A very gifted and compassionate friend recently said that she feels enslaved to Abilify – that she has tried to taper off it several times but always ends up slipping into an extreme state, no matter how slowly she tapers. She said this repeated experience makes her feel like a slave, because she has to go back on the drug to stop the very intense extreme state induced whenever she tries to stop taking it.



There was heartbreaking anguish in her voice as she described feeling so trapped. I have another friend who for years felt painfully anguished until he found his way free of heroin. He stopped using, went through withdrawal and was finally free. But these legal drugs like Abilfy can punish some people who try to leave them.



The price for withdrawing can be psychosis. Not because there is an underlying disease that re-emerges when the drug is withdrawn in my opinion, but because the dopamine blocking antipsychotic drug sets up the brain to create a psychosis if it is stopped. Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, in her 2006 research review article writes “There is an urgent need to clarify to what extent antipsychotics, including clozapine, induce rapid onset psychosis and whether risks of relapses are increased with withdrawal.” In her article entitled “Does antipsychotic withdrawal provoke Psychosis? Review of the literature on rapid onset psychosis (supersensitivity psychosis) and withdrawal-related relapse” Dr. Moncrieff concludes that ‘Some recurrent episodes of psychosis may be iatrogenic.”

My friend bravely vowed to try withdrawing from Abilify again in the future. She has a very strong network of support who understands the iatrogenic crisis she will be facing. She knows many important ways to do self care. Most people who try withdrawing from antipsychotics face professional caregivers who discourage them from doing it. On the other hand, when people detox from heroin, everyone encourages them to go through it, no matter how extreme their behavior or how much pain they go through. There are some (way too few) residential programs for people who choose to stop using alcohol, pain killers, and street drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. But how many residential programs are designed and exist solely for people getting off antipsychotic drugs? None that I know of. How many psychiatrists offer to help people stop taking antipsychotics in the community? Very few . . .

In part, the lack of resources for people wanting to get off antipsychotics, stems from how the potentially harmful effects from taking them, and withdrawing from them has been portrayed. It seems to me that the term- “side effects” that is euphemistically used by the drug companies and some prescribers to describe iatrogenic psychosis and other injurious drug effects, is misleading and dishonest.

Psychiatrist RD Laing had it right when he said “Let no one mislead you into thinking that tardive dyskinesia and all the other awful reactions to these drugs are side effects. No, they are the effects, not side effects – they are the damaging effects!”