The first time I got olanzapine, I was trying to check in to the hospital. At the time I was suffering from realy loud ugly real sounding voices screaming non stop in my head. There was no room at the hospital, but a doctor there gave me olanzapine and the voices stopped within the first hour. That's all I use it for. I don't take it for more than a few days at a time. I haven't needed any for over a year now, but if I'm ever dealing with voices again, ie, psychotic symptoms, I'll be asking for it. Of course it isn't going to be the same for everyone. But it is the only one I've ever had that worked in any way without the weeks long adjusting period. I've met people who are on it all the time for anxiety too.

Weather it is common or not for someone to use it as needed I don't know. I've come to a place personally where I have chosen to regard my own best ideas with as much credence as the "professionals" I've come in contact with. On the one hand, I need their help, and on the other hand, if I throw myself in total trust at their feet, and blithely follow their every recommendation to the letter, I end up as ruined as before but also unrecognizable to my self.

I haven't found much that works better than adapting myself to the realities of my shifting sands, and learning to recognize the unbearable symptoms and respond with emergency measures.

Don't mean to ramble, but yeah, a lot of my ideas are divergent from the main body of (pick a word for it, I can't).