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Greetings community I hope this is the right place for an introduction ( was told to do this) Thank you for this wonderful platform, and for committed members and help. Who is Alleyandra? That is the name of the wooden staff that I bear and which I love. I am a 30 yr old male from Johannesburg, South Africa. I have been struggling for years with acute anhedonia ( no emotions) due to antipsychotics that I was taking for a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I know all about the hell that these drugs can cause. I have decided to taper off them. I am a very creative person that writes, plays guitar, draws and philosophizes. It is only now that these things are coming back ( extremely gradually). I seek the life that I once had. I know that it will be a long journey of at least a few months but I am a man of much patience. What happened? When I was in Cape Town in 2011 I started meditating under a tree. One day a flash of light appeared in my head and I became enlightened. It was exhilarating, beautiful and scary. Unfortunately I was away from family and had few friends, so did not seek the company of people to make sense of it and in solitude this developed into a psychosis. I was brought back to JHB to my family and placed in hospital under a heavy dose of medication. My brain just could not make sense of what was happening and I experienced extreme torture ( not an overstatement), including akasthesia, sleep deprivation and various nervous conditions. It felt like my mind had been eaten up, chewed up and spat out. I slowly regained 'normalcy', but had no emotion, no interest, no motivation and no life. In despair many months later I returned to the fantasies in my head and stopped taking the medication. I suffered a relapse. This occurred once or twice more. Since 2014 I have not had a relapse and started tapering off the medication some months back. And now? A semblance of a life is returning. I am no longer suffering that much and brighter days are ahead. My symptoms of the psychosis were very atypical. That is I never experienced voices per se, or hallucinations, but constructed an elaborate fantasy world in my head which i became lost in. All these years have given me perspective as to what happened in my head, and I believe I understand what happened, to the degree that I firmly believe that I no longer need the medication. Medicine, doctors??: My (state) doctor doesn't believe a word of this. I am already proving her wrong. I was forced to taper by myself with ok results for now, and am proving her wrong as the days go by. Current dose: 62 mg colzapine (antipsychotic) 300mg epilim (mood stabalizer) 40mg fluanxol -DISCONTINUED 11 NOV 2016 150mg vanlor- antidepressant Future: I would like my life back, its trickling in, but I need support. I'm seeing my doctor 26 january, and will need to persuade her to cooperate with me. Conclusion: I might sound negative, but I am in fact quite positive. I am taking control of my life, and refuse to live a life as an empty shell of a person. So that is the introduction. Much more can follow, but I didn't want this to be too long. Glad to answer any questions!! Thank you