Hey guys,

I've been dealing with some weird symptoms after trying to stop my AP. I've been on it since mid-April of this year and had previously been on it off and on over the course of the past year since about June of 2017. My psychotic break came after my first semester of grad school, while I was also working in the field of psychology and surprised all of us by it's severity.

I lost touch w/ reality and was in complete denial that I was experiencing delusions and hallucinations. Once they started me on AP's my thought processes began to return more to normal but it would take almost a full year (April of this year) for me to finally admit I was experiencing psychosis and was no longer in control of my life.

After being able to admit and come to terms with the fact that I had lost touch with reality (this was extremely hard for me to admit) I was finally able to receive treatment that helped resolve the delusions and voices.

5 mg of Zyprexa seems to be key in my treatment but I've had so many issues with the side effects that I've quit suddenly and cold turkey in the past, leading to more hospitalizations. My cutie (my nickname for the guy I'm dating) had to threaten me with two choices in late March: take the Zyprexa or go to the hospital. I chose to take it which made me plummet from my mania quite hard and I ended up in the hospital a week later anyways.

This time I tapered down to 2.5 mg for two weeks and I've been off of it since last Wednesday. I absolutely cannot take the weight gain and slowness in thinking. My doctor wouldn't get on board with me going off of it so I had to do it myself. The sedation and metabolic changes are just too powerful!

Since then, I've had a slow increase in my energy (yes!), decrease in my appetite (thank god!) but I'm now having almost flu-like symptoms...? My body is achey and I've developed a bit of a cough and now I'm starting to hear voices (very, very subtly) here and there. I'm starting to get anxiety off and on as well.

Is this normal? Is there anyone else out there that has successfully gotten off this medication? Any advice?