Thinking of quitting the SSRIs and antipsychotics. I am so sick of not feeling anything. I need to learn to just deal with my emotions and not be reliant on drugs.
Has anyone gone off their meds? How has it worked for you?
For me, stopping meds has only ever helped me because meds had zero positive effect on me and lots (
lots) of adverse events. Had SSRIs/SNRIs been at least a tiny bit effective against my depression, I may have considered weighting the pros and cons more, but as they didn't seem to have any kind of positive effect, it was a no-brainer. However, antipsychotics, I don't think I'd have continued in any case. I haven't tried abilify, but life under quetiapine or risperidone was just awful. Constantly feeling dizzy, empty, tired, stunned, emotionless, unable to reason clearly is definitely not something I'm considering for my life, even if it had had a significant effect on my worst depressive symptoms (which it had not anyways).
I stopped my meds abruptly numerous times because I was so sick doctors would never acknowledge their inefficiency, how unbearable some side-effects were and sometimes even deny that some side-effects were indeed attributable to them. They would never agree to changing the drugs or lowering the dose, even after many months of extra-suffering induced by them. If anything, they would sometimes add new medications over the existing ones (which was supposed to "potentiate" the effects), but that just made me even more miserable. Yet, if you were to stop, I would really urge you to to not do it abruptly like stupid me. Most of them have withdrawal symptoms (which are poorly documented by the way, but do exist). You'd experience flu-like symptoms and possibly stronger depression for a few days or weeks (and that can be easily prevented).
Now, that's for my case, but people have many different experiences. Have you been able to discuss those adverse events with your doctors? If they're understanding, they could maybe help you try out something else? As for the weight gain, most of the time that can be fairly well mitigated just by changing eating habits (because the weight gain is mostly due to the ways those drugs affect your appetite in the first place). Also, I noticed some side effects of SSRIs (especially the shaking stuff) do fade out after a few weeks (not sure if that was also the case with neuroleptics because I was so overwhelmed by them I didn't even care). Did you take these meds for long enough that you're confident their effects on you are stable? Abilify seems really intrusive (and it's the reason why I've always refused it so far), so maybe you could suggest to your doctor that it's really not something you're willing to continue, especially at such dose (which I suspect will meet a complete lack of empathy and understanding unfortunately, but I really reckon that should be your primary option).
Don't worry, almost no adverse events of those drugs are permanent if you did not take them for many many years. I had some
sexual dysfunction with SSRIs that kept going on for a few months (if not years) after stopping. There are documented cases of permanent sexual dysfonction, but they only affected mens (not womens) who had been taking SSRIs over very long timeframes. I'm not aware of other permanent side-effect, although they may exist.
Also, in my country, I've noticed that not taking meds is often seen as a greatly aggravating circumstance when you're threatened to be put in a ward. Refusing meds, or stopping them, or not taking them is often interpreted as a "mental inability to consent to healthcare" and "not clear-thinking", which for some reason seem to justify being imprisoned and tortured in a ward
. So beware of that.
. I just need to find the passion again to train hard and plan meals carefully. Unfortunately like you, and many others, Abilify has left me a feeling of nothingness. Empty inside
