The following story started as a comment to another blog...but I got so carried away with the topic it became a full-fledged essay! So, I am pasting my answer to a forlorn father in my blog space:
I know so little about schizophrenia I had to copy and paste for the spelling.
I do know a little something about psychiatrists and the drugs they are heaping upon mental health patients. It scares me, frankly - thus the purpose of my entire blog profile. But I am digressing...
Since I know firsthand about some pretty serious brain drugs being dished out like candy to the depressed and other mental health sufferers, I worry about the severely mentally disabled who have no voice at all. I hope you continue to monitor the drugs, dosages, and reasons for the medication concerning your son.
I went off all anti-depressants and mood altering drugs after I swallowed over 100 xanax in a hotel room near Disneyland in 2006.
It all started in 1999 when I went to the family doctor with complaints of hot flashes and low energy. The doctor prescribed anti-depressants without doing any bloodwork. With the meds I felt myself worsen, and soon mood alterating drugs were added (with menopause my inner bitch was coming out). Still no bloodwork to determine if a physiological reason may be causing my symptoms.
Because I owned a business and was a columnist prior to the initial symptoms of hot flashes and low energy, a doctor decided I must be crashing from a mania - mania because he didn't believe I really did have a successful business, and assumed I was grandious. Thus, this doctor diagnosed me with rapid cycle bi-polar disorder and upped the anti...drugs that are given to epileptic seizure patients where given to me in the highest doses -- and my condition continued to worsen.
I was waking up in the middle of the night with feelings of electricity or shocks going through my brain. I began complaining to the doctor about these drugs (I was still too stupid to look all the stuff up myself...trusting the medical community completely) and soon found myself lost in an insane medical system. I told my doctor about these shocking awakenings in the middle of the night...and he hosptialized me telling my husband I was having psychotic episodes. (Now, 7 years later I see the electrical shocks are listed as real side affects of many brain medications).
After the xanax overdose in Disneyland I began to have my doubts about what good all these drugs were doing for me. (I did not die because it was not my time...it was divine intervention...and no, this is not a psychotic statement, it is a knowing). Alas, I swore off all medication, finally realizing that I have been mentally declining since i started the drugs for my (what I now know to be menopause) symptoms.
Back in 2006 I came home after a short stay in LA's finest hell hole they call 72 hour psychicatric care (worse than any prison you could ever imagine being in). There I refused all medication (I wanted to be aware of what these freaks were doing to me), and, unfortunately witnessed the horrific treatment the long term patients where getting behind the visitor's backs (I'll save that story for another blog).
When I arrived home after my involuntary incauceration, I continued to refuse all medication. However, one doctor convinced me (I am a little slow, I think) I have ADHD and prescribed Adderal which I agreed to take. More drugs to fix my so-called broken brain.
After a few months of that nonsense I finally went 100% drug free. Three years later I never felt better in my life.
However, since losing my business after the first prescription for Paxil, I also lost my only son in a car accident, my grandson to adoption, my marriage broke up over the stress of those issues, and then my father passed away from lung cancer. My sibling family broke completely apart over some of these issues and I find myself alone in a new community, and having a tough time getting my career back (I was a human resources professional, business woman, lifeskills instructor, and criminology graduate, so have a little bit going for me). Yes, I have had some continued emotional upsets.
Needless to say my self-esteem (which was just fine pre-1999) has taken a nose dive. Unable to adequately explain away my absence from my profession, I cannot get my career going again. Sadly, last week I reached out for help and found myself at mental health services and obtained a list of brain medications the doctor would like me to 'try.' After googling the names of these meds I knew I could never seek out medical assistance again. The system, the drugs, the answers - are wholy insane. Some things never change.
Anyway, I will be okay. What I have learned is only I can fix me, and doctors do not have all the answers, and in fact harm patients in their zeal to prescribe brain medication to unsuspecting victims. My intial problem was menapause. Now I have to try and recover from 9 years of hell in the mental health system. As an eternal optimist who has been to hell and back...I now spend my spare time (which I have a lot of) writing on the issues of which I speak.
Today I am a cashier at a grocery store earning $10.00 per hour. I am going to claim bankrupsy because I can no longer hold it all together financially. However, I love my new job, the people, the customers, the management and staff. This little job is doing a world of good for my confidence and is keeping me from isolating myself (a habit I developed).
A little tear falls down my face as I remember all that once was.
Please monitor your son and what the system is feeding him.
God Bless...
PS, after I submit this I can copy and paste it, so will be using it as one of my blogs...I hope you don't mind...
