Hi all, wishing everybody luck on their recovery journey.
I had psychosis in late January and I’ve been off invega for just over 3 months now and am slowly but surely recovering but dammit this is tough. I was under a treatment authority which was lifted after i had a psych review and told the psychiatrist a list of side effects I was experiencing, the psychiatrist apologized to me then gave me the choice to stop the injections, switch to another med or lower the dose which I ultimately decided to stop so I stopped cold turkey. I went to the hospital voluntarily and ended up there for a month, while in hospital I was refusing olanzipine so I think that’s when the TA came into place then I was told if I want to go home that I have to have the injection, I have a child and I needed to get back home to him (my mum was taking care of him) so that motivated me to get the injection and get the hell out of the ward though if I knew what I know now, I wouldn’t have been so quick to agree to the injection and wish I just took the damn olanzipine. My psychosis was due to a withdrawal from weed though the hospital are calling it drug induced and because my father had schizophrenia they have said that I could also have that which I don’t- never heard voices and every time I’ve had psychosis I’ve been manic af so more chances of me having bipolar than schizophrenia I think. I was smoking weed heavily day in and day out and then once I stopped abruptly I full lost it, I think stress and trauma also contributed to my breakdown. 3 months off and I’ve had crippling anxiety, I think I had mild anxiety before the injections but nothing like what I’ve been experiencing since, I find if I don’t sleep enough I get severely depressed and have also lost the motivation to do anything though I have my child to care for which my mum is supporting me with so that’s what’s keeping my going at the moment.
I’m taking cod liver oil, magnesium, b6 & b12 at night then during the day I’m having l-theanine which I find helps with the anxiety and also slightly improves my concentration, I also have lions mane and turkey tail tinctures in my morning coffee before I get my son ready for school to get me going, cordyceps in water during the day which is meant to help with energy then reishi in water at night to help calm my nervous system… I’ve also been using valerian root to manage anxiety which is pretty much like natures Valium which I’m surprised has been helping so much though I gotta be careful with it so I’ve slowed down on how much I was having and am only having it sporadically. For the first month and a bit I had akathisia so I got prescribed benzotropine and that helped but fuck man, it took me a bit to be able to advocate for myself and get the TA lifted cause I was struggling to articulate words cause my brain was and probably is so fried from the Invega. My memory is so fucked from this shit, I’m so much slower than usual, short term memories been fucked with and I’m finding my long term memories are coming back to me as of late, I’ve noticed a bunch of small improvements which gives me hope of recovery. I gained about 10kg on the injections so now I feel shit about myself to top it all off though I could have easily gained more as I was overeating and could never feel full while I was on the injections so I stopped myself from eating so much and started doing meal replacement shakes.
I go for half hour walks most days cause I find that helps with the anxious energy and my mental health in general so I mean, I’ve been trying my best to get through this shit but it is so rough.
I’ve been reading through a lot of the volumes of this thread while being stuck in bed and am hoping I’ll be another to tell of their recovery story to give hope to others because I was lost af before finding recovery stories here.
Sorry for the word vomit

just glad there’s other people who can understand the hell invega causes!