apathetic: recovering from olanzapine use

[powerback]

thanks A .

Apologies no offence intended since I believe we all suffer because of diagnosis[medication] I question everything.

I didn't intend to offend  you ,I'm always playing devils advocate .

thanks for understanding I was trying to help .

total respect

PB

[apathetic]

From today, I'm aripiprazole-free. Goodbye antipsychotics. Never again.

[TryingToHoldOn]

Congrats.  How are you feeling?

[powerback]

On ‎22‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 0:35 AM, apathetic said:

From today, I'm aripiprazole-free. Goodbye antipsychotics. Never again.

Good for you A ,make sure you have your tools so you never have to go near them again .

As hard as my protracted withdrawl is ,I still think I'm lucky I refused Zyprexa in November .

take care

PB

[apathetic]

15 hours ago, TryingToHoldOn said:

Congrats.  How are you feeling?

 

Thank you. I still have a brain fog, hopefully it will go away in couple of weeks. Mostly, it's hard to feel, and sometimes faking emotions gets me and makes me think that I really do feel something, but the tears are falling down and I only feel the muscles moving in my stomach and my face without feeling any sensation. It's hard to even feel emotional pain. But I'm here, I made another step - getting off an antipsychotic, and that's something I should be proud of. As my friend said to me: "No matter how pointless it all may feel, you are still doing something; by both waiting and getting off the medication".

 

14 hours ago, powerback said:

Good for you A ,make sure you have your tools so you never have to go near them again .

As hard as my protracted withdrawl is ,I still think I'm lucky I refused Zyprexa in November .

take care

PB

 

Thank you PB, I really appreciate your responses in this topic. I will make a crisis plan, and I am contacting my doctor whenever something bad happens and I already have a mental health application on my phone, many bookmarked pages on how to deal with any type of problems, many downloaded self-help books... After some time, maybe a couple of months and only if I feel the need to do it, I will probably start taking some fish oil. We will see how all of this goes.

 

In general, I'm curious about how am I going to react to this and hopefully, it won't be as painful as it was.

Another thank you to everyone who ever responds on here, it really means a lot to have people who are going through the same and wanting to help you. I highly appreciate every thing that has been written in my topic and this site in general.

[apathetic]

From May to now, September, I was in the process of slowly, slowly giving up on myself, my life, my relationships with people, family and my therapist.

I was in a state where I absolutely couldn't define what was/is happening to me at all, because I guess that I just gave up. No need to worry, I probably won't kill myself. I really don't know why don't I do it, but I've been suicidal in the past few months and survived the worst day in my life: having intense intrusive thoughts about ending my life that I almost did it, and besides all of that, I was really suicidal and depressed. But the key word here is survived. I survived that day. But that doesn't make me feel proud of myself, I guess that anhedonia/apathy/whatever it is, is doing its business.

 

Medication that I was on made me completely unmotivated, but physically active. I suppose that it became a habit to pretend that everything is okay, that I started pretending in front of everyone, which made them believe that I really am okay, which made me question myself is this the life I am supposed to live.

 

I'm sure that many of us feel like our intelligence is limited, and like there is that kind of a barrier that just doesn't let us think properly, define things and just do better than we are doing now. It's truly discouraging and depressing to feel like you are doing your best, and "your best" is still very close to the rock bottom.

Past 4 months were spent in one desperate emptiness. Waking up, having no purpose, behaving like you are okay, literally not finding point in absolutely anything and not deeply understanding anything, yet not caring about not understanding it and just going through life like that, literally just breathing... Eh, not even breathing properly because yes, withdrawal also causes breathing problems.

 

I am even wondering from time to time, is this even withdrawal syndrome anymore ? Even if it's not withdrawal anymore, I am still dealing with those horrible consequences that syndrome brought me.

 

My opinions aren't stable (if they could even be called opinions, because they're not based on anything specific), I have absolutely no identity, and it really feels like I'm slowly losing every memory that I had for my previous identity. I'm losing myself more and more every day, and I am trying to maintain the new me that came out of withdrawal, but I've lost that barely, not even half of completely formed personality... But I'm failing at that and it's just hard. How many new personalities do I need to create and when I do, how to keep them goddamn stable ? Because this is extremely hard to deal with.

 

I'm just, as they say, opening my soul right now. I kind of feel hopeless, but not enough to end my life. The pain is just not intense enough to be ready to do it. And I am somehow sure that I will not do it, at least not for the next 6 months, and after that, who knows what will happen... Will I be better, worse. Alive ?

 

I am sorry if this is concerning (I doubt that anyone is reading it), but my current mental state really is concerning. It's not any type of crisis, it's concerning in a way of that I am just so mentally dysfunctional... Yet I am somehow managing to stay alive and live a life that someone who doesn't know what's happening would call a relatively normal life. That fascinates people around me, but their fascination doesn't really make me feel anything.

 

Isn't it awful to try doing everything that exists as a hobby, thing to do in a free time, and not finding pleasure or purpose in doing any single one of the activity ? And I've tried many, many, many things. Nothing really works. Which makes me feel even more hopeless.

[powerback]

10 hours ago, apathetic said:

From May to now, September, I was in the process of slowly, slowly giving up on myself, my life, my relationships with people, family and my therapist.

I was in a state where I absolutely couldn't define what was/is happening to me at all, because I guess that I just gave up. No need to worry, I probably won't kill myself. I really don't know why don't I do it, but I've been suicidal in the past few months and survived the worst day in my life: having intense intrusive thoughts about ending my life that I almost did it, and besides all of that, I was really suicidal and depressed. But the key word here is survived. I survived that day. But that doesn't make me feel proud of myself, I guess that anhedonia/apathy/whatever it is, is doing its business.

 

Medication that I was on made me completely unmotivated, but physically active. I suppose that it became a habit to pretend that everything is okay, that I started pretending in front of everyone, which made them believe that I really am okay, which made me question myself is this the life I am supposed to live.

 

I'm sure that many of us feel like our intelligence is limited, and like there is that kind of a barrier that just doesn't let us think properly, define things and just do better than we are doing now. It's truly discouraging and depressing to feel like you are doing your best, and "your best" is still very close to the rock bottom.

Past 4 months were spent in one desperate emptiness. Waking up, having no purpose, behaving like you are okay, literally not finding point in absolutely anything and not deeply understanding anything, yet not caring about not understanding it and just going through life like that, literally just breathing... Eh, not even breathing properly because yes, withdrawal also causes breathing problems.

 

I am even wondering from time to time, is this even withdrawal syndrome anymore ? Even if it's not withdrawal anymore, I am still dealing with those horrible consequences that syndrome brought me.

 

My opinions aren't stable (if they could even be called opinions, because they're not based on anything specific), I have absolutely no identity, and it really feels like I'm slowly losing every memory that I had for my previous identity. I'm losing myself more and more every day, and I am trying to maintain the new me that came out of withdrawal, but I've lost that barely, not even half of completely formed personality... But I'm failing at that and it's just hard. How many new personalities do I need to create and when I do, how to keep them goddamn stable ? Because this is extremely hard to deal with.

 

I'm just, as they say, opening my soul right now. I kind of feel hopeless, but not enough to end my life. The pain is just not intense enough to be ready to do it. And I am somehow sure that I will not do it, at least not for the next 6 months, and after that, who knows what will happen... Will I be better, worse. Alive ?

 

I am sorry if this is concerning (I doubt that anyone is reading it), but my current mental state really is concerning. It's not any type of crisis, it's concerning in a way of that I am just so mentally dysfunctional... Yet I am somehow managing to stay alive and live a life that someone who doesn't know what's happening would call a relatively normal life. That fascinates people around me, but their fascination doesn't really make me feel anything.

 

Isn't it awful to try doing everything that exists as a hobby, thing to do in a free time, and not finding pleasure or purpose in doing any single one of the activity ? And I've tried many, many, many things. Nothing really works. Which makes me feel even more hopeless.

Hi A today was going to be the first day of a self imposed ban from the site for a while but reading your post here .I had to reply ,OMG you have just wrote my own experience lately ,I'm honoured in reading and witnessing you open your soul, you have solidarity with me .I have also been very honest on the site and doubt and rumination has crept in for me dong this ,but seeing others been so open makes me comfortable  with my decision to be honest .

do you constantly do "hobbys" to stop the ruminations or just try to get back to normal ,what ever normal  is .I can relate to this ,I cant claim my apathy is as strong as yours .

I'm trying to pull myself out of this depression and I struggle with the consensus of accepting our situation and not fighting it because my personality is changing massively in the negative .I live in the town were I was raised and this is a nightmare at the moment ,the constant asking of are you not working today and so on is destroying me .[I'm my own worst critic already so you can imagine ].

We just have to keep looking for answers ,my answer for today is get away into the wilderness for a few hours walk and away from society .tomorrow can wait .

Your not alone A ,so I hope that brings some peace to you .take care .

PB

 

 

[apathetic]

UPDATE: things are slowly getting better

It is almost December, the end of the year 2017. is near.
Inspired by one user's story, I decided to register here, but we never heard from that user, are they better, worse or even with us (which is scary, but we can't know for sure what has happened). I came here to say how am I doing, in case anyone is reading my posts, because not hearing from that user made me feel really scared for my own life, am I going to be better or not, because back then I was in extremely bad mental state and reading someone's story and knowing that I fight this with someone in the world, that we feel the same encouraged me to stay alive.

I can say that I'm off aripiprazole for around 3 months. That is not medication that caused withdrawal, and I was semi-careful when coming off aripiprazole (I was listening to my body and when I got worse, I updosed, when I wasn't feeling anything specific for a longer period of time I reduced and so on - still not recommending my way of tapering and never will; I was doing it with professional who knows how withdrawal syndrome works). 

 

What has changed so far is:
- I can truly laugh again.
- It's easier to laugh than to cry and I really do have a need to cry it all out sometimes, but from time to time I can truly cry as well.
- I can feel fear again, which is an improvement because I wasn't able to feel anything.
- My brain fog is slowly (but surely) going away, I am able to think better.

 

So, this is only the beginning. I can say that I am still struggling, but everyone with mental illness is.

[nicolantana]

oooh this is great news!! ....It's a big step forward anyway. Have you more motivation/energy??

[apathetic]

On 11/18/2017 at 10:42 AM, nicolantana said:

oooh this is great news!! ....It's a big step forward anyway. Have you more motivation/energy??

Energy - no.
Motivation - maybe.

 

What I mean by energy is mental energy. I feel mentally fatigued all the time, tired. It's hard to think, again (it was never easy to think in the past year, honestly) , but I'm off all meds for 2 months, so this is when my real recovery begins. All of the things I've been through before wasn't the real recovery, because I was switching some meds with the other ones and I was on escitalopram all the time. Now that I'm off all of them, the only thing I can do again is - wait.

 

Motivation... I'm more satisfied with my motivation now than I was before, but it's still not in the normal range. For example - I can study. I'm willing to do it, I'm willing to learn new things and I'm willing to change some things. I started exercising and I finally changed my diet. Even for a bit, I think it means a lot to my body. This time, I'm being consistent, unlike other times I tried to follow exercise and diet plan.

 

__________________________________________________
 

It was hard to admit it to myself, but I have been experiencing dissociation from May 2k17. It takes very little for me to dissociate, and it's especially bad under stress. I have some symptoms of psychosis, but I can tell that December of the previous year and January 2018. were the worst when it comes to psychotic symptoms, feelings of hopelessness, dissociation etc, but I know where that came from - lack of sleep. I developed insomnia. Also, problems with focus, attention - that's been following me from the beginning of this difficult journey. Another good things is that I started smoking less, meaning that I don't buy my own packs of cigarettes, but take them from my family members when I have a need to smoke, and I'm trying to avoid even that.

 

Insomnia is something that I really need to work on, although I feel like it's my choice to stay awake. At first, I couldn't sleep, and now I think I can, but I have a need to do things so it frequently happens to me to stay awake whole night, and then go to sleep at 11 AM for example. I have days when I sleep only 2 hours, and then I have days when I don't sleep at all, but go to sleep in the afternoon and then again sleep for unhealthy amount of hours, for example - 4 hours.

 

Another important thing that I want to mention again is that I'm not apathetic. People can maybe even describe me as overly emotional, which is still not a good thing, but much easier and more possible to control than apathy. I didn't think I would feel ever again, but here I am!

 

__________________________________________________

Summarized: I feel like I'm constantly looking for something, searching for something and I don't know what it is, but I feel like I'm doing it all the time and I can't find what am I searching for, never ever. I feel disconnected emotionally from the world, myself, my memories. My attention is bad and my sleeping habits are bad. Things are better regarding diet, exercise, will to study, read and learn new information, but there are a lot of things to work on. I started smoking less. People around me are telling me that I seem better, that I can understand things very well, make excellent connections regarding things they are trying to explain to me, but I don't feel that way. My subjective feeling is that my cognition is still not good, but it's definitely better than it used to be. I can feel emotions. All in all - I'm on a road of recovery and I'm very aware that it's going to be a long one.

[apathetic]

Help?

I had good days. Few days ago, I fell in some hole of extremely decreased cognition. And no, I don't feel depersonalized or derealized, but I literally have no thoughts - again. I can't think about anything, I can't focus on anything and I'm in this horrible hole again, I feel... nothingness, it's like a desert in my body and mind. I feel and sense my own death and decomposing of the psyche, again. I didn't feel this way from April 2k17, I really don't know what happened. From May 2k17 I was dissociated, until this happened. Maybe I'm still dissociated, but this doesn't really feel like dissociation... it feels like psychosis. And I do recognize some unusual things, but I don't really think it's full-blown psychosis either.

 

Even while dissociated, I could think clearly. Not all the time, but most of the time my mind was working properly, but I was dissociated so that was not ideal. But I would rather be dissociated on that way than on this one, if this is dissociation.

 

I didn't take any medication, street drug or even a supplement. I only drank some herbal teas, but I don't think they can have this effect on me... I drank them mainly for physical problems, and I've been drinking them for 2 months almost every day, different ones. For example, chamomile, peppermint, ginger, lemon balm, nettle tea... I limited myself to 2 cups a day, and some days I wouldn't drink none, but usually I drank only one cup. I'm mentioning this because I know and can even feel that I'm still sensitive to anything that can have any kind of effect on body and brain.

 

My sleep is poor, though. I can try to fix that, but I feel like this problem is huge enough and can't be fixed by regulating sleep. My mind feels too disorganized and deteriorated. Besides all of that, I have extremely violent thoughts about myself and others. I often have urges to hurt myself, but I'm not giving in.

 

What even is this? I quit meds completely in December 2017.

[apathetic]

I had a panic attack and I had to take a benzodiazepine, Lexilium 1.5mg. Is that okay, will that somehow disrupt my recovery process? I took some Lexilium back in February. I quit all meds in December 2017. Thanks in advance.

[Gridley]

It should not disrupt your recovery process.  Be very careful with benzos.  You can become dependent if you take them regularly for as little as two weeks.

[apathetic]

I took Lexilium again, but now I took 0.75mg. I had a horrible panic attack. I really, really want to avoid meds, but this was a crisis. It bothers me, because I am aware of the fact I need to take it in order to calm down, because even if I calm down mentally, my body is still behaving crazily. This dose didn't do anything to me. Even though I took it when I noticed symptoms because I wanted to prevent the attack, attack still came. I was hyperventilating and my heart was pounding extremely fast. I was shaking and I didn't feel safe anywhere, especially because I was outside of my house. I went somewhere where I can be alone and cried because of fear, and I don't know what was I even afraid of. I was actually not afraid, I was horrified and felt like I will die any second. I saw threat in everything at that moment. This state lasted for 30-45 minutes. Later, I lost that much oxygen that I could barely walk and talk. Maybe the trigger was extreme noise sensitivity, I'm hypersensitive both physically and mentally these days. I don't know what's happening, but my anxiety is very, very high.

[apathetic]

Well I am going to get all of my frustrations out now. I would be VERY thankful if anyone read this aka I want a response.

You see, I feel helpless all the time. Yes, I was better, that's true. But the thing is that I am under 21 and I feel like my brain is dying. I'm angry at the whole world because nobody wants to help me with my cognitive problems. Nobody is offering any solution, nowhere. It's been two years. I can't study, I won't graduate if this continues. I can't do anything because of this horrifying fog, it's extremely frustrating. My therapist tells me it's detachment from my own self, my emotions, and that's why I feel like this, but I don't trust him. I don't want to trust him with this. I partially know that I am talking nonsene right now but at the same time I don't have enough mental capacity to judge is this nonsense, is this truth or no. When you read this, you would think I am crazy, because I am crazy. And you know what? I don't care that I'm crazy. I honestly don't care because I never thought the situation would turn out this way for someone who is this young. I have a life ahead of me, and what am I doing? I am decomposing here, and nobody cares. It just makes me hella angry.

You know, by having that intrusive thought about my brain dying maybe it will really die some day. It's like an intrusive thought on a borderline of delusion. I had MRI of the brain last year, around this time. Results were okay, they said my brain was working perfectly fine. It's been a year. Maybe, by those intrusive thoughts, my brain really began dying. My mental processes aren't normal, and not that they aren't normal, I don't even have them. I literally behave like a person with a brain damage, it's obvious. I can't stand others looking at me like this. Most of it all, I can't stand me looking at myself like this, living like this, and it's here for 2 years. I can't. I just can't. I can't handle this anymore.

I am slowly becoming suicidal, again, and I hate that stimulation of hope others succeed at creating inside of me. I hate it. I don't want my hope to be stimulated, I want peace. Because I realized there is no hope, continuously telling me that there is hope is exhausting, pointless, sadistic,  and will result in even more emotionally painful death.

I tried not to write anything bad about my "recovery" process because I didn't want to make others feel bad, I wanted to make them feel encouraged to continue just in case someone sometimes finds this introduction topic and reads it. I don't care about that now, I'm probably going to leave soon anyways. Leave the world. I don't want to call a suicide hotline. I don't want to do anything. I just don't. I won't do it today, but I am taking that option in consideration. It may happen soon, in a month.

NOBODY ever wanted to tell me what to do to help myself when it comes to cognitive problems. Nobody.

I am worse than ever. I'm clinically psychotic. The only way to solve this is by taking meds, and I promised myself I won't do it. But it feels all the time like situations in my life are my last chances when it comes to something and I'm missing them because of this horrible state of mind, for example graduating, because it would be a shame to repeat a school year. It's humiliating. I have pride, and I feel like I have to step over it and over myself all the time. Losing that pride is losing my barely existent self-esteem, and losing my self-esteem in combination with already existent very low motivation will result in suicide.

Also, it's really awful to watch other people's opinions on your health change. Change in a way that they start thinking you are hopeless too. So why even try.

I am not getting help despite searching for it all the time both in the real world and on the Internet = I can't be helped. That's just how I perceive it, and haha there is no other way to perceive it anyways

[Dabhob33]

Apathetic 

Have you ever had a dependency on benzos, leading to a taper and withdrawal?  

dabhob33

[apathetic]

I guess that I am back here again, hoping to find a decent response to my troubles.

 

I want to say that I am medication free for 7 months. My posts at the beginning, and a bit after that were posts from me who was still intoxicated with those substances. I was still on medications when I registered here and for some time after that. I was even switching to other drugs in this state of vulnerability, which I suppose caused me more struggles. But even back then, when I registered, I thought the real withdrawal started and I did have many symptoms since coming off olanzapine around January 2017th, cold-turkey from a high dose. The thought of experiencing WDS was really scary to someone who is barely an adult age-wise. Almost all of you are talking about brain impairment (that I hope is fixable), being in this state for years, and I couldn't bare with reading other people's despair and panic on this site, because it made me feel more desperate and panicky about this myself.

 

So, I probably subconsciously wanted to find some other "excuse" for my symptoms because it was just too painful to say that I have WDS, so I searched, and searched, and searched... I read and created by myself many theories about why did this happen, why did we become like this, how to fix it, how to better word the problem, etc. And none of those theories were wrong, but they weren't completely right either; something was always missing, and some big part of my struggles was always excluded. All those things I thought were my struggle for some time didn't feel like a complete picture of what is happening, but they rather appeared as a fragment of it (and those fragments did help me a lot, and I don't think we should be strictly focused on recovering from WDS on one and only one way; many techniques should be applied in our case, because the goal remains the same; I will hopefully talk about this soon). So, finally, I decided to face the thing I was avoiding, and that is - officially calling the problem I have a withdrawal syndrome, again.

 

My adventure begins again, but this time, I'm much more prepared and educated than the first time. But, I suppose that now it is going to be different. My struggles have changed and many things are happening to my body, mind and brain.

 

Since I am again starting to get serious about this problem, I will state my symptoms now:
- Forgetfulness.
I can put a cup of water in a microwave because I want to make tea, and completely forget about it, even if it's just in there for 2 minutes. I remember I've done it after I open the microwave the next time because I decided to make some tea, again. I can be in the middle of writing something on a piece of paper, and forget what I wrote a minute ago. It happens to me to repeat what I said to people a lot, and I sometimes even say it on the same way, but have no idea I've done it (they never told me this, but I realized it myself after I gain some consciousness about myself and world around me). It's all because of the brain fog and my literal inability to think. Before those symptoms, I was under some severe stress (the degree of stress was maybe even traumatic), and hopefully those symptoms will pass (this evening was okay memory-wise). Yet, if I focused on remembering what I did that day, I can say I remember almost everything. Maybe, this is a problem related to focus, but I'm not sure. However, as someone who is young, this is concerning, as I never had such a symptom.

 

- Disconnection from myself and the world.

I believe this will fall under the category of depersonalization/derealization, right? I have those feelings of not being connected neither to myself, neither to others since I went cold-turkey off olanzapine. I just don't feel like a part of this world, and the whole world seems too dull for me. I read on here that people did recover from this symptom, although it was a long process that lasted for years for them. I am becoming more and more disconnected from myself, which is also really scary, because it seems like I'm gradually losing who I am. It feels like I'm dissolving. I can't explain the feeling, but I hate that I lost my personal identity from this, and I'm not sure if dissociation is to blame, or is it even reversible. Even if it is not, I will be okay with that. The only thing that is important to me is to know that it's possible to create another, new identity with regained creativity, good judgment/reasoning skills, capability to learn as easy as I did before, memory and maybe most importantly, the feeling of belonging in my own self and body. 

 

- Physical struggles that I'm working on solving right now (there are a lot of them).

Thankfully, it's nothing serious, but it is interfering with my daily life a lot. Solving those issues will tremendously help me because I'm sure many of my mental symptoms are coming from my physical struggles, and will be solved once I solve physical problems. I will try to avoid taking medications for my physical problems, or take the lowest of lowest dose possible. If any research shows that medication I'm supposed to be taking is somehow neurotoxic, then I won't take them at all and will search for alternatives. Actually, before starting any medication, I will search for alternatives, and use medications only if I have no other choice, or better said if avoiding medications could cause me more harm than good. But, even then I will be really careful, because I'm very afraid for my life and I'm taking all of this very seriously.

 

I will write about my other symptoms some other time, because I'm getting tired.

I hope someone will suggest something I can do about my symptoms, and tell me if they are alarming, normal... as those are the main ones and currently my worst struggles.

[bhasski]

4 hours ago, apathetic said:

I guess that I am back here again, hoping to find a decent response to my troubles.

 

I want to say that I am medication free for 7 months. My posts at the beginning, and a bit after that were posts from me who was still intoxicated with those substances. I was still on medications when I registered here and for some time after that. I was even switching to other drugs in this state of vulnerability, which I suppose caused me more struggles. But even back then, when I registered, I thought the real withdrawal started and I did have many symptoms since coming off olanzapine around January 2017th, cold-turkey from a high dose. The thought of experiencing WDS was really scary to someone who is barely an adult age-wise. Almost all of you are talking about brain impairment (that I hope is fixable), being in this state for years, and I couldn't bare with reading other people's despair and panic on this site, because it made me feel more desperate and panicky about this myself.

 

So, I probably subconsciously wanted to find some other "excuse" for my symptoms because it was just too painful to say that I have WDS, so I searched, and searched, and searched... I read and created by myself many theories about why did this happen, why did we become like this, how to fix it, how to better word the problem, etc. And none of those theories were wrong, but they weren't completely right either; something was always missing, and some big part of my struggles was always excluded. All those things I thought were my struggle for some time didn't feel like a complete picture of what is happening, but they rather appeared as a fragment of it (and those fragments did help me a lot, and I don't think we should be strictly focused on recovering from WDS on one and only one way; many techniques should be applied in our case, because the goal remains the same; I will hopefully talk about this soon). So, finally, I decided to face the thing I was avoiding, and that is - officially calling the problem I have a withdrawal syndrome, again.

 

My adventure begins again, but this time, I'm much more prepared and educated than the first time. But, I suppose that now it is going to be different. My struggles have changed and many things are happening to my body, mind and brain.

 

Since I am again starting to get serious about this problem, I will state my symptoms now:
- Forgetfulness.
I can put a cup of water in a microwave because I want to make tea, and completely forget about it, even if it's just in there for 2 minutes. I remember I've done it after I open the microwave the next time because I decided to make some tea, again. I can be in the middle of writing something on a piece of paper, and forget what I wrote a minute ago. It happens to me to repeat what I said to people a lot, and I sometimes even say it on the same way, but have no idea I've done it (they never told me this, but I realized it myself after I gain some consciousness about myself and world around me). It's all because of the brain fog and my literal inability to think. Before those symptoms, I was under some severe stress (the degree of stress was maybe even traumatic), and hopefully those symptoms will pass (this evening was okay memory-wise). Yet, if I focused on remembering what I did that day, I can say I remember almost everything. Maybe, this is a problem related to focus, but I'm not sure. However, as someone who is young, this is concerning, as I never had such a symptom.

 

- Disconnection from myself and the world.

I believe this will fall under the category of depersonalization/derealization, right? I have those feelings of not being connected neither to myself, neither to others since I went cold-turkey off olanzapine. I just don't feel like a part of this world, and the whole world seems too dull for me. I read on here that people did recover from this symptom, although it was a long process that lasted for years for them. I am becoming more and more disconnected from myself, which is also really scary, because it seems like I'm gradually losing who I am. It feels like I'm dissolving. I can't explain the feeling, but I hate that I lost my personal identity from this, and I'm not sure if dissociation is to blame, or is it even reversible. Even if it is not, I will be okay with that. The only thing that is important to me is to know that it's possible to create another, new identity with regained creativity, good judgment/reasoning skills, capability to learn as easy as I did before, memory and maybe most importantly, the feeling of belonging in my own self and body. 

 

- Physical struggles that I'm working on solving right now (there are a lot of them).

Thankfully, it's nothing serious, but it is interfering with my daily life a lot. Solving those issues will tremendously help me because I'm sure many of my mental symptoms are coming from my physical struggles, and will be solved once I solve physical problems. I will try to avoid taking medications for my physical problems, or take the lowest of lowest dose possible. If any research shows that medication I'm supposed to be taking is somehow neurotoxic, then I won't take them at all and will search for alternatives. Actually, before starting any medication, I will search for alternatives, and use medications only if I have no other choice, or better said if avoiding medications could cause me more harm than good. But, even then I will be really careful, because I'm very afraid for my life and I'm taking all of this very seriously.

 

I will write about my other symptoms some other time, because I'm getting tired.

I hope someone will suggest something I can do about my symptoms, and tell me if they are alarming, normal... as those are the main ones and currently my worst struggles.

 

Hi,

I am sorry for what you are going through. But these are all wdl symptoms that I had gone through. Its a messed up brain chemicals by drugs. You can say disturbed CNS or wghatever you want.

 

It has gotten better with time for me though I never settled for time alone and was trying  herbs, supplements, homeopathy.

 

I am still suffering, but the intensity of  what you mentioned was better. If I say start was 10, I am at 5-6 now. I am still missing the exercise part coz of fatigue and sleep.

 

So, there is a hope. Keep trying.

 

 

[apathetic]

3 hours ago, bhasski said:

Hi,

I am sorry for what you are going through. But these are all wdl symptoms that I had gone through. Its a messed up brain chemicals by drugs. You can say disturbed CNS or wghatever you want.

 

It has gotten better with time for me though I never settled for time alone and was trying  herbs, supplements, homeopathy.

 

I am still suffering, but the intensity of  what you mentioned was better. If I say start was 10, I am at 5-6 now. I am still missing the exercise part coz of fatigue and sleep.

 

So, there is a hope. Keep trying.

 

Thank you for responding and congratulations for your progress.
I understand that those are symptoms of WDS, but the only reason why I'm concerned is because my cognition got worse, not better. Especially memory. I'm sure it's connected to extreme stress I was going through. But, it would be more understandable if this started happening 7 months ago, when I quit all meds, or years ago, when I quit olanzapine and had withdrawal symptoms for the first time. I don't know.

I just hope someone will tell me if that is a normal thing, or if I should immediately get help.
I'm really afraid for my life at this point...

[bhasski]

8 hours ago, apathetic said:

 

Thank you for responding and congratulations for your progress.
I understand that those are symptoms of WDS, but the only reason why I'm concerned is because my cognition got worse, not better. Especially memory. I'm sure it's connected to extreme stress I was going through. But, it would be more understandable if this started happening 7 months ago, when I quit all meds, or years ago, when I quit olanzapine and had withdrawal symptoms for the first time. I don't know.

I just hope someone will tell me if that is a normal thing, or if I should immediately get help.
I'm really afraid for my life at this point...

 

Thanks for wishes.

I just wanted to say that my cognition got worse for a long time.. particularly as you stated.. 

I felt same while doing things like making tea.. reading...talking... i think I mentioned in my thread somewhere ( memory doesn't serve well).

 

So, why its happening late - may be the answer is it happens late to some people like you, me etc.

And it will get better.

 

[apathetic]

Today, I felt like I was on speed. I have so many thoughts that it's overwhelming, and they are racing. My energy levels have raised up. I don't feel good, but I feel euphoric and what I mean by that is that I'm way too active, but don't enjoy it at all. It's because I'm very easily distracted and I feel a bit disorganized. Those symptoms are really scaring me. My body feels so weak right now because of exhaustion and anxiety. Things feel terribly wrong and I've never felt such sudden and scary alienation, yet in a weird way it feels so familiar. I'm trying to convince myself that those symptoms are only temporary, that they will pass in a few days. It's hard, and I don't want to go crazy and lose insight in my behavior, feelings and thoughts. This is not my anxiety speaking, I really think that there is a possibility of me going crazy if I don't take good care of my health now. I don't know what to do. I hope I'm not being wrong for understanding this a sign of my body fighting to stabilize.

 

I'm still in fog, but a different kind of fog. This fog feels like everything is disorganized because everything is so fast that it's just disorienting. The regular one I feel feels like overall slowness of mind, and like I have thoughts in my mind, but they feel strange and they feel "blurry", like I can't reach them, understand them that well because they seem to be too far away from me. I guess that's dpdr. But this, what I'm feeling right now... is scary. Mostly, I'm afraid of losing control.

 

Besides that, I feel like my thoughts are not really mine, but automatic, as well as things I talk about. Like someone else was doing everything I've done today. It almost feels like I don't even own this body. I'm 80% sure I'm not paranoid (if I'm afraid of psychosis and aware of its possibility - I'm not psychotic). Those symptoms of not being in control of my body, thoughts, behavior and even emotions can be classified as severe dissociation, so I suppose that is happening in my case.

 

I will write here more often in order to track my symptoms. They are constantly changing. I was literally horribly depressed and mentally slow just 2 days ago, and now I'm almost the opposite (except I'm not happy, not at all).

 

I hope those are WDS symptoms, because I have mental issues that have nothing to do with any kind of biochemical imbalance, and meds aren't even necessary for their treatment. Many symptoms of WDS and my original disorder overlap. But, I believe I still belong to this site because my dpdr from the beginning of withdrawal still isn't resolved, as well as my cognitive issues that I'm 100% sure are related to withdrawal.

[Carmie]

Hi apathetic, 

 

How are you doing?💚

[apathetic]

Long time, no see. Thanks for asking!

 

I'm doing much better than I used to. But I got to feeling that better after another fall...

 

I had some crises and sadly, I had to manage them with medications. However, crises are not only due to my mental health, they actually arose because of external events. I finally let some people go and they are no longer disrupting my recovery process... But, letting them go was very dramatic and it has its own consequences. I started having symptoms of psychosis, but psychiatrists told me that I was not and am not a psychotic patient, thankfully. But I had a minor episode, acute one. My personality structure is borderline-like and it's expected of me to have some minor crises of psychotic thoughts and behavior... but it's never too serious.

 

So, in order to manage the stress I was going through, I was put on Xanax for some time, for insomnia. I was sleeping, but my anxiety wasn't suppressed, so I quit Xanax cold-turkey and started taking Zyprexa... again, yes. It had to be that way, sadly. I was convinced in things that weren't real because external events were overwhelming my defense mechanisms. So now I'm taking Zyprexa for some time, but I won't be on it for too long, only until I stabilize. I'm afraid, though. I still hate medications. And I will hate them forever, but I know how important they are for my current mental health state.

 

I don't put any suspicion in thought about me getting better. I'm sure I'm on my way.

[BestIsYetToCome13]

Hi. How are you doing now?