zyprexa+

andy pink, teastown, pennsylvania —

swallow or wallow — and reverse!

i saw my psychiatrist (therapist) today and recounted (again) my history with neuroleptics. this doctor is very anti-psychiatry — and he has even suggested that his thinking about drugs is “paranoid,” mostly against the new ones. for one, he said that there is absolutely no reliable data to show that depakote or trileptal or topomax does anything whatsoever. (i have been on both depakote and trileptal in the past, with different doctors). he is open to my theory that zyprexa caused me to be psychotic (and perhaps permanently) and though he made a successful effort to transition me from zyprexa to lithium, the transition really took a full year, because he says that withdrawal from neuroleptics causes psychosis, delusions, hallucinations, and so on, it must be slow. i feel incredibly grateful that i finally got off that poison, and i have this terrible haunting feeling that i lost so much time in my life (3-4 yrs) being less than myself because of these awful life-denying drugs. i do hope that research eventually shows that zyprexa (and that class) can in many cases cause psychosis, i think such a finding is completely possible at some point (like i have previously mentioned, they are actively researching whether parnate in fact causes schizophrenia). with such a finding against zyprexa, there would certainly be a class-action lawsuit and i would certainly be able to cash out in some (probably small) way. i feel extremely abused by psychiatry generally and i feel assaulted by various drugs generally. i think there needs to be a further conversation about this issue — even if it is finally inconclusive — because so many folks complain about terrible effects of these drugs — effects that the drugs may cause in order to “manage” — i really feel quite awful and i wish that i could write something witty and sad and revelatory — but i can’t; i feel repulsed by the world and find it difficult to face myself.

what’s worse: a student in my philosophy class came up to me after class the other day. she had been in a mental hospital the week before, she is clearly not doing well in class, kind of listless, distracted, and out of it. she said to me: “i am on three of these medications and i know they are making me worse. should i go off of them?” of course, in my position, i cannot possibly say anything, and only said: “i can’t speak to that, but i can say that i hope that you can find someone who will help you make a decision about that which is helpful to you.” she apologized for inquiry, which is itself awful. it is terrible that i am barred from giving my take, but even worse is that she will probably only be able to discuss the issue with a doctor, psychiatrist, who inevitably will be biased toward keeping the drugs, switching them up, rearranging them, and all the rest of this bullshit. shameful.

this world is just awful. i am ashamed to live in it. i feel implicated in a holocaust with every breath. when the aliens finally come down (or come up) to earth, they will no doubt be horrified at our behavior, our selves, our institutions, our values, and so on. i am from the future and i am also from outer space.

andy pinkster