Symptoms: Insomnia, depersonalization/derealization, severe anxiety/panic, psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, mania, paranoia
This is actually a story about my father.
During a stressful period in his life where he was struggling to sleep due to pressure at work he went to the doctor for help. Instead of doing any blood tests or any psychological evaluations, he immediately prescribed something to help him sleep. What did this doctor prescribe to my father who has never been given any medication for mental illness or sleep? Melatonin? No. Temazepam? No. Doxylamine? No. Amitriptyline? No. Lamborexant? No... He was given the antipsychotic Quetiapine as the doctor’s first line choice to help him sleep before any psychological evaluation, no mental health history and no prior medications for sleep or mental health.
My dad then took it that night and unfortunately had a severely bad reaction to it. Which in his stressed state, began the start of his psychotic symptoms, he did not take it after that first night.
After a couple weeks of this going on, he went back to the doctor starting to worry about the symptoms he was experiencing, mood swings, hearing things, paranoia, feelings of being watched, insomnia, etc. What does the doctor do, once again, without a proper psychological evaluation, without a referral to a psychologist or psychiatrist, without recognising these symptoms of signs of psychosis he prescribes what he calls a “happy pill” to my dad to make him feel better. This medication was an SSRI, something contraindicated in psychosis.
Once again, he goes home and takes it for the first time that night, and guess what happens, he enters full-blown psychosis is up all night long hallucinating people trying to kill him and is admitted in the psych ward the next day.
Not only did the doctor skip proper due diligence in both visits, but also failed to follow clinical guidelines and completely ignored risk factors and willingly prescribed an antipsychotic as a first line option for sleep without any medication history to suggest doing so. Which was then compounded by giving an SSRI when he was experiencing very obvious psychotic symptoms which pushed him over the edge.
It did not take months or years to cause the damage, it took a rare and unlucky reaction to a single dose of a medication that he should never have been given in the first place, followed by a single dose of a medication contraindicated in his state of mind.
He has luckily fully recovered, but after submitting a complaint to my Country’s regulatory body they “investigated” and found no wrong doing. This was a GP prescribing psychiatric medication without proper review of his mental state or care for standard clinical and prescribing guidelines, but apparently that is not classed as wrong doing even after doing it twice in a row.