Survival and diagnosis changed to "Medication-induced psychosis."

[madinolympia]

I accompanied my son through his multi-year ordeal that began with antidepressants starting in around 2014. He immediately had adverse reactions that were huge red flags - stiffness, extreme personality changes - but instead the GP and later psych nurse practitioner just kept prescribing new ones, because, you know, it is "art." (What a croc of bs.) Finally, in the summer of 2018, he became psychotic, hearing and seeing things, and suicidal, sobbing wildly for hours, as well as hypersexual, paranoid, and manic.

 

So a psychiatrist diagnosed him with bipolar I or schizoid affective disorder - asking me questions about his childhood.  As a child he was calm, easy, sociable, gifted, but the psychiatrist had me wondering if his love of roller coasters during puberty was mental illness.  Terrible. So the psychiatrist prescribed Latuda and tapered him off Prozac over a few weeks.

 

He came down and was muted, tired, but was always scrolling the internet on his phone and jiggling his legs.  I though this was "bipolar disorder" because, well, every frigging symptoms is called "bipolar disorder." Five months later he developed full blown akathisia from the Latuda, with panic attacks and pacing.  We did not know what akathisia was; he thought it was just stress over "bad decisions." 

 

Since he was having heart palpitations from these anxiety attacks, and did not know he had akathisia, he went to his GP thinking this was a medical problem. His GP told him he had "anxiety disorder" and prescribed more Prozac, which my son told him he should not have, and Xanax which was like throwing a torch into already burning pine trees. The GP said, "This is perfectly safe." My son took one Prozac pill with the Xanax and said it was like his brain snapped and started jiggling in his head. He never took another Prozac pill but he now needed Xanax to sleep at all and to avoid terrible panic attacks.  Within two weeks he had interdose withdrawal from Xanax - he knew that he was becoming dependent on it, and that he would need more and more to avoid the panic attacks. He knew the drugs were causing it, but he had to keep working to support his disabled child; he was the only financial support the child had. The GP raised the dose. Soon could not sleep at all - he would sleep one hour every few nights, and this went on for months. He was exhausted yet agitated, could not nap, could not yawn. He had tingling extremities, crushing head pain, severe digestive issues, and was pacing 24/7, barely able to work.  And he was also on antidepressants again, different ones - Wellbutrin, which made him very tense and angry, then Mirtazipine, back to Wellbutrin, back to Mirtazipine. He got worse and worse, was desperate, barely able to survive. This led to multiple hospitalizations and at least 15 drugs in a nine-month period. Covid saved his life because he could work from home. Had he lost his job, I am sure he would have committed suicide, as he nothing to offer his child but a small life insurance policy. He told me he would make it look like an accident. 

 

He saw at least eight different psychiatrists, MD's, and psych nurses in clinics, ER's, hospitals. Only the very last psychiatrist acknowledged that the drugs were problematic, but he had no solutions.  Finally my son fired the "mental health practitioners" and went off all the drugs cold turkey, feeling that nothing could be worse than his adverse effects. He did not understand at the time that he was dealing with both adverse effects of drugs he was on and withdrawal from drugs that he had been on earlier.

 

His akathisia stopped after getting off the Latuda, which he stopped cold turkey a few weeks before the rest, but after cold turkeying the others - benzos, gabapentin, antidepressants and "mood stabilizers," he developed horrific, severe withdrawal anhedonia and depersonalization, was almost catatonic. This lasted almost 18 months, from early April 2020 through September, 2021. But  he had windows, and I kept telling him he could get better.

 

In September, 2021,  he realized that the withdrawal symptoms were over - the whole nightmare was over. With the help of a safe psychologist who understands drug harm, he quickly got back to living, picking up the pieces of his broken life overnight. He cleaned his apartment - it was nearly unlivable - in one weekend, took his son on a vacation, got back to rafting, which he loved.  He was physically weak from the lack of movement, darkness, and terrible diet he had had during this whole ordeal, but his basic health had been strong enough going into this that he recovered.

 

Since then, for the last three and half years, he has had no symptoms of depression, anxiety, or any other "mental illness" symptom. No psychosis, no voices, nothing, despite a very demanding, high-responsibility job and caring for a autistic child and trying to protect him from the system.  The akathisia and other adverse reactions are gone. He has renewed his white-water rescue certification, goes rafting on class III and IV rapids. This is a person who was almost catatonic from terror on the drugs. During the ordeal, the antidepressants caused significant emotional numbing. He could not laugh, could not cry, and did not feel or show empathy. This was terrifying for him and for me. His original empathetic, sensitive, humorous personality is fully back. 

 

But the diagnosis - Bipolar I/ Schizoaffective disorder - from his initial psychosis in 2018 was still in his records, hanging around his neck like a ball and chain, and he could not get life insurance. His child will need support forever, and he is the only financial supporter and is a single parent. 

 

Suddenly, out of the blue, the last psychiatrist he had seen four years earlier calls him to ask how he is doing, and immediately my son says, "I want this diagnosis off my record." So the psychiatrist met with him the next day, and amazingly, changed the diagnosis to "Medication-induced psychosis." He told my son NEVER to take ANY psychotropic medication and never to let a health care provider pressure him to do so. 

 

My grandson was significantly traumatized by this ordeal, and my life was turned upside down. I left a secure job, a very hard-won tenured professorship, and moved across the country when I found out he was psychotic. For the next three years, while my husband worked two jobs, 70 to 80 hours a week to support us,  I drove an hour one way to his apartment and back almost every day to make sure he was still alive and spent weeks at his place helping care for his child so he did not lose custody. I was at the ER and hospitals with him and went through some terrible experiences with medical staff.

 

I reported all of this incompetency and abuse to the state department of health, and there were lengthy investigations, but "no laws were broken." I am determined to fight for new informed consent laws in my state and across the country. 

[Onmyway]

What an ordeal @madinolympia. But so glad that this is better now. I am so glad that he wised up and cut the poison out of his life and so glad that the doctor changed his diagnosis. 

Wow. May you and your family have a long and calm life together. 

 

OMW

[Tweed9674]

Your whole family are warriors. What an incredible story of support, resilience and love.

[Gardengonewild]

Wow that is amazing! Thank you for taking such good care of him. My own mother said I needed to lock myself up and swallow the key. From a normal hard working mama to this...thing.

Anyway I'm so glad your boy made it out!. Rafting with my son was high on my list of things I wanted in life. Truly amazing story!!! Upsetting that these false diagnoses will prohibit me from getting insurance or probably even more than that. They truly don't care who or how they harm 

[Ariel]

@madinolympia

 

Thank you for sharing this extraordinary story. 

 

18 hours ago, Tweed9674 said:

Your whole family are warriors. What an incredible story of support, resilience and love.

 

Agree with @Tweed9674 !

 

I'm so sorry for what you've all been through. 

Heartfelt, whole-bodied congratulations and celebrations on making it out to the other side and sticking together as a family!

And not least, thank you for this:

 

On 4/30/2024 at 6:37 AM, madinolympia said:

I reported all of this incompetency and abuse to the state department of health, and there were lengthy investigations, but "no laws were broken." I am determined to fight for new informed consent laws in my state and across the country. 

 

Thank you for reporting and continuing to fight for change, justice, and to make things better for those to come. 

You're amazing!

 

Love, gratitude, peace, healing, light, and so much admiration and respect to you and your whole family!

A. 

[Gardengonewild]

I cant believe we can't sue for this. I asked a multitude of questions before taking the poisons and at no time did they tell me any if this could happen.  I never would have taken them. Ever. They just keep getting away with it. Not just no informed consent but totally lied to me. Said I couldn't get s.i. bc I wasn't a child or young adult or bipolar.  Said I couldn't become psychotic because I'd never had it before. I had anxiety from a misdiagnosis of terminal disease. Just unfair 

[Onmyway]

Yes, I asked as well before this! And was told no dependence.

[N2deep]

What a story. Glad your son is back.

 

I also asked the doctor and two pharmacists if the drugs might be hard to get off beforehand/when I'd been on for a day .... They all said "nope, no problem at all" , and they told me to take it for a month ... Just long enough to eff you over, and make sure you ain't getting off quick.

[Prozack]

@madinolympia You said he is totally healed, but does any adverse reaction to drugs stayed? Anything?

[madinolympia]

No, nothing. He is completely healthy. He has an unusual amount of  responsibility and problem solving to deal with in his job and life as single parent of a neuro-atypical child with serious health issues, and he manages it all and participates regularly in river clean ups and white water rafting tours.