From Briarpatch Magazine: “My neighbour’s fire alarm went off before mine. I slept like a corpse as the alarms blared and flames roared through the windows of my apartment. I think I woke up briefly to firefighters trying to get into my apartment, but the memory is hazy.
Following doctor’s orders, I had obediently swallowed Seroquel (quetiapine) that night, a so-called ‘antipsychotic’ medication used to treat mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and, off-label, dementia, autism, eating disorders, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
My first experience with Seroquel was in 2009 during my first night in a psychiatric institution. Cold hands gripped me, and a needle penetrated the weak flesh of my arm. My room filled with a dense fog. Unable to see through it, I slept for two days straight. I woke up only when I felt a pill jammed down my parched throat, plunging me into hours of night terrors.
That was the beginning of 13 years where being awake felt like I was asleep, the days and nights blurring into one another.
After the drug had me nearly engulfed in flames, I knew it was time for change. Guidelines encourage use for only a few months, not 13 years, and the Canadian Medication Appropriateness and Deprescribing Network advises an immediate deprescribing plan for patients like me who were prescribed Seroquel solely for insomnia due to the drug’s ‘risk of harm.’
I tried to quit Seroquel four times, but each time my withdrawal plunged me deeper into depression and suicidal ideation, and deeper into psychiatry’s cycle of diagnoses, prescriptions, and institutionalization where more Seroquel was the solution. Desperate for help, I asked my doctor to supervise my withdrawal. ‘Do you want to up your dose?’ he responded coyly. He assured me that my fears about the drug were unfounded and I was being paranoid.”
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