Symptoms: Akathisia, Emotional blunting, Sexual dysfunction, Suicidal ideation, Dyskinesia, Paradoxical psychosis, auditory and visual hallucinations
I have severe dysthymia, but according to my previous psychiatrist, it's bipolar 2. I do not fit the DSM criteria for bipolar 2. Bipolar 2 does not start in your very early childhood. Long story short, I had been depressed for most of my life. I have tried most antidepressants on the market, they have all failed. SSRIs do nothing, SNRIs make my chronic spinal pain worse, but antipsychotics, they repeated, despite different drugs always send me down the same path. Akathisia, then parkinsonism, then finally fully blown florid psychosis. It's happened with all that I've tried. Aripiprazole, quetiapine, olanzapine, risperidone and the worst offender, lumateperone.
My psychiatrist prescribed me lumateperone on the idea it would work for my "bipolar depression". It didn't. Within days I was emotionally blunted, had the emotional spectrum of a brick. Then the akathisia started, tolerable at first, but uncontrollable and extremely severe by the end. I can barely walk a mile a day due to my psoriatic arthritis having damaged my spine. I was sprinting 6 to 7 miles a day. And then the parkinsonism started, which meant I could barely move. Forced to experience the akathisia with no relief. Then, the psychosis started. Command hallucinations to kill myself, seeing human silhouettes that were so dark they looked like a hole in the world. Constantly screaming in my head. What made me stop was I was running through the woods, in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, until I literally collapsed. I laid there for over an hour. Unable to move from exhaustion. I could have, and probably should have, died from exposure. It was barely above freezing, torrential downpour, high wind chill, I should have died.
And when I quit cold turkey and eventually the symptoms receded in order of appearance, I told psych. What do they offer? Never an antipsychotic ever again? No. Just a dose reduction. I could have died. I have since found a new provider who has prescribed me phenelzine, a MAOI. Hopefully that helps where everything else has actively harmed me.