Symptoms: Akathisia, emotional blunting, insomnia, anhedonia
I was on aripiprazole for about five years, which caused severe weight gain and impulsiveness, which led to me asking the doctor to taper off them. I tapered off of 20mg over about two months. Six months later, I had another severe psychosis which lasted multiple months. After going back on aripiprazole (Abilify) for a while to fix the psychosis, I switched to Latuda to minimise weight gain, being told it wasn't as bad for weight gain.
I ended up on Latuda for two years or more. It left me so indifferent towards life and so anhedonic that I hadn't got the motivation to even try to get off it. I had a weird side effect where if I didn't get to sleep quickly after taking the tablet, I would feel too restless to sit still for five seconds, and when I got up out of bed, I felt too drained and sick to stay up. This led to hours of discomfort before eventually managing to sleep through extreme effort. I dreaded having to sleep, so I would stay awake for 24 hours often enough to be sure I was so drained that I could get to sleep before that side effect kicked in.
I actually had one doctor who suggested increasing the dose would solve this, and I had to use every bit of sense I had not to scream at her. Safe to say I refused the increase.
Eventually I found a doctor who was willing to help. He transitioned me back to Abilify and was willing to reduce the dose to 5mg to find the minimum dose I could somewhat function on. Six months later and 5mg is better than the 20mg from before for side effects, although they are still there.
I hate having to take any tablets like these at all, but I don't want to put my family through another psychosis episode, so I'm stuck in this position for the foreseeable future.