How to differentiate between Mental Illness or medication side effects

I just read my lifestyle story in your comment..but only difference. Is im 58..side effects of meds are killing me now..feel lost and empty..like going to sleep and not waking up...ty for sharing your journey with us. Sending prayers 🙏 and good thoughts for all who suffer...

Jeff, I assume that is your name, if you are coming off psychiatric medications any where near the dose and duration I was on you are in hell...I'm so very sorry.

Soon everyone will know, they couldn't keep it secret forever it is coming out...big Pharma makes the tobacco companies seem angelic...it's coming and I plan on helping it along.

You have to stick around for the reckoning.

If you read my post you will see few have been on as many psych meds for as long, at the doses I have been on. Never mind ECT, Ketamine and just about every illegal drug out there, save heron.

You can recover.

Here is what worked for me:

Nutrition:

I have a severe Cortisol Awaking Response...they call it CAR and they've known about it since the fifties and termed it CAR in 1990...it makes me immediately suicidal...I manage it by eating right away. Three eggs, one small pancake with real maple syrup, half a banana and I like expresso.

More importantly the first thing I do is drink a liter of electrolytes...I drink five to ten liters a day. The brain is 80% water it needs to heal...hydrate, hydrate, hydrate all you can stand.

Water is not good enough, milk, vegetable juice any thing with sodium and potassium as well as the trace minerals...my good pressure is 114/12 it was 160/110 on meds 18 months ago...so much for sodium causing high blood pressure.

My diet is 50 to 70 percent protein 10 percent glucose...usually maple syrup...high fructose corn syrup is poison avoid it whenever you can. Read Brain Energy by Chris Palmer MD at McLean...they're using my story with one of they're campaigns.

There is a catch you have to move. Exercise as much as you can as hard as you can, but be careful not to over due it. I was up to 6 hours a day...I'm still at three and expect I always will be...dopamine baby...but I've always been this way so this normal for me.

Purpose...find one and focus all you're energy on it for me it is love...call it pathetic but I want the family they took away from me back...it gives me reason not to kill myself...though even that didn't work three days in a row...if you pray...pray...if not might be a good time to start.

Loving connection, anywhere, everywhere all the time. People help people, not poisons that rob us of our very identity.

If you meds work for you change nothing...I've not found anyone that has not been harmed but I'm sure there are some.

Eighteen months ago I was 260 pounds and on 14 meds I'd been written off.

I am now 185...zero medications an all of my health problems are gone all of them. BPH, High Blood Pressure, ED, Sleep Apnea, chronic hiccups, terrible insomnia, kidney diesel, pre-diabetic, kidney stones, broken back, knees I couldn't walk one there's more but I won't bore you.

June 28th I will a 24 hour Spartan Race to raise money for a local homeless shelter...I'm still here they didn't get me and they won't get you either...none of us...the game is over.

Perhaps the Ivory Tower will come done to Earth this time.

You can do this if it is what you want. PM me an I will gladly share more and one reading this please feel free to do the same.

I know the way in an out of hell pretty well and I'm finding new passageways all them. I helps to share.

May your God bring you peace and good health...now...right now.

Thank you,

David

PS if anyone wants the hard science backing up my statements PM me. I will direct you to more than you'll ever be able to read print it out and take it to your doctors is they tell you your crazy.

There is no such thing as "mental" health. That is pejorative term that dismiss the reality that we are talking about "Brian Health" the most important in the body and the act like there is some ephemeral thing floating around up there that we choose...we can direct our brain to heal w can not "will" it...I wan to use the term "idiots" but...well I guess I just did.

Blood letting at its best!

I have a suggestion for you. Stop calling it mental illness and start calling it depression. Depression is genetic and can run in families.
Try another SSRI that might work better for you. When Prozac came out my Doctor prescribed that for me and it made me more anxious. We switched to a combination of Zoloft and Wellbutrin and I have been on it ever since. He also added Buspar and Bupropion.
Like you I self medicated with alcohol and didn’t know what depression was until Prozac was on the cover of Time Magazine.
I quit drinking and I can tell you the right combination of antidepressants changed my life.
Good luck to you.

I was on Effexor for over twenty years. During the last three it turned me suicidal. I wound up in the hospital after nearly taking my life. I got suicidal again last February and rage quit the drug intending to wreck myself. The withdrawal symptoms were hell, but within days the self-destructive depression lifted. My psychiatrist was initially skeptical when I told her, after discovering a couple of NIH studies that described what had happened to me in almost precise detail, that I had concluded that the drug was driving the suicidal impulses. But when she saw me, she couldn't deny what was right in front of her. An entirely different person. Now she's using my case as experience for her so if she encounters this again, she'll hopefully recognize it.

I spent my last three years on that drug cycling through extreme rages that nearly cost me my marriage, going through eating and sleep disorders, periods of catatonic inability to do anything, substance misuse, and daily thoughts of suicide. Since quitting, all of this has resolved. All of it. And I haven't contemplated suicide for a year now. Not once. After doing so daily.

I'm not attacking antidepressants altogether, they do save lives. But when they go wrong, they can go terribly wrong. Don't conclude that this is what's happening to you, but don't rule it out either. I would not recommend quitting abruptly and not telling your doctor as I did. It wasn't a smart road to go down. But in my case it likely saved my life. And my marriage. Advocate for yourself. If what you are taking isn't working, don't just accept that. There's no reason to live that way.

This is a very good post. I was overmedicated by psychiatry too. The only I take now is escitslopram 10 mg daily and lamotrigine 150 mg daily. The lsmotrigine is for seizure prevention. I began a 50mg daily dose reduction. 2 days ago. GI side effects. Big pharms has caused much harm. All for profit. In my case once my medication was eliminated I can see how a dysfunctional up bringing no boundaries letting.other people control me resulted in overmedication
I have made lifestyle changed too including exercise daily reading ( off these devices more) meditation psycho education staying hydrated with flavored water
. It had helped me a lot to go after root causes. I am so sorry you are experiencing this
I was once where you were at minus the drinking
It is hell

double check your medications and review with a physician/pharmacist. The reason I say this is that you stated "we switched to a combination of Zoloft and Wellbutrin>' He the added
Buspar and Bupropion.......bubpropion is the same as Wellbutrin....its the generic name. Just don't want to make sure you're not getting too much....

I'm doing well...I am the best version of myself I have ever been.

I pray the same for everyone.

I only take one dose daily of Wellbutrin and then Buspar along with Zoloft.
My doctor a long time ago gave me that combination. I have tried other antidepressants and always come back to the same ones.
Thanks for your concern.