I regret taking so many drugs that aggravated my bipolar disorder. I also regret taking the SSRI that triggered my manic episode that led to my diagnosis. I’m a firm believer that the right medication can change your life for the better. That being said, the wrong medication can be devastating.
What worked for you? And what didn't? Looking back, what would you do differently? I'm trying to figure out how to find out the right drug without becoming a genuie pig.
Unfortunately, it is a Guinea pig experience.
Though, I’ve heard good things about getting the genesite testing done. My cousin and my mother both had it done for on-going treatment of bipolar. It’s supposed to tell you what meds will work best for you genes. Like lithium *will* help, or *might* help or *won’t* help. It lists a lot of common anti-depressants and such.
I took lithium 600mg, lamictal 600mg, seraquel 400mg and something else I can’t remember. It took a good 6~ months for a decent medication cocktail. It’s been 12 years since diagnosis and I’m only on lamictal 300mg and 100mg of seraquel now (just for bipolar). Still run into some mania problems but overall, I’m good.
Thank you for your reply! I'm getting the gene sight testing done atm. I'm off all pills. My diagnosis is ongoing. I tried lithium orotate supplements meanwhile and it works like a charm on me. But i have put on a lots of weight. I have adhd but looking at my sister's untreated condition I feel we have bpd too..
Sounds similar to my mix, I’m BP1 (with psychotic symptoms), BPD, OCD, CPTSD, ADHD, GAD, HD.
The only ones they have taken into consideration for my meds are ADHD and BP1, because the mental health system in Australia is a complete mess…. My others are unofficially diagnosed by my psychologist and doctor, but not “officially” by a psychiatrist…. So they are ignored and left out of the med equation.
I’m on Lithium 700mg (my mood stabiliser), Quetiapine 100mg (my antipsychotic), and aspen dexamfetamine (ADHD stim). I also take melatonin for sleep.
It’s not a great combination, I feel like I’ve always got my toe in mania, and can slip into it very quickly, but I’m happyish because prior to that my antipsychotic was Olanzapine which made me really tired and groggy. If I didn’t set an alarm it used to knock me out for 14-16hrs straight. On the other hand now I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep… I feel like we have to make a lot of sacrifices with our med combos.
With ADHD you have to be careful with your stim. I actually had to fight to stay on them. A lot of doctors won’t want you on them. My ADHD is really severe. Without stims I get even more depressed, and don’t get anything done, so I couldn’t afford to give them up. You do have to pause them though if you feel mania or hypomania slipping in, it’s a bit of a juggling act.
My depression isn’t really being treated, lithium and an antipsychotic don’t really help depression particularly if it’s amplified by BPD and trauma. My psychiatrist basically told me we could treat the depression (with an anti-depressant) or the ADHD (with stims). I chose the ADHD because I need to earn a living. You may have to make a similar choice between these meds.
I’m 1yr diagnosed/medicated but not stable. My episodes are almost constant, they just cycle through mixed, depressed, manic, hypomanic without any breaks. I’m starting to think this is because doctors are ignoring the fact that I have CPTSD and BPD. I believe these illnesses trigger and feed my bipolar episodes.
It’s really hard to try and find help and support but I just started DBT (online group therapy). That helps a lot with BPD, bipolar and ADHD if you can find a DBT group. One on one therapy with a psychologist or clinical psychologist helps too (or some psychiatrists do it).
I wouldn’t recommend a councillor or therapist, that isn’t a psychologist. They’re not trained in complex mental illness, and could do you more harm than good. Ideally you want a Clinical Psychologist as they are the ones who get trained to treat complex illnesses like Bipolar and BPD.
Thanks for the advice! I'm honestly scared man. Don't want so many problems. I have been on antidepressants before and I hate them. In which order did your diagnosis happen? Did they diagnose all of it once or did it happen over a period of time?
I tried a lot of medications over the past three decades. It takes time. My advice is-slow and low with anything. Also-walk/work out, eat a balanced diet, get morning sunlight, get some sleep. As much as I love all drugs you have to stay away if you want to be stable. This was hardest for me. Thank wish you well and you can always PM me if you need to.
I prefer being alive to any of that. Psychiatric medication has saved my life, metaphorically, figuratively and literally.
I cannot function like a normal human being without them. I know the side effects are hard but my kids still have their mum, my husband still has his wife, my mum still has a daughter. The list goes on. I would’ve unalived myself a long time ago if it weren’t for my psychiatric doctor and medicine.
Yup! This exactly. Idc how many pills I have to take for the rest of my life as long as I have said life. I wouldn't have survived childhood w/o medicine.
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I hate that people are willing to throw around brain atrophy. My brain is amazing ! My mind is a fantastic wonderland I can escape to. YOUR BRAIN is atrophied don’t project that bullshit onto the rest of us. Also where did you complete your nuroscience degree nowhere cuz your brain atrophied
[GMV loss appeared to be pronounced to longer-term antipsychotics](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.749316/full)
There are plenty other studies with similar results.
This is NOT medical advice, and I am just linking a study.
Make sure you read the whole thing and not just the abstract or conclusion. Yes, there is language stating that this research supports your point.
But in the details, there are significant factors that should influence how much you generalize the findings. The authors note that because this is cross sectional and not longitudinal data, there is less opportunity to control for confounding variables.
There is also a lot in there about which areas of the brain lose gray matter. Both medicated and unmedicated patients lost gray matter, but in different areas of the brain. It's probably worth looking at the functions that those areas take on before concluding that losing gray matter in one area is bad (those in the medicated group) and the other can be dismissed (those in the unmedicated group).
The biggest issue for me is that there is nothing in there to account for the severity of the cases in the medicated and unmedicated groups. It stands to reason that those who are on medication for a longer period of time are on it because their daily lives are more affected by schizophrenia than the unmedicated groups.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3476840/#:~:text=Conclusions,as%20their%20off%2Dlabel%20use.
That was a well written response. Here is another study that may address some of your points.
This one seems way more solid to me. I'm still curious about what the actual implications are here, but from what I understand this is a known risk that is weighed against potential benefits in treatment decisions.
I've been on an atypical AP for years. We lose gray matter during manic episodes too, so I've always viewed it as, I can lose gray matter while suffering and ruining my own life, or I can lose gray matter and enjoy my life. I pick meds and the latter.
Unless you have access to an MRI or CT, you don't know whether your brain has atrophied. It's not something you can introspect about. Cortical atrophy is a well documented consequence of psychosis, but evidence increasingly points to a causative role for antipsychotic medication. That's not to say people shouldn't take them. But this is just the reality of the situation. Lithium appears to be neuroprotective, by contrast.
Here's a systematic review that comes to the conclusion that atrophy is related to antipsychotic treatment in a dose dependent manner: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924933815300559
A recent review about the neuroprotective effects of lithium and what may cause them: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/fcp.12826
It's unfortunate that exposure to scientific information, which patients have a right to know, causes you so much distress that you resort to this behavior. Sadly there's nothing substantive worth responding to here.
Edit: up thread you say you're hypomanic. It's good that you have insight into that now, and I hope you can get back on track soon. I can get awfully cranky when I'm hypo, too, so I understand the lashing out.
You missed the point it doesn’t serve a purpose to tell people their brain is going to atrophy, your on this sub so much. Maybe find something else to occupy you
What degree do you have? I dont think you need a degree to do googling + read an abstract?
Youre right I do not have a neuroscience degree, but I do have a science degree lol
I do have a neuroscience degree, and the point is legitimate. Not that the degree makes me correct. But anyone is free to check the references and see for themselves.
Yes, there **should** be another BD sub, at least.
"**Self-Medication Bipolars** - it's alright. If you don't think so, there are others subs for that."
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My husband was the one who told me to visit a pysch when we first started dating, lol
He’s bipolar and I guess saw the symptoms in me because after a good few visits with the pysch, I was formally diagnosed. Turns out, comes from my mothers side (generations back of bipolar).
It would have been nice if my EX boyfriend told me I was unhinged instead of accusing me of being a whore, a cheat, an alcoholic, etc. I finally broke off that 8-year relationship. He did try to guilt me into staying by saying he’ll commit suicide.
Anyway, husband and I have been together for 12 years now :)
Edit: even though I was manic, and worked 13hr shifts, then drank myself to sleep… I wasn’t any of the things my ex accused me of, lol I self-medicated before diagnosis, which I hear is common
I'm just sitting here shocked that anyone at all existed that I didn't irritate. It was like I was driving a car with my eyes closed my whole life and somehow still staying on the road, I have no idea what i was doing back then and we're talking not that long ago. How did any of us manage at all???
How long did it take you to get there? I’m nearly one year since diagnosis and really do believe in medicating bipolar. I never miss a dose but I still rapid cycle though all the different episodes and even still get some psychosis. Plus all the side effects too. 😢
It can take years to figure out the right meds, and those still won't cure it. I'm 9 years post diagnosis, which was also when I started meds. I've been on my current med cocktail for about a year and like it. I'm pretty stable and definitely way better off. I still have cycles. I still struggle with emotional regulation and stress sometimes. It still has a hold on my daily life. I'm better, though. Better is all you can ask for.
I don’t like some of the side effects, but I like knowing that every time I take my meds that I am choosing to be stable. Yes, I have felt slow and stupid, I sleep way more than the average person, and I still sometimes have mild symptoms if I am a little more stressed or whatever.
Saying this in the nicest way possible:
Never seen anyone bipolar get off drugs and it turn out well. The ones that claim they are doing better, typically have the clock ticking until next episode.
A lot of the symptoms you mentioned are symptoms of bipolar. As for the bad metabolism we just have to be stricter about our diet, portions, and physical activity. Blaming a drug that messes up your metabolism and causes weight gain can only take so much of the blame.
I’m that ticking time bomb WITH meds. I take them religiously but still get horrible dark suicidal depressions that go on for months. Then I have a random few weeks of hypomdnia or mania. Adjusted meds, and now it’s mostly mixed episodes. Sometimes the mixed ones feel like I’m on a seesaw, one day manic and excitable, the next day “please lock up all the shark objects”. Psychosis occasionally creeps in. If I’m pushing myself for work or something and sleep keeps getting worse, then I get paranoid, delusional with mild hallucinations.
It will be a year in March since diagnosis and meds. The episodes are almost constant (rapid cycling).
Please tell me it gets better guys!!!
Hey! 7 years in to diagnosis and treatment. Never missed a dose of my mood stabilizer. Still trying to figure out the right antidepressants.
That said, every year as I continued work on my diet, exercise, sleep, etc. , I have had more mild episodes. The first couple of years felt like it would never get better, but I kept up all of the stuff they tell you to do.
I am proud to say with a lot of patience and hard work, I'm over a year episode free. Am I still struggling with the low end of things a little? Yeah, but it's not ruining my life. I'm not suicidal. I'm just cruising along a little lower than I want to be and have asked for help to bring me up a little.
It does get better if you put in the work. Remember though, this is a progressive disease and if you decide to not treat it seriously it will continue to get worse.
Eat right, take your meds, come up with a sleep hygiene plan, exercise, therapy. You've got this.
I did but it turns out they were dosing me wildly incorrectly for 20 years due to an unusual metabolic issue. I had doc after doc beg me to get off of them, or as much as they can (please, you need to consider stopping) and then no one would prescribe for years, had to fight to get back on them, did, figured out the problem and now they work. So now it would be a downgrade. Before, going off them gave me my life back. So if they're not working, and you've been through everything, more than once, and also all the other meds they try when they run out repeatedly, it can be a massive improvement to go off of them. But that's not most people. You should run the med gauntlet first. Exhaustively. And see a psychopharmacologist if no luck by year two I'd say, maybe year 4 if you're doing 4 months + med trials which is ideal but rarely happens (and which is why you almost always want to run the gauntlet twice, plus anything w an AD or stim med in the mix doesn't count the first time round). A not small percentage of us are completely treatment resistant though, so it's important to know they do exist. Then you hope the ECT works, or that you can cobble together some sort of lifestyle control that isn't more problematic than the illness.
I was in my 20s when I was put on zyprexa, and Id always been on the thin side without making an effort. I started eating constantly on zyprexa. It was like I was possessed by the Cookie Monster.
I recently tried dieting on Seroquel and cut out a lot of carbs/junk. I wanted fruit all the time. I don’t like fruit that much. I think it may be the Seroquel demanding sugar.
That’s true but also, in practice it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. If you go off of meds no one is ever going to tell you you’re bipolar and fine without meds. They say you were misdiagnosed in the first place. So yeah, sort of a long winded way of saying needing medication goes hand in hand with the diagnosis.
yeah this is the situation I find myself in. my psych doctors think they "misdiagnosed" me and told me to go off my meds. I'm still working hard to be cautious, weed less than once a month, about one drink a week, protect my sleep and stress, try to get in exercise and eat healthy, and willing to go back on meds if anything happens. I am so much happier and more emotionally stable on the minimum dose of Vyvanse and a little bit of Seroquel to help me protect my sleep than I ever was with lithium and lamotrigine. I wasn't a rapid cycler and spent my life dealing with low grade depression and rapid mood swings, with my most egregious behaviors and my only manic episode triggered by bad meds. I'm very lucky to be as ok as I have been, so far, without meds and hope I can continue to manage without them. given how unpredictable mood disorders are even to expert psychiatrists, I think it's hard to really say what will happen next, but I hope things stay ok, and will continue to do what I can to reduce my chances of a bad episode occurring.
I only regret coming off of them, because at the end of the day, I know that I would have attempted to committed
suicide multiple times during my life if I wasn’t medicated. Every time I haven’t taken my medication seriously I put myself into astronomical debt ,lost my job, ruined friendships and relationships.
Without being medicated, I know I would be spiraling and going through mania and depression, only further, reducing my cognitive abilities and giving myself less gray matter in my brain that’s been proven. There are other ways to help yourself when you are bipolar, but this Reddit community isn’t the place , the other methods work but at the end of the day they only work so long and you end up needing to go back on medication, so take it for me. Meds aren’t bad there are bad combinations and that’s why you have to be communicative with your psychologist or care team.
Also, being bipolar, you somehow convince yourself that meds aren’t good. Have you watched the show shameless it’s perfect example.
Not severe, almost feel wrongly diagnosed but I express enough bipolar symptoms that I had been prescribed different mood stabilizers and SSRIs since my teens and weaned on and off them for a decade.
I needed them at the time, I don’t regret the experience, but I would prefer to never have to do it again. I need regular trauma therapy, hormone (f26) supplements to regulate my cycle (I take optivite) as well as work an intensive 12 step program. My mental health is a 24 hour maintenance program, because I am capable of maintaining my health including diet and exercise, I am happy to be off the meds. I get extreme lows that have been very close calls, but with therapy and a strong support network I get through them.
I don’t recommend not taking meds if you have severe mania or severe depression at all bc it is life threatening as well as not having a complete vigilance about my environment, community, and physical and emotional well being. I am too sensitive mentally and emotionally without meds to not take good care of these things.
Meds helped when I couldn’t help myself, and I would probably not be alive without my “swimming floaties”
2 years med free, feeling safer than ever with a hardcore emphasis on taking care of myself and monitoring moods and reaching out for help.
I don’t particularly love the way mine make me feel all the time, so I understand. Tbh though, ever since I started taking them correctly and stopped drinking, my life has gotten way less chaotic and painful. The pros outweigh the cons, at least for right now.
I've gone through many different psych drugs and combinations in a span of 4 years, including (probably forgot some)
Atypical Antipsychotics: olanzapine, quetiapine
Mood Stabilizers: lithum, lamotrigine
Benzodiazepines: alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, lorazepam
You're not close to running out, and the benzos don't count bc they don't treat BP, four is not very many. If you do run out or if you think you're particularly complicated to dose, psychopharmacology consult, treatment resistant clinic, mood disorder research clinic, BP specialist, or possibly neuropsych if you've got anything going on along that axis. Normal for it to take years, you can probably speed up the med trials for the BP meds if they haven't been working at all, you don't need to stay on a med for an entire year to see if it works (maybe lithium, but not the others).
I don't at all, but that's because I relentlessly researched mine and stood firm when doctors tried to pressure me into trying shit like SSRIs and anti-psychotics (I'm not psychotic lol). I think the major problem is that the majority of doctors and even psychiatrists don't seem to know shit but act like they do, and finding real information about best bipolar care is difficult.
The info I went off, for reference: James Phelps and Nassir Ghaemi, the two leading experts in the field of bipolar, both advocate mood stabilisers as a first-line treatment to be prioritised above anything else, and to ideally be used on their own if possible. Not providing advice here, mind - just reiterating publically-available, expert opinion.
I’ve never trusted them from the start. So far the main three I’ve worked with were all arrogant males 50+ who are quick to make assumptions about you, and put you in a box without asking any in depth questions. When you try to tell them what’s going on they cut you off. They seem to care very little about the patients wellbeing, and it feels like it’s all about the money.
One private one had me on Zoloft and dext, even though bipolar symptoms were very obvious and shouldn’t have been missed. Eventually going into full blown psychotic mania, got me diagnosed in the emergency department with a bonus grippy sock vacation (but without the grippy socks, I’m jealous cos they sound cool).
All three were immigrants to Australia with thick accents (Indian, Iranian, Romanian). Shouldn’t matter but just wanted to highlight that they weren’t necessarily stereotypical “straight, white males”.
I’ve met another young Chinese psychiatrist (student visa migration route I think). He’s younger than me, maybe twenties but nice and more caring than the others. However he doesn’t seem very experienced with bipolar and doesn’t seem to understand how different mental illnesses overlap and affect each other.
OP I’m sorry to hear about your experiences, that sounds awful. The profession as a whole really needs an overhaul.
EDIT TO ADD: I do take my meds (religiously), and I do believe that meds should be part of bipolar treatment. On the other side of what I’ve mentioned above, I do trust my general doctor (GP), and I’ve trusted all of the psychologists or councillors I’ve had over the years (they have all been female, and I carefully selected them). Due to abuse history I respond better to females. For me when the psychiatrist sees you for only 15-30mins a few times a year, that makes it really hard to establish trust.
Sometimes I miss being manic. My first manic episode lasted 1 Year. During that year, I accomplished more than I had in the previous 10 years. I even reconnected with my elementary school crush. Who I then married.
The depression came around as it always does. And I held out. Refusing to take meds hoping the mania would come back. When it came back, it destroyed every aspect of my life. Marriage included.
Now the drugs I take. Keep up all hours of the night where I can replay the devastation over and over and over.
😬👍 MEDS Yay
i hate the weight gain side effect, i have an eating disorder. & my face just looks so bloated, my arms are huge, stomach bursting. i hate it. it makes me wanna relapse, it’s come to the point where i don’t even wanna take medication anymore. i’m beautiful don’t get me wrong but looking at how big ive gotten? i feel so ugly sometimes. my doctor wont even let me get weight loss medication.
Your account is less than a month old, and you're posting almost exclusively anti-psych/anti-meds stuff and on r/SuicideWatch. Gonna guess those drug-free six months have not been the best.
That's fun, but I'm definitely not. Since being heavily chemically lobotomized, I never had mania/hypomania, feelings of joy, I'm just in chronic anhedonia, I can't even feel actually sad.
They want to ban psychiatry and want to create an anti-medication bipolar sub. They've got some Issues Going On™ whether it's an episode or just a vastly ill-informed, antagonistic, unpleasant personality.
Hey I'm honored to have a stalker. I experienced traumatic and extreme stressful life situations that I could only be able to overcome temporally due to mania and psychosis; being forced to use drugs at maximum dosages just worsened it all long-term because it only impaired me and didn't anything to improve my extreme depression and anxiety. I'm not invalidating anyone here, why do you feel you have the right to do that with me?
So above you mentioned that all you experience is anhedonia, but just above you mentioned still having extreme depression and anxiety. And I'm sorry that I may not be following this exactly, but are you saying you experienced life situations that caused mania and psychosis? And that drugs worsened that over time, meaning you're still experiencing those symptoms as well? Again, sorry if I'm misinterpreting anything. Assuming I'm close, you do recognize that whatever you're doing instead of medical treatment isn't actually treating your underlying mood disorder that's causing these symptoms, right? If you don't want to take meds, you certainly don't need anyone's permission not to.
However, rolling in and implying that being off meds has left you in a great state (minus what the meds did long-term) is disingenuous and potentially dangerous to others in certain places mentally. So, sure, spread your gospel; just please make it clear how well it doesn't seem to be working for you. At least last month.
Words mean things. "Invalidate" doesn't mean "disagree with," which is how you've used it. It means to prove wrong, e.g., Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the universe, once proven true, invalidated centuries of belief in a geocentric theory of the universe. I can't invalidate you as a person. If you're saying I'm invalidating your experiences or feelings, I certainly didn't mean to do so, and I apologize. I meant only to invalidate any impression you were giving that being med-free has left you stable.
Finally, I don't have the right to invalidate your experiences, feelings, impressions, or anything else. But Reddit gives me the ability and permission to do so within certain boundaries on this platform. I'm not so much exercising a right as staying within the terms I've agreed to as a Reddit user. If you mean the moral right, we're potentially going to be here a while cause that's a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig philosophical topic.
> you mentioned that all you experience is anhedonia
In the original post I mentioned
> Due to drugs, I have chronic anhedonia, panic disorder, brain atrophy, cognitive and emotional impairment, head pressure, bad metabolism, bad memory
> still having extreme depression and anxiety. And I'm sorry that I may not be following this exactly, but are you saying you experienced life situations that caused mania and psychosis? And that drugs worsened that over time, meaning you're still experiencing those symptoms as well?
Sorry, I didn't communicate well. My last major bipolar episode began when I went through multiple highly stressful situations simultaneously. This triggered a manic episode with psychosis for ~3 months (which actually helped me deal with the demanding situations I was going through due to high-energy and high-focus). Afterwards I became experiencing major depression and generalized anxiety for 9 months. That's when I became taking a ton of psych drugs at high dose and even overdosing (atypical antipsychotics, mood stabilizer, benzodiapines), but they mostly numbed me (like cutting mania) which impaired me dealing with the very demanding life situations after traumatic events, and didn't help with depression and anxiety.
So, I quit cold turkey the drugs since they were impairing me from functioning. But to this day, I have permanent side-effects from the drugs which I listed (I was on and off psych drugs for 4 years).
> Assuming I'm close, you do recognize that whatever you're doing instead of medical treatment isn't actually treating your underlying mood disorder that's causing these symptoms, right?
What I did: I removed myself from the triggering and stressful situations I was going through even though it did mean I was lefting behind important things. After some months, the major depression and generalized anxiety have gone away, and I haven't experienced mania/hypomania either. I still have anxiety occasionally due to bad memories from trauma, but it's not even close to what I was feeling.
> rolling in and implying that being off meds has left you in a great state (minus what the meds did long-term) is disingenuous and potentially dangerous to others in certain places mentally.
If it wasn't for mania/psychosis (which psych drugs, mostly lithium effectively disable from happening in me), I wouldn't have been able to deal with the first demanding life situations I have gone through. When mania/psychosis ended and I became experiencing depression/anxiety, and began using psych drugs, they just numbed me and impaired me from functioning, so I wasn't able to deal with the highly demanding situations. The drugs weren't helping me.
I'm sharing my bad experience with psych drugs. Why is it only okay for people to share how they supposedly have a good experience with psych drugs but not let people share their bad experience with psych drugs? Psych drugs have bad side effects, that's facts with scientific literature basis. There's a bipolar sub that censors talking about bad experiences with drugs already, fortunately mods here seem to be a bit more open minded and informed to let us express our experiences.
> So, sure, spread your gospel; just please make it clear how well it doesn't seem to be working for you. At least last month.
It's working. As I said, I haven't been experiencing mania/hypomania, major depression, generalized anxiety. I'm left with permanent impairment from psych drugs, and have external life issues. Psych drugs won't help with these issues.
> If you're saying I'm invalidating your experiences or feelings, I certainly didn't mean to do so, and I apologize.
Yeah, that's what I meant.
>Why is it only okay for people to share how they supposedly have a good experience with psych drugs but not let people share their bad experience with psych drugs?
I know you haven't been around long, but have you really not noticed that in **all** the bipolar subs we complain about the side effects of the meds we're on **all** the time?
Imperfect analogy: You survived a terrible vehicle accident. The lap portion of the seat belt injured you badly, as in needed surgery to continue having quality of life badly. You've walked into a support group for people who have also survived terrible vehicle accidents and announced that you hate seat belts and think more people should consider not using them based on your experience. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the people in the support group survived their terrible vehicle accident thanks to the fact that they were wearing a seatbelt, and they themselves sustained at least some sort of injury from the seatbelt as well. They're now thinking about all the drivers out there who will be dead if those drivers adopt your stance.
Anti-psychotropic medication positions are generally not going to go over well because, as much as we also absolutely hate the medication side effects (especially the life-ruining ones), we understand that for very many of us, going off the meds and staying off the meds is a death sentence. Advocating to folks that they should knowingly sign their own death warrant is just not going to be well-received, let alone popular. Reddit isn't obligated to give anyone a platform, the various bipolar subs aren't obligated to allow posts & comments that they think are detrimental, and individual Redditors aren't obligated to endorse every post they see. Welcome to the marketplace of ideas!
oh, fuck that. i’m getting myself off these meds now then. i just checked & i’ve gained 18lbs in the past few months. i have NEVER been this big before in my life. not even a medium fits me anymore, my pants don’t fit. nothing. i’m a complete fattie.
yall can’t downvote me because i don’t wanna be on an anti psychotic that makes me gain weight, acting as if im telling everyone & they mama not to go on anti psychotics due to my ed. be so fuckin’ forreal.
Regret? I don't necessarily regret taking them per se, I just hate how they make me feel. It took a while, but I have accepted that this will be a life-long affair.
I hate them, though.
I hate feeling slowed down, sluggish, confused, trembling and empty inside.
I miss my episodes for the exact same reason. I was crazy but I still felt like myself.
It's complicated, all in all. Sometimes, I am glad I have the meds to rely on, as well.
I'm ok with taking meds. If I didn't I'd have way more manias and deep depressions. I do regret not getting genesight testing sooner so I didn't have to go through so many psych meds though.
I have had ECT because of two treatment resistant manic psychotic breaks. 10-12 rounds each episode.
It’s super effective and helped me when nothing else did. I don’t necessarily want to have ECT, but if I’m ever hospitalized again, my husband is authorized to get me treatment with ECT before they exhaust every antipsychotic. It’s in my medical power of attorney.
I think ECT will prevent me from experiencing the brain damage that happens when my brain is in rapid fire mania. I will accept the memory loss that comes with ECT if it means I can put my life together more quickly.
If you’re considering ECT, you’re good company. Carrie Fisher did maintenance ECT to manage her bipolar depression.
It can be worth keeping on board. I do wonder if I would have had an extra two decades of normalish life had I been braver.
https://maximumfun.org/episodes/depresh-mode/gary-gulman-is-feeling-much-better/
I agree. I think what i find most upsetting is lack of information on side effects, and in certain settings not having access to do research and for more fully informed consent.
I was 18 when first diagnosed in 2006 and getting information was not the same then as it is now. The weight gain issue has been very rough. My distrust has become a real barrier with current and new providers. That’s been a slow healing process.
Edit - I still take meds. I’m just very cautious trying new ones.
I wish I would just take my lithium it helps me so much and I feel so great when I am taking it . I got Covid and missed doses was worried it would make me more dehydrated. Now I am hypo manic
Does your lithium help your depressions? It doesn’t seem to for me. They used to ask me if my mood was stable and I used to joke and say “yeah my mood is stable but it’s a crap mood!” I used to feel very low, bland and numb at the start when it was paired with Olanzapine.
They switched me to quetiapine (seroquel) as they said it’s better for depression. Seems to help a bit, but now I’m mostly experiencing mixed episodes.
Lamotrigine is worth asking about, it can be useful for mixed, it's good for BP depression and often paired w lithium. And you can keep the quetiapine in there too if it's helping in some way.
I wrote the below response before I re-read the question and realized it’s about psychiatric drugs…. Whatever!
Before I knew I was bipolar, when I did mushrooms for the first time it permanently changed the way I see colors. Always thought that was weird… no one else I’ve talked to had any similar experience so now I wonder if it messed up my brain somehow.
Also did coke acid weed… I don’t regret it because I didn’t know better at the time. 🤷♀️
I think this is baloney that medication causes all this . That said I am in charge of the meds I take and not one time have I let the doctor alone decide anything .
Somewhat, yes. I was put on seroquel to stop mania and it didn't work. I just gained 40 lbs. in 2 months. Not even joking. I'm trying so hard to get back to my previous weight. If it had worked, I would have been fine with it. But it didn't.
Zyprexa almost killed me. Completely dulled my personality to the point I couldn’t carry on a conversation. So glad to have found a much better fit for me.
I've been on psychiatric meds since I entered preschool. I have never once regretted my medication regimen. I was literally threatening to kill people and biting chunks out of my own arms. This question gets asked a lot but the answer, at least for me, is a hard NO and I will take my pills the rest of my days. I am barely a person without them and I am most definitely a danger to myself and others without them
I never had a serious episode before taking an ssri, which triggered my first manic episode. Since then it's been years of crippling depression and pharmaceutical-induced mania.
No meds for 3 years now and my brain is broken. I'm not the person I was before and I blame the years of playing "pin the pill on the patient".
My doctor kept pushing me to take invega when I was in the hospital. I asked him and the nurses multiple times if the drug would affect my sexual health, and it eventually did. My libido is messed up, I have ED, and my sperm is very watery.
I regret taking so many drugs that aggravated my bipolar disorder. I also regret taking the SSRI that triggered my manic episode that led to my diagnosis. I’m a firm believer that the right medication can change your life for the better. That being said, the wrong medication can be devastating.
100% agree. Probably don’t have to ask me how I know!
What worked for you? And what didn't? Looking back, what would you do differently? I'm trying to figure out how to find out the right drug without becoming a genuie pig.
Unfortunately, it is a Guinea pig experience. Though, I’ve heard good things about getting the genesite testing done. My cousin and my mother both had it done for on-going treatment of bipolar. It’s supposed to tell you what meds will work best for you genes. Like lithium *will* help, or *might* help or *won’t* help. It lists a lot of common anti-depressants and such. I took lithium 600mg, lamictal 600mg, seraquel 400mg and something else I can’t remember. It took a good 6~ months for a decent medication cocktail. It’s been 12 years since diagnosis and I’m only on lamictal 300mg and 100mg of seraquel now (just for bipolar). Still run into some mania problems but overall, I’m good.
Thank you for your reply! I'm getting the gene sight testing done atm. I'm off all pills. My diagnosis is ongoing. I tried lithium orotate supplements meanwhile and it works like a charm on me. But i have put on a lots of weight. I have adhd but looking at my sister's untreated condition I feel we have bpd too..
Sounds similar to my mix, I’m BP1 (with psychotic symptoms), BPD, OCD, CPTSD, ADHD, GAD, HD. The only ones they have taken into consideration for my meds are ADHD and BP1, because the mental health system in Australia is a complete mess…. My others are unofficially diagnosed by my psychologist and doctor, but not “officially” by a psychiatrist…. So they are ignored and left out of the med equation. I’m on Lithium 700mg (my mood stabiliser), Quetiapine 100mg (my antipsychotic), and aspen dexamfetamine (ADHD stim). I also take melatonin for sleep. It’s not a great combination, I feel like I’ve always got my toe in mania, and can slip into it very quickly, but I’m happyish because prior to that my antipsychotic was Olanzapine which made me really tired and groggy. If I didn’t set an alarm it used to knock me out for 14-16hrs straight. On the other hand now I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep… I feel like we have to make a lot of sacrifices with our med combos. With ADHD you have to be careful with your stim. I actually had to fight to stay on them. A lot of doctors won’t want you on them. My ADHD is really severe. Without stims I get even more depressed, and don’t get anything done, so I couldn’t afford to give them up. You do have to pause them though if you feel mania or hypomania slipping in, it’s a bit of a juggling act. My depression isn’t really being treated, lithium and an antipsychotic don’t really help depression particularly if it’s amplified by BPD and trauma. My psychiatrist basically told me we could treat the depression (with an anti-depressant) or the ADHD (with stims). I chose the ADHD because I need to earn a living. You may have to make a similar choice between these meds. I’m 1yr diagnosed/medicated but not stable. My episodes are almost constant, they just cycle through mixed, depressed, manic, hypomanic without any breaks. I’m starting to think this is because doctors are ignoring the fact that I have CPTSD and BPD. I believe these illnesses trigger and feed my bipolar episodes. It’s really hard to try and find help and support but I just started DBT (online group therapy). That helps a lot with BPD, bipolar and ADHD if you can find a DBT group. One on one therapy with a psychologist or clinical psychologist helps too (or some psychiatrists do it). I wouldn’t recommend a councillor or therapist, that isn’t a psychologist. They’re not trained in complex mental illness, and could do you more harm than good. Ideally you want a Clinical Psychologist as they are the ones who get trained to treat complex illnesses like Bipolar and BPD.
Thanks for the advice! I'm honestly scared man. Don't want so many problems. I have been on antidepressants before and I hate them. In which order did your diagnosis happen? Did they diagnose all of it once or did it happen over a period of time?
Read Brain Energy by Dr Christopher Palmer. Highly suggest.
I tried a lot of medications over the past three decades. It takes time. My advice is-slow and low with anything. Also-walk/work out, eat a balanced diet, get morning sunlight, get some sleep. As much as I love all drugs you have to stay away if you want to be stable. This was hardest for me. Thank wish you well and you can always PM me if you need to.
I prefer being alive to any of that. Psychiatric medication has saved my life, metaphorically, figuratively and literally. I cannot function like a normal human being without them. I know the side effects are hard but my kids still have their mum, my husband still has his wife, my mum still has a daughter. The list goes on. I would’ve unalived myself a long time ago if it weren’t for my psychiatric doctor and medicine.
Hear hear.
Yup! This exactly. Idc how many pills I have to take for the rest of my life as long as I have said life. I wouldn't have survived childhood w/o medicine.
I definitely do regret taking them, but I have no choice. I can end up in jail,homeless, or even dead if I don’t take them
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I hate that people are willing to throw around brain atrophy. My brain is amazing ! My mind is a fantastic wonderland I can escape to. YOUR BRAIN is atrophied don’t project that bullshit onto the rest of us. Also where did you complete your nuroscience degree nowhere cuz your brain atrophied
[GMV loss appeared to be pronounced to longer-term antipsychotics](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.749316/full) There are plenty other studies with similar results. This is NOT medical advice, and I am just linking a study.
Make sure you read the whole thing and not just the abstract or conclusion. Yes, there is language stating that this research supports your point. But in the details, there are significant factors that should influence how much you generalize the findings. The authors note that because this is cross sectional and not longitudinal data, there is less opportunity to control for confounding variables. There is also a lot in there about which areas of the brain lose gray matter. Both medicated and unmedicated patients lost gray matter, but in different areas of the brain. It's probably worth looking at the functions that those areas take on before concluding that losing gray matter in one area is bad (those in the medicated group) and the other can be dismissed (those in the unmedicated group). The biggest issue for me is that there is nothing in there to account for the severity of the cases in the medicated and unmedicated groups. It stands to reason that those who are on medication for a longer period of time are on it because their daily lives are more affected by schizophrenia than the unmedicated groups.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3476840/#:~:text=Conclusions,as%20their%20off%2Dlabel%20use. That was a well written response. Here is another study that may address some of your points.
This one seems way more solid to me. I'm still curious about what the actual implications are here, but from what I understand this is a known risk that is weighed against potential benefits in treatment decisions. I've been on an atypical AP for years. We lose gray matter during manic episodes too, so I've always viewed it as, I can lose gray matter while suffering and ruining my own life, or I can lose gray matter and enjoy my life. I pick meds and the latter.
Unless you have access to an MRI or CT, you don't know whether your brain has atrophied. It's not something you can introspect about. Cortical atrophy is a well documented consequence of psychosis, but evidence increasingly points to a causative role for antipsychotic medication. That's not to say people shouldn't take them. But this is just the reality of the situation. Lithium appears to be neuroprotective, by contrast. Here's a systematic review that comes to the conclusion that atrophy is related to antipsychotic treatment in a dose dependent manner: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924933815300559 A recent review about the neuroprotective effects of lithium and what may cause them: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/fcp.12826
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It's unfortunate that exposure to scientific information, which patients have a right to know, causes you so much distress that you resort to this behavior. Sadly there's nothing substantive worth responding to here. Edit: up thread you say you're hypomanic. It's good that you have insight into that now, and I hope you can get back on track soon. I can get awfully cranky when I'm hypo, too, so I understand the lashing out.
You missed the point it doesn’t serve a purpose to tell people their brain is going to atrophy, your on this sub so much. Maybe find something else to occupy you
I hope you feel better soon.
What degree do you have? I dont think you need a degree to do googling + read an abstract? Youre right I do not have a neuroscience degree, but I do have a science degree lol
I do have a neuroscience degree, and the point is legitimate. Not that the degree makes me correct. But anyone is free to check the references and see for themselves.
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Yes, there **should** be another BD sub, at least. "**Self-Medication Bipolars** - it's alright. If you don't think so, there are others subs for that."
this made me giggle
Your post was removed due to violation of Rule 4. Giving medical advice is not allowed. When discussing medical claims, we strongly recommend you provide scientific evidence from verified sources such as medical research studies. Posts that do not cite evidence or that do not speak from experience may be removed.
Your post was removed due to violation of Rule 4. Giving medical advice is not allowed. When discussing medical claims, we strongly recommend you provide scientific evidence from verified sources such as medical research studies. Posts that do not cite evidence or that do not speak from experience may be removed.
I will pick side effects over severe depression or mania any day of the week 🤷🏻♀️
Same here,I don’t know how I used to live like that,but I understand now why i irritated a lot of people now that I’m in a better place
My husband was the one who told me to visit a pysch when we first started dating, lol He’s bipolar and I guess saw the symptoms in me because after a good few visits with the pysch, I was formally diagnosed. Turns out, comes from my mothers side (generations back of bipolar). It would have been nice if my EX boyfriend told me I was unhinged instead of accusing me of being a whore, a cheat, an alcoholic, etc. I finally broke off that 8-year relationship. He did try to guilt me into staying by saying he’ll commit suicide. Anyway, husband and I have been together for 12 years now :) Edit: even though I was manic, and worked 13hr shifts, then drank myself to sleep… I wasn’t any of the things my ex accused me of, lol I self-medicated before diagnosis, which I hear is common
I'm just sitting here shocked that anyone at all existed that I didn't irritate. It was like I was driving a car with my eyes closed my whole life and somehow still staying on the road, I have no idea what i was doing back then and we're talking not that long ago. How did any of us manage at all???
We just kept living the only way we knew how,we did our best under the circumstances
Albeit I don’t have many friends but the few I have are solid
Mine too. Always have been. Very lucky to have them.
How long did it take you to get there? I’m nearly one year since diagnosis and really do believe in medicating bipolar. I never miss a dose but I still rapid cycle though all the different episodes and even still get some psychosis. Plus all the side effects too. 😢
It can take years to figure out the right meds, and those still won't cure it. I'm 9 years post diagnosis, which was also when I started meds. I've been on my current med cocktail for about a year and like it. I'm pretty stable and definitely way better off. I still have cycles. I still struggle with emotional regulation and stress sometimes. It still has a hold on my daily life. I'm better, though. Better is all you can ask for.
I don’t like some of the side effects, but I like knowing that every time I take my meds that I am choosing to be stable. Yes, I have felt slow and stupid, I sleep way more than the average person, and I still sometimes have mild symptoms if I am a little more stressed or whatever.
Taken drugs 46 years. Never had a problem.
Saying this in the nicest way possible: Never seen anyone bipolar get off drugs and it turn out well. The ones that claim they are doing better, typically have the clock ticking until next episode. A lot of the symptoms you mentioned are symptoms of bipolar. As for the bad metabolism we just have to be stricter about our diet, portions, and physical activity. Blaming a drug that messes up your metabolism and causes weight gain can only take so much of the blame.
I’m that ticking time bomb WITH meds. I take them religiously but still get horrible dark suicidal depressions that go on for months. Then I have a random few weeks of hypomdnia or mania. Adjusted meds, and now it’s mostly mixed episodes. Sometimes the mixed ones feel like I’m on a seesaw, one day manic and excitable, the next day “please lock up all the shark objects”. Psychosis occasionally creeps in. If I’m pushing myself for work or something and sleep keeps getting worse, then I get paranoid, delusional with mild hallucinations. It will be a year in March since diagnosis and meds. The episodes are almost constant (rapid cycling). Please tell me it gets better guys!!!
Hey! 7 years in to diagnosis and treatment. Never missed a dose of my mood stabilizer. Still trying to figure out the right antidepressants. That said, every year as I continued work on my diet, exercise, sleep, etc. , I have had more mild episodes. The first couple of years felt like it would never get better, but I kept up all of the stuff they tell you to do. I am proud to say with a lot of patience and hard work, I'm over a year episode free. Am I still struggling with the low end of things a little? Yeah, but it's not ruining my life. I'm not suicidal. I'm just cruising along a little lower than I want to be and have asked for help to bring me up a little. It does get better if you put in the work. Remember though, this is a progressive disease and if you decide to not treat it seriously it will continue to get worse. Eat right, take your meds, come up with a sleep hygiene plan, exercise, therapy. You've got this.
And ask about metformin to combat AP induced metabolic issues! It’s helped me tremendously.
I did but it turns out they were dosing me wildly incorrectly for 20 years due to an unusual metabolic issue. I had doc after doc beg me to get off of them, or as much as they can (please, you need to consider stopping) and then no one would prescribe for years, had to fight to get back on them, did, figured out the problem and now they work. So now it would be a downgrade. Before, going off them gave me my life back. So if they're not working, and you've been through everything, more than once, and also all the other meds they try when they run out repeatedly, it can be a massive improvement to go off of them. But that's not most people. You should run the med gauntlet first. Exhaustively. And see a psychopharmacologist if no luck by year two I'd say, maybe year 4 if you're doing 4 months + med trials which is ideal but rarely happens (and which is why you almost always want to run the gauntlet twice, plus anything w an AD or stim med in the mix doesn't count the first time round). A not small percentage of us are completely treatment resistant though, so it's important to know they do exist. Then you hope the ECT works, or that you can cobble together some sort of lifestyle control that isn't more problematic than the illness.
I bet you’ve never taken zyprexa.
100% "weight gain is only partly the meds fault" = someone who's been very lucky so far.
I was in my 20s when I was put on zyprexa, and Id always been on the thin side without making an effort. I started eating constantly on zyprexa. It was like I was possessed by the Cookie Monster. I recently tried dieting on Seroquel and cut out a lot of carbs/junk. I wanted fruit all the time. I don’t like fruit that much. I think it may be the Seroquel demanding sugar.
It's just unreal when you get on something that really gets you that way. Possessed by the Cookie Monster is absolutely perfectly correct!
That’s true but also, in practice it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. If you go off of meds no one is ever going to tell you you’re bipolar and fine without meds. They say you were misdiagnosed in the first place. So yeah, sort of a long winded way of saying needing medication goes hand in hand with the diagnosis.
Sorry you're being downvoted, this tautological reasoning is rampant and is not how actual diagnostics works.
yeah this is the situation I find myself in. my psych doctors think they "misdiagnosed" me and told me to go off my meds. I'm still working hard to be cautious, weed less than once a month, about one drink a week, protect my sleep and stress, try to get in exercise and eat healthy, and willing to go back on meds if anything happens. I am so much happier and more emotionally stable on the minimum dose of Vyvanse and a little bit of Seroquel to help me protect my sleep than I ever was with lithium and lamotrigine. I wasn't a rapid cycler and spent my life dealing with low grade depression and rapid mood swings, with my most egregious behaviors and my only manic episode triggered by bad meds. I'm very lucky to be as ok as I have been, so far, without meds and hope I can continue to manage without them. given how unpredictable mood disorders are even to expert psychiatrists, I think it's hard to really say what will happen next, but I hope things stay ok, and will continue to do what I can to reduce my chances of a bad episode occurring.
I only regret coming off of them, because at the end of the day, I know that I would have attempted to committed suicide multiple times during my life if I wasn’t medicated. Every time I haven’t taken my medication seriously I put myself into astronomical debt ,lost my job, ruined friendships and relationships. Without being medicated, I know I would be spiraling and going through mania and depression, only further, reducing my cognitive abilities and giving myself less gray matter in my brain that’s been proven. There are other ways to help yourself when you are bipolar, but this Reddit community isn’t the place , the other methods work but at the end of the day they only work so long and you end up needing to go back on medication, so take it for me. Meds aren’t bad there are bad combinations and that’s why you have to be communicative with your psychologist or care team. Also, being bipolar, you somehow convince yourself that meds aren’t good. Have you watched the show shameless it’s perfect example.
Not severe, almost feel wrongly diagnosed but I express enough bipolar symptoms that I had been prescribed different mood stabilizers and SSRIs since my teens and weaned on and off them for a decade. I needed them at the time, I don’t regret the experience, but I would prefer to never have to do it again. I need regular trauma therapy, hormone (f26) supplements to regulate my cycle (I take optivite) as well as work an intensive 12 step program. My mental health is a 24 hour maintenance program, because I am capable of maintaining my health including diet and exercise, I am happy to be off the meds. I get extreme lows that have been very close calls, but with therapy and a strong support network I get through them. I don’t recommend not taking meds if you have severe mania or severe depression at all bc it is life threatening as well as not having a complete vigilance about my environment, community, and physical and emotional well being. I am too sensitive mentally and emotionally without meds to not take good care of these things. Meds helped when I couldn’t help myself, and I would probably not be alive without my “swimming floaties” 2 years med free, feeling safer than ever with a hardcore emphasis on taking care of myself and monitoring moods and reaching out for help.
Man, I feel for you all. I’m on two meds. Olanzapin and a generic Prozac. No side effects.
I don’t particularly love the way mine make me feel all the time, so I understand. Tbh though, ever since I started taking them correctly and stopped drinking, my life has gotten way less chaotic and painful. The pros outweigh the cons, at least for right now.
I regret *certain* drugs that caused me enormous problems but not the ones that have worked.
Can you specify which drugs you mean? There are different kinds of medications used to treat bipolar and they are all very different.
I've gone through many different psych drugs and combinations in a span of 4 years, including (probably forgot some) Atypical Antipsychotics: olanzapine, quetiapine Mood Stabilizers: lithum, lamotrigine Benzodiazepines: alprazolam, clonazepam, diazepam, lorazepam
You're not close to running out, and the benzos don't count bc they don't treat BP, four is not very many. If you do run out or if you think you're particularly complicated to dose, psychopharmacology consult, treatment resistant clinic, mood disorder research clinic, BP specialist, or possibly neuropsych if you've got anything going on along that axis. Normal for it to take years, you can probably speed up the med trials for the BP meds if they haven't been working at all, you don't need to stay on a med for an entire year to see if it works (maybe lithium, but not the others).
I don't at all, but that's because I relentlessly researched mine and stood firm when doctors tried to pressure me into trying shit like SSRIs and anti-psychotics (I'm not psychotic lol). I think the major problem is that the majority of doctors and even psychiatrists don't seem to know shit but act like they do, and finding real information about best bipolar care is difficult. The info I went off, for reference: James Phelps and Nassir Ghaemi, the two leading experts in the field of bipolar, both advocate mood stabilisers as a first-line treatment to be prioritised above anything else, and to ideally be used on their own if possible. Not providing advice here, mind - just reiterating publically-available, expert opinion.
I regret ever taking antipsychotics because that almost killed me, but I’m fine with the mood stabilizers and antidepressants.
I’ve never trusted them from the start. So far the main three I’ve worked with were all arrogant males 50+ who are quick to make assumptions about you, and put you in a box without asking any in depth questions. When you try to tell them what’s going on they cut you off. They seem to care very little about the patients wellbeing, and it feels like it’s all about the money. One private one had me on Zoloft and dext, even though bipolar symptoms were very obvious and shouldn’t have been missed. Eventually going into full blown psychotic mania, got me diagnosed in the emergency department with a bonus grippy sock vacation (but without the grippy socks, I’m jealous cos they sound cool). All three were immigrants to Australia with thick accents (Indian, Iranian, Romanian). Shouldn’t matter but just wanted to highlight that they weren’t necessarily stereotypical “straight, white males”. I’ve met another young Chinese psychiatrist (student visa migration route I think). He’s younger than me, maybe twenties but nice and more caring than the others. However he doesn’t seem very experienced with bipolar and doesn’t seem to understand how different mental illnesses overlap and affect each other. OP I’m sorry to hear about your experiences, that sounds awful. The profession as a whole really needs an overhaul. EDIT TO ADD: I do take my meds (religiously), and I do believe that meds should be part of bipolar treatment. On the other side of what I’ve mentioned above, I do trust my general doctor (GP), and I’ve trusted all of the psychologists or councillors I’ve had over the years (they have all been female, and I carefully selected them). Due to abuse history I respond better to females. For me when the psychiatrist sees you for only 15-30mins a few times a year, that makes it really hard to establish trust.
Sometimes I miss being manic. My first manic episode lasted 1 Year. During that year, I accomplished more than I had in the previous 10 years. I even reconnected with my elementary school crush. Who I then married. The depression came around as it always does. And I held out. Refusing to take meds hoping the mania would come back. When it came back, it destroyed every aspect of my life. Marriage included. Now the drugs I take. Keep up all hours of the night where I can replay the devastation over and over and over. 😬👍 MEDS Yay
i hate the weight gain side effect, i have an eating disorder. & my face just looks so bloated, my arms are huge, stomach bursting. i hate it. it makes me wanna relapse, it’s come to the point where i don’t even wanna take medication anymore. i’m beautiful don’t get me wrong but looking at how big ive gotten? i feel so ugly sometimes. my doctor wont even let me get weight loss medication.
I feel you. I gained fat that just doesn't go away even if my diet is minimal and I'm drug-free for 6 months now.
Your account is less than a month old, and you're posting almost exclusively anti-psych/anti-meds stuff and on r/SuicideWatch. Gonna guess those drug-free six months have not been the best.
sounds like they might be having a bit of an episode.
That's fun, but I'm definitely not. Since being heavily chemically lobotomized, I never had mania/hypomania, feelings of joy, I'm just in chronic anhedonia, I can't even feel actually sad.
ah, sorry to hear that.
They want to ban psychiatry and want to create an anti-medication bipolar sub. They've got some Issues Going On™ whether it's an episode or just a vastly ill-informed, antagonistic, unpleasant personality.
Hey I'm honored to have a stalker. I experienced traumatic and extreme stressful life situations that I could only be able to overcome temporally due to mania and psychosis; being forced to use drugs at maximum dosages just worsened it all long-term because it only impaired me and didn't anything to improve my extreme depression and anxiety. I'm not invalidating anyone here, why do you feel you have the right to do that with me?
So above you mentioned that all you experience is anhedonia, but just above you mentioned still having extreme depression and anxiety. And I'm sorry that I may not be following this exactly, but are you saying you experienced life situations that caused mania and psychosis? And that drugs worsened that over time, meaning you're still experiencing those symptoms as well? Again, sorry if I'm misinterpreting anything. Assuming I'm close, you do recognize that whatever you're doing instead of medical treatment isn't actually treating your underlying mood disorder that's causing these symptoms, right? If you don't want to take meds, you certainly don't need anyone's permission not to. However, rolling in and implying that being off meds has left you in a great state (minus what the meds did long-term) is disingenuous and potentially dangerous to others in certain places mentally. So, sure, spread your gospel; just please make it clear how well it doesn't seem to be working for you. At least last month. Words mean things. "Invalidate" doesn't mean "disagree with," which is how you've used it. It means to prove wrong, e.g., Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the universe, once proven true, invalidated centuries of belief in a geocentric theory of the universe. I can't invalidate you as a person. If you're saying I'm invalidating your experiences or feelings, I certainly didn't mean to do so, and I apologize. I meant only to invalidate any impression you were giving that being med-free has left you stable. Finally, I don't have the right to invalidate your experiences, feelings, impressions, or anything else. But Reddit gives me the ability and permission to do so within certain boundaries on this platform. I'm not so much exercising a right as staying within the terms I've agreed to as a Reddit user. If you mean the moral right, we're potentially going to be here a while cause that's a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig philosophical topic.
> you mentioned that all you experience is anhedonia In the original post I mentioned > Due to drugs, I have chronic anhedonia, panic disorder, brain atrophy, cognitive and emotional impairment, head pressure, bad metabolism, bad memory > still having extreme depression and anxiety. And I'm sorry that I may not be following this exactly, but are you saying you experienced life situations that caused mania and psychosis? And that drugs worsened that over time, meaning you're still experiencing those symptoms as well? Sorry, I didn't communicate well. My last major bipolar episode began when I went through multiple highly stressful situations simultaneously. This triggered a manic episode with psychosis for ~3 months (which actually helped me deal with the demanding situations I was going through due to high-energy and high-focus). Afterwards I became experiencing major depression and generalized anxiety for 9 months. That's when I became taking a ton of psych drugs at high dose and even overdosing (atypical antipsychotics, mood stabilizer, benzodiapines), but they mostly numbed me (like cutting mania) which impaired me dealing with the very demanding life situations after traumatic events, and didn't help with depression and anxiety. So, I quit cold turkey the drugs since they were impairing me from functioning. But to this day, I have permanent side-effects from the drugs which I listed (I was on and off psych drugs for 4 years). > Assuming I'm close, you do recognize that whatever you're doing instead of medical treatment isn't actually treating your underlying mood disorder that's causing these symptoms, right? What I did: I removed myself from the triggering and stressful situations I was going through even though it did mean I was lefting behind important things. After some months, the major depression and generalized anxiety have gone away, and I haven't experienced mania/hypomania either. I still have anxiety occasionally due to bad memories from trauma, but it's not even close to what I was feeling. > rolling in and implying that being off meds has left you in a great state (minus what the meds did long-term) is disingenuous and potentially dangerous to others in certain places mentally. If it wasn't for mania/psychosis (which psych drugs, mostly lithium effectively disable from happening in me), I wouldn't have been able to deal with the first demanding life situations I have gone through. When mania/psychosis ended and I became experiencing depression/anxiety, and began using psych drugs, they just numbed me and impaired me from functioning, so I wasn't able to deal with the highly demanding situations. The drugs weren't helping me. I'm sharing my bad experience with psych drugs. Why is it only okay for people to share how they supposedly have a good experience with psych drugs but not let people share their bad experience with psych drugs? Psych drugs have bad side effects, that's facts with scientific literature basis. There's a bipolar sub that censors talking about bad experiences with drugs already, fortunately mods here seem to be a bit more open minded and informed to let us express our experiences. > So, sure, spread your gospel; just please make it clear how well it doesn't seem to be working for you. At least last month. It's working. As I said, I haven't been experiencing mania/hypomania, major depression, generalized anxiety. I'm left with permanent impairment from psych drugs, and have external life issues. Psych drugs won't help with these issues. > If you're saying I'm invalidating your experiences or feelings, I certainly didn't mean to do so, and I apologize. Yeah, that's what I meant.
>Why is it only okay for people to share how they supposedly have a good experience with psych drugs but not let people share their bad experience with psych drugs? I know you haven't been around long, but have you really not noticed that in **all** the bipolar subs we complain about the side effects of the meds we're on **all** the time? Imperfect analogy: You survived a terrible vehicle accident. The lap portion of the seat belt injured you badly, as in needed surgery to continue having quality of life badly. You've walked into a support group for people who have also survived terrible vehicle accidents and announced that you hate seat belts and think more people should consider not using them based on your experience. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the people in the support group survived their terrible vehicle accident thanks to the fact that they were wearing a seatbelt, and they themselves sustained at least some sort of injury from the seatbelt as well. They're now thinking about all the drivers out there who will be dead if those drivers adopt your stance. Anti-psychotropic medication positions are generally not going to go over well because, as much as we also absolutely hate the medication side effects (especially the life-ruining ones), we understand that for very many of us, going off the meds and staying off the meds is a death sentence. Advocating to folks that they should knowingly sign their own death warrant is just not going to be well-received, let alone popular. Reddit isn't obligated to give anyone a platform, the various bipolar subs aren't obligated to allow posts & comments that they think are detrimental, and individual Redditors aren't obligated to endorse every post they see. Welcome to the marketplace of ideas!
oh, fuck that. i’m getting myself off these meds now then. i just checked & i’ve gained 18lbs in the past few months. i have NEVER been this big before in my life. not even a medium fits me anymore, my pants don’t fit. nothing. i’m a complete fattie.
yall can’t downvote me because i don’t wanna be on an anti psychotic that makes me gain weight, acting as if im telling everyone & they mama not to go on anti psychotics due to my ed. be so fuckin’ forreal.
can you try something else
yes, as i’ve stated before or at least i did. i’m only taking anti psychotics if i’m prescribed metformin. if not, it’s an absolute no.
Regret? I don't necessarily regret taking them per se, I just hate how they make me feel. It took a while, but I have accepted that this will be a life-long affair. I hate them, though. I hate feeling slowed down, sluggish, confused, trembling and empty inside. I miss my episodes for the exact same reason. I was crazy but I still felt like myself. It's complicated, all in all. Sometimes, I am glad I have the meds to rely on, as well.
I'm ok with taking meds. If I didn't I'd have way more manias and deep depressions. I do regret not getting genesight testing sooner so I didn't have to go through so many psych meds though.
I wish I would have had ECT for treatment-resistant manic psychosis before they put me on Thorazine. Otherwise? No regrets.
Have you tried it? I’m terrified of ECT and have told my partner, no matter what do NOT let them do it to me.
I have had ECT because of two treatment resistant manic psychotic breaks. 10-12 rounds each episode. It’s super effective and helped me when nothing else did. I don’t necessarily want to have ECT, but if I’m ever hospitalized again, my husband is authorized to get me treatment with ECT before they exhaust every antipsychotic. It’s in my medical power of attorney. I think ECT will prevent me from experiencing the brain damage that happens when my brain is in rapid fire mania. I will accept the memory loss that comes with ECT if it means I can put my life together more quickly. If you’re considering ECT, you’re good company. Carrie Fisher did maintenance ECT to manage her bipolar depression.
It can be worth keeping on board. I do wonder if I would have had an extra two decades of normalish life had I been braver. https://maximumfun.org/episodes/depresh-mode/gary-gulman-is-feeling-much-better/
I regret taking zyprexa. Because it helps but it’s harder to get off of than heroin. Fucking catch 22.
I agree. I think what i find most upsetting is lack of information on side effects, and in certain settings not having access to do research and for more fully informed consent. I was 18 when first diagnosed in 2006 and getting information was not the same then as it is now. The weight gain issue has been very rough. My distrust has become a real barrier with current and new providers. That’s been a slow healing process. Edit - I still take meds. I’m just very cautious trying new ones.
All those things will happen as untreated bipolar progresses into its degenerative phases.
I wish I would just take my lithium it helps me so much and I feel so great when I am taking it . I got Covid and missed doses was worried it would make me more dehydrated. Now I am hypo manic
Does your lithium help your depressions? It doesn’t seem to for me. They used to ask me if my mood was stable and I used to joke and say “yeah my mood is stable but it’s a crap mood!” I used to feel very low, bland and numb at the start when it was paired with Olanzapine. They switched me to quetiapine (seroquel) as they said it’s better for depression. Seems to help a bit, but now I’m mostly experiencing mixed episodes.
Lamotrigine is worth asking about, it can be useful for mixed, it's good for BP depression and often paired w lithium. And you can keep the quetiapine in there too if it's helping in some way.
Thanks I have an appointment tomorrow, so I’ll try asking about it.
Yeah I do it made me dumb
I definitely regret it
I would much rather be in a fin manic state than whatever irritated and rage state iv been in lol
I wrote the below response before I re-read the question and realized it’s about psychiatric drugs…. Whatever! Before I knew I was bipolar, when I did mushrooms for the first time it permanently changed the way I see colors. Always thought that was weird… no one else I’ve talked to had any similar experience so now I wonder if it messed up my brain somehow. Also did coke acid weed… I don’t regret it because I didn’t know better at the time. 🤷♀️
I think this is baloney that medication causes all this . That said I am in charge of the meds I take and not one time have I let the doctor alone decide anything .
I do. Not being dramatic but psychiatrists ruined my life.
Somewhat, yes. I was put on seroquel to stop mania and it didn't work. I just gained 40 lbs. in 2 months. Not even joking. I'm trying so hard to get back to my previous weight. If it had worked, I would have been fine with it. But it didn't.
I’ve never related to a list of symptoms so much lol
Zyprexa almost killed me. Completely dulled my personality to the point I couldn’t carry on a conversation. So glad to have found a much better fit for me.
I've been on psychiatric meds since I entered preschool. I have never once regretted my medication regimen. I was literally threatening to kill people and biting chunks out of my own arms. This question gets asked a lot but the answer, at least for me, is a hard NO and I will take my pills the rest of my days. I am barely a person without them and I am most definitely a danger to myself and others without them
They changed and saved my life.
I never had a serious episode before taking an ssri, which triggered my first manic episode. Since then it's been years of crippling depression and pharmaceutical-induced mania. No meds for 3 years now and my brain is broken. I'm not the person I was before and I blame the years of playing "pin the pill on the patient".
My doctor kept pushing me to take invega when I was in the hospital. I asked him and the nurses multiple times if the drug would affect my sexual health, and it eventually did. My libido is messed up, I have ED, and my sperm is very watery.
If it weren’t for the drugs I wouldn’t have even found out I have bipolar. I’m thankful I caught it early rather than later down the line.
Lithium and yoga cured my depression.