#overmedication tw

[auschizm]

I have personal trauma with antipsychotics. At a point of slight instability, my psych insisted on doubling my dose of Olanzapine from 15mg to 30mg. The recommended max dose is 15mg. The dose I was on that year is literally called "chemical restraint" because it's mainly used to control extremely violent prisoners. Eventually my friend noticed what happened and got me down to a less debilitating dosage of the med, but I lost a year of my life to this "error." I literally don't remember the entirety of that YEAR. I wasn't there.

[auschizm]

Adding onto the anon talking about forced hospitalisation: it is absolutely true that a patient being in distress due to forced/highly coerced hospitalisation is just seen as a sign they need it even more.

A few years ago I had a string of very long hospitalisations that I absolutely didn't want and made my mental health way worse due in part to the way doctors changed my antipsychotics however they wanted *without even asking me*, making me severely ill due to sudden withdrawal.

And one of them lasted about 5 months, with a transfer to residential halfway through, and immediately when I got there I knew it was going to be awful, so I was begging on the phone to my parents for them to take me out of it. They and the doctors only saw it as further confirmation of my inability to know what was right for myself. Same went with other things they did to me in our home.

Years later, they have given vague mentions of regretting it and realising it was a really bad idea. But of course, only when they heard it from people other than myself... because my psychotic opinion didn't matter, apparently.

I'm so sorry and angry that you had to go through that! It's really scary that people are more likely to take a psychotic persons "this isn't helping me" as proof that we are too ill to make our own decisions than as proof of the hospital/doctor being bad...

[auschizm]

I was put on a pretty high dose of anti psychotics as a young teen (high enough to make anyone who takes it who hasn't developed some sort of tolerance to literally pass out within an hour and sleep for like, the next 12-24 hours), I wasnt diagnosed w any schizospec disorder (they just "suspected" schizophrenia on my file) because the clinic I was institutionalized in basically passed out anti psychotics like candy. At times like 70% of the ward was on them, but usually just 1 or 2 kids with an actual schizospec diagnosis. They just loved sedating us tbh.

Over the next like 8 years I kept going on and off anti psychotics, mostly the same one but mixing it up towards the end as well. What I found the worst (sort of, with some hyperbole. if you dont consider lasting neurological issues and some other wild dogshit it caused in my life over those years) is how uneducated every single psych I had was about the anti psychotics that they were Actively Prescribing People.

They didnt know common side effects including tardive dyskenesia, which I have to this day. I had to argue with them so theyd look up literature on it so they'd even believe my experience. They always were suspicious of me wanting to change my dose. They would make me switch meds without tapering the old one (?!), most of them never ordered the tests necessary to monitor your physical health while on anti psychotics (I forgot the names of the tests right now, oops)... often refusing to monitor me as i taper off of them because they didnt "agree" with it, finally one time my GP said he would monitor it. etcetc.

I dont really like... have a point to this. I just wanted to get this out for now.

I'm not even saying they dont help during phases of acute delusion (tho they never actually touch my 'long term' ones lol).. it's just that. At least here no psych seems to know what the fuck they're prescribing people anyways, so how the fuck am I supposed to trust them or work with them at all? I just gave up and have been unmedicated for a year now after tapering them myself as usual. I honestly dont miss it much at all.

I'm really angry you had to experience this. That the doctors who were supposed to help you did this instead. I can relate, and I'm sending my love and solidarity ❤️

[auschizm]

is it possible to not recognize the cognitive and mental changes induced by antipsychotics? i take them for off label non psychiatric reasons and im not sure stopping is an option regardless, but seeing all this discussion of how profoundly they impact you makes me wonder if i could be missing something important.

Yes, you are actually very unlikely to intuitively notice this deterioration, due to the nature of how the meds affect your experience/thinking/cognitive abilities. When I was severely overmedicated and far, far, FAR below my general level of cognitive functioning, it was a friend who noticed. Because I had lost the ability to reflect in a manner that would allow me to analyze my situation and blame the meds. I just didn't have the mental capacity for that, and I needed someone else to solve the puzzle and act on it

[auschizm]

here's anon of ariprazole 20 mg - my psychiatrist, in general, is so terrified when i bring up any quasi-psychotic symptom, no matter if it isn't distressing or can be managed another way, that she almost always increased a dose of this med, when i was talking how i feel and such. i'm not sure if it's safe asking her for lowering it, but maybe when i bring up tardive dyskinesia then she'll finally listen. maybe.

In that situation I honestly recommend that you do not share that you're having quasi-psychotic experiences with this psychiatrist. It sucks when you can't be honest, but if these meds are making you worse and your psychiatrist isn't willing to listen to your concerns about them, I don't recommend total honesty. Instead I'd focus on the issues Tardive Dyskinesia is causing for you and the fact that you are not and never were actively psychotic