The decision to take psychiatric medications is a personal one. I have chosen to stop taking medications. I made this choice on my own after doing much research on the subject. I was given no support from my therapist or psychiatrist for wanting to stop taking meds but I quit them anyway. I spent several months slowly tapering off meds. I am very happy with my decision.

I no longer believe that I ever had bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder.

The biggest mistake I ever made was taking Paxil for depression after my divorce. Paxil made me manic and gave me horrible mood swings. While manic on Paxil I was diagnosed with "bipolar disorder" later as more drugs were added I became sicker and sicker and my diagnosis was changed to "Schizoaffective disorder". (I was also taken off Paxil cold turkey and this drug is known to cause withdrawal psychosis / mania) Now that I have quit taking medications I am fine. I've not had a mood swing or "psychotic episode" since I went off medications nearly a year ago.

The longer I took Anti psychotic medication the more psychotic I became. I had major problems with Risperdal making me manic and psychotic. Risperdal is known to cause mania. (Dwight and colleagues reported that six patients with Schizoaffective disorder all developed new or increased manic symptoms after about a week of risperidone treatment-and two of these patients were taking "concomitant mood stabilizers.") But my doctors never made the connection on their own.

Each time I tapered off my final anti psychotic (seroquel) I became more psychotic that I was before I took the medication. Doctors call this "rebound psychosis" but I waited it out and the psychosis went away after a week. Each week I was able to taper down till I was off it all together. Some people confuse drug withdrawal psychosis with the original symptoms.

I am very angry for the pain my child and I have suffered through at the hands of psychiatry. I now suffer from a drug Induced Movement disorder. I lost my innocence, my childhood, my career, my self esteem, my college scholarship, a chance to go to high school, and years of my daughter's childhood to psychiatry and indiscriminate psychiatric drugging.

I still see a therapist whom I mostly trust and now find the support that I get from her to be invaluable. I had to quit taking meds for my mind to be clear enough for her to be able to help me.

My goal is to tirelessly spread the word about the dangers of Psychiatry and psychiatric drugging in the hopes that others will not have to go through what I did.

S.