Psycho

The Haldol Injections: After 10+ Years

2012, Anti-psychotics, Denial, Haldol, Haldol DEC, Haldol Decanoate, insanity, Kristin Bell, Lunatic, Medicine, Mental Health, Mental Illness, neurotransmitters, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychoactive Substances, Psychology, Psychosis, schizoaffective disorder, Schizophrenia

I first wrote about taking my Haldol injections back in 2007 in https://kristinbell.org/2007/07/23/the-haldol-injections/.

I wanted to report that yes, I’m still getting the Haldol injections now once every three weeks. Haldol is an antipsychotic medication used to treat psychosis like that found in schizophrenia. I have schizophrenia and started getting the Haldol injections back in late 2000…I guess it was November or December of 2000. The Haldol injections combined with all the other meds I take have been a miracle for me.

So far (knock on wood) I haven’t had many side-effects from the medication. I haven’t yet developed tardive dyskinesia. I hope that I don’t.

I had to start getting the Haldol injections, because I couldn’t take my medications as prescribed. It sounds like a simple enough task, but my illness got in the way of me adhering to my medication regiment, and I’d wind up going off my meds and going crazy. I’ve had a good run with the Haldol. I haven’t been hospitalized since starting it, and if you know anything about people with mental illness, that is quite a feat! :) Without the injection form of the medication I’m pretty sure I’d still be bouncing in and out of insanity and in and out of hospitals.

Haldol is a powerful medication, and not one that people enjoy taking. It can cause a lot of sedation, but in the right dose with the right brain it is a miracle drug. It doesn’t work for everyone, and I probably wouldn’t extoll the virtues of it if I was taking the oral form of the medication. With the injection form of the medication I am able to take less of the medication while still getting the benefits of it. I believe that there are also short-acting Haldol injections for acutely psychotic patients, but I am getting the long-acting injections which metabolize over a number of weeks.

I know that a lot of people, including people with schizophrenia and other brain diseases, are afraid of getting injections of medication. If you are paranoid and psychotic, like I was when I first got the injection, it is terrifying to get the injections. I actually believed that the doctors were giving me a lethal injection to kill me when I got my first dose. It turns out that it was the best thing that ever happened to me, not the worst. Now there are other medications that come in injection forms too. Meds like Risperdal and others. If Haldol doesn’t work for someone then maybe one of the other injectables will work. At any rate, I think it is worth giving them a try. It may take awhile to get used to the meds and to get the correct dosing, but it is worth it in the end.

Mental Health Update: Monday, May 28, 2012

2012, Abilify, Acceptance, Anti-anxiety meds, Anti-depressants, Anti-psychotics, Anxiety, Autobiography, Bipap, Body Image, Body Narrative, Brain, Buspar, Depression, Diary Rant, EDNOS, Fat, Fat Acceptance, Fat Hatred, Haldol, Haldol DEC, Haldol Decanoate, Happy, Health, Injections, insanity, Kristin Bell, Medicine, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Mood Stabilizers, Prescription Meds, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychoactive Substances, Psychology, Psychosis, schizoaffective disorder, Schizophrenia, Sleep, Sleep Disorders, stigma, Weight, Zoloft

I thought I’d do a little mental health update, since it has been quite some time since I’ve blogged about my overall mental health. As some of you dear readers may know, I have schizophrenia. I first had issues with it when I was about 15. My first hospitalization was when I was 16. Towards the end of 2000 I got mostly stabilized with my Haldol injections and Zoloft. I haven’t been in the hospital since then! Yay! Quite a long run I’ve had and I hope it continues! For quite some time I had problems getting things done, being motivated and feeling down…that sort of thing, even though I was mostly fine. I think it was last year that I started taking Abilify and it has made a HUGE difference! I’m still taking Zoloft, Buspar, Haldol and some non-psychiatric meds in addition to the Abilify, but the addition of the Abilify was great. I’m doing really pretty well these days. Sometimes I have anxiety, although I think it might generally be related to performance issues with school. I also tried taking Topamax to help with weight loss, but I thought it might be making me stupid and giving me more anxiety, so I quit taking it. I think overall, the Topamax was not helping. It seemed like I was becoming less motivated and more sad with it. I also had that bad anxiety day that I wrote about recently.

So, I think I was just hoping for a magic weightloss bullet with the Topamax. It didn’t work. Boo. I have lost about 90-100 pounds though which is good, but I still need to be less sedentary. I’m also a believer in fat acceptance, but of course it is hard to say that I never want to try to lose weight. I would be an even bigger believer in fat acceptance if I wasn’t actually fat I think!!! hahaha. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is kind of true. I can accept the hell out of everyone’s fatness, but my own! lol.

Anyway, enough about fatness for now. What I want to say is that I’m doing well on the whole. My sleep patterns have improved with my sleep apnea machine, and while I’m not sleeping on any kind of normal schedule yet, I’m getting sleep every day and mostly at the same time! I still tend to be somewhat paranoid, but I’ve found that opening up with people over the years on the internet has really helped me to realize that I don’t need to be afraid of everyone in the world. I still have some delusional thoughts that blow through my brain now and then, but I consider them to be more of a slight annoyance than a big deal right now. But seriously, it is because of the medicine. If I wasn’t taking my meds, and doing so faithfully, I would be in and out of hospitals and massively psychotic. Some people don’t believe me, because I “seem so normal,” but I have to wonder what THAT means anyway? And, I don’t know, it seems like I should be insulted when people say that to me, but I’m not sure why I find it so insulting! I don’t necessarily want to be abnormal, even though I pretty much am, but I think it just bothers me that people attach a kind of value judgement to the term “normal” as if “normal” is superior. It is definitely easier to live in the world if you are “normal,” but it isn’t the only way to be in the world, that’s for sure. Normal is just such a peculiar word, no?

So, I’m doing fine. Some anxiety here and there, some weird thoughts here and there…a depressed mood now and then, but mostly just good. Which is nice. Thank you meds and thank you lucky stars! So, that’s my update after living with schizophrenia for 24 years. Wow! 24 years! Man am I getting old!!! LOL.

Schizowhat? Website!

Acceptance, Activism, Kristin Bell, Lunatic, Mental Health, Mental Illness, neuroscience, Problems, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychoactive Substances, Psychology, Psychosis, schizoaffective disorder, Schizophrenia, schizowhat?, Shame, stigma, Stories

I was just informed of this great project called Schizowhat? that is a website aimed at raising awareness about schizophrenia. For those of you who don’t know, I have schizophrenia. I was first diagnosed when I was about 15/16 years old. I hope others of you who are interested or in some way impacted by schizophrenia will check out the website and contribute! Let’s fight the stigma! Yay!

It Is a Major Chore Realizing You Are Fucked Up…

Acceptance, Haldol, Haldol DEC, Haldol Decanoate, Kristin Bell, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychoactive Substances, Psychology, Psychosis, Schizophrenia

I hate to be so blunt…okay, I really don’t mind, but my mother really wouldn’t approve of such language. heh. Anyway, it really is a major chore realizing you are fucked up in the head. There’s no easy way to put it and no easy way to realize it.

Okay, maybe I could just say “mentally ill,” but that phrase seems so sterile to me compared to what it is really like to realize you are fucked up. I remember when I first became sick, and for years after honestly, I SERIOUSLY thought *I* was not the one who was screwed up, but that everyone around me needed therapy instead. I probably even told my parents that they should go to therapy instead of me.

Still, my life just seems like my boring old life to me. I hardly seem as messed up as I actually have been in real life. Doesn’t everyone try to kill themselves these days?!? I mean really! Don’t most people have eating disorders? No? What? And the psychosis? Well, I know that isn’t *quite* normal, but it isn’t THAT bizarre once it happens to you. Only, it kind of is bizarre. I guess a little more strange than “normal.” I just have to laugh about it all. It seems so ridiculous! All of it. My whole life really seems spectacularly odd is all. I really can’t imagine a life more “normal” than mine. That is why I am always surprised when I talk about one little thing in my life and people look at me funny.

Anyway, back to the realizing you are fucked up in the head. If you are new to the business of realizing it, just take the time and let it sink in, because it takes a LONG LONG time to really let it absorb properly. I think it is because once pretty much ALL of us were in the “normal” spectrum, even the ones like me who eventually jump ship into crazy-land. It seems to me like everyone pretty much likes to be “normal” in some way, even if you are a “normal” tightrope walker or a “normal” person with blue hair who likes to hang from your piercings. There is still a community for your type of normal out there. When we are kids, we are all sort of “normal.” No one really says to their teacher “yah, I want to grow up to be the guy who walks around the streets talking to voices! YAH!!!”

A lot of people say “oh, you shouldn’t use terms like ‘normal’. No one is really ‘normal’ anyway!” But really, there are NORMAL people in the world, even if the term is somewhat corrupt, so I am going to use the word normal and I’m going to quit using quote marks around it by God! haha.

I know that I am somewhat normal in some ways, but in other ways not so much, and that is okay. We grow up thinking that we want to be superstars and the best of something, but no one really wants to be completely off the charts weird. I’m just going to say, you can survive being weird. You don’t have to be a superstar. It is just important to realize that in some ways you, or at least I, am different from normal people. Part of accepting my mental illness means accepting my non-normalness, because if you think you are normal, you most likely won’t take your medication, and for people like me, people with schizophrenia, you need to realize that medication will and does help if you are on the right meds.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this. It is just something I was thinking about as I was looking out the window today. Specifically, I was thinking with a chuckle how I used to think that it was everyone else who needed a psychiatrist and NOT me. And it was just so hard realizing how it was me that was messed up and me that needed help. That’s all.

Go All the Way or Go Home: Name-calling in the Media

Acceptance, Arizona, Bipolar, Culture of Violence, Denial, Discrimination, Ethics, Gabrielle Giffords, gunman, Guns, Hate, insanity, Kristin Bell, Lunatic, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Nutcase, Psychiatry, Psycho, Psychosis, rhetoric, Schizophrenia, shooting

I seem to be one of the few liberal-ish people who thinks that the Arizona shooting had more to do with mental illness than politics, and I think it is kind of ironic that a great majority of the Left is talking about “dangerous” rhetoric while simultaneously throwing pejoratives about mental illness and the mentally ill around like “crazy.” Everything from “nutter” to “nutjob” to “lunatic,” “crazies,” “wacko” and every other euphemism for the mentally ill that you can think of—except a plain “mentally ill.” If the Left is really so worried about a culture of bad rhetoric, then I say they should go all the way or go home. In other words, stop calling mentally ill people disrespectful names (of course, the Right is rampant with this too). This kind of vilification of the mentally ill does exactly what the Left is talking about the rhetoric of gunning people down does—it objectifies people and dismisses their humanity. But, I guess that it is okay to diss the crazies, because we aren’t really people afterall are we? We are just wild animals that need to be chained and shot for the good of everyone. Well, that is what a lot of people seem to believe, especially when something tragic happens like the shooting in Arizona. What happened in Arizona was wrong and awful, but despite peoples’ desires to paint the tragedy into black and white terms where there is good on one side and evil on another, in reality the good and evil don’t exist. They are words we’ve made up to downplay and deny the complexities of situations that we have a difficult time understanding. We can do better.

“Mental” Is So Horrible! CANCEL NOW!

Kristin Bell, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychosis, TV

Oy! Have you seen Fox’s new show “Mental”??? Hands down it is awful. Not because the acting is bad or because the sets are bad or anything, but simply because it is completely unrealistic as far as the mental health aspect of it goes! I watched the first episode and I thought “oh wow…this is pretty bad, but maybe it will get better.” Then I suffered through the second episode which was even worse than the first episode! Seriously, if any network was to depict any other group of people like they are doing with mental patients, they would be sued in zero seconds! But, it isn’t like it is just painting the patients in a bad light. It is basically making a mockery of the entire mental health system and the psychiatric profession. Not exactly being anti-psychiatry about the mental health system either, but it is like the writers have NO IDEA about anything related to mental health, so they are just making EVERYTHING up!!! Get a clue people! This show bites hard!

(And by the way, the clip above is from one of the more realistic parts of the show…where the psychiatrist gets naked! lol)

NIMH Schizophrenia Research Participation

Amblify, Anti-psychotics, Ativan, Bipolar, Family, Geodon, Haldol, Haldol DEC, Haldol Decanoate, Health, Kristin Bell, Lunatic, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Navane, Paxil, Prescription Meds, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychosis, Research, Risperdal, Schizophrenia, Seattle, Surviving, Trazadone, Trilifon, US Government, Zyprexa
labratme

Oh, so I haven’t blogged about this yet, but I went up to Seattle with my family about a week ago and participated in the National Institute of Mental Health-funded research project regarding schizophrenia. I had a really great time and the research team was totally fabulous and wonderful!

So, we arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. They took blood samples from

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I Feel For Ya, Britney!

Anti-anxiety meds, Anti-depressants, Anti-psychotics, Bipolar, Britney Spears, Bulimia, Buspar, Drama, Kristin Bell, Lithium, Mania, Manic, Manic-Depressive, Medicine, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Mood Stabilizers, Prescription Meds, Problems, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Support System, Surviving, Therapist
bald britney

Okay, I rarely write about celebrity gossip, but overnight Britney Spears was taken into the hospital for psychiatric evaluation and I guess I feel the need to comment. From what I’ve heard on the news, she hasn’t slept since Saturday and she’s now on a 72-hour hold. I have also been

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Ironic

Acceptance, Allies, Anti-anxiety meds, Anti-depressants, Anti-psychotics, Cry, Education, Family, Kristin Bell, Lunatic, Medicine, Mental Health, Mental Illness, NIMH, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychosis, Purpose, Research, Schizophrenia, Seattle, Surviving

cryingWhat is ironic is that I’m here in a hotel room in Seattle up late at night watching the movie “Awakenings” just as I finish my own participation in research related to my own mental illness

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A Book Everyone Should Read!

Acceptance, Activism, Anti-anxiety meds, Anti-depressants, Anti-psychotics, Bipolar, Books, Counselor, Discrimination, Elyn R. Saks, Geodon, Haldol, Haldol DEC, Haldol Decanoate, Kristin Bell, Lunatic, Medicine, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Navane, NIMH, Prescription Meds, Problems, Psych Meds, Psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Denial, Psycho, Psychosis, Reading, Risperdal, Schizophrenia, Seroquel, Surviving, The Center Cannot Hold, Therapist, Trazadone, Trilifon
saksbook

I just finished reading Elyn R. Saks’ book, The Center Cannot Hold, and I highly recommend it to everyone, especially people who are touched by someone who has mental illness. The book is a memoir of Ms. Saks’ life and coming to terms with schizophrenia. From an early age she recalls having strange thoughts, but

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