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I started another thread for people to post positive Daily Affirmations that they use to help get by. This Thread is a little different. This is for people to post any psychological tricks that they use to help them cope other than the affirmations and I call them Jedi Mind Tricks. I came up with one this morning to use for myself. I recently posted on my Thread about discussing my progress with some withdrawal coaches and the estimate is that I have maybe another couple of years to go before I can really get back at it again. When I say the words '2 years' to myself it sounds like an ungodly amount of time so I've been trying to reframe it in a way that's more acceptable to My Mind and Spirit. Instead of 2 years I am instead looking at it as 24 months or perhaps 104 weeks and for some reason to me that sounds more palatable. It breaks it down into smaller chunks instead of two big chunks and this is actually something I learned to do in the military when dealing with complex tasks. Break it down in the little parts so you don't get overwhelmed and then start chopping away at the parts. So I'm going to make a simple list to hang on my refrigerator that will include also the 3 years and 4 months of tapering and the two years of recovery time that have passed so far and then extend that list out to include another 24 months or 104 weeks. Weeks that have already passed will get a line through them immediately so I can see that I've already crossed that distance and then every week I'll cross off another week on Sundays. This way every Sunday I can see that I am making progress with a visual cue instead of just letting it run around in my head and for me that seems to work. This may not work for other people however if you have a similar trick that you use to keep from psyching yourself out and getting discouraged please feel free to list it here as any and all ideas that are found to be useful are good ones and may be useful to others. 😉✌️😺😺

As you scroll down this link to the medicating normal website you will find links to different resources that are available most seem to UK or Australia. https://medicatingnormal.com/psychiatric-drug-withdrawal/

In The Wizard of Oz the Scarecrow wanted a brain, the Tin Man wanted a heart, the lion wanted his courage, and Dorothy wanted to go home and the whole time they had to stay ahead of the Wicked Witch of the West. This is a great analogy for what we are all going through. Fortunately just for going down this path we already all have courage. At the end of this crazy yellow brick road we will get our brain and our heart and we will get to go home. This is what is in the future for everybody going through this so all we have to do is stay ahead of that damn wicked witch known as withdrawal symptoms and we'll make it.

I couldn't find the topic anywhere else so I decided to start a topic where people can post any daily affirmations any daily affirmations that they find to be helpful and I will start the list with this: I am healing I am getting better This is all part of the process

Here is a list of all of the psychiatric drug tapering resources that I have found helpful. Some of these are for paid coaches but their YouTube channels have free content and of course I cannot advocate for any one of those services or tell you that you should pay for it but the option is there if you want to check them out. This is the same list I just sent to all of my doctors so the first link on the list should look pretty familiar. Over the last year or two the list seems to be growing everyday so this is definitely catching on and things are changing. 😁 https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/ https://baylissa.com/ https://www.theinnercompass.org/ https://medicatingnormal.com/ https://www.madinamerica.com/mia-manual/medication-withdrawal-awareness-message-psychiatric-drug-withdrawal/ https://psychscenehub.com/psychinsights/antipsychotic-withdrawal-syndrome-tapering/ https://deprescribing.org/ https://www.madinamerica.com /2013/10/setbacks/ https://www.youtube.com/@AngiePeacockMSW https://wittdoerringpsychiatry.com/dr-marissa-witt-doerring/ https://www.youtube.com/@witt-doerringpsychiatry https://www.apeacockconsulting.com/ https://www.lovelygrind.com/ https://beyondmeds.com/ https://www.psychosisnet.com/cause-of-death-unknown-anniken-hoel/ https://markhorowitz.org/ http://www.stuartshipko.com/ https://benzobuddies.org/ https://www.outro.com/us https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellbeing/stopping-antidepressants

My first experience with these drugs was back in 2021 with my first psychiatrist. I was put on topiramate and Brintellix. No problem getting off of them when i felt like i needed to. He let me speak for a good hour or more. Spoke to a neurologist in late 2022 because i developed brain heating in response to frustration. He didn't even let me speak at times. Haldol + Neuleptil seemed to work at first but then noticed they were just putting me to sleep. Not the cure i needed. Had 4 days of akathesia after being suggested to drink heavy alcohol while the drug was still circulating ( I thought it didn't because the last cycle before the occurrence i have took the day before ). Went to another psychiatrist, and after a " Careful check " of 5 minutes i was told i'm depressed and i should take Cipralex 20 mg ( 10 drops at first upping the dose by 2 till i reach 20 ), Depakin 250 mg ( 2 envelopes ) and 1 Quetiapine 100 mg for the night. The reasoning was that supposedly Cipralex would make me feel euphoric and Depakin and Quetiapine would have me stabilized. He told me that this stuff doesn't have side effects and it's " Light ". After the first week i felt my depression worsened to a point i never had reached before. Plus i had eye pain, blurred vision, diarrhea, cognitive malfunctions, couldn't think and speak properly, heavy depersonalisation and derealization, feeling like i had a flu, gained weight, ate more, and problems with erections/orgasms. Psychiatrist told me it was my depression coming back. I asked him if those things are supposed to make me feel better why would that be the case and why have i never felt this way prior to the " Medication ". I was left on read. Looked up on internet and started reading about the millions of horror stories related to antidepressants and such. My friend had my same exact symptoms, including the eye pain that was confirmed by my eye doctor to be brought in by the antidepressant ( He asked me if I'm taking them even before i could say anything ). In a week i knew more than he does ( Implying he doesn't know what he's doing, which i heavily doubt ). Since i intuitively knew i was poisoning my body, even before i searched on Google, i let go of his " Trust me "s and tapered off everything in 1 week: Cipralex from 20 drops to 10 for 2 days, then 5 for 2 other days, As for Depakin took 1 envelope in the last 3 days of that week and cut quetiapine completely in the other half of the week. I was told to take Cipralex at 2pm, Depakin at 8pm and Quetiapine at 10pm. In total, i took 3 weeks and a half of everything, including taper, more or less. The first week was more or less fine. However, the withdrawal symptoms started to kick in after then. Astonishingly high levels of depression, nightmares in which i would feel extremely depressed ( Didn't even know something like that could happen, aswell as such levels of depression ), stopped sleeping, would have 5 minutes of half a sleep and wake up panicky, and quickly developed into high anxiety/arousal. Can't feel emotions like i did, hardly can laugh and everything, i'm more uninhibited because i'm searching for those chemicals i lost and can't find them, and when i try and remember something or something really emotional hits me i can barely cry and the rest of the feeling mutates into yet another panicky feeling. I just know this is farmacological as much as i knew akathesia was. I'm starting to develop some tremors, too. Several important occasions were ruined for me because i was either too ill to go or i would get almost a panic attack because i wanted to go home, where i had no rest anyway. I'm smoking 10 to 15 cigs a day just to try and feel something/calm the anxiety with not so good results, and i was never a heavy smoker. I went there for my akathesia and he told me if i didn't take my new cure i would still have akathesia, which i strongly doubt. I feel like akathesia is next door again now, really, because i stared pacing again, not at that level, for now. I spoke with the psychiatrist again and i told him all about this. He said it's all about me and what i had prior to the medication, didn't really make sense through the whole thing and could hardly hear what he was hastily saying, didn't seem to know what ssri means and he told me that " SSRIs boost serotonin ", which is not true, even implying depression has anything to do with serotonin and it's about a chemical imbalance which actually seems like these things gave me. I basically told him he should work on his ego and that he doesn't know anything about what he prescribes and he's comparable to an angel of death. He told me there is no such thing as withdrawal, you can't get hooked on antidepressants, avoided the " Why am i getting worse if that's my depression " question. He admitted to have given me a horse dosage/cure. He says this stuff doesn't change anything in the brain even tho the meaning of ssri literally points to the opposite direction of that claim. I also asked him if they don't change anything what's the point of taking them in the long run. Again, no answer. He said i'm going against " Science " ( More like a cult ). I also have him recorded. Max i could do was review him 1 star and possibly sue him. Anyway, i didn't tell him i already tapered off, and he gave me a 2 week taper, obviously. All of this got so bad i got suicidal thoughts and i had to take quetiapine again, and that's all i take, after trying xan for 2 days and it was doing nothing except giving me itches, had no trouble stopping it fortunately. Still feeling bad and nothing like before the cycle. Still can hardly concentrate and everything. Everything still overwhelms me sensory wise but i have little to no emotions. Got a little bit of cognition back again. I developed hard tinnitus. I had a dream in which i felt the dissociation it gives me. I'm taking it one before bed and one or two throughout the day, split. Its sleeping effects are fading and i'm having windows and waves. I'm feeling new bad sensations everyday but quetiapine keeps me from getting too low, for now. It seems like my body is asking for more except when in windows, in which i feel empty but a bit more chill. What do i do ? What's happening ? Is it the deadly cocktail that was given to me and i tapered off too quickly ? What am i withdrawing from ? Is it the haldol + neuleptil even ? Should i go back to antidepressants ? I have no intention to take any other neurotoxin whatsoever. Only taking quetiapine makes everything seem flat but i don't wanna take antidepressants that make me more depressed again.

Hello! I am a 32 y/0 female from San Diego. I'm currently working part time in accounts receivable and getting my Masters in Education and teaching credential. My descent into the psychiatric system began when I was 15 y/o, after my parents found out I had been self-injuring. I was immediately diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder and placed on a mood stabilizer, an antidepressant, an antipsychotic and Naltrexone ( to help curtail my impulse to self injure). A few months later I began to hallucinate, which prompted my doctors to increase my meds dramatically. I was in and out of hospitals until I received ECT at the age of 22. ECT did nothing to improve my mood, however it did affect my ability to concentrate, form complete sentences and stay present. Since I could not remember large chunks of time I was awarded the diagnosis of "Dissociative Identity Disorder", even though I was just spaced out from the treatment. To make a long and sad story short, I decided to end my life when I turned 30. I had suffered 2 major seizures, gained 96lbs, and was a shell of a human being. However, my plans were postponed after I witnessed a beautiful interaction between a mother and daughter. I decided I would give life one last shot, and began pursuing IVF (with the hopes of finding happiness in being a mom). The first step was to get off all of the meds. Over a period of 6 months I deprescribed off of extremely high dosages of Seroquel, lithium, Effexor, desipramine, propranolol, and clonazepam. As I came off each med, I lost a "symptom" that had constituted the litany of diagnoses I had collected since i was 15. The prcoess, while terrifying and painful, was empowering. My emotions returned, I lost all of the weight, and I finally felt alive. I still experience a great deal of physical pain, that I have come to understand is related to the withdrawal syndrome - but I am here. Alive. I am really looking for people to connect with who have been through this process. Even though I am full of gratitude for the sense of self I have gained, I find the whole ordeal to be incredibly lonely. How do you put back the pieces of a past that was torn apart? How do you talk about what happened without sounding "crazy"? How do you cope with all of these new feelings? I'm not afraid to walk down this new path, but I would really like to find others so I don't have to walk it all by myself. Thanks for reading this! I can't wait to have some time to check out the other posts. i hope everyone is doing well tonight. Stay safe.

jancarol-undiagnosed-off-all-bipolar-drugs G'day folks! I've only just arrived, I've read a few threads here, but not had much to say. I've been lucky, really. Because I'm not heavily medicated and never have been - I've fought that every step of the way. Likewise, I've never been hospitalized or jailed - I've fought against that every step of the way. It started in my 20's when Doc's decided that my depression would clear up better with a bit of Prozac. Just to help me "over the bump" until I had frank hallucinations, watching Bigfoot amble about in traffic and around town. Time to get off the Prozac. So I go off, and persist in an empty marriage with unfulfilling work. So the Doc's (I can't even remember which Doctors did this, it's strange because I was in a new town in Indiana, and you'd think I"d remember going to the clinic or Doc's office, but oh well) prescribe Zooloft. I get jittery and palpitations, so I go off again. Over the next 10 years, from about 25-35, I'm prescribed various antidepressants, and most of them fail. The only one to stick was Wellbutrin, but I get ahead of myself. So after these 3 month each infusions of brain chemical bursts, for 10 years, is it any wonder that when the marriage fell apart in 1995 I went full blown, psychotic mad manic? At the time I described it as if a weight that I had held on my shoulders for years and years was suddenly pulled away and I came unstuck. I was talking to bees (and making contracts with them), stalking potential lovers, stripping my clothes off in the woods so as to be "invisible," paranoid that the lights in my windows were UFO's. This was not treated by medical doctors as mania. Nor was it treated as psychosis at any time: because here is the key - even though I was mad and manic, I was LUCID. I could tell you, "This just isn't right, I need to get help." Ergo, I escaped hospitalization, and the overdrugging that happens there. This was treated with yet another antidepressant (Wellbutrin?) and antianxiety meds (likely Xanax). I met a yoga guru at about that time, and he "cleaned me up" and stabilized me but that was another abusive relationship - because now I "owed him" my life. I was on Wellbutrin for 3 years after this, but the depression just kept sinking deeper and deeper as I had sold my soul to this yogi. When I told the yogi, finally, to go away, that I would be happier without him telling me "who to be," and "how to be it," I got marginally better. At the same time I met my birthfamily, Birth Mom, birth aunt, a sister and 2 brothers. When I got the family history and heard about great-grandma hanging in the shower, and grandma finding her, and the resultant paranoia about menopause this caused....when I heard about the uncles who were chameleons and bigamists....I thought, well. Maybe I am "manic depressive" or "bipolar." So again: with lucidity and clarity I presented myself to the hospital charity system for treatment. to be continued.......