Warning others

[Marian]

Im currently in a ward. People are being tempted, pressured and sometimes forced into the use of meds. 

 

Also a friend gives her autistic + add daughter Ritalin. 

 

If you were me, would you talk to others about the dark sides of meds? How? 

 

When someone is a kid or is being pressured especially, i feel like protecting them. But maybe it is none of my business and i cant really judge their situation. 

[ChessieCat]

I am very cautious about who I speak to about the bad side of psychiatric drugs.  It depends who it is and how much time I have to explain things to them.

 

Sometimes we don't get very much time to speak to a person so I try to get the key things in, my experience, withdrawal, website name, tapering slowly.  So I mention that I have tried to stop my drug too quickly and experienced withdrawal symptoms and found a website called surviving antidepressants and I'm tapering my drug slowly.  That way they are more aware that withdrawal symptoms can happen and they know that there is a place on the internet which can help.

 

Other things that you could mention are:    do your own research before starting a drug and check side effects, drug interactions and about how to get off the drug

 

I really do try to stress withdrawal because before I had my own experience with it I did not know about it at all.  Because I was feeling bad on the drug (before I tried to reduce it) I had been searching for side effects so didn't get any search results for withdrawal.

 

I hope that helps.

[Marian]

Thanks. That helps a lot. I indeed think withdrawal is important to mention. Even a lot of the nurses here dont seem to (want to) see that. And a lady was telling me she got more depressed than ever after quitting meds, so it was a bad idea to stop. I quickly mentioned withdrawal. She was never told about it.