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Mental Health Coming off Invega (paliperidone) injections, v 5.0

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Kaatrina said:
At around 10 months off I started to feel some weak emotions and interest. Around 12 or 13 months off I could feel adrenaline when I played video games. The relief from anhedonia is gradual but discernible around those times.

I felt heavy head pressure on invega when I span around my kitchen once, but that is all.
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I started showing weak emotions and some weak interest around 12 months off. Now at 15.6 months off It is still slowly improving, it is good amount of progress but I dont like this state, but I preffer it over how it was at 12 months off. My emotional behavior seem at least less "robotic".
 
Finally, about 10 days ago, my psychiatrist took me off of any future injections and put me on Solian pills.
Now I actually bought the pills, but I'm not planning on taking them.
Is there a way for my psychiatrist to find out that I'm not taking my pills? like a test or something?
I'm still under forced treatment, so I must see him once a month...
I don't mind lying, as long as I'm saving myself from the harmful drugs...
 
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UnluckyXeplion said:
Finally, about 10 days ago, my psychiatrist took me off of any future injections and put me on Solian pills.
Now I actually bought the pills, but I'm not planning on taking them.
Is there a way for my psychiatrist to find out that I'm not taking my pills? like a test or something?
I'm still under forced treatment, so I must see him once a month...
I don't mind lying, as long as I'm saving myself from the harmful drugs...
Click to expand...
Not sure if they test for if you're taking the pills, but if you say the wrong thing to them, they'll put you back in a mental facility, I have to deal with them right now myself..
 
UnluckyXeplion said:
Finally, about 10 days ago, my psychiatrist took me off of any future injections and put me on Solian pills.
Now I actually bought the pills, but I'm not planning on taking them.
Is there a way for my psychiatrist to find out that I'm not taking my pills? like a test or something?
I'm still under forced treatment, so I must see him once a month...
I don't mind lying, as long as I'm saving myself from the harmful drugs...
Click to expand...
Your doctor finally trusted you enough to take you off the injection and now you’re going to break that trust with not taking your pills….common now.
 
HelpMeInvega said:
Your doctor finally trusted you enough to take you off the injection and now you’re going to break that trust with not taking your pills….common now.
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I know this kind of behavior sucks, but I really want to save myself from being on AP. All antipsychotics sucks and block dopamine, it will hinder my recovery.
I wish I shouldn't need to be in that kind of situation where I need to lie in order to protect my health, I'm sorry. Not sure how to go about it. I hope people here understand.
 
HelpMeInvega said:
Your doctor finally trusted you enough to take you off the injection and now you’re going to break that trust with not taking your pills….common now.
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Trust? Why don't you ask people to trust a sociopathic killer too while you're at it, these people don't deserve trust, or respect, and some would argue after putting people on court ordered poison, life either..
 
Dre87 said:
Trust? Why don't you ask people to trust a sociopathic killer too while you're at it, these people don't deserve trust, or respect, and some would argue after putting people on court ordered poison, life either..
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I don't like to lie, but I have no choice you see...
All antipsychotics are harmful and will hinder recovery.
Health is paramount, and if lying is necessary to save myself, I would go that route.
It's true that the psychiatrist kinda did me a favor there by putting me on pills, but is it a favor really? after forcefully poisoning me with Xeplion injections. It's like a Nazi that put you to labor instead of death... (Sorry for the extreme analogy)

Would you do the same?
 
UnluckyXeplion said:
I don't like to lie, but I have no choice you see...
All antipsychotics are harmful and will hinder recovery.
Health is paramount, and if lying is necessary to save myself, I would go that route.
It's true that the psychiatrist kinda did me a favor there by putting me on pills, but is it a favor really? after forcefully poisoning me with Xeplion injections. It's like a Nazi that put you to labor instead of death... (Sorry for the extreme analogy)

Would you do the same?
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Yeah I would lie too, in fact I just got off the injections and am gonna pretend to switch to the pills during the next video conference with the psych, maybe do that for a couple months and then try to get away from that place entirely.
 
Dre87 said:
Yeah I would lie too, in fact I just got off the injections and am gonna pretend to switch to the pills during the next video conference with the psych, maybe do that for a couple months and then try to get away from that place entirely.
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I just need to lie once a month to the psychiatrist until the forced treatment is over, and then bye bye. Next time I'll be careful not to get psychotic again.
 
UnluckyXeplion said:
I just need to lie once a month to the psychiatrist until the forced treatment is over, and then bye bye. Next time I'll be careful not to get psychotic again.
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How long is your court order for? Normally they're for a year, never heard of them taking people off the injections early and switching them to pills like that though.
 
Dre87 said:
How long is your court order for? Normally they're for a year, never heard of them taking people off the injections early and switching them to pills like that though.
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It's not a court order, it's an equivalent of CTO or something.
It lasts for 6 months and than the committee decide whether to prolong it or not by another 6 months, which happened to me btw.
While being on forced treatment, I actually had the privilege to be moved into pills instead of injections, that's why I feel bad about lying to to my psychiatrist, but again, I rather lie then poison myself.
 
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EsseWasGreat said:
Do you remember how it was like to feel those emotions and interest coming back? IE did you get any hints that made you think that you were visibly doing better compared to the earlier months? I've been spending the last couple weeks trying to notice if I feel any differences about myself without much success

Also do you feel like sharing some general tips for those who are coming off invega? Like how to deal with the emotional/mental flatness or something you just wish you knew when you were just a few months off or just the things that helped you the most during recovery, 'cause I'm only 5 months off myself and thought that maybe some advice from people who have already been through the invega hell might be of great help

Sorry if it's a lot of questions but your recovery story is one of my favourites since we took the injections at a similar age and IIRC you've dealt with the withdrawals without relying on other meds or supplements (if I'm not mistaken, it's mostly what I remember from reading *all* of the older threads twice now) which is also what I'm trying to do

Knowing that you are doing better now (combined with some other stories from the older threads) gives me some really good hope so uhh thanks for sharing that story, keep it up 🙏
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I think that before emotions returned I experienced the return of some faculties - around month eight I found myself confident enough to move back to my house (out of my parents') . I remember struggling over my cookbooks trying to process what i read, make decisions and follow directions quickly - it was a struggle to even get dinner on the table. One evening my husband encouraged me to go out and play remote control cars with the kids - I remember feeling so sad because if I weren't affected by invega I would have been able to laugh along and enjoy it with them. This is the first emotion I remember feeling - I felt this in that "tingly" was that is more than just a cerebral realization (I had many cerebral conclusions about my lack of emotion but not an actual feeling of emotion ABOUT that lack prior to that). I started college around 9 months off and got good grades, which helped boost my confidence in myself and believe in my recovery. Around 10 months off I watched the Godfather for the first time and felt interest and emotional investment in the film . Every month after 9 months I felt discernible improvement in my emotions - although it is gradual in that way the excitement at feeling recovery and not having to wait for life to mean something again makes it go by fast. At 12 months off I started an internship at the DAC near my college - I heard terrible stories of crime and saw horrible images there related to investigations and spent a lot of time with prisoners. I had feelings , but perhaps not as viscerally spiritual as I would have at that time...perhaps I was just suppressing them. Around 14 months off I could perhaps describe my brain as "fully online" - I could joke and conversate with my coworkers and was performing well. However around this time (Mar 2020) I started thinking "numerically" again (tying symbols to numbers and letters and ascribing to them a spiritual meaning). I couldn't control this process - I had hoped that it wouldn't recur - I also couldn't tell anyone that I was trying to cope with the way my brain was processing because I was deathly afraid of getting the shot again. I started drinking heavily after work. "Coronavirus" started circulating on the news and my coworkers started talking about it - because I was aware of the process the news media uses to get people to buy into concepts (one way to describe it) I started to go through derealization. It happened on the last day before they shut down that office - I could not function at work. They had me doing redactions and I still desperately wanted to pretend I was in reality - to let anyone know that I struggled mentally would have been humiliating (and potentially career harming - so much for that). I started redacting random things - I ruined a 400 page printout with random sharpie redactions on random information. My coworker (I'm not sure if she could tell if I was ok or not - I was very quiet) asked if I thought the pictures of the aborted babies were bad , but I don't remember even seeing them. The next day my parents came up and took me to the ER "to get my eye checked out" said my mom (I had some delusion about an injury to my eye). Everyone in the ER had those crazy looking spacesuits on that they had at the beginning of the panic at that time. This certainly helped to send me to surreal land. They held me on an overnight there - I didn't want to disrobe so they held me down and stripped me - I put water in my purse and so they strapped me in all night. I suffered many delusions that night - I was the sphinx and my conscious was thousands of years in the future and one second to me was an eternity for them consulting my unconcious waiting for me to answer a question,, the sign to the right in the hospital room held a symbol that would strike you dead if you looked at it - the woman outside the door was a sea witch - I was not recovered when they released me and so Matt drove me to Wellfound and they put me on a ten day involuntary. That's where I got my Haldol shot - I told everyone I was allergic to the invega shot. I got out after eight. I took eight invega pills and had no more delusions, I took no more pills on release. You are correct in that i continue to take no more medication or supplements, which I no longer trust at all after my experiences. I did take magnesium when I first got off Invega, and I was taking ashwaganda (just for the hell of it I guess) every day before my most recent relapse.
When I was recovering Koz's story kept me going on this forum - we had very little hope or good stories back then and I think without that little hope we got here I and much others may have not had the courage to recover or even go on with life. I remember refreshing this forum constantly and how information about recovery is the only thing that matters when you're going through that specific anhedonia so I want to help with that.
UnluckyXeplion said:
Finally, about 10 days ago, my psychiatrist took me off of any future injections and put me on Solian pills.
Now I actually bought the pills, but I'm not planning on taking them.
Is there a way for my psychiatrist to find out that I'm not taking my pills? like a test or something?
I'm still under forced treatment, so I must see him once a month...
I don't mind lying, as long as I'm saving myself from the harmful drugs...
Click to expand...

UnluckyXeplion said:
I just need to lie once a month to the psychiatrist until the forced treatment is over, and then bye bye. Next time I'll be careful not to get psychotic again.
Click to expand...
There is no test that they do as far as I know but I've never been on a CTO. I lied to my psych to but in retrospect I don't know why I felt bad. It's not like she ever listened to me anyway. I had the "be careful not to get psychotic again" plan too, but it's more complicated...I recommend working with your psych or therapist to get an action plan in place so that if you're ever on hold they will know not to shoot you with invega.
 
Right now I am reading "the vital balance" by Karl Menninger. He studied schizophrenia and has many good insights. One of his beliefs is that we have a sort of mental homeostasis - when things become out of balance in our life or psyche , our ego performs various unconcious coping skills to get us back on the level. These can sometimes malfunction in a way similar to the body becoming ill through a malfunction of organ. In his studies he found many on these malfunctions to be temporary illnesses with ways to regain equilibrium, much as it were a physical disease. This is contrary to the belief that seems to be employed by most psychs today - if you present as unhealthy in one point and time you will always be mentally unhealthy. One can speculate on monetary incentive for certain entities to keep this mindset homogenous.
 
I started intermittent fasting and working out again, gonna try to get a job and do something with software testing or study programming, I've had a number of times in my life that I felt really happy and was completely sober, and drinking or doing drugs would have taken away from it, but now after those injections I might never be able experience that again..
 
Kaatrina said:
I recommend working with your psych or therapist to get an action plan in place so that if you're ever on hold they will know not to shoot you with invega.
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I searched online and found a Mental Health Advance Directive for my state (I'm in the US). The advance directive is a legal document that is activated if the patient ever loses their ability to communicate for themselves. This actually happened to me once, which led to me being committed by a judge to a state hospital where they put me on Risperidone injections.

The MH Advance Directive in my state has a section where you can enter any meds you refuse and also meds you would like to take if you become that psychotic. Of course, I refused all Long Acting Injectables. It also gave me an option to receive Electro Convulsive Therapy, which I also refused. Then it asked me to place in order what the hospital should do if I become violent. I said medication first, then isolation, then restraints. You have to put those 3 in order.

It's a legal document and had to be notarized, which I did at my bank for free.
 
Does sexual function return back at month 6? What about if you're experiencing head numbness or head pressure? When does that go away on average?
 
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