Whilst many people state that they have got their life back after taking antidepressants – this is not my experience nor that of many others. Significant numbers of people taking anti-depressants experience devastating side effects whilst starting, changing dose or withdrawing from them.
The big issue for me is one of informed consent, people are making choices about whether to take a mind-altering substance when they are in an extremely vulnerable state, but they are not being given the facts.
I am currently writing down my tail of anti-depressant useage and the horrific fall-out I went through when trying to withdraw from Effexor. Psychosis, mania, aggression and incarceration are unfortunately just some of the words that I needed to use. I also want to tell you how vehemently I struggled to halt the increasing chemical cocktail that was paraded before me and why I resisted the re-telling of my life so that it fitted into other people’s expectations.
Damn it we told them, me, my family, my friends – that the only reasonable explanation was that I was in Effexor withdrawal. It was just too destroying a thought to the medical profession’s world view, that this could be true. So they didn’t listen and mocked the very thought of it.
Skipping to the end, three (ish) months down the line, exhausted, full of anger and out of options I got myself back on the dreaded Effexor and pretty much instantaneously returned to being ‘me’. However it took a lot of trickery on my part and a stale mate situation for this to come about.
I am nearing the end of my second withdrawal attempt from Effexor and one thing I know for sure is that it will definitely be successful and that for me and many others, to garden is to live.
Make of it what you will! But what it is not is a manifesto or advice because I have no idea who you are – you must answer that conundrum for yourself.
Here’s the links if you’re interested..
Entry into the mental health system – how I came to a point where I needed help from the mental health system and why I first started to take anti-depressants
Induction into mental health system – My first experience of help from the mental health system and how my condition deteriorated as I continued to take anti-depressants.
Sabbatical and re-entry into the mental health system – My time away from psychiatry and the things that I tried to improve my quality of life. How and why things went wrong for me and how a severe withdrawal reaction from antidepressants saw me propelled back into the mental health system.
Explosion back into the mental health system – How quickly I became acutely psychotic and manic when withdrawing from my antidepressant – Effexor.
Hotel for the mentalists – describing the lead up to being sectioned and hospitalised. How slow, difficult and dangerous this was for all concerned.
Prone Position – Mental health unit induction – my first couple of days in the unit. Induction into staff violence.
The Grate Escape – A poorly planned and badly executed escape attempt, resulting in sedation and a decision to do everything in my power to get out of there.
Looking for a saviour and random good fortune – Staying quiet and biding my time as I continued to fight off the sum total of all the evil in the universe. Luck was on my side as I managed to avoid further drugs and get myself a legal representative by accident.
Therapeutic Resistance – The activities and interactions that I had with the clinic’s staff.
Time machines and judgement day – My long awaited and successful mental health review tribunal.
excellent! I think it’s good to have this all in one place! It is instructive even if it’s not advice as you say.
go girl go – I hope you continue well on your journey to survive – there’s something about gardening – especially allotmenting that helps reconnect – apparently Monty Don suffers from depression and gardening helps him cope
good luck
Clarex
Hey Clare
thanks for stopping by and for your warm words of encouragement – they made me smile – thanks.
I agree Monty is a great role model and I always find his writing thought provoking. Here is a post detailing how monty copes when he feels depression snapping at his heels: http://allotmentjunkies.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/wise-words-from-monty/
cheers
Keener
Sigh.
I take 350 milligrams of effexor and 300 milligrams of seroquel daily and nightly, respectively. They have helped me a great deal with no side-effects, but–being disorganized enough to skip dosages by accident–I understand the swift and overpowering effects of discontinuation. I can’t believe no one understood the implications of your withdrawal. Haven’t they heard of something called drug addiction before?
I’ve also been in a mental hospital before. I was not near so psychotic as you, just suicidal depression, but where I went was indeed a bleak and crushing prison.
While I am grateful for the help psychiatric treatment has afforded me, I am a firm believer in people’s right to choose as well as the existence of other avenues of treatment besides synthetic chemical addiction. My girlfriend has schizoaffective disorder as well as three personalities, but this does not make her dangerous, non-functional, or even unhappy, only the most fascinating, beautiful person I have ever known. I will never be able to look at mental health in the same arrogant, black-and-white way that too many “professionals” do.
Blessings again, you guys make a great story!
[...] Mental Health Story [...]
Hey Michael
thanks for stopping by and your kind comments. I agree it is ridiculous that they didnt spot addiction – although of course its not officially called that. I saw my psych from the second hospital a few times after I returned to normality, the first couple of times he was quite sheepish and even apologised for not spotting the withdrawal. He always looked tired, stressed and pasty to me, on more than one occasion I could hear his stomach rumbling as he spoke to me. His parting advice was to get away from the mental health system and to go and enjoy life. Sound advice for both of us perhaps.
I applaud your pro-choice stance and wish you continued good health and many a happy hour gardening..
Keener
There’s something about plants – and animals, nature, everything, that (most) humans seem to have lost touch with…
I’ll add your “Mental Health Story” to the link list on withdrawal I plan in my sidebar.
Your writing is awesome!
[...] Mental Health Story [...]
Great blog, best of luck with the garden and the natural anti-depressants!
Getting off Effexor was the hardest, most frightening thing I have ever done, I think … luckily I had incredibly good support from an acupuncturist who specialized in detoxing drug addicts, and who understood how horrible the Effexor withdrawal can be. I tapered off over almost a year, but still, the final dropoff was devastating and terrifying. The side effects of being on it were also devastating and terrifying … a whole host of symptoms so bizarre that at one point a neurologist was convinced I had rapid-onset MS. Nobody was willing to admit that antidepressants could possibly cause tremors, paresthesia, neuropathy, speech impediments, and on and on and on and on.
And yet, those things miraculously disappeared after I’d been “clean” for six weeks.
It’s scary out there.