First off, you should know that the line, "psychiatry kills," is false. There is nothing more infuriating to me than people who insist you don't need meds when you clearly do. The truth is psychiatry saves countless lives and it certainly saved mine.
But it is also a dangerous game and you need to find the right person. I have worked with three psychiatrists. Two were good, one I am still angry at.
The first psychiatrist I met with was highly recommended, because she didn't overdose people. This is important, but in the end, I found her to be highly uninformed and she gave me some drugs that were awful, though to be fair, as I've mentioned before, each person and each drug will interact differently.
Things I was put on that did not work for ME.
Valium
Wellbutrin
Abilify
Hydroxyzine.
This combination of drugs was what landed me in the hospital.
Let's take a look shall we - Valium is in an addictive class of drugs. It should not have been used as a first choice. What would happen for me with valium, was I would use it (as needed) when I was suicidal, it would take me up a few notches . . . and then I would crash, and wind up worse than before. It was incredibly dangerous for me and those crashes could have killed me.
Wellbutrin -- I have never felt so drugged out as I did on this one. I felt like half of my brain was missing. I couldn't think, I was sluggish and slow, and when I came off the drug, the room spun and I couldn't stand up.
Abilify -- I felt as if everything had sped up. It made me jittery and inpatient.
Hydroxyzine -- was given to be in too high a dose, so instead of slowing down my anxiety, it made me fall asleep, a very quick, very drugged sleep.
In addition, despite after talking to me and giving me an extensive questionaire, I was diagnosed, incorrectly with bipolar two disorder, which took me 3 months to rectify.
Finally, she never bothered to tell me that meds take a long time to work. I was expecting an overnight success. That I would take these meds and two days later, the suicidal thoughts would be gone. That's not how meds work. At all. But they do work. But they're not miracles.
So, enough about this woman. This is to show you that meds can be dangerous, and harmful in the wrong hands. This is not to frighten you, but so you know what to look for. If a med feels "wrong" it probably is. You should just feel like a better version of yourself, and the side effects should be mild, not strong.
The second woman I worked with is also my current psychiatrist. We'll call her K. There are also nurse practitioners, like the woman above, and my other psychiatrist, C, who we'll talk about in a moment, but this woman is an official one.
Either way, they all know their stuff. They have med school backgrounds, and are doctors first.
K worked in the locked facility, That is where I first met her. She is kind and compassionate, but not to be crossed. She knows her stuff inside and out.
She put me on Latuda and Lamictal, which both help bring any suicidal thoughts down from a 10 to a 3, and help to keep them off overall.
These are bipolar drugs, and she agreed with the other woman that I had bipolar. Still, they didn't hurt, and I have no adverse effects to them to this day.
I did however, have to mess greatly with the dose. It turns out that too high of a med dose makes the suicidal thoughts worse for me, so they had to make sure the dose was correctly adjusted.
I was then given someone more permanently, as K was very, very, busy.
That's where C came in. She had me take the genesight test, and in the end, suggested Lithium for me, as I continued to struggle daily. She also finally listened and took the bipolar label off, replacing it with MDD, with mixed episodes. Lithium is still a bipolar drug, but it worked very well for me, though it took a long time to really make a difference.
She helped me through this transition saying how the drug worked was like a puppy transforming into a dog. It would be bit by bit and I'd barely notice it, but before I knew it, I'd have a full grown dog.
She was right.
She also did, at my absolute pleading, try me on an antidepressant, and that went as well as she thought it would. Which, was terribly. It had an adverse effect that took me months to notice.
But the Lithium saved me, even though like before when she tried to up the dose, it nearly landed me back in the hospital, and we had to reduce it again.
She also suggested I add Deplin in, a high vitamin B complex. That helped.
Finally though, I felt like I was stuck and like she was out of ideas.
I switched back to K, to get a new look at things. K suggested Fish Oil (UGH) but it helped. I've been pretty stable since then.
A standard psychiatry appointment isn't especially scary either. It's like a less personal version of therapy. You're asked how you are, what's been going on, what's going well, what's not, and of course, how the meds are doing. They should get a sense of you, but it's not therapy. They care, but they are also trying to make sure you're stable.
My appointments have lasted 20 minutes to 60 minutes, though initial appointments for me have been up to 90 minutes.
You should look for in a psychiatrist what you look for in a therapist. Someone kind, knowledgeable, who is a good listener, and likes you and wants to and can help.
Psychiatry appointments are typically once a month, though when you begin they may be every 2 weeks, and once you are established, they may be farther apart, like every 2 months, or 3 months.
Finally, take all this advice with a grain of salt. I am not a doctor, I just speak from personal experience and your experience may differ vastly from mine.
And of course, the takeaway:
Everyone is different. All meds work differently, even on different people, in the same or different doses. Meds are all about trial and error. Trust your doctor, but if you feel worse for an extended period of time or something seems wrong, don't hesitate to switch doctors.
All on this subject for now.
~ Emery
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