#and like im already on 2 antidepressants and an antipsychotic

[halinski]

.

[chemicalcarousel]

just finished watching that 2 hr colin ross lecture about DID and it was so good. i had no idea schizophrenia used to encompass DID when it was coined, but it makes so much sense with the name "split mind" and why people mix them up all the time and also why we were suspected to be psychotic at first. it's just scary that modern psychiatrists still can't tell the difference. we really recognised the struggle of "not fitting in any diagnostic box" (what multiple doctors have told us) because our symptoms seem kinda psychotic at first glance if you don't know much about traumatology

it's really wild hearing someone describe a patient with DID and relating so much to it, when you're used to being told by doctors in your life that you're such a weird case and maybe you have thing unique disorder that hasn't been described in literature yet. it's scary because DID is so common compared to what doctors suspect. i have very clear symptoms of being traumatised, i openly tell them i have complex childhood trauma, yet they think i can't have a trauma disorder or at most they might say bpd. i'm so obviously fragmented!! there's a reason i was all over the place symptom-wise when i was hospitalised for depression!!! some days i seemed not depressed and other days i almost killed myself because i'm dissociative!! like i didn't know back then either, but doctors should have noticed. they should have screened me for dissociative symptoms!!! they should do that with all patients, especially when they are fucking hospitalised!!!

i have switched to child alters in front of my psychologist before and she just wanted to see me "do that voice again" while i was so fucking scared because i didn't know what was going on. i know she probably said it to see if it was voluntary that i could change my voice, but it felt so humiliating and like i was a circus freak the way she asked. like she already knew it wasn't voluntary and it was a response to being triggered in therapy because we talked about my childhood trauma!!! she'd said she knew it was an automatic reaction i had to being triggered, still she said i didn't have "real flashbacks" so i didn't have ptsd and it was all just bipolar, which it turns out i don't even have!!!! lol she ended up giving up on me and passing me on to some other therapist, but man... she made me almost kms so many times lol i know she didn't mean to, but she was so fucking bad at her job imho

it was so fucking funny to have entered the clinic in 2018 with my own personal suspicious being that i have cptsd, then getting told no i don't until late 2023 where my 2nd therapist asks me if i know about cptsd and that i seem to have it BITCH I KNOW LMFAO I'VE KNOWN FOR YEARS BUT YALL GASLIGHTED ME INTO THINKING I COULDN'T HAVE IT AND TOLD ME I WAS PSYCHOTIC AND NEEDED ANTIPSYCHOTICS, ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND MOOD STABILIZERS AND DIDN'T LISTEN WHEN NONE OF IT WORKED!!!!!

man.... and now im waiting like 69 weeks for my next psychiatrist bc i gave up on that shit clinic, who didn't want to transfer me to their trauma department because i didn't have war or service related trauma..... even though i found out they also treat other cases than that............ this system is a fucking joke. also the 69 weeks is not for a specialist, this was just the quickest i can see a psychiatrist without trying to kms and being involuntarily hospitalised. i'm just gonna see some normal psychiatrist and idk if she even believes in DID bc i didn't get to talk with her, only her secretary. so maybe when that year and three months have passed i find out she only knows how to diagnose anxiety and depression <333 or maybe she's homophobic or transphobic, bc that's something i've also experienced! <3333333

man.... i was brutally abused by my family and neglected by the system since before i was born and now im just.... stuck here with an illness there's a cure for, but with no access to it!!!! and it's not like i haven't tried getting help - i've been in and out of psych treatment from age 14-27!!! i've read up on shit myself bc here doctors just say "idk take this pill and stfu, hysteric woman" like i've been misdiagnosed so many times now.... at least im almost off all of my psych meds now! like they are good for some, but i was literally just fed pills for shit i didn't have and when i wasn't feeling better, they just upped the dose and told me i'd be more unstable without it when this doctor had never seen me without it and i've been on it for like a decade, still super unstable <3

long rant/vent lol but idk man it's just nice getting some of this out of my system

[nathank77]

3/29/24

1:18 a.m

Why do I dislike Mike as a therapist? Hate is a strong word but I wanted to make it clear in my email to Danielle that I posted below with a whole speel about having a lower quality of care and having to out myself to providers as trans and a voice hearer, making it known to her that I feel unsafe, dehumanized, stigmatized and discriminated against yet I will stay with Mike bc of this bc I don't want to be discriminated against.... anyways I got that all out but it was an important entry.

Why do I dislike Mike?

1) do you really hear a voice or is it a narrative?

- we talked about it and he showed genuine human emotion and cried a little but nonetheless I don't want to see him bc of the question that's why I tried to replace him.

2) would you rather have a mood disorder (bipolar voice hearer/schizoaffective) or a personality disorder(schizotypal)? In relation to saying psychosis is not a stand alone thing.... fact is psychosis can be a stand alone thing 1000%. Look it up. I had to fight him on this with facts.

- we talked about it and said he wasn't trying to diagnosis me, either way it rubbed me the wrong way that I had to fight him about facts, it is factually psychosis can be a standalone thing and go away. It doesn't have to be schizophrenia or depression or something else.

3) he brings up his education at NYU constantly and acts like a big wig. He thinks he is a big wig and he challenges me with questions which I'll list below that blow my mind, and aggravate me constantly.

He actually thinks he is smarter than me. I'd say we are of equal intelligence tbh. He isn't stupid but he isn't emotionally intelligent that's factually and he actually acts like a big wig.

4) just going back to psychosis not being a standalone illness. He doesn't believe psychosis can just be psychosis......

5) he pushed and has continued to push antidepressants..... especially since getting psychosis.... BRO MY NEUROTRANSMITTERS ARE ALREADY ALL SORTS OF MESSED UP. And I'm trying to recover naturally from psychosis....

Why not throw in some random SSRI or whatever and see what it does??? Antidepressants aren't a fucking bandaid and I don't have depression....

I'm sick of this conversation. He keeps saying well ERP in conjunction to an antidepressant is the highest quality of care for someone with OCD. First off we aren't doing ERP right now but secondly even if we were, I don't want to take a fucking antidepressant.

WELL BROTHER I DON'T FUCKING WANT AN ANTIDEPRESSANT. I NEVER DID AND I ESPECIALLY DONT WANT ONE NOW THAT I HAVE PSYCHOSIS.

WE DONT EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW THE BRAIN WORKS AND WE NEVER TRULY WILL SO LETS LEAVE MY BRAIN ALONE IM ALREADY ON BENZODIAZEPINES JUST TO SLEEP AT NIGHT AND ID RATHER NOT BE BUT I CANT SLEEP WITHOUT THEM.

6) when I brought up how my quality of care is lower bc I won't take antipsychotics bc of the side effects, and I'm not being treated the same by medical providers bc I'm labeled as psychotic.

Aka they won't treat me. If they will they won't look at issues as separate. Such as insomnia. And Continuing to be referred out to Behavioral health where I'm going to be forced to take antipsychotics.

Mike actually asked me why wouldn't you just do antipsychotics..... well idiot:

1] Seizures

2] movement disorders

3] negative symptoms- aka all this functionality I currently have can come to a screeching fault

4] the voice doesn't typically go away I've asked and looked at research....

5] it lowers your life expectancy by 30%

6] it lowers dopamine all over your fucking brain rather than the appropriate pathway-talk about antidepressants being a bandaid and the brain not being fully understood, antipsychotics are way worse

7] when you look up can you recover from psychosis in Google searches- you actually see in the commonly asked questions can you recover from antipsychotics!!!!!

8] I brought up my extensive education on the topic as I studied it intensively in grad school

9] they actually lower your IQ

His response was why wouldn't you want a lower IQ?? STUPID PEOPLE ARE HAPPIER..... that may be true... but:

I responded well I mean I went to school for my masters in neuroscience... I have a 160k education I worked very hard on and I may not be using it but I like being intelligent... I like learning new things. I like being inquisitive and educated and may be one day I will beat psychosis and OCD and end up getting my PhD or using my current education and getting into research but either way I like being intelligent.

7) when we were having this conversation i said i wasn't psychotic just bc I have psychosis and he said having Psychosis means you're psychotic... and I was like not when you're in remission, when you are firmly gripped in reality and not delusional, not when you're socially and occupationally functional and the only symptom you have is an auditory hallucination that causes suffering but nonetheless doesn't prevent you from functioning, you're not psychotic.

He made me feel like I was once again defined as fucking psychotic just bc I hallucinate... my grip on reality and functionality and intelligence plays a role in whether I'm, "psychotic."

Gotta love how people label you. Erin doesn't see me as psychotic. She sees me as a functional, intelligent, and firmly gripped in reality person who suffers from broken d2 receptors.

8) I asked him if he could stop cutting me off so I could finish my stories cause I need to vent and everytime he cuts me off I have to answer his annoying question and then I have to backtrack to explain what I was explaining. I explained it nicely but nonetheless now he is "checking out." I can see it in his face.

9) When I reestablished Therapy with him and I lost track of time and missed our 6. He said 630. I showed up and he never did and he pretended he didn't receive my texts.

-This is all I can come up with now minus him always bringing up movies that's gotten a little better but he talked to me about Benadryl and the man in the hat. I didn't know what he was talking about but Benadryl can make you see stuff cause I guess it's a delirium... I mean I never had visual hallucination with psychosis. Other than numbers being a little different (50 followers would switch to 51 back and forth) and i had that one physical hallucination the Rosalyn post i thought Elise posted... but that was actually October 7th before I had psychosis. Nonetheless it scared me that it happened but that's the extent of my visuals. I don't have them anymore.

before psychosis I took benadryl every single night with weed and I slept but bringing up the man in the hat scared me.... like of course I worry that things will worsen despite them getting better.

-he really lacks emotional Intelligence. I don't hate him. I don't like him as a therapist but bc of Danielle I'm stuck with him...

-Do I think he is a bad person?

No. I just don't think he is emotionally intelligent enough to be my therapist. I think generally he is a decent human but not the right fit for me as a therapist. I'd drop him like a hot potato if Danielle would find a therapist who was accepting of trans people and someone who doesn't stigmatize voice hearers.

[albatris]

ik this is probably an inappropriate question to ask but i deal with stpd and just recently discovered this. Previously thought it was just depression/anxiety but ive been on like 7 antidepressants/2 of which were more geared towards anxiety. I was wondering if you take any meds or have any advice you might recommend. Id really appreciate it. Im running out of ideas lol.( Sorry to bother and thank you)

nah you’re all good, I don’t have any problem with questions like this n I’m happy to share any experiences of mine that people might find useful!! though in this case idk how much help I’ll be, sorry D:

mostly about meds but my bad for goin on a whole ramble in the middle about therapy?? I talk a lot and have trouble staying on topic

'cause meds n therapy both have been useful to me but both probably would've been pretty useless without the other

under cut for personal rambles

so I was in the same boat as you for several years, I was in treatment for depression and anxiety and then borderline later on, way way way before anyone landed on schizotypal

as such I’ve been obviously dealing with stpd symptoms for basically my whole life but I only got diagnosed early last year n it’s the first time I’ve been. like. actually in any sort of therapy that addresses it properly and I’m still getting a feel for it

in terms of meds, I’ve been on a whole slew of different antidepressants, didn’t find one that worked until I was maybe 18 or 19? so I’ve been on the highest dose mirtazapine since then....... helps with that kinda baseline anxiety background hum, helps with obsessions and guilt spirals..... I didn’t think it did much for depression until I tried coming off it??

like, it gave me a slight boost in terms of energy and motivation, not a huge one, but definitely noticeable once it was gone

but yeah, it was kinda..... yeah, this med is about as helpful as I’m gonna get, so I decided to stick with it. I recently have considered coming off it ‘cause the sedation was a nightmare, but that’s on hold for the time being

I’ve been on two different antipsychotics, first quetiapine, which did absolutely nothing and was even more sedating on top of the mirtazapine, and currently I’m starting on aripiprazole. still on a super low dose, but working up to something that will hopefully ease some psychotic symptoms. side effects of insomnia and nausea but eased off mostly after the first week

but yeah, I haven’t really had much experience with antipsychotics or how helpful they are yet, atm I’m gonna wait and see whether there’s any real positive effects

but meds are super hard to give advice about, ‘cause different ones work for different folks, what works for me might not for you, what works for you might be something I tried and hated, etc etc etc, y’know

honestly the most helpful thing for me has been therapy, I’ve pretty much been in therapy since I was like 5 and I’ve done a lot of it

meds might be helpful to some people on their own but for me I think they would have been mainly useless without some form of therapy

meds kinda helped with some of the “edges” ie, the resulting depression and anxiety of the personality disorder, hopefully will help with some psychotic symptoms too, therapy has also helped with some of these issues on the edges, and I’m currently addressing some of the more specifically schizotypal core issues, although I will likely have to continue doing the work on those issues for most of my life

if you have a good doctor who listens to you, if you want to continue trying out meds then you might still find one that helps you out! I don’t really have a lot of advice here, because the effects can be so different from person to person. but I’ve found that meds only help on a really small scale, they kind of take a little bit of the weight off but it’s still a whole lot of heavy lifting on my own

so therapy was real good for some of that stuff too, skills for easing some of the load. therapy for me involved Other People, but for others it could involve other resources, such as online workbooks n that kind of thing....... ‘cause I know personally for me I fuckin HATE meeting new people and having to bare my soul for them, so therapy gets. interesting

and I know therapy is not realistic for some folks (and also not what this question was about but I’m just rambling now)

n I know especially that that shit gets fucking HARD when any sort of psychosis and paranoia is involved, in terms of stpd, I flat out refused to speak about certain symptoms with professionals due to paranoia and fear, and had a lot of issues trying to come into a therapy environment and immediately having complete strangers be like “ok tell me about what’s up”

like, no???? fuck off?? I don’t even know you??

n until recently all my therapies where only tangentially useful as a schizotypal, like, I did a bunch of social anxiety stuff which helped with some of the surface level day-to-day social anxiety (not so much the more deep-seated stpd social anxiety, that whole “it gets worse the closer you get to people” type, very fun), I did a lot of work around depression and suicidal urges and goals and meaningful living and whatnot, I did DBT which also encompassed a lot of work on interpersonal skills and handling dissociation and paranoia

n like. some of it was helpful? none of it got to the core of the issue or addressed what I really needed to address

I got super lucky with my current psychiatrist in that she was someone I already knew for around a year and a half beforehand ‘cause she helped out in my DBT group therapy. so I was able to get a feel for what kind of person she was beforehand and got to find my feet in trusting her in a more distanced context before entering one on one therapy. she also specialises in personality disorders and was the one who actually diagnosed me so it wasn’t like she was like “oh you’re definitely schizotypal, I’m gonna just pan you off to someone more experienced now” which was nice

she’s also the one who’s helping me out with meds currently

but ya, therapy can be A Lot, ‘specially for schizotypals who tend to isolate and get uncomfy in those vulnerable scenarios. in order to make the most out of it I have to practice an extremely uncomfortable sort of “radical openness” which is like..... well, I’ve spent most of my life being miserable and unhappy and feeling trapped and stuck in these patterns, and this has gotten me nowhere, in order for something to change I need to be radically open about my experiences

which gets HARD because the knee-jerk reaction to paranoia and delusions is often to pull back and isolate, and often I’ve struggled with the idea that it’s not “safe” to speak about certain things or that something bad will happen if I do

so it’s difficult, but I have to continually commit myself to being open and placing myself in intensely uncomfortable scenarios, getting used to the idea of trust being An Action, and practicing trust even when I don’t necessarily Feel It

that’s been a really helpful outlook for me and the only thing that’s kept me involved with therapy and meds and treatment. idk if it’ll be useful to others. I also know that some therapists and psychiatrists are shit and being radically open with the wrong people can be a nightmare

but it’s something that applies in my other relationships too and with my relationship to myself, so. *shrug emoji*

but yeah. that’s been what’s helpful for me

meds do a little bit of the work, but honestly I still have to pull a fuckload of the weight on my own, I kinda got to the point with meds where I was just like “ok this is obviously as good as it’s gonna get” and just stuck with it......... which is kind of a bummer of an answer

ik that kinda turned into a whole unrelated ramble in the middle there but I hope this kinda answers a bit of your question maybe or maybe not ‘cause I don’t really know what I’m doing

but also

I hope you have a nice day

[trendercraft]

okay so some older followers may remember the medication posts (tw 4 a lot of things in those posts lol) n i wanted 2 make an update post so! me talking 4 ages under the cut:

[[MORE]]

so im still not taking my antidepressants, which may actually b a good thing as of right now, because im on an opioid (hydrocodone-acetamin, since i finished my tramadol) + a nausea supressant (zofran, which i only need bc this opioid makes me sick lmao) after getting my wisdom teeth out.

why is that good? well, my therapist n i figured out what happened when i suddenly went back on my high dose of effexor: a mild/moderate case of serotonin syndrome. n it just so happens that both opioids and zofran up the risk of that when combined w an antidepressant, n since ive already had serotonin syndrome, im at a higher risk of it happening again, possibly w more severe symptoms! fun.

another thing is that ive been prescribed an atypical antipsychotic (abilify) bc of my schizoaffective diagnosis (which is probs wrong n im actually schizophrenic, but thats not important). i havent been taking that either bc my psych apparently forgot that it made me like. rlly sick the last time i was on it (for severe anxiety)??? n it ups the risk for serotonin syndrome anyway.

tl;dr it turns out that the meds caused a rare side effect that is now prone 2 happening again n it may b a good thing that im not taking my antidepressants as prescribed.

[lymanjosh]

do you have any tips on bringing up ADHD to a therapist? I desperately need help for it but I don’t want my concerns dismissed because stuff like adderall is heavily misused :(

i had like two pages of an answer for this (and it was coherent, even, if you can believe it) and then i refreshed the page like a dumbass so this is take 2, which is Less Coherent and im sorry but theres nothing i can do about it

so im not an authority on the subject or anything, and i don’t know your situation, and also ive been diagnosed for like 2 weeks, so you can pretty much take everything i say with a grain of salt. what im gonna do is im gonna run through my own experience / what i wish i did differently / what im doing now, and i hope it helps, and you can totally feel free to come back if you wanna talk more at all once im finished!! and i really hope that at least something i say here is of help to you

also this is gonna be rambly and im sorry about that but i don’t know any other way to be. im gonna preemptively forgive myself because youre like me so you get it but im sure it’s not easy to read so for that i apologize.

tldr: know concretely why you think you have ADHD and what treatment options you want to pursue, do like 3 times more research than you think you need to do, write down all your symptoms in advance, cite your past history of mental health treatment if you have one, and try not to worry too much. if your therapist is any good at their job they’ll know you’re not just drug-seeking, and they’ll recognize the symptoms and problems you discuss when you bring them up in the context of ADHD. probably you’ll be okay, and you’ll get the treatment you need.

so i spent most of my teen years in a drug-addled haze. i was depressed and anxious because i couldn’t Fucking Do Anything, and my parents were worried so they took me to the doctor, and the doctor was worried so she sent me to another doctor, and this continued for a long time and i was on like 4 different antidepressants and 4 different antipsychotics and also some anti-anxiety meds between the ages of like 15 and 16. it was heavily traumatic and also not fun, and the reason all this happened was that nobody stopped to think that maybe i might share some genes with my dad, who has been diagnosed inattentive since before i was born.

right off the bat i should have been way more up in arms about self-advocating, which is something you’re clearly doing, so that’s awesome and you should give yourself a pat on the back because that’s really difficult in the mental health industry especially when you’re already fighting your own brain on most things. 

hopefully you haven’t been through a wringer of false diagnoses and nonsensical prescriptions, but if you have, then you can guilt your doctor a little bit. “i was traumatized! i was given dangerous psychoactive drugs during a critical phase of neural development! you have to give me stimulants to atone for your sins!” phrase it exactly like that, it’s like a silver bullet. in all seriousness if you ahve past diagnoses of anxiety or depression or anything to do with emotional dysregulation that can help your case, because you can point out that a) these things are common misdiagnoses for adhd, and b) the symptoms for these things logically emerge from things like emotional hyperarousal and rejection-sensitive dysphoria. 

what i should have done, and what i think you should do, is write down your symptoms in advance, because then you won’t have to spend an hour hemming and hawing and trying to thnk of them all in the doctor’s office. i did not do this. it didn’t prove to be a problem because my doctor was kinda irresponsible but i really should have done this, just for my own benefit.

when i actually brought it up to my doctor that i might have adhd i had a couple different things going for me. i was talking to my GP, and not my therapist; im not in therapy (which you can probably tell) because therapists creep me out, but i think physicians are probably more inclined to throw drugs at it than therapists are. my GP was also brand new to my case– i had never even met the guy before. i mentioned my history of mental health treatment, and i also mentioned my dad being diagnosed, and im also a girl (girls are chronically underdiagnosed and extremely likely to be misdiagnosed with either anxiety or depression), so i had some concrete facts to support why i had suspicions. i had also done a shit ton of research beforehand, so i advise you to do that– know concretely why you think you have adhd and what treatment options you want to pursue.

you might benefit from talking about it with your doctor before your therapist, but idk that might just be my fear of therapists talking. i think a doctor is less likely to want to taco bout it than a therapist but that may just be my specific experience– you know your situation better than i do. and admittedly a therapist is more likely to, like, Know You and know what you’re talking about when you say (for example) that you’ve always struggled with emotional dysregulation, or whatever.

something else that might help you– i wish i had done this not because i don’t want to look like a drug-seeker but because i Miss Coffee– is to bring up non-stimulant treatments like strattera (for adults) or kapvay or intuniv (both for children but sometimes prescribed to adults) because it’ll show you’ve done your homework and it might be a point against writing you off. stimulants are usually the first resort for adhd, so it’s highly likely you’ll end up on adderall or another stimulant, but it’s good to bring up as an option. might also be good to research it as a serious course of action, especially if you suffer with anxiety, because stimulants are likely to make you more anxious.

i would also advise you not to fixate on adderall? idk enough about your situation to know if you’ve done that but it’s good to be open to other medications and treatment plans bc if adderall doesn’t work for you it doesn’t work and there’s not a ton you can do about it. you should for sure read up on other treatments– you might find one that sounds more appealing, or at the very least you’ll know what to think if your doctor brings up another one unexpectedly.

so i brought up to my doctor that i might have adhd and he immediately plonked a questionnaire in front of me. i filled it out (spoiler alert most of my answers were “often”) and he was like “oh this is textbook, let’s get you on adderall” which like WHAT. i didn’t even ask about adderall. like im not gonna argue with you but let’s talk about this first before we break out the stimulant medication. but i’ve been on it for a couple days and no major side effects yet so maybe he was right who knows. anyway he was super irresponsible don’t let your doctor just prescribe you meds at random go through the side effects. always ask about the side effects. i get such bad headaches after it wears off. i have one now and its Bad. 

but as an addendum you should for sure be prepared to use other coping mechanisms. i’ve started using a bullet journal since i was diagnosed which i’ve found works really well, and youtube channels like howtoadhd are really helpful to me!! i try to use the meds sparingly because i Don’t Like taking pills and also bc adderall can be habit forming, and because i hope to eventually be able to function without it, and i advise you to think of it the same way. drugs don’t have to be a permanent fixture in your life– you can use it as a temporary tool while you build up the necessary coping mechanisms and mental pathways to function without it. adhd isn’t broken brain, it’s just brain on hard mode, if you know what i mean. i try to think of the meds as training wheels– i learn to function with it, and then i gradually learn to function without it. so idk if that’s a useful way to think about it for you but to me it feels more hopeful than resigning myself to a lifetime on more drugs. idk. 

but even if you’re okay with that, adderall isn’t gonna make you functional (it might. kinda feel like you’re magically functional. that’s how i feel right now, that is to say when im not headaching.) so you have to have systems in place to make it easier for yourself. some kind of productivity app might help ig (i used ike for like 3 days and then my phone died and i forgot to charge it for a week because that happens to me sometimes, but i liked ike!) but i like analog todo lists. feels good checking stuff off. either way is good though. 

also get your phone to send you alerts. also rearrange your stuff. like, make the world around you conducive to your functioning. do your best to create and live in a space that enables you to do the things you need to do. get accommodations at school if you need to (i haven’t done this and can’t tell you how but there are a ton of online tutorials and you can probably just google your school + accessibility, or something, and that’s assuming you even go to school)

but yeah i hope any of that was helpful to you and im sorry to make you do 1 million hours of deciphering my shitty informal writing style and i love you and i want to help you please come back and let me know how everything goes bc im gonna worry about you otherwise