Posted by schleprock on November 26, 2012, at 21:51:55
In reply to Re: Lou's response-lytbrgayd, posted by Phil on November 26, 2012, at 8:13:11
> > with all due respect schleprock, please don't make comments like "The Abilify has probably screwed you up for the long term."
> >
> > You have NO basis for saying that, and your opinion is completely without evidence.
> >
> > It's totally wrong to put that one someone else, particularly someone you don't know, and who, even if you did know him, would not be your patient, as you are not a doctor.
> ____________
>
> I agree and would like to add that for the last 30 years I've been on over 70 meds. Besides weight gain I've had a good run. I feel good. If all of these meds have screwed me up it's not evident to me or people that know me.
> So to say that even one will do this this and this, prove it.
>
>Well Phil, are you currently taking over 70 meds at this time? I'd find that rather hard to believe, so I'm going to assume that there were at least a few points in your life that you concluded that a particular medication might have been doing you a bit of harm, that your brain was telling you that something was causing a risk of biologically going beyond the limits of its best interests. That's why you would have to get off them. Could you conceive of what your life would be like today had you been forced to stay on a drug that was deteriorating your condition. Can you even dare contemplate where might end up. And I'm not sure what "a good run" means in the context of having been through over 70 medications in three years.
As I've implied before, I was once stable on a single antidepressent for 17 years (to treat chronic anxiety that was without any room for doubt triggered by caffeine, and may have been related to prior use of mescaline, which I had only taken twice in my life) until the Prince of Lies materialized into my life and convinced me that I'd feel even better on an alternate medication, one that I could stop at any time, one that wouldn't be "activating", one he claimed to have had success with in hundreds of cases. Four years later I'm struggling with the havoc and damage that this medication caused me (and yes, I know I have my self partially to blame for this, and consider this decision to be the biggest regret in my life beyond all magnitude.) I often wonder what my life would have been like today had I never ingested this drug, and never argue the conclusion that it would be something a lot more positive. At the very least, I'd have been doing something more productive than wasting my time on forums trying to get myself back to a stage where I can at least function in society again.
I think it's foolish to go under the assumption that people go to places like this for "proof" and statistical data as an adjunct to their psychiatric treatment. People come here because their scared and want to uncover more personal experiences with medication and mental illness than they can receive from their psychiatrists, who often cannot discuss mental illness and the effects of medication in the first person. Alternatly, respondents here offer first hand accounts and suggestions to questions posed by those who come here based on personal experience and\or anecdotal knowledge of mental illness from sources they can trust. hansi555's condition seemed to mirror my own negative experience with medication trials, and I offered advice consistant with my own experience. If Abilify was the trigger, andhansi555 is still suffering severe symptoms weeks after discontinuation of this med, I think the reference "long-term" would be appropriate. In fact, I've come across more than a few communiques from members of this forum that they've suffered long-term illness or exacerbation brought on by psychiatric treatment, be it ECT or medication, so i can't understand why my conclusions have become all of a sudden that far-fetched.
Phil, I don't think you will ever be able to understand how it is to go from 17 years of mental stability into the hell I've fallen into the past four years, knowing all the while that perhaps the lion's share of responsibility for it was my own, and that it could have been so easily avoided.
poster:schleprock
thread:1031808
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20121113/msgs/1031989.html