Symptoms: Brain zaps, Emotional blunting, Cognitive impairment, Insomnia, Depersonalization/Derealization, Severe anxiety/panic, Muscle/joint pain, Other
I have always been a bright, happy and free person involved in arts, sports and I had a very vibrant social life with a bright future. However, after a hormonal contraceptive (the Mirena IUD) was inserted in me without being informed of the risks at 21 years old, I fell into a deep psychosis a few months later that included severe anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, hair loss and hormonal disruption. I was in this state for 8 months until I was put on 5mg of Abilify.
The next year, a homeopathic doctor found the root cause of my earlier psychosis: she found an Oxford study linking early bipolar and schizophrenic symptoms in girls my age with the Mirena IUD. I immediately got the IUD removed at an emergency clinic the next day. I was still on 5mg of Abilify for five years with no informed direction on how I could properly and safely taper off.
I tried tapering off a year and a half later after my family doctor told me to "break the tablet in half". Deep down, I felt I didn't truly need it. This, being too drastic of a cut led to a depressive state in which I was reinstated to 5mg. One year later I was able to safely move to 2.5mg.
For three years, I was on 2.5mg of Abilify. About eight months after I was put on 5mg of Abilify, I went on a road trip across Canada out West and had my first dissociative episode in the middle of a night, the most terrifying night of my life. The out of body experience felt horrific, and I now know it was the medication that threw my nervous system out of balance. These happened all throughout my twenties for hours on end, maybe once every two months or so when I had a few drinks.
I grew more confident in my twenties and achieved a lot, but I felt a constant disconnect from the world around me and even myself, a fog between me and the real world. I realize now this was caused by derealization/depersonalization caused by Abilify.
In September of 2022, I decided it was time to officially get off the medication. Still with no medical precautions on how to safely taper, I simply cut out the prescription of 2.5mg full stop. Within two months of stopping cold turkey, I fell into a deep psychosis. This time, with mania. No one around me knew that this is what happens when a medication is stopped cold turkey.
My first hospitalization was May 2023, and I was put on Seroquel and Latuda and misdiagnosed with Bipolar Type II. With this being a misdiagnosis, my psychosis and mania worsened dramatically with this medication. My personality, spirit and brightness was completely gone. I was very angry. My psychiatrist insisted for a year that this was the right medication. My parents were absolutely terrified because they knew something was wrong. Four months into taking Seroquel and Latuda, I started having the out-of-body dissociative episodes again. Every second day, for one to four hours at a time, I was completely disabled from functioning. It felt like I was in a horror movie, my body was completely in another reality and I felt nothing but pure terror and detached from reality. Everything looked terrifying during the episodes.
This is an excerpt from a blog I wrote on what the experience of dissociations are like: "Shadows looked intensely dark, deep and pronounced. Physical darkness was terrifying to look at. My sense of depth flattened into what looked like LSD like visuals. It felt like there was no roof or walls in any room. It felt like it was all floating, although I knew everything was rooted to the earth through gravity.
The worst part? I felt so trapped in my own body and brain. At the worst of it, just taking a deeper breath would feel very overstimulating and I'd be left with the most horrific distorted view of the world around me.
Not being able to anchor into my own body and mind, to be able to think clearly at all (it felt like everything was sucked into a vacuum deep underneath the Earth) felt like a kind of torture I wouldn't even wish upon the most evil person in history. Sounds crazy, I know. It was a physiological torture, not necessarily a mental health or emotional issue. It felt so physical and I felt so utterly hopeless being so detached from my own mind and body while having such a distorted view of the world around me."
After a horrifying winter of dissociative episodes, increasing delusions, anger/rage (caused by the mood stabilizers), extreme anxiety and panic and more, I felt like my nervous system at this point had been dragged through fire for years.
That Spring, I voluntarily admitted myself to the hospital and insisted I was on the wrong medication. How I was able to advocate for myself in psychosis, I don't know, but I knew at this point something was wrong.
I was put on an even heavier stream of medications and had a new misdiagnosis of Schizoaffective disorder. My new cocktail included the Invega injection, Olanzapine, a sleep medication, an SSRI and Ativan (lorazepam, as needed). These medications took me out of psychosis, but I was heavily sedated. I immediately experienced extreme emotional blunting, sedation, inability to think clearly (brain fog), the dissociations worsened (four to six hours at a time, sometimes up to four times a week). I was not myself.
My Dad has been on the carnivore diet for over five years now and has been a pivotal force in all of my healing. He found an interview about metabolic health and the dangers of medication online in December of 2024, six months later after my second hospitalization.
I started working with a metabolic health coach in January of 2025 and I began the slow careful taper of all medications using keto and metabolic health. I have created a whole new foundation in my health and continue to learn about how to heal. My taper has gone surprisingly well. I had muscle twitches and pains tapering off Ativan (I switched to Diazepam recently to lower) and sometimes I feel weak due to this. I sometimes get absentmindedness, memory issues and headaches from withdrawals but overall it has gone smoothly.
I'm very passionate about informed consent and spreading awareness on the dangers of psychiatric medication and safe tapering. My coach informed me on our first few calls that my entire psychiatric experience started with the implementation of the Mirena IUD in 2017. I am thirty now and although I have taken my life back, I have lost my twenties to the pains of medication. There is still a lot of grief, and I am still suffering from extreme emotional blunting and derealization caused by the medication. I hope to fully heal. With the reduction of medication, my dissociative episodes ended January 2026. I learned that all of this could've been prevented a long time ago had I been informed of the risks medications and birth control can cause. It's been a long journey but I do feel lighter and freer now and have hope for the future.