2003
This is Survivor Story number 8.
Total number of stories in current database is 77
4/20/2003
Psychiatric drugs – Long path of uncertainty.
Antidepressants
“Through all the experiences with these drugs, I think they should be banned. I dont believe a one of them helped me in the long run.”
I am 18 yrs old, since the age of 12 I have been on, Ativan, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Zyprexa, Lexapro, Klonopin, Prozac, probably more in fact, Id say I took most of the popular ones on the market.
Through all the experiences with these drugs, I think they should be banned. I dont believe a one of them helped me in the long run, temporarily it may have, because some of them were narcotics. But to this day, at 18 yrs old, I know I will never be me again, I know somehow, someway it altered my personality for life, which is the most frustrating feeling a person can have in my opinion, wanting to be what is rightfully yours, yourself.
At the moment, I am coming off Lexapro, and I was only on this drug for 3 weeks, a small dose also, 10MG. Yet, I am having the same withdrawal affects as I did on Paxil, and Zoloft that I took for many months, the shocks I like to call them, some people explain them with dizzy spells, electricity racing through the body, as if it releases through the brain, through the rest of your body, It truly makes me sick to my stomach when I see commercials on these drugs saying, Zoloft is not habit forming, Paxil is not habit forming. Because if your body has such horrible symptoms from not having a substance, is that not classified as habit-forming? Not habit forming, but yet if I took one of my pills right now, those symptoms would suddenly cease to exist, if thats not habit-forming to your body, then I have no idea what is.
These drugs have made me high, they have made me low, theyve made me hallucinate, paranoid, delusional, scared to death, crazy, suicidal, apathetic, detached, and most of all, theyve made me not me. Which angers me more than anything. I look at the these drug industries, just like I look at a corporations like Phillip Morris. Who distribute harmful habit-forming substances to the ignorant. For the simple purpose of making handfuls of money, cause I believe that is the root of all evil. I am sympathetic to people who suffer with any form of mental illness, cause in the long run, it gets very hopeless if these drugs dont work for you, cause you know there is something wrong, you take these drugs, they may work, they may not. If they dont, then what? Do you continue looking for a simple-answer locked up inside a small pill.
That you really dont understand what place they play in your body. Or do you stay with your natural self, and still feel terrible, Thats where the hopelessness comes from to many, although, I believe there is other possibilities,
For each individual out there, this will differ, some can cope simply by talking, others reading, some people take the destructive route, which I have, and many others continue to, drugs, alcohol. But even as I did take these various routes, there was/is something missing, but people must look, and continue to look. Although its a difficult way to live, there is still hope, I dont think the answer lies inside a man-made pill. But thats me, I am reluctant to recommend these drugs to people finding out they have a form of mental illness and are recommended medication, for the simple reason of uncertainty.
So many things can go wrong on them, At this point in history I truly dont know if man-kind is ready to start messing with what makes up everything we are, the brain. It seems as if humans likes to start messing with things before they fully understand them, which I think is very dangerous. That seems logical to me, But when I ask doctors, why am I having these symptoms, from this drug, that is supposed to be so safe, I get, I dont know.
As for me I will stop taking all these drugs, There is a few of them on my list above that I would do about anything to get off the market. So, ask questions, do research, dont jump onto the long road of experimenting with this uncertain branch of drugs, for your son, daughter, yourself, or any loved one for that matter.
