My experience of psychiatric medication.
Age: 20 Year: 2015
As I walk up to the window for my morning medications, the world starts to spin a little. Mornings are hard at the moment, as we are decreasing my Seroquel and Pristiq to try and start all over again. I am already down to only 600mg of Seroquel and 100mg Pristiq, which is good, but it feels like a long way to go and a lot of horrible days until we are done. Part of me doesn't want to go through the process all over again. The days of not being able to get out of bed as my body readjusts. The fatigue, headaches, drowsiness, constipation and nausea all chaotically packaged in the clouding sense of shame that I even need meds seems unbearable. But all the good periods I have had in the past two years have come not long after finding a medication that worked for a little while. None of them have ever worked for longer than 6 months or so, but still I know the change has the potential to bring me out of the darkness again for a while. I will do anything for a chance at that.
The nurse at the window passes todays doses through the slot in the ever present little cup, and I down them all at once without water. It's easy now, I've been doing it daily for over two years. They check my blood pressure, temperature and weight, always assessing how I am coping with the incremental decreases.
I feel the relieving sensation of the drugs my body has become accustomed to restoring what has become my equilibrium. Finally I can start to somewhat function for the day. After an appointment with my psychiatrist where he plans out the next week of decreases, I head to diversional therapy. I am able to participate as we learn ways to listen to our thoughts, then divert them into a new, healthy task. After therapy I am restless and anxious, so I go exercise on the spin bike in the courtyard for 90 minutes. With music blasting in my ears, I become lost in motion for a while.
During lunch in the busy dining room, the paranoia kicks in again. It has gotten worse as the days go by, no longer blocked out as much by the thick haze of sedation. I am more acutely aware of my surroundings again, and my mind isn't yet able to process all the information. It is like I am waking up out of a dream like state and seeing everything in HD for the first time. I head back to my room and try to cope with the overwhelming paranoia this brings by skipping and doing a bodyweight strength circuit. But it doesn't work, so it's back to the med window for the next little cup. 10mg Valium this time, to take the edge off.
I sit with a nurse until the relief arrives in the form of dulled thoughts and relaxed muscles. As my usual medication dose is going down, my reliance on valium and temazepam is increasing, but apparently that's to be expected. I've been told we will work on the Seroquel and Pristiq first, then address the benzodiazepines.
The afternoon passes in a tired haze as I walk Maya to the local coles with mum for snack supplies. I have a moment of being thankful for the medications, as I know that I wouldn't be able to be doing this at the moment without them. I then lie with Maya in the courtyard, my head on her chest, rising and falling as she breathes. This is another thing I am turning to to cope. Her calming presence and unconditional love is usually able to replace the need for more pills.
By about 5pm I am exhausted. It feels like I haven't slept in days, my head hurts, by legs are lead and the world is starting to spin again. I head back to the window, asking for my night time pills a few hours early, and head to bed. I can't concentrate enough to figure out how to brush my teeth, and the movements involved in getting changed make me simultaneously nauseous and dizzy. Finally in bed, a deep sense of fatigue weighs me down, though I can't sleep. My legs won't stop moving, which is another thing that started up when they first decreased my dose. I feel useless, completely incapacitated.
All I can do is lie there, tears rolling down my face, and hope that eventually, all this will be worth it. That eventually, lasting relief will come.
*An instagram post from the exact day I am writing about here. Back then my instagram name was @ThatMentalGirl*
Medication is a complicated topic at best. If there is one thing I know for sure though, it is that everyone's journey with them is unique and cannot me compared. In my experience, medications save lives, and do have a place to differing degrees in different mental illnesses. Used wisely, once a good combination of medications for an individual is found, they have the power to help individuals get to a place where they can safely engage in other therapies. They level the playing field somewhat, and can allow individuals with underlying biochemical abnormalities to reach a place where they can actually address other issues in life such as lifestyle and thought patterns. I wouldn't have been able to engage in the therapies I have done without their aid to begin with, and the habits that keep me well now were initiated while I was on medication.
That being said, at times engaging in therapy was actually more difficult due to medication side effects, particularly when changing meds or withdrawing from them. The side effects of medications vary so greatly with individuals and can be downright horrific to go through. As one friend who just started an antidepressant for the first time explained it to me "It's like you're getting the shit kicked out of you while you are also underwater. But also, eventually, waking up each day seems a little less of a chore." So in every case there is a constant balancing of the pros and cons that needs to take place between patient and doctor.
For some people, medication may play a role in their treatment for the rest of their life, there is no shame in that. For others, medication is needed for a while, but other tools are developed and found along the journey that make medication less necessary as time goes on. For others still, they never need it and are able to successfully recover with other modalities. That doesn't mean one person is better or worse, weaker or stronger. It merely highlights the individuality of our chemistry and factors contributing to illness.
Yes, I do believe by and large we are too quick to turn to medications as the easier 'quick-fix' alternative to lifestyle changes and intense therapies, and it shouldn't be possible to walk out of a simple 15 minute GP appointment with a prescription for antidepressants or any other psych med. But I also believe that at times medications can make such a huge difference to someone's life just when they need it most. Everyone has differing opinions, and now being off medication I do see cases where huge mistakes were made in my treatment that didn't help in the moment or in the long term and may have contributed to many of my struggles. Going back yes I would do many things very differently if I had the knowledge I had now. But we were doing our best at the time. I wouldn't be here without them, so personally I cannot say medication is inherently a bad thing. Just sometimes, as with anything, misdirected or misused.
On a side note, just a couple of months ago I had genetic testing done that as part of it indicated which psychiatric medications I would respond to and which I wouldn't. I wouldn't normally give too much thought to something like that, thinking it would be inaccurate, but looking at the list alarmed me. Almost every single medication we had tried that didn't work or I had horrible side effects from was predicted to have been that way by the genetic test. Take of that what you will, but I do now wish I could have had this test years ago. It would have saved a lot of pain and struggle.
Knowledge is power, and informing yourself of your choices and rights goes a long way to making sure you get the right treatment for you or your loved one. Every medication has lots of information available about it online, particularly from http://www.medicines.org.au/listing.cfm?type=cmi&pagesize=10&page=3&prod=a. Finding out other people's lived experience can be helpful, but I would caution that approach unless you are able to find many and take all of them into account, as a medication that works wonders for one person can send another backwards quickly. I am more than happy to share my experiences with anyone that is curious - feel free to comment below or email me as it would take way too long to go through each of them.
For context, the exact medications I have direct experience with are:
SSRIs - Zoloft (Escitalopram), Lexapro (sertraline), Prozac (Fluoxetine)
SNRIs - Effexor (Venlafaxine), Pristiq (Desvenlafaxine), Cymbalta (Duloxetine)
Antipsychotics - Seroquel (Quetiapine), Respiradone, Olanzapine, Zeldox (Ziprasidone), Abilify (Aripiprazole), Paliperidone, Neulactil (Periciazine), Haldol (Haloperidol).
Other: Valium, Temazepam, Lorazepam, Zopiclone.
For anyone that has never taken any psych medications and never will need to, the greatest awareness you can have of them is knowing that if someone you know or love is taking them, that is in no way wrong or a weakness. You wouldn't begrudge someone that needs glasses to read better using them, so please try to see that in essence this is a similar thing. Also, just be aware that the initial trial period, any withdrawing period, and all changes, are bloody hard. Be patient and try to be understanding, enquire how it feels and what they need to help them.
If you are on your own journey, I know it gets so damn frustrating and can feel hopeless at times, but medications is the main thing I applied the philosophy of 'keep showing up' to. If it reaches a point where other things aren't working, don't be afraid to try them for the first time or change. As you can see from the list above, I tried many. I also was always trying other things, because again no one thing was going to be the answer and there is never going to be a magic pill that makes everything better. As soon as one medication or treatment didn't work or I reacted badly, instead of give up we tried again. The start is hard, but stick with it if you have the support to do so. Finally, please do it with support. They are drugs that can affect you in so many unknown ways, so having a doctor to support you through the whole process is so important. Never come off your medication alone, if your doctor is doing the right thing by you they will listen and help you make changes to suit your life. If they don't, advocate for yourself, but still please don't go it alone. I changed psychiatrist when I no longer agreed with my current treating and medication plan and it was one of the best moves I ever made. Rather than go without support, find the right support for you at the time.
I am proudly medication free today because of all the other changes I was able to make in my life and the other treatment I received, which I will go into more detail of later. That is not right or wrong, merely my path. I judge no one that takes medication or that doesn't want to. Carve your own path and shape it to suit your life.
Still We Rise.