| Re: Miss the hallucinations while medicated?
I started on risperidone about 3 months ago during a schizoaffective manic episode. My shrink said I had "elevated mood". I didn't mind taking the meds to bring it down a bit as the more manic I got the more I got agitated, confused and irritated with things as well as just "high". So when the risperidone took me down a bit, I felt REALLY GOOD. Manic enough to be high, but not so high I was unable to deal with anything.
Long story short: the risperidone also stopped me hearing voices, which I usualy quite enjoyed. It also stopped me seeing visions which I also enjoyed. Eg i remember in a mental health group I used to go to the guy opposite grew a purple face from his neck and it just stayed there looking weird for a couple of minutes. I wasn't horrified or shocked or stressed by any of this. It was just entertaining.
I always saw my mental illness as a coping mechanism for this nasty world. In a sense I'd rather be insane and happy than perfectly sane and miserable. This risperidone worked pretty well against the mania but not the depressive episode that followed. And I have some horrible "negative symptoms" ~ avolition and apathy being the main ones. And I can't face doing a lot of normal things eg going 5 mins down the road to get milk. Eventually I do it but it feels like the biggest deal.
Medication didn't help with the depression, I'd need a mood stabilizer which they did talk about but that would stop me being manic ever again. So no chance of another "elevated mood". And it doesn't help with these negative symptoms which have basically left me really lazy and not wanting to do much or deal with anything at all. I thoroughly sympathize with you. When the walls and ceiling started talking tome they cracked some amazing jokes. I was laughing my head off. I only told the dr everything as I knew I was mentally ill despite everything and was fed up of being treated like a liar for telling them what symptoms I had had after the event (being too paranoid at the time).
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