#like. one of the meds i went off of was an ssri and i can talk through what that withdrawal might feel like! i also have pots so if you wan

[trans-axolotl]

hellooo & happy pride ! i have a question about psych meds/withdrawal/harm reduction if you have the space for it— i’ve been on ssri’s for 14 years (!) since i was 11 years old (!) and i would looove to come off them but unfortunately i am dealing with chronic health issues (pots/mcas/eds) at the same time so i’m nervous to try and taper on my own

do you have any ideas of people/orgs i might be able to talk to about my specific situation and get some help coming off safely? or just a direction to point me in to start searching…every psychiatrist i’ve spoken to just wants to increase dose or add in another med 😭

Happy pride anon!!

I'm sorry to hear that you haven't been able to find support for changing your medication choices. It's so frustrating to feel stuck on meds that aren't what you want to be on, especially when's it been happening for years. Disclaimer as always that I am not a medical provider or psych med expert, so please do your own research and consult with trusted sources when possible!

There are some helpful resources that I want to share, and defintely just want to emphasize that before making any medication changes, it can be really helpful to do research, throughly understand the risk for your own situation, and make an in depth plan for how you want to approach your medication changes. Tapering will always be safer than just completely quitting medications, and it can be really helpful to consider how other medical issues you have will intersect with med changes. Sometimes, stopping some meds cold turkey can be life threating, so it is crucial to really do your research and understand your risks.

Even tapering meds can cause some difficult physical and mental symptoms, so it can be helpful to consider when will be the best timing, how stable other parts of your life are, what support you have from friends/family, and what will happen if symptoms escalate while you're in the process of tapering off. A lot of times, withdrawal from meds can cause some of the same symptoms that you might have originally been taking the meds for, so having a coping plan ahead of time allows you to be ready to make decisions in the moment. I think it's also important to know that tapering safely can be a really slow process, sometimes lasting months or over a year depending on your dosage, how long you've been on a med, and what your tolerance for withdrawal symptoms is.

The Harm Reduction guide to Psych meds is a really awesome resource from the Icarus project that shares a lot of tips for the process of medication change.

Mind.uk has some pretty good basic info about medications that can be helpful for understanding side effects, withdrawal info, etc.

The Withdrawal Project from the Inner Compass initative is an amazing resource that collects information from patients, experts, science, anecdotal experiences, and provides information about things like safe tapering schedules, withdrawal symptoms, and things to know before tapering. They also have a forum where you can talk to other people who are tapering and get advice and support. You might also be able to get reccomendations for medical providers in your area who would be willing to help you with tapering, for example.

Wishing you the best, anon, and feel free to reach out with any other questions!

[lobotomy-lady]

rant incoming bc I've been spending my downtime at work preparing my taper regime & I'm just thinking about how utterly fucking demented it is that psychiatrists are so uninformed about medication withdrawal. it's literally their JOB to keep up to date with this shit!! like I still can't believe mine recommended I cut my dose in half twice a week then drop off within a month after 15 YEARS of being on this stupid fucking SSRI & having it change my brain & body. we know SSRI wd (along w/AP wd & especially benzo wd) often is faaaaar longer lasting & more dangerous than even fucking fentanyl withdrawal & tapering too fast can literally break you, permanently. it's not just a few weeks of hell but a possibility of a lifetime of total anhedonia, pssd, & a fair chance you might just kill yourself (or even someone else) bc it can make you psychotic even if you've never had those symptoms before. how fucked up is it that mentally ill people have to just do our own research bc we can't trust the people who went to school for like 8 fucking years & get 6 figure salaries NOT to just be useful idiots for big pharma??

it's even more grotesque when you think of all the people who aren't capable of doing this type of self advocacy bc they're just too ill, or bc they're in one of the fucking maximum security prisons we call "psychiatric hospitals", most of which have not progressed whatsoever from the 60s except they've switched from ice pick lobotomies to chemical lobotomies. despite all the evidence of the unbelievable harm they're doing, mentally and physically (patients treated w/APs on average live 20 YEARS shorter than those who are not due to their effects on the body).

and people literally just do not care. mental illness is criminalized, especially if you don't have deep pockets bc god fucking forbid you're sent to a state institution/concentration camp rather than a private one. state asylums are where all possibility of a recovery goes to die. the staff are abusive sociopaths and all they do is forcibly pump you full of meds to make you compliant & physically assault you & treat you WORSE than serial killers on death row. that is not even a slight exaggeration. killers are treated better in prison than patients in these hellholes.

if you want to learn more about anti-psychiatry & why it's a necessary modern civil rights movement I suggest checking on it the websites psychrights.org & madinamerica, they have many well documented horror stories about just what goes on at these facilities & how medication is destroying people's lives.

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

a lot of people, when faced with antipsych rhetoric, will accuse us of trying to take their meds away.

the stock response is that no, we’re not trying to take anyone’s meds away, we’re trying to remove the gatekeeping and prescriptive framework that meds are currently accessed in to begin with, making it so that no-one is forced to take meds they don’t want to take and that anyone can access any meds they want to take without needing to go through an institutional authority.

and like, that’s true, but i think it’s missing the inherent anxiety being expressed: that less people will be on meds, if the psychiatric institution is abolished and we are able to disseminate accurate information about the long-term effects of some of the most commonly prescribed psych meds (SSRIs and antipsychotics in particular). i don’t think these people would ever articulate it this way themselves, but i think a lot of pathologized peoples who have bought into the psychiatric institution’s narrative have an idea of medicated=good, and unmedicated=bad, and therefore have an automatic anxiety response to the idea of a large number of people going off their meds, even if that doesn’t include them, personally.

there’s an anxiety deeply embedded in MI and neurodivergent spaces that buy into the pathology framework about unmedicated MI people being dangerous, or just unpredictable in a way that is framed as harmful to themselves and others. there’s also a strong attitude of like... not trusting individual MI people to ascertain accurately if their meds work for them or not. there’s a reason MI spaces love to lean heavily on the “i was doing great, so i decided i didn’t need my meds, and when i went off them i was suddenly suicidal and miserable, because my meds were the only thing making me do great” anecdote--while it’s an accurate anecdote for many people, it’s also incredibly useful for pushing the narrative that MI people cannot accurately assess our relationships with medication, and that it’s necessary to leave that assessment to a doctor or other outside professional.

the idea of less people being on medication of their own free will is genuinely incredibly anxiety-provoking to a lot of pathologized peoples. the idea that MI people might not need the meds they’re currently, right now, taking, is incredibly destabilizing to their worldview. the idea that they themselves might have the option to go off their meds is anxiety-provoking! from an internal view, it feels like they’re being threatened. no matter how many times you explain that nobody’s trying to personally take their meds away, they still have the feeling of being under threat. i think that’s where the disconnect in a lot of these discussions happens.

[illandtired]

about me<3 (tw)

Hello, I’m 17 and I’m gonna try to take my life again on my 18th birthday.

(Sorry, this jumps around a lot.)

(And it’s long….)

Also heavy topics, literally almost every trigger warning in the book.

This blog is gonna literally be my diary. I’ve attempted to make me life multiple times in the past for multiple different reasons.

I’m seventeen and I currently live alone in my mother’s house, she lives with her boyfriend. I had my biological dad who left before I was born and two step fathers. The only one I “care” about is my most recent. He entered my life when I was 6 and since then I tried telling my mother about him but for some reason it took until I was 16 for her to divorce him. He abused me severely. When I told him I was suicidal the first time he said he was gonna go get his gun then proceeded to make me beg for my life. I was I believe 12 or 13, a lot of it’s a blur like most of my life.

I don’t want to go too much into my past and make this too long, I started smoking weed in 8th grade. By 9th I was doing lines of random shit I got from kids at school off the bathroom toilets. I have touched most stuff besides heroin. The one drug I promised my mother I would stay away from. Currently I am still hooked on opioids, SSRIs, and I smoke weed/thc carts every day.

I was 6 when I was diagnosed with adhd, severe anxiety and depression. I haven’t seen a doctor since. My mother swears she’s trying to get me in but she always complains about how much my meds cost. She knows my worries about my mental state and I swear it’s impossible to get the help I need.

I’ve always been a paranoid person but it’s getting worse by the day. I’m genuinely too scared to take the trash out because I feel 800 eyes on me. I feel like there’s invisible people constantly around me judging my every move. I don’t feel real some times, and not that life is a simulation shit, I genuinely don’t feel like I’m in my body.

I started self harming in 3rd grade. It started as me being a wrist and head banger but by 5th grade I had started using thumb tacks and scratching myself. I went to my step father and he told me they weren’t Deep enough and I was just looking for attention. By 6th grade I was actually cutting, but only to where I barely saw the blood. By 8th it got to the point where I needed to see the blood run. But I’ve managed to get back to only getting it to bead up, occasionally running. I was clean for quite a few months but the smallest, SMALEST thing can set me back so much.

I’ve struggled my entire life with starving myself, binge eating, then starving myself. I’ve been an unhealthy weight a lot of my life. I’m around 240lbs now, my eating disorder is mainly starving now. My “Binges” are now small.

I have never been able to make a phone call to someone besides friends. Even family calls are hard a lot. I can barely order food at a restaurant, fancy or McDonald’s.

I’ve made money in my life from stealing, I’ve been a kleptomaniac for as long as I can remember. But I also made money doing bakery stuff for my mother, doing mechanical stuff, and babysitting. My only “legal” job was working at McDonald’s. I got fired a year after starting because we had a new manager who fired me over homophobic reasons. I hated going to work. I loved the work itself, but I hated having to be around anyone.

I’ve always been called lazy. And I feel like it’s true, I can barely find the motivation to get up to take a piss most days. I had such a hard time with organization and cleanliness as a kid so I always had a messy room, unless it was right after one of the days I got my stuff thrown away.

I never payed attention in school yet I somehow got straight As until i genuinely didn’t care anymore. I dropped out 10th grade on my 16th birthday. School was so much worse for my mental health. I was self harming almost every day, lying to myself about who I am to fit in.

I actually love learning, I wanted to get into nursing school but I know I’ll never get clean enough. I even study biology, trig, physics, crime scene investigation, all sorts of stuff. I have notebooks and notebooks that I’ve filled with information I’ll never use.

I was 10 when I got my first boyfriend. He was 18, a relationship on discord. It lasted a couple years at least. I was sexually assaulted multiple times growing up and I don’t wanna go into more detail in this post. But due to my sexual trauma i became very hyper sexual very young. I still am to this day, I sell pictures to creepy men online because I know I won’t be able to get any other job. But at the same time it’s basically been implemented in my brain I’m good for sex and nothing more. I feel so utterly disgusted with myself after every sexual experience in my life from sex to just sending nudes.

I grew up a chubby girl with big tits. It was 6th grade i started having boys desperate to touch them. I had Ds by then. I’m a F-G now (depends on the bra). My own step father and his sons who were much older than me started sexualizing me when I was about 13. One of my step brother was creepy since he entered my life.

I’ve had so many important parts of my life taken from me. My Virginity with a man was raped away when I was 14 on Christmas. My self worth was barely existent but it was gone completely by 9th grade. My first “good boyfriend” was when I was 15, he was 18. He filmed us one night after I asked him not to multiple times, but the next day a video of me having my brains fucked out was all over my school. It was a smaller school, but even some of the female teachers sided with him because he was the “king” of the school. I missed my middle school graduation which doesn’t seem like much to most people, but I knew I was going to drop out and never have a high school graduation. I was even selected to write a speech and go up and speak at the podium but due to anxiety from both situations I missed the whole thing entirely because I tried to kill myself that night.

Most of my attempts have been overdose attempts, and that’s for a reason. I couldn’t imagine my mother finding me and my brains splattered on the wall. But out of everything, no it’s not my mother that’s kept me alive. It’s been my best friend. I live in the states and he lives in Scotland. We’ve been friends for years, we met through my ex and were completely like the opposite of each other but we care about each other. And unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to meet him. We were going to meet when I turn eighteen because he’ll be turning 21 and can legally drink here, I can legally drink there.

I care about nothing more than him and it pains me that I know he will be disappointed when he realizes I gave up. I don’t plan on telling him anything.. we have a thing where if he’s gone for a month he’s on a mental health break, but two months he’s dead and I have his permission to kill myself. I’m going to tell him he has to wait a year for me because I might be in the mental hospital.

Back to simple things I can’t do, I would rather claw my own eyes out than be alone with a man in a room. But my best friend is the one exception. I haven’t gone on a date since new years. As soon as we got to his house, it wasn’t even 5 minutes before he had a gun pressed in my side.

Yet at the same time I feel like my only purpose is to make men happy in any way I can. Even if it makes me uncomfortable and I don’t want to do it. Because that’s all I’ve ever been good at and praised for.

There was about a week in my life and it was somewhat recent. I told myself I wasn’t going to attempt again because no matter what life won’t suck that bad. Being homeless was the happiest time of my life, sure I can be on the street and cold, no money, but I no longer have responsibilities and I get to walk which I love doing. I used to sneak out at night and go on long ass walks normally from 10pm to 3-5am.

More things about substances, once again I’m sorry for jumping around. I started smoking cigarettes in 6th grade, provided by my step father and girlfriend. I started drinking in 8th grade but now it takes half a bottle of tequila for me to be at a happy level of drunk. Or 4 bottles of cheap wine, or an entire bottle of rum. Anyways I feel like I’m rambling on and on so I’m gonna try to wrap this up.

What’s the main reason I want to kill myself? Because I know I will never be able to live a normal life. But my one goal as a kid was to make it to 18.

[dangerously-human]

The thing about this week's primary doctor appointment is I did walk out with almost everything I asked for - a referral for sleep testing, an appointment for blood work to get back on my existing meds, a suggestion for a nutritionist to meet with as a first step to sorting out my recurrent weight issues (I do not trust that field and the likelihood that I'll go is pretty low, but we'll see), even a script for Strattera... but based on the doctor's reticence and tbh kind of nastiness around the Strattera, I don't know if I should actually take it. The thing is that nothing in this world scares me worse than a depression relapse. I can do minor ones, I do those all the time in fact, but the idea of that as a med side effect scares the shit out of me, because now we're putting me back in the place I was when I was on antidepressants, you feel? And I'm very very scared of the effects of going off of mental health meds - knowing that I usually can't stay on anything consistently - having done my fair share of suicidal spins in college accidentally going off SSRIs cold turkey. And then when I tried to express that and ask what I should do to keep an eye out for it, and she said I should just be able to tell if my mood gets bad and I said well listen, I know I have a history with anxiety and depression and being autistic, I don't always notice a change right away, for her to then say, you have to be in therapy again, and you should probably go back on Lexapro, and probably your symptoms are just depression and I shouldn't even be giving you Strattera in the first place, that's when I really melted down. So you can understand where I might be a tinge concerned about taking this. Even though I actually think it will make my life a lot more manageable, on multiple fronts. Even though I'm old enough that the risk of depression as a side effect isn't so high anymore, and in fact this medicine works as a low-level antidepressant anyway. Even though I've gotten much better at staying on meds where there will be an immediate impact to quitting - I haven't had any issues with propranalol, for instance, just the ones that need blood work. And I guess, even though I'm scared, I'm also really excited by the prospect of being able to focus again in a way I haven't had for 10+ years, and maybe even keeping up with life outside of work and school. If I treat the ADHD, theoretically it would become much easier for me to stay on top of all my meds anyway. My mom suggested that I make an appointment with my old therapist to ask for her advice, and she also thought I should get back on thyroid meds first to see how that helps my attention - but the executives were dysfunctioning even before I went off that, and also it'll take a couple months for the Strattera to kick in, which would be minimally helpful for grad school purposes if I don't start now. So, where does that leave me? Idk, honestly. I guess the first step is just to pick up all my pills from the pharmacy, and then I think and pray about whether and when to take them. I wish I had a doctor I trusted enough that this didn't feel like a big decision.

[mllemouse]

so i accidentally went off my ssri last month because i kept falling asleep before taking it and ALSO not waking up wanting to die!

yesterday my therapist was like yeah, you still need to get a new psych tho, but for now i am raw dogging life, babey.

and honestly, i know everyone talks about the massive difference that like, going on HRT can have on your mental health, but i haven't really seen any writing on the same level about gender affirming surgery, which I think is kind of the main impetus that stopped my immediate suicidal thoughts, since it's the main big change. like, my workplace is still a trash fire. all of my other problems still exist, etc.

i'm now hitting the point in recovery where my chest isn't really painful on a daily basis and it's just been an absolutely tremendous relief. like, life FEELS kind of easy breezy. and it really never has before??

it's truly like there was a layer of haze clouding just absolutely everything. and it seems so silly and irrelevant for that thing doing the clouding to be a pair of boobs, but i guess it wasn't. on the other had, it doesn't seem so silly and irrelevant because it's just that i've reached a whole new level of physical comfort and ease. like, i can just... put a shirt on and it immediately looks and fits how i think it's gonna fit. there's no disconnect between my head and the mirror, there's no shuffling tissue around to try and get it to look the way i want it to look. i don't feel i have to wear a whole entire extra layer of really constrictive clothing.

i just redid my chest measurements and i went from a 28 to 32 rib circumference because, i guess, i'm no longer smooshing myself inward so aggressively. it's certainly not because i've made mad gainz yet, because my chest seems pretty atrophied, i just finished one week of easy workouts. anyway, that seems absolutely wild to me. i also imagine i'm taking in more oxygen if i'm able to breathe without restriction, and that probably has a positive effect on comfort and mood.

anyway this is all to say that i always thought i was one of those people who would have mild to moderate lingering depression their entire life, and need to be on daily meds to get myself up to a functioning level, but maybe that wasn't the case. and i was so worried that getting this surgery would just be like, you know, a cosmetic fix for an aesthetic preference problem, but it's turning out to be much more than that.

[purveyorofsnozzberries]

So, let’s talk about anti-depressants for a bit.

Tw: suicide, depression, and SSRI withdrawal symptoms.

Antidepressants are wonderful miracles of modern medicine. In that we don’t really know how they work.

In 2016, my life sucked. I could go into how bad it sucked, but ironically I feel like that way lies a depressive episode so let’s not. One day, I received some unusually bad news. Life ending bad, it felt at the time. And, in the wake of that news, I tried to commit suicide. I thankfully was not well equipped, or I would have actually done some damage. I was lucky. I had a support system who sprang into action to let me know that I was loved, and would be missed.

So I started taking antidepressants. I went to a doctor and said “I tried to off myself, I think I need antidepressants.” They readily agreed, and I was prescribed escitalopram. Years have passed, I’ve had my ups and downs but for the most part the antidepressants did a lot to help me stay sane during those bad years. Hurray!

But then, a few months ago, I moved from my hometown to one 5 hours away. My doctors said they could prescribe me 3 months supply while I found a new doctor. Easy, right? Wrong. I have made 3 appointments with doctors in this town and each one has called me back saying “we’re not accepting new Medicaid patients”

I’m sorry, the fuck? I just need someone to sign the little pieces of paper that allow me to take the pills that make my brain work. And sadly, I am one of those people who needs medications. I take them to focus, I take them to sleep, I take them to maintain my mental health. But while I was trying to find a doctor, my antidepressants ran out.

“Oh shit.”

Day 1 through day 3 wasn’t so bad. Felt a bit off, emotions were swinging more than usual, maybe got a bit irritable sometimes but nothing I haven’t gotten used to dealing with over the years. This was hardly the first time my ADHD ass forgot to re-up on meds over a long weekend. It sucks, but it’s manageable. Day 4 changed that. Day 4 I couldn’t sleep. I woke up really to kill someone. I SCREAMED obscenities at my pet cats when they meowed to be fed ( I feel really bad about freaking them out now). Any little thing went straight to 11. My mind was foggy.

Day 5 was worse. The body aches started. My muscles felt… thin, like I could bite right through my arm without stopping. My extremities were at turns numb and tingling. I started experiencing “brain zaps”, which is a phantom sensation that feels like an electric shock goes from your brain all the way down your body. Deeply unpleasant all around.

Day 6 I started feeling a bit better mentally. I found that marijuana could at least keep the irritability down. I made another appointment, then sobbed when I got a call back saying no new Medicaid patients.

Finally I called my mom. The nuclear option. I, a 32 year old man, called my mom hoping she could make things better. And for the most part, it worked, lol. She showed up a few days later and marched me down to an urgent care who was able to prescribe me a months supply. I was so out of it I told them the wrong dosage (I take 10’s but said 20’s) and so wound up with a 2 month supply. Which hopefully will be enough to find a real doctor who takes Medicaid and can write me my magic pieces of paper.

So, what takeaways can be divined from this mess? Don’t run out of medication? Don’t assume you’ll be able to find a doctor easily?

How about “know what medications you’re taking”.

I didn’t ask about lexapro/escitalopram when I started. I didn’t know it was an SSRI, I didn’t know what would happen if I stopped suddenly. No one told me, either. Not one doctor in the 8 years I’ve been taking it warned me about *gestures at my last week of existence* THIS.

And I was okay with that. Because it did what I needed it to do. It works. But as soon as I can find a doc, I’m going to ask them to wean me off it. I can’t live with that kind of pain hanging over my head. The physical symptoms have mostly abated but my legs are still sore and my fingertips are numb. Some studies have shown such symptoms lasting for weeks or even years.

I’m not saying everyone or even anyone should stop taking their SSRIs, and certainly NEVER EVER stop taking them cold turkey like I did. That’s what caused The Issues. But if you are unaware of what SSRI withdrawal feels like and you’re taking them, I would absolutely suggest talking to your doctor about what can be done to minimize the risk of something like this happening to you.

Because this last week has been hell, and no one should have to go through that just because they moved.

[chaotic-historian]

Hello. Hope you don't mind this ask. I saw you wrote about how you tapered off SSRIs and it resonates with me bc I am also autistic and have been using them for many years. Now I'm thinking of quitting them gradually but I'm scared bc I don't know how they really .. relate/affect autistic traits & symptoms while also treating depression? Like did you feel any difference in sensory sensitivities, restlessness, energy for social interaction, etc, while using SSRIs vs not using them? If you're comfortable sharing anything about it. Sorry for mistakes in English. Wish you a good day.

Hi anon!

Forgive me for taking so long to answer this, I figured you'd want a good thorough answer rather than a quick one, so I went through the journals I kept during the first few months on SSRIs, and before. I can say a few things for sure:

My emotions were dulled, almost like the edge was taken off them. I also felt like the SSRIs somehow made my emotions less variable. I didn't get very sad, but neither did I get very happy. It was a sort of constant in-between. Now that I'm out, one of the first things I noticed was that my feelings got more wild, and I felt them more. I could get super sad and cry all of a sudden, but my happy moments are also SO much happier!

Another thing that was dulled were my senses. I could still get overwhelmed about as often as I do now, but I spaced out more on the SSRIs, and had more dissociative moments where I felt like I wasn't really... physically present. I don't get those moments as much after I stepped out of them.

It was kinda weird, but I had less energy for social interactions while on the meds. Maybe that's because I was on them due to sickness, but I noticed I don't get as... overwhelmed, I guess, afterwards.

Lastly, I can't say anything about energy levels yet. It's the dark part of the year and I live in Scandinavia, so no one has any energy whatsoever anyway, meds or no meds. It's dark and cold and miserable, so I'll only be able to tell if I've got more energy after stepping out once I have any energy at all 😅

Hope this helped, and you're welcome to ask again anytime!

Love from the Admiral

[sunshinexlollipops]

originally was writing in the notes but realized this just needed to be added in a long (sorry) reblog. while OP is ranting there's some shit I got to say that's important.

I have a bunch of experience w both weight loss surgery + these meds OP mentions and there's some VITAL INFORMATION in this if you are considering what's mentioned above.

firstly, let's start with the gastric sleeve surgery my sister had months ago and the shit time that I helped her through, because the place she went to seemed unethical as hell.

I want to start with that she is fine and happier now, but she doesn't remember most of this. I have to say I am legitimately surprised no major issues occurred or that, frankly, she didn't die.

not all gastric goes like this, sure, but the problem is that my sister found a place that seemed borderline to actually unethical. and my point is that, there is an industry built around weight loss options and down to even surgeries, they will exist to lure you in and take advantage.

below is a summary of the bullshit we dealt with:

she had gastric sleeve (removed part of your stomach like OP mentioned) and a severe hernia repair done in one surgery

despite informing them she had a severe EPI-pen level dairy allergy, her nurses weren't informed of this allergy until they had to feed her, and the only reason she had anything to use is that we happened to bring her protein powder prior to surgery.

we were in LA and STILL struggled to find vegan protein powders that were safe and also followed the regulations the place gave us (sugar is limited as it affects the healing process of the stomach), so at times we were racing around to find options so she wasn't going to starve.

prior to the operation, they recommended she get a PERSONAL NURSE for 2 weeks after surgery, and when my sister informed them she couldn't afford or get one, they still went forward with surgery anyway.

while visiting her, I could hear people screaming and moaning from pain in the other rooms. it was like a horror movie moment.

a patient at this place could only stay 24 hours EXACTLY. and this started at check-in PRIOR to surgery. so before my sister was even done being operated on, they told me we had to be out of the room by the same time next day so the room would be open to other incoming patients getting surgery. the catch though? you never, unless it was the day of their surgery, saw anyone occupying these rooms. they were EMPTY.

because of this rule though, they instructed her to STAY IN A HOTEL NEARBY, so if there were issues "we can be close to help" even though we were about 15 minutes away and I dunno... IN A HOTEL.

this placement was also for the first week post-op, as she was coming back to this location from the hotel to receive fluids through her PICC line (heart catheter) and it would take hours and hours. this made her sickly too, so it was a whole process to deal with.

they had my sis COLD TURKEY OFF AN SSRI and this caused major issues for my sister's mental health.

this, compounded with not sleeping, poor pain management provided by this place (keep in mind actual painkillers are being restricted because of the opioid crisis), not being able to eat properly for over a week (couldn't get her to eat anything), and not recovering well, we had to hospitalize my sister after surgery bc of how poorly she was.

before that I had gotten NO SLEEP as I was constantly up with her, keeping track of anti-clot devices on her legs, managing her medications (pain meds, antacids, blood thinner shots, etc), and also making sure we were getting up and having her walk around as I was instructed. I was worn out bc I WAS NEVER EQUIPPED TO HELP HER BY MYSELF. it legit will take a TEAM to help you post-surgery for gastric y'all. you CAN'T do this solo or with just 1 caretaker. the fact they put this on myself and her husband was beyond inappropriate and we were in no position to help her in the ways she critically needed.

while at the hospital, doctors were SHOCKED at what we told them about this location and the behavior of the people there. they wouldn't even notify us she had to be one place the next day or when, and I only found out about her POST-OP EXAM because I had asked if there was anything else we needed to know with her schedule. it was an afterthought.

I remember the doctor of the gastric wing at the hospital saying "it's sad she is going through this, because they have Wegovy now."

which........about that.

I had been briefly on that weekly shot named Wegovy!

you know, semaglutide — the current fad of weight loss drugs.

here's a photo from one of my shots that I took!

(I got those cheap Jurassic Park bandaids, lmao. rawr)

semaglutide is also in Ozempic, and that and Wegovy are produced by Novo Nordisk. Ozempic is intended for type 2 diabetics (type 1 diabetics cannot take semaglutide, it can KILL them), and Wegovy for weight loss.

other common drugs: phentermine is another weight loss option, for example, that comes as a pill and as OP stated, kills your appetite. and Eli and Lilly jumped into the weight loss shot game with Zepbound earlier this year (and Mounjaro is their version of Ozempic for type 2 diabetics).

there's also an older medication called Saxenda. when I wasn't able to obtain Wegovy, my Endo tried to place me on Saxenda. this is a DAILY SHOT y'all. meaning you would have to have 30 auto-injectors in your fridge for a one month supply. that's a lot!

overall, these weight loss drugs, especially shots with semaglutide, are a HUGE boom in the weight loss industry, so expect more drugs and more people to be on medications like these bc so much money is being made.

because I need to mention: for 4 shots of Wegovy (4 weeks of meds), you are paying over $1,200 usually for these shots.

some insurances won't cover them, and paying that much out of pocket for just a medication is insane. especially when that's only ONE MONTH of meds.

in one year, that will total to: $14,400

because of this, Bernie Sanders has actually been going after Novo Nordisk because of the price gouging Americans experience for these meds. because, of course, they are notably cheaper elsewhere in the world!

on top of this, weight loss clinics around the US are compounding THEIR OWN semaglutide. this is where this med gets SO DANGEROUS! including online purchases of this med, especially from foreign suppliers.

with a compounded version of this drug, or an online supplier, you cannot safely guarantee your dosage.

people have already DIED from overdosing, or experiencing severe complications from a high dose of semaglutide from alternative sources.

this is why it's VERY important that people don't just go after these shots from various sources, because this is a growing, worldwide problem. and the massive demand is causing more and more unsafe compounded versions to also become an even bigger, more threatening issue.

here's a video I previously watched from 60 Minutes Australia, and they interview families who have lost loved ones because of the massive public desire to use these medications.

that being said, there are some people with positives and good experiences with this medication. of course it isn't for everyone and is for some— but I believe these medications, particularly semaglutide, are being slapped way too generically.

and I know weight loss medications are being thrown at people, even when their weight isn't what is making them sick or unhappy, because that's what happened to me!

for me, Wegovy was a little different with its effects, because I have PCOS and respond more to the med like a type 2 diabetic (thanks insulin resistance).

I was sent to an endocrinologist bc my doctors were concerned I had a prolactinoma (tumor on the pituitary gland of the brain) after abnormal hormone levels came back from a blood panel, and instead of offering any other meds/treatment/an MRI to check/exploration to confirm or deny this issue, I was given a prescription for Wegovy.

Wegovy is being pushed as a panacea script, even if the medical issue you see the doctor for isn't related to weight.

while I wasn't a fan of the response, I opted to try the drug out anyway as it seemed to be my only hope at betterment.

semaglutide is intended to slow your digestion down so you have less of an appetite, and it is meant to affect how your body releases and responds to its insulin to help maintain steady blood sugar levels.

sounds great, right? but Wegovy comes with a LOT of risks y'all. some of which we are JUST discovering too. and not just light risks:

Gastroparesis (stomach paralysis, can be severe and life-threatening)

Pancreatitis (obvs involving your pancreas, has the potential to be fatal especially if severe, which semaglutide has been known to cause very rough cases of this)

Extremely aggressive thyroid cancer! (if your family has a history of this, like type 1 diabetics, you are NOT permitted to take the med. it could cause you to develop fast-forming and aggressive thyroid cancer, as it did so to animals they tested it on— this is why Wegovy has an FDA warning)

Severe acid reflux (no exaggerating this is the worst heartburn you'll ever have, and some foods will now trigger this. they become inedible for you and you WILL vomit them up)

Vomiting / Constipation (bc of slowing your digestion, you can get really backed up especially if you suffer gastroparesis bc nothing moves, but if it can't go out the back end it will come out the front)

feeling VERY unwell post-eating, especially with sugars (food will hit you harder and sugary things will make you really ill, I had trouble finding things I could tolerate after a while on the med, and gave up so many foods bc I couldn't tolerate them anymore)

recently, they also just discovered semaglutide can cause a rare form of blindness!

I was only on Wegovy for 2 months. in a way, it was life changing. my PCOS has been wreaking havoc with my hormones (prolactin esp) and it's fucked me up a lot. while Wegovy did help with that, there were a lot of downsides to the med and many foods were no longer safely edible for me due to side effects.

the shortage hit, and I was forced off the med as I couldn't fulfill my prescription. I was heartbroken at first, but as more is discovered about the med and its apparent effects, I'm realizing now in some ways it was more risky and unpleasant than it was worth.

and heads up: if you're on these shots and stop, you will gain the weight you lost back, alongside some extra, new weight.

so if you don't intend to stay on this medication long term, it will put you further away from where you started with it!

and all for what...because you have some extra poundage?

your body needs fuel (food AND fat) and foods shouldn't be viewed as evil or naughty for you. unless you have a dietary restriction (religion, allergy, condition like celiac), don't make bad associations with your food to where you'll feel shame for eating like you're supposed to.

please understand, your body isn't evil or bad for having fat. it's meant to have it!

even if you are thin, you have fat! specifically, adipose cells. it's a connective tissue that helps insulate your body. it helps a little with other functions too, and is part of the system in your body that keeps you alive!

being overweight, that can occur for a variety of reasons, be it excess calories to health conditions that cause it to accumulate, but NEVER does being fat excuse treating you as lesser/undesirable, or excuse what society will put you through to lose it.

diets, whatever kind, also don't tend to be successful as doctors have found, and tend to reinforce bad eating habits that can lead or are even created to mimic an eating disorder.

you want a diet that is built upon being rewarding and positive, not restrictive and shameful.

if you want to be happier in your body, the first step is learning to love however it comes. you deserve love regardless of what number is on that scale! because weight loss takes time, and you shouldn't feel like you're in a race to shrink into embracing yourself.

second, even when you have conditions you need to improve or mitigate healthwise, weight loss is always up to you.

it shouldn't be about earning society's fickle approval, or feeling like shedding pounds will earn you acceptance and love (especially from yourself).

this world doesn't actually care what you look like when it comes to fucking you over, and these methods have become an outlet to take advantage of the rampant fatphobia that drives many to become desperate to lose weight.

please learn to embrace and love yourself, no matter your shape and size. and only do what you need to protect your health and peace of mind.

don't let the snake oil salesman of the modern age convince you these things are the only way to address your unhappiness, insecurities, or weight.

diet culture people make me feel like i’m going crazy. you want me to take an experimental pill that destroys my appetite?? you want me to remove part of my stomach??? you want me to stop eating bread and rice, two of the staple foods most inherent to humanity????? why exactly? because my stomach is big? because you don’t like the way i look, and you think it’s reasonable to tell me to carve pieces off of myself and try random drugs and ruin my own life so i can look more visually pleasing to you? and you somehow don’t see how absurdly cruel and selfish that is to ask of somebody???? while pretending you care about their HEALTH????????????????? FUCK YOU!!!!

[portmantaur]

tw weight loss talk, reference to previously experienced fatphobia

I discovered today that I have lost ~50 pounds in about the last 6ish months and it’s mostly just from going off my SSRIs, and this isn’t essentially a bad thing — it’s a bit too fast, but that’s somewhat to be expected with being on ADHD meds at the same time, in addition to being more health-conscious and active overall.

but im having SUCH a hard time processing it bc I didn’t believe the scale (we just pulled it out of its storage place where it’s lived for like two years), so I was getting into some of my old, old clothes that haven’t fit me since my early twenties and. some of them are too big, yanno? I’ve never been small, im not now, but I have a 1X dress from forever 21 that I’ve kept but haven’t fit into since I was like���22 at the latest. and it fit very comfortably. and for as much of a loop as this threw me

I don’t FEEL any different. My body looks exactly the same to me. I cannot, factually, be the same size, I know this, but the entire time I was looking at myself in the dress I just kept having this vivid flashback to this day in middle school when I was having terrible body image issues and I told my mom, rather happily, that I was definitely losing weight because my jeans were fitting so much looser, and she went on a kind of frantic tirade where she was insisting that in reality I was getting much, much bigger — essentially saying that I was lying to myself about losing weight, and that that was fundamentally dangerous for me, because I guess I might convince myself that being fat is ok?

and I just couldn’t escape this strange, circular logic of knowing that there HAS to be physical change happening here, but looking at myself in the mirror and seeing that my own self-loathing has not budged one iota. and it’s so frustrating and sad that even a body that is probably -significantly- different from what it was six months ago looks the exact same to me. I know I would see this change in someone else. I can measure the change mathematically, scientifically. but the change doesn’t matter, even if it’s the exact change I’ve been conditioned to seek and desire. I still see me, and I still equally hate what I see.

And it just seems so unfair. I can be achieving results that im supposed to want, that I thought I DID want for the longest time, and it’s done nothing. It’s not even that I perceive this as “not enough” change, I simply don’t perceive ANY change at all. And while I don’t think this is solely the fault of the way I was raised, I just keep asking the same question over and over: is this what my family wanted for me? When my mother told me “being fat” makes me “look deformed” — is this what she wanted? when my sister made me try on pants she knew I couldn’t fit into to “teach me shame” that would “motivate me” — is this what she wanted? to never see victory or success or even good luck? To just hate whatever I saw in the mirror? Was this the point? For the goal to always be out of reach, for the loathing they felt for themselves to imbed itself in me? And if it was, if I can see that, why is it still working? Why can I see and feel the fact of the change but I cannot see the difference?

[thelesbianpoirot]

My SSRI experience if you want another perspective:

I've been on sertraline for over 2 years at a high dose, now on another med because of side effects (including clity stuff, but the digestive stuff was worse). I'm also on topiramate for migraines (>5 years, no problems).

In terms of sexual dysfunction the main thing I experienced was a big drop in sex drive. When I was going off of the med it came back close to normal when I was at half of my max dose.

I would not say that I had a decrease in sensitivity because arousal and oversensitivity happened like when I wasnt on meds, but it was very difficult to orgasm. It's like I was 'looking for it' and I had to focus on it.

Again with that it went back to normal as i came off the meds

I am also on topiramate for irritability and (skin picking), I get so worked up, I can't function, I panic and it does give me headaches (and I claw at my skin until I bleed). I was going to be asked to be taken off it because I think it is the one making me nauseous, but if it will keep that shit in check, I'll keep taking it. I keep little sour candies in my pockets to chew on when I feel like throwing up. I can afford a drop in sex drive, I just don't want to lose clit functioning forever, I have a high sex drive, like too fucking high, like I have talked about it here, I can masturbate for hours and I have thrown responsibilities out the windows to shack up with women. But I need to be able to come whenever I want, if I want it less that is fine. Thank you so much for coaching me through this. This is last resort for me, after the Attempt a month ago, meds is the only thing I haven't tried, I have tried counselling multiple times in my life to disastrous conclusions, never again. But I finally found a way to cut straight to medication without much counselling (only follow up) so lets see how this works. Feeling Fatigued, Nauseas, and forgetful, and I'll keep track of everything else. It has only been 4 days. Waiting for my body to adjust.

[theboardwalkbody]

My mental health journey LOL

Note: Not exact quotes, but the general idea lol

Me, watching psych videos, taking psychology courses, going though psychiatric nursing in the nursing program, reading the DSM-V, and taking psychological assessments for fun: hmmm, I think I might be bipolar.

My 1st psychiatrist: So you mentioned bipolar but I think it may just be major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety with panic disorder. lets try wellbutrin.

Wellbutrin: *almost kills me*

My 1st psychiatrist: Oops! Lets try lexapro and buspar and ativan 1mg 3x a day for your depression and anxiety. Also, ADHD is a possibility but the meds might not be good for you due to the anxiety so lets wait.

Lexapro: *Makes mood fluctuations worse - now going from happy to depressed to pissed off to giddy to severely depressed all in one day*

My 1st psychiatrist: Weird. But lexapro can do that. Here's some Lamictal, it stabilizes mood.

Lamictal: *Helps*

My mental health: *stable but not great*

Me: I don't think these do much, I'm gonna stop.

My 2nd psychiatrist: So based on your history I think we should restart all your meds.

Me: Do you think maybe it's bipolar?

My 2nd psychiatrist: Nah, let's stick with your previous med combo.

Me: OK sure, maybe they did help.

My mental health: *no better than the 1st time*

Me: Nah, I think I'm gonna stop this isnt it.

My 3rd psychiatrist: Hi, first of all - who let you take 3mg of Ativan for years? That's not good. We're not gonna do that. Oh, you're off all your meds? That's fine - let me see how you are baseline.

*months later*

Me: Hey, do you think it could be bipolar or ADHD?

My 3rd psychiatrist: Could be ADHD but I think if we went with stimulants your anxiety would be horrible again and you do have mood fluctuations but they could just be based on your situation. Do you want meds to help? You can always stop them later. We can try the lexapro and buspar again and once your anxiety is under control we can talk about meds for that.

Me: Nah, I'm ok I don't want meds. Besides the lexapro by itself made my mood swings so bad I felt like I was loosing my mind.

My 3rd psychiatrist: That's cool, if you change your mind lemme know.

Me: K.

My 3rd psychiatrist: Hey, so I'm leaving and you're gonna have a new doc.

Me: :(

My 4th psychiatrist, after one session: Right, so you're bipolar.

Me:

My 4th psychiatrist: So your mood got worse on lexapro alone? SSRIs do that with bipolar. Your anxiety is likely a symptom of your bipolar which is why the buspar didn't really help. The ativan was what was calming it because it was basically sedating you to a degree. You say you think it's situational but going through your file you report continued mood fluctuations despite what's going on in your life. You don't adapt to change well, which is also a bipolar symptom. So we should try Vraylar.

Me: That's brand name only, my insurance won't approve it. I'm already fighting them for Taltz, which is also brand name only, so I don't want to throw another thing at them that could distract from that. Besides, I don't want meds in general, let alone anti-psychotics.

My 4th psychiatrist: Anti-psychotics don't mean I think you're psychotic, it's just the type of medication class. We could always try quietipine, that's the same type of med but a generic.

Me: I don't want meds. Especially not that type because I know all the side effects and they scare me.

My 4th psychiatrist: Then why are you here?

Me: I need to have a psychiatrist to approve therapy.

My 4th psychiatrist: OK, we will revisit this.

Me, out of curiosity: *checks after visit notes, sees diagnosis of bipolar, unspecified and adjustment disorder with mixed disturbance of emotions and conduct*

Me: That sounds fucking rude. >:(

Me, to my therapist: They said I'm bipolar >:(

My therapist: Hear them out...

Me: Do you think maybe possibly it could be bipolar personality disorder?

My therapist: I remember you mentioning that when we first started our sessions together, I can't diagnose so you should bring it up with your psychiatrist.

Me, to myself: Nah, not gonna do that.

My 4th psychiatrist: So, meds?

Me: Fine, but I only want to go back on Lamictal because I don't want to take antipsychotics.

My 4th psychiatrist: What side effect is the one making you feel that way?

Me: Tardive Dyskinesia.

My 4th psychiatrist: That's such a rare thing that really only happens to people on high doses for years and years. Mostly seen with schizophrenia, in my experience, due to the high doses needed. You'd be on 25mg.

Me: Nope. Lamictal or I walk.

My 4th psychiatrist: -__- fine.

Me: Also could we do the buspar again? My anxiety sucks.

My 4th psychiatrist: No. It'll make it worse because your anxiety is a symptom and adding buspar is gonna mess with your existing chemical imbalance and make the lamictal not fight it as well.

Me: >:( I'm pretty sure my anxiety is it's own thing.

My 4th psychiatrist: We'll see.

Me: *back on lamictal. dose started at 50mg and is currently up to 150mg. I was taking buspar as prescribed by my primary doc and I have stopped taking that after switching to 150mg of lamictal*

My 4th psychiatrist: So, how we doin?

Me: I feel better, but I think it's the weather change and the sun being out longer.

My 4th psychiatrist: I'm glad it's working. Let's keep going and I'll check in after a month.

Me: K

Me: *out of curiosity, checks after visit notes: sees diagnosis of bipolar, unspecified, and the adjustment disorder with mixed disturbance of emotions and conduct* Ok, I mean that's what it said last time. And maybe the meds are working and it's not just the change of seasons.

Me: .... wait a minute. *Sees it also now says Bipolar personality Disorder*

Me:

Apparently the moral of the story is only *I* am allowed to suggest I am bipolar and shit and no one else is even though the reason I ever started looking for mental health help in the first place was to figure out what is wrong with my head and fix it.

[enbycrip]

The focus on medicalisation in a lot of the trans community really gets to me.

I’m nonbinary. My transition is complex.

Yup, in a better world, I would probably like to try microdosing T to get a more androgynous appearance.

But that world would need to be better in so many ways.

It would need to be a world where I’m not basically untreated and unmanaged for my hEDS, POTS, ADHD and various conditions related to my Fragile X Premutation, tbh.

I get a high dosage of Venlafaxine for MDD and GAD and have been stable on it for a decade, though I actually suspect a substantial part of the reason it helped me when none of the SSRIs did was that it turns out that it’s a second-line treatment for ADHD (and that took a lot of trawling through medical journals to find out) *and* that it’s not prescribed very frequently because it raises blood pressure.

For the hEDS and POTS, I get 8/500 and 30/500 cocodamol. I *very* occasionally get diazepam for dislocations, which I hoard like a fucking squirrel for the times of muscle spasms when I can’t sleep otherwise.

I have FXS-Premutation-related premature ovarian insufficiency and was judged to be broadly in menopause a decade ago. They gave me oestrogen HRT. It fucks me up *horrendously*.

I now have a progesterone IUD and use an intermittent oestrogen gel in *tiny* amounts, and tbh I only really use it when I get vaginal dryness because any other time I use it it fucks me up *enormously*, and I’m already fucked up enough either way chronic fatigue, chronic pain, chronic and continual injuries and dislocations, all of which oestrogen makes continuously worse.

I requested additions of T to my HRT to see if that helps with the situation *repeatedly* and I’ve been consistently refused, and then discharged from that service.

I’ve had *one* GP that uses my correct they/them pronouns out of about six. I discussed referral to a gender service with her, but she went off on mat leave just before the first COVID lockdown and my GP has been in crisis mode ever since. I’ve had about three phone appointments since and never been in the building.

On top of that I have an ADHD diagnosis from a decade ago but didn’t go on meds at that point because I was doing IVF at the time (stopped that after miscarriages about 8 years ago because each miscarriage took function I’ve never regained and I don’t think I’m now physically capable of a pregnancy that would leave me capable of the kind of parenting I want to do, and my OH agrees) and apparently need a rediagnosis before I can access meds because “it’s been too long now”. I’ve been on the waiting list for an ADHD re diagnosis and a formal adult autism diagnosis (not just a bunch of psychiatrists going “fuck yes you *are*!) for two years now.

So yeah. I am “medically complex” AKA I’m living in the centre of a web of medical failures because everything I need treated for needs a holistic assessment and understanding of how they all accept each other, and not one medic seems willing to even try that.

I’ve now had a diagnosis of C-PTSD from all the medical trauma I’ve dealt with that means that, tbh, going to the dentist is now really complex for me. And every time I venture to connect with the medical system to try to get something dealt with, I end up so continuously retraumatised that it *really* affects my daily functioning.

I am *very* autistic, though I can mask very well for short periods. I end up with *severe* suicidal ideation, urges to self-harm by beating myself, cutting myself, banging my head off walls, scratching, biting myself. I end up completely unable to sleep; I get severe traumatic flashbacks; I get anhedonia; I get my “absolute blackness” periods where there is nothing good of any kind anywhere. I lose my ability to get up, to care for myself and my animals as much as I do.

It, very understandably, *terrifies* my OH and my parents. It completely destroys my ability to engage with my academic work.

…

Wow. Reading this, I…

…I am so often utterly dismissed as a “high-functioning” autistic because I’m primarily verbal, I can write well and fluently; I have a couple of degrees and I’ve held several jobs.

It’s helpful to see the flip side of that and how it intersects with my CPTSD written down.

It’s really helpful.

…

The thing is that there are a *lot* of trans binary and nonbinary folk like me out there.

A lot of us are autistic.

A lot of us are complex medically.

This isn’t a unique story. Not at all.

(Image description: the trans, intersex, nonbinary, more color more pride, genderqueer, queer chevron, asexual, aromantic, agender, and androgyne pride flags with a black box in the center, white text inside the box reads "liberation not medicalization".)

[liminalpsych]

After two weeks of no adhd meds for the first time since I got on them in 2017, I finally wrangled a way with my pharmacy to get them filled (turns out they’re not backordered on the brand name, just the generic, which I hadn’t thought to check until a client mentioned success with this approach).

They still don’t have enough of my dose in stock so I’m not getting them until Monday, but I’m getting them soon instead of indefinite waiting, and now I have a route to take when the generic is backordered in the future so that I still get my meds on time.

(It’s a little more expensive, but still cheaper than the adhd taxes I’ve been paying with dopamine seeking behaviors for the past two weeks.)

The silver lining has been that I now have a very, very clear understanding of exactly how adhd stimulants help me, and how much they help. (I used to live like this. Only it was worse because I was on an SSRI instead of an NDRI as my antidepressant; my current antidepressant at least takes the edge off some of my adhd symptoms.)

(Did you know serotonin can inhibit dopamine production? That’s possibly why some ADHDers have paradoxical reactions to SSRIs. We don’t have enough dopamine to begin with and then it makes us produce even less? Terrible times.)

Anyway. Might make a separate post about adhd meds on Monday. But for now, here are the things I’ve noticed:

oh right I used to be tired all. the. time. 9 hrs of sleep + a nap = still tired all the time, pre medication. Properly medicated, I’m good on 7.5 hrs. Half medicated (no stimulants, but NDRI), I’ve been doing okay on 8 hours but still pretty fatigued. I have not been getting deep/delta sleep (which stimulants help with in ADHD, adhd brains tend to spend a lot of time in REM sleep and not enough in deep delta sleep, and stimulants increase deep sleep in many adhd cases for some reason). There’s been a couple nights of 0 hours of deep sleep despite 8 hours of sleep. It’s been great. Fabulous. /s (help i’m so so so tired)

Focus/motivation, obviously. Oh right, this is probably why I haven’t written much fiction since college. For the past several months I’ve just been able to choose to write, make myself write and it works. For the past two weeks that has been much, much harder and even impossible. I am able to make myself spend time with my WIP each day to maintain momentum (still using all my adhd coping skills) but writing prose has not really been happening.

Social anxiety. I knew stimulants helped with the rejection sensitivity, social anxiety, overthinking social situations, because I went off of them for 2 days in a row once and had a terrible RSD flare up. But two weeks off of them has been… not great. Also generally just feeling insecure, having self esteem issues flare up, anxiety in general, harder to self-soothe and talk myself through catastrophic thinking, etc etc. (and trust me, I have skills. So many skills. So many well practiced skills. I teach them to others and use them personally. I’m functioning, it’s just extra hard.)

Dopamine seeking. Siiiigh. Back to snacking on sugary things that make my digestive system angry at me, in a desperate subconscious bid for tiny insufficient hits of dopamine. That had mostly stopped.

Task switching has been extra hard, unsurprisingly. Also lots of zoning out.

My driving skill/safety. D: yeeeeah. there are a number of studies out there showing that unmedicated adhd (especially in younger drivers, it improves somewhat with age/experience) shows up as similar levels of impairment as being at/over the blood alcohol limit. I was horrified the first time I drove while medicated. “oh. Oh no. I have not been particularly safe to drive all these years.” Been extra cautious as a result, and haven’t driven the wrong way down one way streets or anything like that the past two weeks, thankfully. (Yes, that was a thing that happened pre-medication.)

In before anyone tries to suggest this is indicative of a dependency or is because I was on meds for a long time: no. This is how I lived 32 years of my life. Until the tiredness got so bad that I got desperate enough for a med change that might work a little better than just “not having intrusive suicidal thoughts,” which is all the SSRI managed to do for me. For the past six years of adhd medication, I haven’t been tired all the time, things haven’t been so mind-numbing hard, it’s been a complete game changer and opened up so much more capacity for living that I didn’t have before.

It sucks to have to go back to my old exhausting norm where I had to drag myself through tasks with sheer force of will and could barely get anything done. I am so relieved the end is in sight and I’ll be back to my modern norm on Monday.

[beingbipolarblog]

MY JOURNEY WITH MEDICINE

As a young child, age 12-13 I, among others, realized that I was experiencing symptoms of depression and wanted to explore options for me. We started with simple antidepressants, like Prozac and Lexapro. The meds would work for a while, then I’d plateau; the medicine would stop working as my tolerance to it went up. This happened with nearly every antidepressant or SSRI I took. They’d slowly wear off and my doctor and I would stop and start a new medication. This continued well into college, until this year; although I knew something was wrong from a young age. For people with bipolar disorder, SSRI’s and antidepressants actually worsen the disorder by causing spikes in serotonin which can cause mood swings, energy bursts, and lower lows. So for a decade, I was making my disorder more prominent by taking the wrong medication. This came along with the behavior you’d expect from an unmedicated bipolar; impulsivity, trouble with authority and the law, emotional outbursts, and deep, long depressions. No one, including me could figure out why my medicine wasn’t working for me; we had tried over 8 different medications, no results. It was only after getting in touch with a psychiatrist that specializes in a broader area of study, that I was able to be diagnosed and treated properly. I started taking Abilify, a common mood-stabilizer, and felt relief nearly instantly. After a week, my mood was more level and less rollercoaster-y. We paired Abilify with Prozac (which I was taking before my diagnoses) then weened off until I only take Abilify. Now, I only take a mood-stabilizer and see more results then I have for over a decade of medications.

[squeelokitty]

Neither of these applies directly to me and I don't really want to distract too much from OP's point but I've been thinking a lot lately about the mental health provider community jumping to conclusions.

I was dx with ADHD two years ago. I should have been diagnosed at least a decade ago. I sometimes find myself wishing I were a boy because then maybe it would have been caught when I was a kid, but I'm not and girls in the 80s and 90s were terribly underdiagnosed for both that and autism. Heck my dad was diagnosed with autism a year ago at 74. There was and is a perception that if you didn't fit exactly into this set of symptoms, for both, then it must be something else (as happened to OP). There's a reason there are all those memes aimed at Millennials who were labeled gifted as kids and now have actual diagnoses (or are still trying to get one because they know Something is Wrong).

I've been medicated for depression and anxiety for 20+ years. I have been through more meds and combos than I can count. Some made it worse, some worked for a bit and then didn't, some just didn't work at all. Things that maybe should have been a sign were never taken as such - like getting fired from a job after I missed a deadline because all my attempts to stay organized failed. I was just stressed and overworked, that was all.

Several years after that, when I went to law school, it became very clear something else was going on, because I knew the material and could have a great discussion about it and the finals turned into word salad. I went to one of the student clinics for a full psych eval. They decided I didn't have ADHD, I had a significant cognitive processing speed delay (which is NOT recognized by IDEA as a disability for academic accommodations, although I got informal ones while the results were pending and my grades did a 180, and that plus the anxiety were enough to convince the disability office to give them to me anyway). He said it just takes my brain longer to churn through stuff, that's all.

Here's the thing. He didn't stop to think about whether I have the kind of training that would skew results on a TOVA test (I do). He didn't stop to think about whether my brain is really slower or whether it just seems that way because I already have 1,000 browser tabs open in my head at any given point in time and adding another bogs it down.

So fast forward 8 years and I'm struggling to get anything done and the anxiety and depression are real bad and my therapist says, hm. What if the lack of focus is driving the depression/anxiety, not the other way around? And I tell her they already told me I don't have ADHD. She looks at the report. She tells me that it's possible it's the browser tab problem, not the processing itself. Meanwhile, my psychiatrist is trying to figure out why I've just failed another med combo and looking at the results of that old eval and trying to figure out whether I'm just drug-seeking for stimulants. And she's willing to try but not willing to give me an actual dx yet so she finds a med that can be prescribed for something else, and now I have a diagnosis for binge eating disorder, which I do not have (I do have disordered eating but it's not quite that). And I still don't officially have a dx from anyone but my therapist.

But I'm off all the SSRIs. I have Wellbutrin - the only thing that has ever worked for depression - and I have Vyvanse and I'm off everything else because it turns out when I can focus and get shit done, I'm less anxious and don't feel like I'm a horrible lazy failure. Because I don't have a serotonin problem. I've never had a serotonin problem. I have a dopamine problem.

Unlike OP, I've never had a problem actually finding providers, I've been lucky that way, I guess. Like OP, I've spent a long time thinking something was wrong other than what they said. It's been two years and I'm still very angry and grieving all the lost time I've spent believing I just wasn't trying hard enough to not be a dumpster fire of a human. And if not for a therapist who has lived the same thing, I'd still be there.

As a late diagnosed autist I will say one of the most damaging but transformative experiences I've ever had was being misdiagnosed with BPD.

Everyday my heart goes out to people with BPD.

The amount of stigma and silencing they face is astonishing and sickening.

I took DBT for years. Therapists use to turn me away because of my diagnosis.

I would be having full blown autistic meltdowns, crying for help literally - but because I was labeled as BPD ANY time I cried I was treated as manipulative and unstable.

As if the only reason I could be crying was if I was out to trick someone.

95% of the books out there with Borderline in the title are named shit like 'How to get away from a person with Borderline', 'How to stop walking on eggshells (with a person who has BPD)'

I was never allowed to feel true pain or panic or need.

That was 'attention seeking behavior', not me asking for help when a disability was literally inhibiting my ability to process emotions.

There were dozens of times where I had a full meltdown and was either threatened with institutionalization or told I was doing it for attention.

My failing relationships weren't due to a communication issue, or the inability to read social cues. No, because I was labeled borderline, my unstable relationships were my fault. Me beggong nuerotypicals to just be honest and blunt with what they meant was me pestering them for validation.

Borderline patients can't win.

And the funny thing is - I asked my therapist about autism. I told her I thought I was on the spectrum.

BPD is WILDLY misdiagnosed with those with autism and I had many clear signs.

Instead - she told me 'If you were autistic we wouldn't be able to have this conversation'. She made me go through a list of autistic traits made clearly for children, citing how I didn't fit each one.

And then she told me that me identifying with the autism community was the BPD making me search for identity to be accepted - and that I wasn't autistic, just desperate to fit in somewhere.

I didn't get diagnosed for another ten years. For ten years I avoided the autism community - feeling as if I were just a broken person who wanted to steal from people who 'really needed it'.

Because of my providers - I began to doubt my identity MORE, not less.

Ten years of thinking I was borderline and being emotionally neglected and demonized by a system meant to help me.

To this day, I still don't trust neurotypicals. Not fully.

I know I'm not borderline now - but my heart aches for them. Not for the usual stuff. But for the stigma. And the asshole doctors. And the dismissiveness and threatening and the idea of institutionalization hanging over their head.

I love Borderline people. I always will. I'm not Borderline but if you are I love you and I'm sorry.

You're not a bad person. You're not a therapists worst nightmare, you are a human with valid feelings and fears.

Borderline people I'm sorry.