of psych med withdrawal needs to be appropriately researched so that other can avoid Taylor's experience. It's an issue of medical ethics, I'd say.

Then comes "Hannah," an 18-year-old student at the University of Manchester, who writes:

"I am back to the darkness, teary, nothingness, the existence. I’m being medicated to hell with olanzapine [Zyprexa] and an appointment has been made for me when I get back to Manchester to talk about returning to Seroquel. They don’t want life to be in me, they don’t want me to follow my plans, to be a someone and not a no one. They bundle me up every time, would rather have me in bed and fat on olanzapine than allowing free thought that they see as socially unacceptable. They see my promise and they kill it, repeatedly, and when it happens again they will repeat it, and of course it will happen again because thats the very nature of this illness. I get up there, I am up and they crash me down with a sledgehammer not caring what I will land on. They think my parents are wonderful for getting me help, they think my thoughts are wrong, they think I am wrong, that I need to be fixed."

There's more to it and you should go read it. She's a good writer and describes herself as:

"On good days I deny that I have manic depression and on bad days I deny that I have manic depression. Occasionally I believe that my diagnosis is correct but most of the time I am angry, bitter and twisted."

I pass these along to you all for what they may be worth to you.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at January 13, 2009 12:03 AM

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Comments

Philip, my heart breaks for these two people.

As an FYI, I posted a response to Zac about the slow tapering program I learned on Paxil Progress Boards. For those of you not familiar with it, it is to generally taper 10% of the current dose every 3 to 6 weeks. You may need to even go more slowly. Ways to do it.

1. Many SSRIs like lexapro come in the liquid form. Just get the right measuring syringes and the 10% can be measured this way.

2. Buy digitial scale from EBay for around $30.00 in .001g denominations and use it to make the cuts. Do a search on http://paxilprogress.org if you want more information about the process.

3. Ask your doctor to write a prescription for the dose you want that you can take to a compound pharmacy. They will make the doses that you can't get at your local drug store. Downside is that insurance may not cover it and it can be expensive.

I realize that in complicated cases that tapering slowly is not enough especially if you have been on heavy duty drugs for years. People need alot more help that is sadly lacking in the medical community. Heck, even if you don't need as much help, good luck in finding it as doctors will mostly downplay withdrawal symptoms and falsely interpret them as a return of the illness.

Posted by: AA at January 13, 2009 02:46 AM

Heartbreaking

They are drugging the souls out of the next generation..

Any thoughts Guller?...

Posted by: truthman30 at January 13, 2009 03:48 AM

Thank you for including me on your blog and saying that i am a good writer- im really notbut its a good cnfidence booster

Posted by: colouredmind at January 13, 2009 01:46 PM

I don't have no words left to express my feelings every time I read people withdrawing.
This is inhuman to say the least.

Posted by: Ana at January 13, 2009 02:22 PM

Being on Zyprexa turned me into a zombie and getting off of it made me more insane than I've ever been in my life. It ruined a relationship and stole months of my life.

Posted by: David at January 13, 2009 06:28 PM

truthman30:

These stories are very tragic, and my heart goes out to the authors. They are very courageous to endure their suffering and to write so eloquently about them.

Posted by: dguller at January 13, 2009 06:48 PM

Thanks for the note, Philip. The withdrawals are gone thanks to going back on the Lexapro.

It's amazing that I have to have this drug just to feel normal now, when I didn't feel all that bad before. I had just had surgery and the pain meds kind of tripped me out and threw me into some panic attacks...so with no previous depression, and no previous serious panic, I was put on the Lexapro indefinitely...

like fixing a leaky boat with a sledgehammer!

I've seen psych meds save people's lives, but I surely wish we were more careful prescribing these things.

Posted by: Zac at January 13, 2009 07:35 PM

Zach, I hope you won't give up on trying to come off Lexapro -- just take it very slow. Good Luck.

Posted by: Sara at January 14, 2009 10:38 AM

I didn't have problems with Lexapro withdrawal, but I remember that on 10mg - 20mg of Prozac, I felt the same was as Zachary did when he was trying to come off Lexapro. I literally felt like I could do grevious harm to myself without feeling afraid, and that I could hurt others without feeling guilty. It was a very frightening feeling. I don't know if it was a case of antidepressant-induced mania, or something to that effect.

Posted by: Emily at January 16, 2009 07:25 PM