What is like to get off anti-psychotics? What is it like to get back on them?

[Tamwen]

I'm considering a more urban fantasy featuring a character with some mental health issues: hallucinations (auditory and visual), vivid nightmares, lost time. Makes becoming entangled in a bunch of ridiculous brouhahas with vampires and witches and such rather... interesting.

But there are periods when he's not capable of taking his medication, for whatever reason. Not because he doesn't want to, necessarily, but because he, say, got dragged out of his home and held against his will for several weeks, or because he had to get out of the house very fast and forgot his meds and didn't realize until it was too late to turn around and go get them.

So what would it be like to go off anti psychotics after taking them regularly? And then to go back to them after a few weeks of not having them?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Well, along with an onset of his mental health issues, he will have physical symptoms - nausea, probably vomiting, weakness, sometimes heart flutters.

Going back on them, he would want to restart them gradually, under the supervision of his doctor. If he does not, and just jumps back in with his regular dosage, he risks not only doing physical damage to himself, but making his mental problems significantly worse instead of alleviating them. So, until he can get back in touch with his doctor, he would be better off staying off his meds - if he has been taking them regularly for a long period of time, say years, he would know this.

 

[ThinkerX]

I have a cousin who takes meds because he is a 'borderline paranoid schizophrenc with suicidal tendencies'.

In the past, for various reasons, he's stopped taking his meds. Usually, auditory hallucinations and sleeplessness set in within the first 24 hours. Within 48 hours he's a wreck, memory loss, and severe short term memory issues...but thinks everything is going good.

In the past, new meds, or resuming meds after a period of abstinence, would knock him flat on his butt. Mostly, he'd sleep.

Extrapolating a bit...after a few weeks without meds, your character is likely to be a paranoid wreck with huge gaps in his memory, as well as hallucinations recent past and present he cannot distinguish from reality. The sort of person likely to get the cops called on him. Probably his reflexes would be shot from lack of sleep as well.

Going back on meds again...nasty. Most likely he won't do much but sleep most of the time. Medical issues are possible.

 

[CupofJoe]

I would add pins and needles in hands and feet as well as cramp in legs and back.
Hyper-reality is also known to have been felt by some. You can feel that everything is extra colourful, smelly, loud, bright, tactile etc... it can be wonderful but it can also be scary... you can be transfixed by how soft and fluffy a fleecy jacket is and then scream in pain when someone opens the curtains...

 

[Weaver]

Not that is relevant, most likely, to your character, but I do know that if someone is put on anti-psychotics who shouldn't be because they're not psychotic, the meds can cause the very symptoms that they're meant to treat.

 

[Foah]

If you're doing this research for a book you can see yourself publishing in the future, I'd strongly suggest you get some questions answered by actual professionals. With the internet we're blessed with easy access to more than moderately accurate responds that more often than not give us all the information we need.

Don't let the idea of getting in contact with someone working in the field feel like a daunting task. It can truly be as simple as calling someone up, present yourself as an author who's curious about this area and that area that correspond with the professional's field of work, and then setting up a short meeting over coffee where you can bounce your ball a bit

This also looks very nice in correlation to your book - the fact that you have actual studies and comments of professionals to verify validity of parts of your story.

Just a thought.


Edit: Obviously, validitity is not a word haha!