It’s been 3 months since I started working with my outpatient psychiatrist, and now she decided she was going to discontinue me from having to take my psychiatric medications.
Like I said she told me on my first visit with her that she honestly doesn’t believe I have a bipolar diagnosis and she thinks my mania was caused by the ecstasy I took prior to my psychotic breakdown.
She also discussed with me that the trauma I experienced from the sexual assault combined with the ecstasy sent my brain into complete shock and triggered mania.
So we talked for an hour about making the move to stop my meds. Looking back I’m not sure why she chose to simply abruptly stop them when it’s much safer to lower psych meds to wean a person off them. Back then, I wasn’t really too knowledgeable on psych meds and the proper way to stop them. I trusted her since she was my psychiatrist.
I told her I wasn’t planning on discussing this with my father and step mother, because I knew it would turn into an argument and she said I’m an adult now and there is no reason I have to tell them things I’m not comfortable discussing with them. She did recommend I tell someone what’s going on with me being off meds, seeing they can keep a better eye on my stability. She recommended I tell one of my siblings, but I explained I don’t really receive much support from them, so I will tell my best friend Ana.
When the session was over, she said she still plans to work with me to make sure I am stable, so she set our next appointment for three months from this appointment.
When I left and got in my car, I was thrilled that I would be free from being on psychiatric medications. To be honest, they were destroying my health, and I wasn’t on them very long. So, to now, being able to not take them anymore was just beyond amazing.
A week after I saw my psychiatrist, I went to my eye, Dr. On the form, it asked for recent medications. So I listed the meds I used to take and wrote I was recently taken off them.
When the eye Dr. sat with me to start my exam he read the meds I used to be on and was concerned. He said you were clearly being medicated for bipolar so how is it your meds were discontinued. He said you have to take psych meds if you are diagnosed bipolar. He said I needed immediately inform my psychiatrist immediately that I chose to stop taking my meds.
I explained to him it was my psychiatrists decision to take me off my meds, she stopped them a week ago. I told him I actually feel a lot better and am not as sedated since stopping them, and my sleep is back to normal.
He told me that’s great. I feel ok now, but he worried I’d hit another manic episode. I honestly wasn’t really fazed at all by his concerns for my mental state. I was just thrilled not to be on psych meds anymore.
At this point my parents weren’t watching me like a hawk taking my meds, I was also responsible for filling and picking up my meds myself so I knew because of that they wouldn’t even know I wasn’t taking them.
I decided to reach out to my best friend to tell her I’m now currently off meds. She was a bit worried and concerned about my psychiatrist decision, but said at least I’ll still be keeping appointments with her so she can observe my moods.
I now knew I was going to live a secret life to my friends and family and live without psychiatric meds. I did worry since speaking with my eye, Dr. that maybe I did need medications, but I was more excited about the thought of possibly never needing to ever take another psychiatric medication and hopefully free myself from having a life of living with a bipolar diagnosis. Only time would tell.
The Outspoken Advocate 
to be continued. Ill read more 2morrow!
LikeLike