Cortlea: Angry at What Mainstream Psychiatry Has Done to my Life

[Cortlea]

Good afternoon everyone~

 

I am so very grateful for stumbling upon this website and extremely glad you are all here. I have been continuously medicated, with the exception of a couple of short hiccups due to insurance snafus, for 19 years. I am now 44. I have done my best to outline my taper history over the last 18 months in my signature. I have been on about 20 different medications and endless combinations of those over those past 19 years. 

 

I have been on Social Security Disability benefits since October of 2017, which is actually a huge blessing because there is no chance I'd be able to function at all right now in a job, due to the severity of my withdrawal from Abilify. Holy cow, where do I even start?

 

For starters, I have canceled all further appointments with my psychiatrist. I have developed a severe mistrust of all things psychiatry at this point, and of this doctor in particular. This guy told me a few months back that a person can get off Abilify--30mg, no less, the maximum dose--in a month. This irritates me to no end--he's not the only psychiatrist who disseminates total lies about withdrawal (oops, excuse me, "discontinuation syndrome") and acts like there's nothing to it. There's one story these MDs know how to tell and they keep telling it: These meds are not addictive or dependency-fostering, and it's a piece of cake to get off of them. All one has to do is hop on the Internet to know that the actual experience of patients tells a RADICALLY different story. 

 

I know I can't trust this psychiatrist at all. Any doctor who would have me believe that getting off Abilify, after 13 years on that antipsychotic, takes a month is a total fruitcake, as far as I'm concerned. This doctor also was strongly pushing Electroconvulsive Therapy on me last summer. He wouldn't let up on that for about two months. I refused and refused and refused, no matter how awful I felt. The good doctor tried to tell me that there are minimal long-term consequences of ECT, and that memory loss is negligible. Um, I KNOW more than one person who has had ECT and they can't remember what you said to them five minutes ago. What is even happening here? Why this tremendous disconnect between the psychiatry party line and the actual real-life experiences of patients? The whole of mainstream psychiatry is completely gaslighting the American public and I'm so, so, so, so tired of it. Enough. It's ravaged my life.

 

Anyhow, at this point, I'm down to a micro-dose of Abilify when my withdrawal symptoms become totally unbearable. This averages out to a tiny, tiny dose (about 3-4 mg) every 10 days or so. I know it's bad to be doing this myself, essentially, but that psychiatrist I've been going to is a total joke, and all waitlists in my region for Medicaid psychiatry patients are closed. It's insane. I got a prescription for Requip from my Primary Care Physician last week to control the agonizing muscle restlessness. Requip is a dopamine agonist given to Parkinson's patients. It worked wonderfully for about 3 days and then I developed a tolerance to it. I also tried magnesium powder to control muscle twitching, jerking, and agitation, but that caused very severe diarrhea. I mean, actually, I was totally willing to live with diarrhea 25-30 times a day if it meant controlling muscle agitation, but then the magnesium stopped working too. I am not EMOTIONALLY suicidal at all but the muscle agony is enough to make a person want to die. 

 

My M.O. right now is daily hot yoga, daily Centering Prayer (my meditation practice), good nutrition, a daily Vitamin D, neurofeedback, traditional talk therapy, and the support people who are really in my corner with this. I'm so angry. When I went on medication at age 25 I was in the throes of a terribly painful romantic relationship, but somehow let myself be convinced by psychiatry that I had a "chemical imbalance". Now they tell me I am "Medication Treatment Resistant." Seriously. Probably because I never had a "chemical imbalance" in the first place. 

 

Oh, and I'll wrap up with this. Gotta love the provider favorite, "If you had diabetes, you'd take your insulin every day." PLEASE. Give me a break. What a horrible and misleading analogy and I'm so tired of it. My mom just tried to use it on me yesterday. I love my mom dearly, but I think this is how she justifies her and my dad being on antidepressants and benzos for 35+ years now. 

 

Tired of the lies. Tired of the crap. Tired of the gaslighting. I'm so sorry for the angry tone of this post. I'm just sort of coming to terms with it all. I'm on Social Security Disability now, for crying out loud. Things just got worse and worse and worse on the meds. It has changed the course of my entire life. I know many of you on here can relate. I'm grateful to be here. Since there are so few sane people out there with the power of a prescription pad, it seems like we really have to rely on each other to get through this. Thank you.

[Gridley]

Welcome to SA, Cortlea.  Your rage at psychiatry is justifiable and shared among many psychiatric survivors..

 

Thank you for completing your signature. It's very helpful.   I'm concerned  about your Abilify taper.  Though Abilify has a long half-life, it still needs to be tapered carefully,  We strongly counsel against tapering by skipping dose.  Skipping doses causes the amount of medication in your bloodstream to go up and down, battering your nervous system and making withdrawal worse.  Your brain likes stability, to be treated gently.  It's advised to move your dose slowly down a ramp by gradually decreasing dosage.  But to maintain stability it's crucial to take the drug every day. SA recommends tapering by 10% of your current dose with a hold of at least four weeks before the next decrease.  This is explained in the following link:

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

I need a little more information about your Abilify taper.  QUESTION: From what date were you on Abilify at 30mg?

 

Based on your signature and your post, your Abilify taper was as follows.  Please let me know if this is correct:

 

April, 2018  dropped from 30mg to 15mg

December, 2018  dropped to 7.5mg

Beginning of March, 2019   7.5mg every third day

Mid-April, 2019  7.5mg every week

QUESTION: when did you drop to 3-4mg every ten days? 

 

After you've answered my questions, I'm going to ask the other moderators to recommend an Abilify dosage for you to take every day.  It will be less than 7.5mg since your system has gotten accustomed to receiving less than that amount due to skipping doses.  Then, once you've stabilized on that dosage, you can begin a 10% taper down to zero.  There are several methods to arrive at smaller non-standard doses needed for a safe 10% taper.  Basically, you have a choice between cutting and weighing tablets or using a liquid.  This is explained in the following link:

 

Tips for tapering off aripiprazole (Abilify)

 

Regarding the magnesium, it has a powerful laxative effect when taken at too high a dose.  What dose were you taking?  It's best with any supplement to start at a very low dose and work up.

 

We're glad you found your way here and are happy to help you taper the Abilify.  

 

This is your Introduction topic, where you should answer the questions and post any questions you may have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RichT]

Hi Cortlea,

 

I’m coming off Abilify 5mg, and it’s not easy. Your psychiatrist (ex-psychiatrist) who said you could come off 30mg in a month is totally bananas! 

 

Muscle pain through Abilify withdrawal is something i’m very familiar with unfortunately.

 

You’ve come off Abilify very quickly and so it’s not surprising you’re feeling significant withdrawal symptoms. I did the same and re-Instated at a low dose of 0.5mg / day. I do feel significantly better, though far from completely well.

 

I wish you luck!

 

R

[Cortlea]

1 hour ago, Gridley said:

Welcome to SA, Cortlea.  Your rage at psychiatry is justifiable and shared among many psychiatric survivors..

 

Thank you for completing your signature. It's very helpful.   I'm concerned  about your Abilify taper.  Though Abilify has a long half-life, it still needs to be tapered carefully,  We strongly counsel against tapering by skipping dose.  Skipping doses causes the amount of medication in your bloodstream to go up and down, battering your nervous system and making withdrawal worse.  Your brain likes stability, to be treated gently.  It's advised to move your dose slowly down a ramp by gradually decreasing dosage.  But to maintain stability it's crucial to take the drug every day. SA recommends tapering by 10% of your current dose with a hold of at least four weeks before the next decrease.  This is explained in the following link:

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

I need a little more information about your Abilify taper.  QUESTION: From what date were you on Abilify at 30mg?

 

Based on your signature and your post, your Abilify taper was as follows.  Please let me know if this is correct:

 

April, 2018  dropped from 30mg to 15mg

December, 2018  dropped to 7.5mg

Beginning of March, 2019   7.5mg every third day

Mid-April, 2019  7.5mg every week

QUESTION: when did you drop to 3-4mg every ten days? 

 

After you've answered my questions, I'm going to ask the other moderators to recommend an Abilify dosage for you to take every day.  It will be less than 7.5mg since your system has gotten accustomed to receiving less than that amount due to skipping doses.  Then, once you've stabilized on that dosage, you can begin a 10% taper down to zero.  There are several methods to arrive at smaller non-standard doses needed for a safe 10% taper.  Basically, you have a choice between cutting and weighing tablets or using a liquid.  This is explained in the following link:

 

Tips for tapering off aripiprazole (Abilify)

 

Regarding the magnesium, it has a powerful laxative effect when taken at too high a dose.  What dose were you taking?  It's best with any supplement to start at a very low dose and work up.

 

We're glad you found your way here and are happy to help you taper the Abilify.  

 

This is your Introduction topic, where you should answer the questions and post any questions you may have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for such a thoughtful and thorough response to my introductory post, Gridley. 

 

You’re not going to believe this, but when I insisted on tapering off Abilify with my (ex) psychiatrist, skipping doses at greater and greater intervals was his recommended way to accomplish this. So I actually followed his lead on that. He had me down to 7.5mg every third day starting at the very tail end of February. I did the every third day thing until about the end of April or so. I then took myself down to one 7.5mg dose a week based on what he’d told me he has other patients do with Abilify (namely, he has a number of patients on one dose a week of Abilify.) To hopefully answer your question, I’d say my last 2 doses of Abilify have been about 10 days apart.

 

(I probably never saw my psychiatrist nearly as often as I should have. I was self-pay, on Social Security Disability, and having to pay $100 for 15 minutes. 😕)

 

I’m utterly and deeply appreciative of your willingness to convene with other moderators to determine a small daily dose of Abilify for me. However, at this point, my last dose was almost a week ago, with a dose 10 days before that, and I’m hanging in there. As I touched on in my introductory post, a daily prayer/meditation practice, careful and conscious nutrition, hot yoga, and an awesome support system are making my days bearable. I’m sort of loathe to put any Abilify at all back in my system at this point. My instincts kind of just want to power through this at this juncture in the game. One awesome benefit of yoga is that it teaches me a great deal about how to tolerate discomfort. 😊

 

To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how much magnesium powder I was taking, dose-wise. It’s a powder you dissolve in water. I’d say a heaping teaspoon, if that means anything at all? I haven’t done the magnesium thing for a couple of days now. I tried sleeping through the night last night without the Parkinson’s medication but was so miserable by 4:30AM that I got up and took a .25mg dose of the Requip and slept a couple more hours.

 

Oh! And I see I forgot to answer your very first question. You know I really have no idea when my dose of Abilify was pushed all the way up to 30mg. As I said, I started on 15mg of Abilify back in 2006, 13 years ago. I feel like I was on 30mg for a year or two before I started my final taper in April of 2018. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific. I’ve had such a rough ride the last few years that a lot of it is a blur and hard to remember.

 

I hope I hit all of your questions adequately and that this is helpful to you! I’m pretty impressed with this community so far. Thank you again for reaching out. 😊

[Cortlea]

2 hours ago, RichT said:

Hi Cortlea,

 

I’m coming off Abilify 5mg, and it’s not easy. Your psychiatrist (ex-psychiatrist) who said you could come off 30mg in a month is totally bananas! 

 

Muscle pain through Abilify withdrawal is something i’m very familiar with unfortunately.

 

You’ve come off Abilify very quickly and so it’s not surprising you’re feeling significant withdrawal symptoms. I did the same and re-Instated at a low dose of 0.5mg / day. I do feel significantly better, though far from completely well.

 

I wish you luck!

 

R

Thank you Rich! I wish you the best of luck in your taper as well!

 

I can’t tell you how relieved I am that someone else has experienced muscle issues with Abilify withdrawal. I thought I was losing my mind, or, at the very least, needed to be tested for Parkinson’s! 

 

Thank you for reaching out. 😊

[Gridley]

2 hours ago, Cortlea said:

You’re not going to believe this, but when I insisted on tapering off Abilify with my (ex) psychiatrist, skipping doses at greater and greater intervals was his recommended way to accomplish this.

 

I definitely believe it.  Skipping doses is an ill-advised method much favored by psychiatrists, who have no idea of its dangers.

 

2 hours ago, Cortlea said:

My instincts kind of just want to power through this at this juncture in the game.

 

Fair enough.  See how you're feeling as time passes.  If you decide you want to reinstate a small dose let us know and we'll work out a game plan.

 

Would you mind inserting into your drug signature your guess as to when you started the 30mg and also the dates of your last two doses at ten days apart and correct any errors in the timeline I made,  just so we have all the information handy?  Here's the link to your signature:

 

Account Settings – Create or Edit a signature.

 

If you decide you want to try magnesium again, magnesium glycinate is a good form.  I'm very sensitive to it and can only take 50mg three times a day, but I do find it helpful.  Some members dissolve magnesium in water and sip it throughout the day.  Omegas are another of the very few supplements we recommend.  Many people find these two

supplements calming to the nervous system. Start only one at a time and at a low dose.

 

 

2 hours ago, Cortlea said:

As I touched on in my introductory post, a daily prayer/meditation practice, careful and conscious nutrition, hot yoga, and an awesome support system are making my days bearable.

  

 

That sounds great.  We very much recommend non-drug coping skills.  Browse through this link and see if any of the techniques appeal to you.

 

Non-drug techniques to cope

 

23 hours ago, Cortlea said:

"If you had diabetes, you'd take your insulin every day."

 

The chemical imbalance theory has been thoroughly discredited.

Again, chemical imbalance is a myth. Stop the lies, please. - Page 4 ...

Are you still taking the Requip?

 

Please keep us updated on how you're doing and let us know if there's any way we can assist you.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Gridley

[Cortlea]

On 5/28/2019 at 1:20 PM, Gridley said:

 

I definitely believe it.  Skipping doses is an ill-advised method much favored by psychiatrists, who have no idea of its dangers.

 

 

Fair enough.  See how you're feeling as time passes.  If you decide you want to reinstate a small dose let us know and we'll work out a game plan.

 

Would you mind inserting into your drug signature your guess as to when you started the 30mg and also the dates of your last two doses at ten days apart and correct any errors in the timeline I made,  just so we have all the information handy?  Here's the link to your signature:

 

Account Settings – Create or Edit a signature.

 

If you decide you want to try magnesium again, magnesium glycinate is a good form.  I'm very sensitive to it and can only take 50mg three times a day, but I do find it helpful.  Some members dissolve magnesium in water and sip it throughout the day.  Omegas are another of the very few supplements we recommend.  Many people find these two

supplements calming to the nervous system. Start only one at a time and at a low dose.

 

 

  

 

That sounds great.  We very much recommend non-drug coping skills.  Browse through this link and see if any of the techniques appeal to you.

 

Non-drug techniques to cope

 

 

The chemical imbalance theory has been thoroughly discredited.

Again, chemical imbalance is a myth. Stop the lies, please. - Page 4 ...

Are you still taking the Requip?

 

Please keep us updated on how you're doing and let us know if there's any way we can assist you.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you Gridley. I'm sorry I haven't kept up with my replies in the last couple of days. Thank you.

[Cortlea]

I tried to update my signature with my best guess as to when I went all the way up to 30mg of Abilify a day. At this point, my last dose of Abilify was about 4mg on Wednesday, May 22nd. So I guess that's about 10 days now. 

 

Quick update: The Parkinson's med I was given 10 days ago, Requip, for muscle agitation sort of turned into a runaway train. I developed a tolerance for it very quickly, and had to take higher and higher doses every day. I saw my PCP this morning and she prescribed a low dose of a beta blocker, Propranolol, to be taken at nighttime. I already have naturally low blood pressure. I can't remember the last time my systolic was ever over 110, so she prescribed this on the condition that I take my blood pressure every morning. If the systolic dips below 100, we will have to go back to the drawing board. In addition, per my talk with my PCP, I will take Vitamin D, omega, Vitamin b6, and GABA daily. She mandated no more than 200mg of the magnesium a day, as the diarrhea is sort of out of control. Thanks Gridley, too, for the detailed input on magnesium supplements.

 

All things considered, I am in decent spirits. I'm no longer able to do any type of meditation, due to the muscle twitching and jerking, which is a real bummer right now. 

 

Here's kind of a funny: My PCP this morning suggested that we could try Seroquel!! I was like, um, no thanks. I mean, unless I want to be a zombie and 60 pounds heavier in two weeks. Not only that, but that's right back to being on an antipsychotic! This is one hell of a nightmare, but, like I said, I'm really in okay spirits. 

[Gridley]

1 hour ago, Cortlea said:

Vitamin b6,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear you're in decent spirits at least.

 

B vitamins, including B6, can be activating (too stimulating) in withdrawal.

 

Hypersensitive to B Vitamin or B-Complex  

 

Are you still on the Requip?  

Edited May 31, 2019 by Gridley

[Cortlea]

57 minutes ago, Gridley said:

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear you're in decent spirits at least.

 

B vitamins, including B6, can be activating (too stimulating) in withdrawal.

 

Hypersensitive to B Vitamin or B-Complex  

 

Are you still on the Requip?  

I transition to the beta blocker tonight. No more Requip after that.