I have a love hate relationship with my anti-psychotic, risperidone. I'm on 3 mg a day. In the ways that it's helped me, I no longer dissociate, I'm no longer paranoid, and I no longer wake up from horrible nightmares, thinking that they are still real and then spend hours thinking people are trying to kill me. When I went up to 3 mg from 2 mg, it was like i had hit some magic threshold - in a lot of ways it was like waking up from a 19 year sleep. I could plan the future again, and begin to think rationally about what I wanted to be doing. On the downside - it definitely makes me emotionally flat, enough so that it was recommended that I get communications coaching to appear more emotionally engaged during job interviews, and sometimes I feel like my brain is fighting against itself with ideas that want to come out, but just can't quite. On the balance though, I think I'm happier on them than not. Can I see a day when I might not need them? Maybe. I'm in therapy and practice meditation which I find helps me a lot. I also do a lot of self help reading and practice. I'm also on high dose anti-D's and anti-anxiety meds, and I do sometimes worry about the long term effects, but for now I'm viewing them as necessary to keep me healthy enough to do the work I need to do in therapy.

--splitimage