After Breakfast

I can't quite believe that I'm up and have had breakfast, and it's not yet 0800.  I haven't, however, taken my morning meds, so I must do that.  I once forgot to take my venlafaxine and was really quite ill; I'm going to have to go very slowly if I decide to come off drugs.  If missing one dose can have that effect, then firstly, what does that, and secondly what must be in them to make such a difference physically?  I find that worrying.  But then I find the side effects of all neuroleptics anxiety provoking.

I've just looked up psychiatric drugs in the BNF.  I shouldn't have bothered - they're all ghastly.  The side effects go on for ever, as do the cautions.  I'm surprised we are ever given them, but I suppose that medics dish them out to alleviate symptoms - after all, no one knows the causes.  Psychiatry is so hit and miss, and who knows what damage we're storing up for the future?  I am more and more of the opinion that the drugs don't make us better, they just mask stuff.  On dothiapin (tricyclic antidepressant) I was so utterly sedated that I didn't have the capacity to feel mentally ill, and when I did, I didn't give a shit.  I passed out at night and was a zombie during the day.  It was no life.  Much of my drugged life has been unacceptable, actually.  Nowadays things are different.  My psychiatrist and I discuss meds and he listens to me - he asks me about what I'm doing and how I am generally.  Prior to that, I would have five minutes with a doctor, who would assess my meds, change them if he felt like it and then I'd leave, feeling inadequate and cheated.  No doctor ever asked me how I was coping with my life and the drugs, they just clammed up when I asked any questions., perpetuating the myth that Doctor Knows Best.  What a load of horseshit.