I don't think it's going to help depression AT ALL, unless depression results from obsessive and/or delusional thoughts. It's a dopamine antagonist-- dopamine is the other happy chemical, the one that's released by physical activity, so if there is a chemical depression issue, it's very possibly going to make it worse.
Here's my story: I ended up on it for irritability because I **gasp** raised my voice in a psychiatrist's office. Never mind what I had been through-- In the space of four months, my stepmom had had a massive stroke, I had been denied permission to go home to help my father (not to mention berated and belittled for wanting to do it and threatened with losing my kids if I tried), my father had died (and laid in his bed rotting for seven days while people belittled and berated me for being concerned), I had tried and failed to care for my stepmom myself with NO HELP FROM ANYONE, I had had a nurse try to take my kids away because I had a panic attack in her emergency room, I had had my stepmom's sister make multiple false charges against me, I had had a miscarriage, and I had come to the psychiatrist's office from my house, where my in-laws were sitting, blaming me for the miscarriage, continuing to berate and belittle me for everything that had happened, and expressing in no uncertain terms their contempt and disgust with me because I couldn't put it all aside and throw a nice Christmas party for them.
Long sentence. So-- I had to be psychotic because I **shouted** after going through all that, right????
It gets better. I went to see a therapist. Asperger's+depression=unperson. I should have no friends, no family, no life-- her take on it is that I should completely isolate myself and let my husband tell me what to do, minute by minute, for the rest of my life. LITERALLY.
It still gets better. I went to see another therapist. Same deal. I said to her, "Would you recommend this kind of life to anyone with any other diagnosis??" She said, "No, but you have Asperger's. You're a monster-- you just don't realize it yet." I said, "If I'm a monster, how did I manage to build this life?? Why do I have friends that I've had for over a decade?? Why do I have a husband that loves me?? Why do I have happy, healthy kids??" She said, "You don't realize it because you're diseased, but someone else did those things for you. You need more medication."
I said, "It isn't helping." She said, "That's because you need more."
I said, "I'm falling asleep all the time. I'm in agonizing pain. I can't eat. I can't drive. I can't function."
She said, "I know it's hard, but this is the only life that is possible for you."
I said, "Please!! This isn't helping!!"
She said, "You're in denial." And then she made a note that I was non-compliant and combative, and upped my dose from 1 mg three times a day to 2 mg three times a day.
At which point I slept 20 hours a day. I could not drive. I could not cook-- we lived on cold cereal and whatever my husband brought home. I could barely walk to the bathroom (in a one-room apartment)-- I was in so much debilitating muscle pain that I was maxing out on Motrin and still had to drag one foot across the floor, get my weight on it, drag the other foot across the floor, get my weight on it, wash rinse repeat. I could not raise my arms above mid-chest. I could not lift my younger children (4 and 2 at the time)-- lift them hell, I couldn't give them a hug. I could barely get off the couch.
I started to lose the ability to verbalize. You've heard of "alexithymia." This was alexithymia to the nth degree. I could be laying there shaking so hard the entire couch was vibrating-- If you asked me how I was, there would be about a 20-second lag time and then I'd tell you I was "Fine." One word-- "Fine." All I could manage. Or so my husband tells me-- I don't remember.
I started developing delusions. I couldn't leave the apartment, even if I'd had the physical ability, because I started believing that people could just look at me and know I was a monster. I laid there and convinced myself that all the things that had been said were true.
I learned later (recently, actually) that this is referred to as "medication-induced psychosis and autisitc catatonia," and that it happens to close to 20% of autistics on antipsychotics. This has been known since about 2006 (and this happened to me 2010-2011, hence Hubby wants me to sue).
I started developing violent rages. I am told that, once, my oldest child used too much bubble bath and flooded the bathroom. Hubby says he came home to find all three children cowering in the closet. I was not a violent person prior to risperidone-- the worst thing I'd ever done, under extreme provocation, was throw about a cup of dishwater in my husband's general direction.
After months and months and months of this, I came up with enough will to make a suicide attempt-- because I could not bear to live that way any more. THAT, I remember CLEARLY. I would be dead now if I hadn't gotten a flat tire on my way out there to die. I would be dead now if I hadn't ended up in a good hospital, where the first thing they did was GET ME THE f**k OFF THE RISPERDAL.
More than two years after getting off the drug, I STILL have to fight violent impulses. I'm WINNING-- I ALWAYS manage to walk away, and it only takes about 10 or 15 minutes to make it go away. I have reason to hope that, in a couple more years' time, I'll be who I used to be again. I HOPE.
I STILL have recurrent muscle pain in my hips and shoulders. Can't prove that it's not arthritis-- I'm 35-- but I can tell you I had nothing like it before risperidone.
I'm STILL in therapy for "PTSD-like syndrome," depression, and anxiety. I may be there for the rest of my life. I'm just now starting to really believe that there WAS ONCE a competent person in here, and I REALLY DID get horribly depressed over a MISERABLE experience and it REALLY DID go horribly wrong from there and it REALLY DID NOT have to be that way.
Look-- It works for some people. Try it. But if you get massive weight gain, you get debilitating muscle pain, you start to get catatonia, you start to have bad thoughts that you don't recognize as being typical of you, or IF PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU START BEGGING YOU TO GET OFF THE MEDICATION, then GET OFF THE MEDICATION. If you start to find my story sounding wierdly familiar, GET OFF THE MEDICATION.
And if the doctor in question won't take you off?? FIND ANOTHER DOCTOR. FAST.
My personal recommendation?? Try an older antidepressant. Prozac helped me with the anxiety and stuff-- I was on it for about 18 months after getting out of the hospital. But mirtazepine-- which I was only on for about 60-90 days-- did me WORLDS OF GOOD. It did everything they'd promised me risperidone would do-- except that I could take it at bedtime, get up in the morning, and FUNCTION.
I know it's an older one. Tricyclic, I think-- and they have some pretty foul side effects of their own. Tics, weight gain, thyroid dysfunction, some other disconterting stuff. But-- certainly no more dangerous than risperidone.
But-- try it. Maybe you'll be one of the people it works for. Just-- please be leery. What happened to me is, indeed, an extreme-case horror story. From the pits of Hell. I probably SHOULD sue-- what they did was negligence at best, malicious abuse at worst. If I thought it would stop it from happening to someone else, I might-- but monetary damages aren't going to make it go away, and risperidone and those a**holes have eaten enough of my life. I'm not feeding them one more second of my time.
My story probably won't be your story. I've only read of maybe 15 or 20 cases as severe as mine. Probably won't happen to you-- but now if it starts to, you're forewarned.
Good luck.
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
Last edited by BuyerBeware on 27 Nov 2013, 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
26 Nov 2013, 3:07 pm
