JasonBarton: recommended psychiatrist in St. Louis?

[JasonBarton]

Hi. I'm looking for an alternative/holistic psychiatrist to help me taper off my meds.

 

Thanks, Jason

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by Altostrata
screen name okay with member

[Carmie]

Hi J, 

 

Welcome to SA. Firstly we need to know if this is your real name before we can approve your post. If it is, we might have to change it.

 

What medications are you on, and at what doses? How long have you been on those doses? 

 

We can get off these medications, but we have to go really slow, no more than one medication at a time, and no more than 10% a month. 

 

Be careful with different supplements too, as they can make withdrawals worse. The two supplements we do recommend are magnesium and fish oil. Even then, some people can’t tolerate them. A lot of people have found benefit though. You just start on a low dose of one of them and slowly up the dose, then do the same with the other.

 

Take care, sending hugs🤗

Edited April 21, 2019 by Carmie
Addition

[Altostrata]

Welcome, Jason.

 

Thanks for verifying your screen name.

 

Here is our list of possible taperers

 

If you find any others, please let us know.

[Carmie]

Hi Jason, 

 

I hope you find a good doctor. Let us know how you go. 

 

Feel free to ask any questions on your thread here too. You can journal your journey as well if you like. 

 

Wishing you all the best with your tapering.💚

[JasonBarton]

I can't prove the correlation in a court-of-law. Furthermore, I don't have my medical records so I'm forced to rely on memory and journals to establish a timeline.

 

However, I'm fairly certain w/in 6-18 months after my first prescription for an antidepressant (Prozac) btwn 1994 & 1996 (age 25 to 27), I exploded in rage at my father on a NYC city street corner, screaming at him w abandon for 10-15 minutes during which I attempted to lift a heavy, steel-lattice trash-can over my head in order to hurl it thru the plate-glass window of the restaurant I had just stormed out of. Eventually, still enraged, I walked away.

 

Several blocks from the restaurant, as I passed a pedestrian, he exhorted me to "lighten up." Based upon his voice & mannerisms, he appeared gay. (At the time, I wrestled w confusion, and still do, regarding my sexual identity).

 

In response, I turned to him, and screamed anti-gay epithets as he walked up the block.

 

At the time I moved to NYC from St. Louis in 1993 (age ~24), I was uncertain about many aspects of my identity. I felt unmoored and uncertain about who I was. Within a few months of arriving, those passive and indeterminate parts of my persona metastasized into paralysis and progressive withdrawal from my environment.

 

Nonetheless, at no time prior to my prescription for Prozac, had I ever expressed anything remotely akin to rage or even discernable anger. I was largely conflict-averse and structurally passive (and am even now), yet also congenial and social.

 

Thus, unfolded a 25 or so year conveyor belt of antidepressants, apart and in concert, that only ever seemed to elicit my psychological instability rather than mitigate it.

 

My relationship w my mom was profoundly complicated. Throughout my life, I've felt an inability to fully individuate from her. Nonetheless, I rarely expressed anger towards her.

 

Somewhere btwn 1996 & 1998, I exploded in rage at her as she drove me to the airport for a return flight to New York.

 

As she attempted to maintain control of the car at highway speed, I leaned into her face from the passenger seat and screamed "**** YOU" at her for 5-10 minutes until she pulled in to the departure terminal thru a veil of tears.

 

As I exited, I walked around to the driver-side window and punched it as hard as I could. Remarkably, it didn't shatter.

 

I've felt only profound shame and bewilderment after each time I exploded in rage.

 

Over the next 10 or so years, from 1998 to 2008, I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation several times. For many years, I was incapacitated, if not suicidal. 

 

For some indeterminate period of time (weeks, months), each time I stepped into the subway (to work, home, etc.), I fantasized walking down the length of the car shooting passengers with an automatic rifle. Did those thoughts coincide w a change in medication? I can't say w certainty, but I wouldn't be surprised.

 

How much did my revolving-door of pharmaceuticals (Prozac, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Lamictal, Remeron and many others I can't recall) influence my behavior? Would I have expressed such thoughts and behavior in the absence of medication? I don't know.

 

What I do know is, nearly a 1/4 century of medications have coincided w my most perverse and destabilizing behavior.

 

There are dozens of other narrative details I can't fully articulate here. Nevertheless, I have never experienced any appreciable benefit from medication. Furthermore, to my mind, I have only experienced the most profound instability including decades of

Insomnia, mood swings and other behaviors while a litany of psychiatrists added, subtracted or tweaked my medication.

 

My behavior has had vast consequences on my life and those around me. It upended and disrupted family bonds, erecting a distancing barrier between me & my mom as well as my sister, the consequences of which continue to this day.

 

My mom loved me profoundly and unconditionally and only sought my happiness. In turn, I loved her immensely.

 

She died in August.

 

Although she dismissed the connection, I'm certain that the traumatic impact of my explosion all those years ago as well as ones I expressed subsequently, erected a wall between us, one I readily observed after returning home to St. Louis in 2010.

 

As I pore over the contents of dozens of boxes containing momentos (letters, journals, photos) from my life - ones I've retrieved after a decade or so in storage - I'm struck by how profoundly lost and isolated (from my family and the world) I was for more than a decade, years consumed by instability, fractured identity and immense suffering I directed inward and, most destructively, towards my family.

 

Did my medications elicit that behavior? Did Prozac et al maintain my isolation and anger, preventing me from returning home to accept the love my mom offered from afar? It's hard to say.

 

However, it's fair to say, at no time did they help or mitigate my behavior. To my mind, they only ever seemed to elicit them.

 

On my phone is a 20 second video I shot in 2015 at 3:00 am, in which I'm sobbing and screaming into the phone over and over, "PLEASE G-D, HELP ME!"

 

That video coincided w my psychiatrist assisting me in titrating my Effexor XR from 150 to 75 mgs in response to her

concern about the drug's "cardiac load" after my diagnosis of an aortic aneurysm.

 

For more than a year afterwards, her unwillingness to assist me in fully discontinuing my prescription was a major source of friction btwn us.

 

Each time I asked for her help, she pointed to the video and remarked she couldn't risk assisting me in reducing my prescription from 75 mgs to 0. In fact, my records indicate she attempted to add Viibryd and Brintellix to my regimen - which I resisted.

 

One day during an appt, after expressing my profound frustration to her once again, she remarked, "If you're so unhappy, why don't you fire me?"

 

The thought had never crossed my mind. Thus, I never saw her again and I continue to manage my prescriptions thru a cycle of psychiatric residents at a local, hospital clinic.

 

Prior to my first prescription, I was many things: passive, isolative (at times) and uncertain about my identity. However, I was not particularly angry, nor

incapacitated by rage, mood instability, insomnia and suicidal ideation.

 

Esp now after my mom's death and the death of my closest and oldest friend from opiate addiction in 2018, I have the inexorable sense of having wasted my entire life, of destroying everything positive and beautiful, of nullifying my mom's love for me and my connections to friends, illustrated by 1,000s of post cards, letters and photos I've unpacked from storage.

 

I take responsibility for my actions, but I'm nearly certain my medications have elicited the actions and thoughts that incapacitated me for more than two decades. I have a stack of books by my bed supporting this thesis, even if I already knew the information by heart.

 

[Shep]

@JasonBarton Jason, I moved your latest post and merged it into your introduction thread. Please note: only one intro thread per member. This way all of your information is in one place. 

[JasonBarton]

Hi, Shep. I expended a considerable amount of cognitive and organizational energy shaping my recent post - only my 2nd one after a brief introductory question when I first activated my account nearly two years ago.

 

It represents as truncated, yet complete, a summation of my experience as I've ever articulated and, in truth, I'm far more interested in transmitting this post to the widest possible audience on this forum, both to elicit the widest range of responses and share my narrative history broadly to reach those who might derive a benefit from it than I am in retaining the brief, question I posed nearly 2 years ago.

 

For that reason, I'd much rather post tonight's narrative as a new, titled, introductory message instead of burying it in a pre-existing thread where it's more likely to remain unseen.

 

Is it possible to delete my first post from 2 years ago in which I asked for assistance in finding a psychiatrist and post tonight's message as the first msg in a new thread?

 

I am infinitely more interested in broadcasting tonight's msg as a new, titled entry than I am in appending it to a pre-existing thread from last year.

 

Thanks so very much!

[Shep]

15 minutes ago, JasonBarton said:

For that reason, I'd much rather post tonight's narrative as a new, titled, introductory message instead of burying it in a pre-existing thread where it's more likely to remain unseen.

 

Jason, one introductory thread is no more likely to be seen than another. Please note this forum - especially the Introduction section - is for tapering off psychiatric drugs. While getting the message out of the dangers of these drugs is important, it's not the primary purpose of this site. 

 

If you wish to do advocacy work, you may want to look to sites such as Mad in America. Also, you may want to see the different campaigns and events that are happening here in the section Controversies, actions, events. There are ways to be active in this area. 

 

You may also want to post over in the Relationships section where you'll find a lot of similar stories of how these drugs have impacted countless lives.

[JasonBarton]

Oh, I see now. My narrative doesn't really apply to this particular forum. Thx. Do you think my post is too expansive for the relationships section - should I consider truncating it? Thx very much.

[Altostrata]

Your post would be fine for the Relationships section. It seems you are exploring many things about your identity and your close relationships.

 

If during drug switches you experienced withdrawal symptoms, that could have made you very irritable, angry, or aggressive. Other adverse effects from drugs might have influenced your mood along the way, but there's no way to pin that down without a very detailed drug diary. (This site doesn't address this historical work, but it could be an interesting memoir or blog series.)

 

What drugs are you taking now? How is your tapering going?

[JasonBarton]

Thx so much for your reply, Altostrata. My drug history is far too complicated - 20+ years and dozens of medications - to express w/o medical records.

 

However, at present, I take 37.5 mgs Effexor XR, 200 mgs Lamictal XR & 7.5 mg Remeron (the only drug I actually enjoy for it's sleep-inducing properties).

 

Over the past 5+ years, in conjunction w a psychiatrist, I've reduced my Effexor in 3 discrete stages: from 300 to 150 mgs, then 150 to 75 and, finally, 75 to 37.5.

 

Currently, I have 2 bottles of Effexor XR from a compounding pharmacy in 5 mg increments to reduce my dose from 37.5 to 0.

 

Nonetheless, I'm wary of moving forward based upon my history, esp as I continue to experience significant distress related to my mom's death in Aug of 2019.

 

I filmed the video I described in my narrative (sobbing & screaming into my phone) in 2015 during the weeks-long period in which I titrated from 150 to 75 mgs.

 

My psychiatrist & I used a compounding pharmacy to formulate 5 to 15 mgs increments (I don't recall precisely the amount).

 

Yet, despite our cautionary approach, I still experienced the most profoundly

traumatic effects imaginable.

 

As I also articulated, her unwillingness to assist me in fully discontinuing my prescription from 75 mgs to zero based upon my reaction from 150 mgs to 75 mgs was the basis for me terminating our treatment.

 

My video fundamentally encapsulates my experience w antidepressants, albeit in a heightened fashion.

 

Medication shifts have always destabilized me to one degree or another.

 

Furthermore, I have no doubt that my medications catalyzed the persistent suicidality, agitation and anger I've experienced for years.

 

For the past decade or so, a simple time-shift of 2 to 4 hours from one day to the next elicits agitation and anxiety, which only mitigates once I take my next dose.

 

Admittedly, my narrative is complex and multivariant. As I've said, my relationship w my mom was complex. My isolative tendencies were reactions to the enmeshment I felt as a child.

 

Additionally, I lived in a chaotic living environment for 10 years in NYC in which I rarely obtained more than 6 hours of nightly sleep.

 

Nonetheless, despite dozens of medications in concert and apart over 20 years, I have never experienced any appreciable benefit. Moreover, they have only ever fostered instability.

 

A friend recently said that weeks after starting his first prescription for Prozac in the 1990s, he felt as if the drug had "robbed him of every emotion." When he discontinued his script, his doctor yelled at him for non-compliance. In response, my friend fired him and never took another antidepressant.

 

I wish I had expressed the same degree of self-assertion at any earlier point in my decades-long history of medication, instead of waiting until recently.

 

Did my drugs keep me profoundly stuck in a chaos-strewn NY apt? Did they inhibit me from making the changes I needed to resolve my decades-long distress? Again, I don't know the answer.

 

What I do know, however, is I wish I had never demonstrated such deference to psychiatrists and, instead, accepted help from those who offered it, like my mom.

 

My first psychiatrist recommended I read Peter Kramer's "Listening to Prozac," in 1994 or '95 in order to soften my resistance. 

 

Within a few chapters, I felt Kramer's entire thesis was based on conjecture, blind optimism and wishful thinking instead of empirical proof.

 

Nonetheless, I set aside my concerns, suppressing my feelings to avoid conflict. I wish I had never done so.

 

What would my life have looked like w/o antidepressants? I can't say for sure, but I suspect it would have been far less filled w distress and negative consequences.

 

 

 

 

[Shep]

14 hours ago, JasonBarton said:

However, at present, I take 37.5 mgs Effexor XR, 200 mgs Lamictal XR & 7.5 mg Remeron (the only drug I actually enjoy for it's sleep-inducing properties).

 

Jason, there's no reason to think you can't taper off this cocktail and have a great life ahead of you. Many of us (myself included) came off a large cocktail of drugs taken for many years. And we're healing. Try not to get too drawn up in the drama of your past until you have a chance to get off these drugs and start healing. You'll find that as you heal, the past memories go into the past, replaced by the memories of being able to do more, to feel more. As you heal, you'll be able to engage in life and those newer memories will replace the older, traumatizing memories. 

 

It's a process. 

 

Here are some links for your taper. Please note the combination of Remeron (mirtazapine) plus Effexor is something known as California Rocket Fuel. I've also included a link for more information on this. It's good you're coming off the Effexor first. 

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

Taking multiple psych drugs? Which drug to taper first?

 

About going off mirtazapine plus venlafaxine (Effexor) aka "California rocket fuel" - 

 

Tips for tapering off Effexor (venlafaxine)

 

Tips for tapering off Remeron (mirtazapine)

 

Tips for tapering off Lamictal (lamotrigine)

 

Some healthy, non-drug ideas to help with withdrawal symptoms are here:

 

Non-drug techniques to cope with emotional symptoms

 

If you'd like help and guidance in your taper, please create a signature using these guidelines so we can easily see your progress so far in your taper. 

 

Please put your withdrawal history in your signature

 

A direct link to your signature is here:

 

Account Settings - Create or Update Your Signature

 

Please continue to use this thread to ask questions and to document your taper. 

[JasonBarton]

Thx Shep. I'll take a look at these. I appreciate your encouragement and

perspective.

 

At the moment, today, I'm fully absorbed in the past - debilitatingly so, as if I'm watching a screen I can't turn off, unending footage of the nearly-infinite ways I destroyed my life and the lives of those around me, squandering any hope of fulfillment or happiness. I know they're distorted byproducts of my impaired neurochemistry but they feel fully-formed, as if I can reach out and hold them in my hand.

 

Funny, you describe my experience as trauma. During an intake interview for a grief support group recently, the therapist described my experience as traumatic too.

 

There are so many debilitating factors in my life - years of medication mismanagement, intense grief, insomnia, traumatic rage, etc., all entangled in a twisted, skyscraper-sized structure w a nearly-infinite mass.

 

I believe you when you describe the restorative quality of regaining my brain function w/o the distorting effects of medication. However, from this vantage point, it also seems nearly-impossible to achieve.

 

Thank you for your encouragement. In the meantime, I'll continue to watch these threads for add'l insight and connection.

[Andie]

On 2/7/2019 at 4:42 PM, Andie said:

I feel such a sense of frustration when well meaning people see me struggling and then ask ‘have you seen your doctor? ‘ 

 

When in fact I am too afraid to see my Doctor when all they will do is throw more pills at me and diagnose me with goodness knows what mental condition.  

 

The painful truth is that I was started on medication at a point in my life where I had too many stressors and none of the tools I needed at hand to manage it.

 

I was overwhelmed and didn’t have the emotional and human support that I so desperately needed.

 

Being numbed out for so many years has not given me the opportunity to learn and develop these skills, or learn  the self care required in order to maintain emotionally, physically and mentally healthy.  It has  been a bitter pill to swallow as I realise I have been walking through life in a chemically induced haze, Disconnected from my feelings and behaving like a machine. 

 

I am now having to learn how to cope with the Anxiety that has been pushed down and away for years and that being emotionally disconnected has has a major impact on my life.

 

I trusted my Doctor when he told me the pills had few side effects. I trusted my Doctor when he told me that they weren’t addictive. I trusted my Doctor when he told me it would take two weeks to withdraw when I was crippled by the side effects of Pristiq. 

 

I had been tought to place my trust in the system, in authority and basically everyone else but myself. It’s been so hard waking up to this. 

 

I apologise for the negative tone of this post and I am sure many of you can relate to how I am feeling and have had this realisation too.

 

 

 

 

Hi JB 

 

This was something I wrote last year when I started to become aware of the impact the my antidepressant had on my life. It's something I'm still trying to come to terms with. My difficulties with anxiety began in childhood, way before I had the language to express what I was feeling. 

 

In in a funny coincidence, when the doom and gloom got too much to bear, I took myself  to NYC ( 30 hours flying from where I live). I needed to go somewhere where I only had good memories and there was something to distract me 24/7. NYC is the polar opposite of the relaxed, beachy lifestyle of my hometown. The change in scenery was like being resuscitated. I still can't figure out NYC subway exits though! 

 

I have been withdrawing from Pristiq, Effexor's active metabolite. I've spent many days and nights where you have been. Traumatising is a very good word to use to describe the withdrawal process.