anyone stopped meds completely & just gone with therapy?

after 5 years of meds i'm feeling a little over it. i'm getting down again (heh, med poop out) but i'm reluctant to go back on them. i'm kind of keen to see whether i can be 'strong' and just go it alone this time around. i can always change my mind later if it doesn't work out well.

will keep seeing austin-t (i think) but i'm tired of my half-decade of meds foray. in truth, it's got me to where i am so i'm not denigrating it at all. just wondering if i'm strong enough to take off the training wheels yet.

keen for other's input, if anyone else has been here before.

((((((Deli))))))

Didn't you try this after you got back from Japan? I'm worried about you. Have you talked it over with Pdoc? I think you should make sure to get his input into this decision. It is a major one. Also know if you decide to take a break or stop, you can always go back on at a later point if you feel you need it.

I can't take meds....have had so many bad side effects & bad reactions to meds that my pdoc in California ended up suggesting the Omega3 EPA 1200+mg/day.

I was on the seroquel right after going through the trauma so I could sleep without the nightmares because it completely knocked me out, but living alone, I have to function now. The Omega 3 EPA works great for me with depression & actually helps with leveling the anxiety. Only problem...not covered by prescription coverage, but it actually costs less than my payment for the prescription coverage which I dropped several years ago when patience assistance picked up my pain medication.

When I moved away from California 3 years ago, I didn't have a therapist either...tried to manage on my own until just a year ago, I finally found a wonderful psychologist.....better than any I ever had in California......so things are looking up.

I think that depending on your DX, that therapy can be all that is needed.

I did. I hit rock bottom and decided to start therapy 3mos after being off my meds. She wants me back on, so I tried and had an allergic reaction and am so tired of going on gaining weight, not feeling better anyway so I'm just taking it a little at a time right now.

I did this. It actually helped me but everyone else was convinced that it didn't at the time. I was feeling very numb on the meds and I knew that I wanted to feel something rather than nothing. So for a while I was a total mess and that's probably why everyone was so worried. I did end up in a clinic for a little bit too. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life and I ended up checking out because they were so pushy about the meds. Here's the positive part: being in those situations gave me the strength to want to learn how to deal with my issues without numbing. It's taken me a long time but I started to change and grow and learn about me and how I function without numbing and it has enabled me to live a more fulfilling (but still sometimes difficult) life. As an aside, I did end up going back on an ADHD med eventually but this series of events gave me a greater understanding of what different meds feel like in my body and what the implications (in the context of my life) of taking those meds are. I hope this helps a little..

Also, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) really helped me with willingness to feel pain in my life and take control of situations that I actually had control over. And yoga really helped me with self awareness and mindfulness. In my opinion, acceptance/willingness and self-awareness/mindfulness are paramount living successfully without meds.

Tried it and it was a disaster. All my friends warned me, but I did not listen. I was stable for about 2 yrs on meds (diagnosis: severe major depression). I was doing really well, had done a lot of therapy and I thought it would be reasonable to back off on some (not all) meds. I really want to get off of Abilify. So w/ the help of my pdoc, I weaned off of it. I crashed within about a month. I went back on it.

However, the bright side of the story is that I was able to cut back on some of the other meds that I take (Lexapro) to minimize side effects. Perhaps simplifying your regimine would be preferable to stopping completely.

If you do decide to drop the meds, make sure to have a dicussion w/ pdoc about "how bad" you have to get before you are willing to try them again. This will be especially important if you have a disorder that is likely to distort reality if you are feeling unwell (e.g., if you are bipolar and might become manic).

Looking back on it, I think that I crashed because I was dealing with more stress in my life than I realized. I could handle that stress with the help of my friend abilify, but not without it.

Remember, meds are not about being "weak" or "strong." It is about brain chemistry. If you need to take your meds, there is nothing wrong with that.

Hope that helps in some way. Good luck with whatever you choose.

EJ

I've been on paxil for about 7 years. I do keep trying to wean off, and I'm now taking 10 mg/day, which is a very minimal amount. But I can't seem to get below that. If I even go down to 5 mg, within 2 weeks, my emotions and behavior start getting out of control. My T can always tell, even while I think I'm still managing it. So that's my experience anyway. If you do go off, you should try to have some way to monitor yourself, but, like I say, for me, I crash but don't even realize it on my own.

-Far

I quit medications several years ago. This probably is not particularly relevant to you, deli, because meds never did much for me. So I finally gave up trying for the magic bullet that "everyone" seemed to be promising, and it never was there. What effect did going off meds have on me? None whatsoever. It made no difference in how I felt; the only difference was that I took my own path because taking the path that others wanted me to take did not work.

I've tried this a few times and it always kicks my *****. I'm lucky that my T is also my pdoc and he is patient with me whenever I go through my "no meds, please" phases. I think it depends a lot on your dx and also how bad your bad times are (or whatever your meds are helping with).

I don't think of my meds as a magic bullet (my dx is bipolar). I just think of them as something I require to keep living from day to day...like water or air. When I get the urge to quit and go med free, I also tell myself that I can always start again BUT during that med free time I almost always do something really, really stupid or I get so miserable I think I'll never get better or when I do start back on meds they don't work the same and it takes awhile to get the right mix again. Plus it always takes awhile for them to start working again and you're already miserable by that point and don't want to wait. I'm sure you've been through this drill before? Maybe?

One positive thing I get from my med free experiments is that, when I start back on my meds eventually, I get a much better idea of just what each medication does or doesn't do for me.

I'm not saying don't try it. I'm just saying have a plan in place before you do so you don't have to go through any unnecessary misery if it doesn't work out. Good luck.

((((deli))))

I am not on any psych meds at this time. For years up until a little over a year ago I was on so many but they were not working or if they would have I did not know. With having the diagnosis I have and those within that do not think they need the meds they would hide them and we ended up not taking them consistantly.

I am now not on them as my pdoc does not know who he is treating and I really do not want to be on them. I feel that I need to feel this and work through it instead of being medicated up. I do have anxiety and panic at times and it seems to come at times I am working through something but otherwise I am doing okay.

Sometimes the depression will hit and I feel like I am dragging but I feel that it is because of the memories and feelings connected there. As I work through those things I seem to be able to feel better. I do take something for anxiety when it gets so bad but other than that I only take medical meds.

I know that this is different for each person and maybe this has nothing to do with what you were asking. I think that it is important for you to talk with your pdoc and discuss your feelings about the meds and make that decision together. Sometimes meds are really needed and to go off them could be worse.

I wish you the best on figuring out taking them. Please talk to you doc first and listen to yourself. Being strong is not based on whether you take meds or not. People who take meds are strong as they are taking care of themselves and that is what is important. I guess being strong is knowing what you need to do for yourself and even asking questions.

I hope you find what works best for you. Sending you gentle hugs and loving thoughts. Always.

dps

I've been of meds for 4 years now. If you decide to stop taking meds, I would definitely recommend talking to your doc about it first. I was on 20mg of abilify and 2 mg of risperdal and hated it and hated seeing my doc. I quit all of it cold and never went back to see the doc because I was paranoid about him.

So, first off, I've never done hard drugs, but I imagine that detoxing cold from psyche meds is a lot like detoxing cold from hard drugs. I spent the better part of a week or two completely delerious, and pretty much incapable of doing anything, I remember smoking a lot and using whiskey to sleep. Very unhealthy, wouldn't recommend it.

Within a few months I was a thousand or so miles from home after a very exciting psychotic episode and very confused. Went home, stayed off meds, never saw a doc again, two years later did it all over again, travelling, etc.. Came home, lived secluded (cabin in the woods secluded) for two more years under my families graces.

So now I'm trying to get things going again. I luckily didn't do anything criminal, but I junked my car (long story) and lost my drivers license. I nearly destroyed the lives of almost everyone in my social circle (another long story), and so have no friends anymore. My family supports me, but will not help me get support for illness because they don't want another crazy person in the family. Now I'm doing my best to try to find work so that I can get things going again. My one blessing in this is that I don't get depressed very easily, so yay there!

I'm wishing that I could get enough independence to go see a doc before life gets wild again. This isn't to say I haven't developed good coping strategies on my own, or that I can't do it without pills and docs, but I could picture this being easier. So ultimately I think to say that I don't want to be sick, but when it comes down to it, quitting pills and leaving the doc doesn't make it go away, or make you healthy.

I hope my autobiography was helpful, it'll come out in hardcover next month, so book a signing today. (no book no signing, only kidding)