I got off of psychiatric drugs nine years ago after being on them 29 years. I had to go off gradually and even then I had a lot of trouble. I got pretty cranky (possibly a personality change caused by the medicine) …

H         @aol.com wrote:

I got off of psychiatric drugs nine years ago after being on them 29 years.
I had to go off gradually and even then I had a lot of trouble. I got pretty
cranky (possibly a personality change caused by the medicine)

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
definitely, physical (brain) habituation (acquired tolerance from repeated
exposure to a specific substance) and withdrawal]

  and my family was
not very willing to put up with it and did not seem to support my reasons
for wanting to get off the medicine. My psychiatrists never admitted that
different side effects were caused by the drugs and as a result family
thought I was imagining them or making too much of them. I had a fear of
being rejected by my husband and kids but still was driven to get off my
medicine

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
those giving you the drugs were "pushers", no doubt of
it]

.
It took ten years during which time I learned that I needed to cut down by
about 5% a month. I am a chemist and I ground up pills to make the slightly
lower doses. It took so long partly because the psychiatrists I was seeing
were figuring out ways to keep me on the medicine

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
as I said: "pushers"]

and to get me on more. Also their idea of taking me off
was to not take me off gradually and then when I got withdrawal symptoms,
they told me that was a return of my mental illness

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
in that no
psychiatric "disorder"/ "disease" is known to be a real abnormality/disease
within the brain or body, there are no physical complications, effects,
prognosis, course of the "disease". This again, repeated since the original
dx. of "chemical imbalance" is a lie and violation/abrogation of informed
consent.]

. I do not know if they really believed that or were lying

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
as with every physician, they know and are responsible for knowing
whether or not they have demonstrated/found a physical abnormality/disease,
in you--sthe patient or not. Violation of informed consent is tantamount to
malpractice]

.

The drug I was weaning myself off of in this way was Mellaril which I was on
for 25 years. The cutting down gradually was more important at certain low
doses where sudden changes in the dose caused what I would call a chemical
imbalance that did not occur if I cut down gradually. Withdrawal symptoms
beginning with sleepless nights did not start till about three weeks after
decreasing the dose

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: very interesting]

.

At low doses it was very important to always take my medicine and the same
amount every day. A change in the amount in my system caused symptoms of a
"mental breakdown" but not until about three weeks after I made the change.
I was under the supervision of psychiatrists who were saying the drug was
not addictive and behaving like what I was doing was foolishness.

During the 29 years I took anti psychotics I was hospitalized four times
because of not taking my medicine. I now believe that those hospitalizations
were probably not mental breakdowns but withdrawal problems

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
again, no psychiatric "disease" is a real disease, the symptoms and physical
signs of withdrawal were just that and due to the drug and the drug
alone]

. I have been off the medicine since December of 1993. I am
doing much better than when I was on such drugs.

I am really doing very well. I am a leader (vice president) of the women's
group at my church which I have been a member of for 33 years, and I type a
monthly newsletter for the auxiliary at a hospital. I am active in volunteer
work. My kids are no longer teenagers like they were when I was going of my
medicine and they and their husbands have a good relationship with me. My
oldest got a Ph.D. in English and teaches college.

I think my problem which was worse when I was younger is maybe Social
Anxiety disorder

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
SAD today is represented by psychiatry to be a brain
disease, and, in so doing, they lie to the public and violate the informed
consent rights of every patient who comes to believe this lie...the same lie
that would ask us to believe that all psychiatric disorders are
diseases--not one is. They are normal, oft-painful emotions and behaviors
in physically/medically normal persons.]

 and was made an issue of
starting when I was preschool age. Therapy starting in 1960 was more
upsetting

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: harmful]

 than helpful.

Mary******@aol.com