THE BAD NEWS IS...

 You can get akathisia from Cannabis. I’ll just leave it at that for now, but will expound later.

FRIENDS! Hi!! Hi!!

I’ve missed you. Have you missed me? I thought not.

Before I expound on the statement above, I wanted to brief you on my experience with getting off prescribed medications.

Let me tell you, it was not an easy process. I knew there would be bumps in the road, but I was not prepared for the size & shape of said bumps. Downhill, craterous, unpaved moonrock roads into the warzone of your own skull.

In May of 2022, I realized i was so goddamned happy & content & joyous & grateful in my life! I could barely contain all the happiness I felt. I was on top of the world!

I was also on way too many medications:

Testosterone (for gender dysphoria)

Gabapentin (for anxiety)

Cymbalta (for depression)

Seroquel (for akathisia)

Atorvastatin (for high cholesterol)

I was taking pills or injecting oils all day long. I thought, surely I don’t need ALL of this shit to live a good life.

So I made the executive decision to do a slow taper off the Cymbalta & the Seroquel. I had been advised in March 2021 to get off the Seroquel as soon as possible. I stayed on it for a year & 1/2 because I loved the sleep!!

But on Jun 1, 2022 I began to taper off the Seroquel. This was relatively easy. It was a two week taper, which is kind of fast, but I didn’t have too many side effects except insomnia for a week or two.

I gave myself a few weeks without Seroquel before I started to taper off the Cymbalta. I started around Aug 15 and knew immediately that getting off the SSRI would be more difficult. There was dizziness, nausea, and one night of vomiting in the first week. Then came about 10 days of brain zaps & shivers. These are just what they sound like — your brain literally feels cold & does a little shiver. Every few minutes. Then there would be surges of electric-shock sensations. Like lightning inside your skull.

Your brain is the original electronic device.

And that was made illustriously clear to me as I felt all my electricity going haywire for weeks. I was tempted to stop the taper & just stay on Cymbalta for the rest of my life. But I persisted. I thought…this will go away eventually. And it did. The brain shivers, the zaps, the dizziness all went away by Sept 15.

But then I was left managing mood swings that were way out of my control. Mania, rage, deep sorrow all swirling senselessly…non stop…and fast. One to the other to the other in a matter of seconds. As a Water Sign, I’m used to feeling my moods swing but this was not a normal pace, nor a normal weight of emotions. The pendulum was hitting every extreme and there was no “reasoning with it.” There was no self-talk that could’ve slowed it down or relieved it in any way. Trust me, I tried.

And I wanted so badly to just get back on the drugs and feel as happy as I did in May & June & July. But I thought…these terrible mood swings will go away eventually. You just have to be strong for a little while.

I knew I could create my own happiness. I had been doing it all my life. Fighting the horrible sadness of being human with my own tricky imagination. I wanted to be in charge of manufacturing my own solace. I knew I had that capability & just had to remember how to do it.

But friends, October & November were barely survivable. There were many occasions where I seriously thought of ending my life because the sorrow or rage were too much to bear even for 10 minutes. 

The 10 minute increment has worked for me over the years. To get through bouts of depression. To get through akathisia. Even to get sober! I used to look at the clock when I first quit drinking & tell myself “Congratulations, you’ve been sober for another  10 minutes!”

But I got tired of counting minutes. In the early a.m. hours of Nov 5, I walked to the cemetery alone with intentions of ending my life. There I conferred with the spirits for an hour or two, and decided to keep counting the minutes until I got through all this awful, unpredictable brain activity.

I was not getting the proper help from medical professionals. Their only advice — the only option they offered me — was to get back on an SSRI. It was clear they were only interested in selling me a name brand drug, and profiling me as a drug addict of course. They were not interested in “listening to my history, or hearing me as someone who had educated himself on his own mental health needs”.

After deciding to live through it, I did reach out to a few friends who had offered to help. For them I am eternally grateful. You know who you are, if you’re reading this.

So…here I am…it’s the end of November, a month that began with an ending in mind. I can confidently say that I’m feeling much better than I did even a week ago. My brain is much quieter and slower now. I have control over my thoughts & emotions that I didn’t have for the past 3 months.

I know I’m not out of the woods yet. I am on guard. The sadness and rage are my mortal enemies and I’m ready to do battle at any time of day. Waking up from sleep is the most dangerous moment of the day.

I tell you all this stuff not so you feel sorry for me, not so you can profile me as a crazy person just like the doctors do, but so that you can gauge your own experiences with Big Pharma & Corporate Medicine. 

If you are a person who is thinking of going on medication to manage feelings of depression or anxiety, look at my experience. Are you sure this is something you can’t get through without drugs? Because the drugs will help for awhile, but when you feel like maybe you can do without the drugs, you will have to go through an even worse experience than regular old depression & anxiety.

If you are a person who is currently taking a medication like Cymbalta (an SSRI, serotonin re-uptake inhibitor), do you realize how hard it will be to stop taking this medication? Do you know that many of these medications will cause akathisia if you are on them for too long, and the only thing doctors will tell you about that is that you need to switch medications? They may even tell you that your depression/anxiety/bipolar is getting worse & you will have to take medication forever.

I wanted off that runaway train. I finally feel like I am off the train, but I’m still too close to the tracks. There is relief, but I’m still very scared. My time at the cemetery on Nov 5 was a spiritual revelation that has given me strength & hope over the last few weeks. I know you all laugh at my spiritual experiences because they are unquantifiable by you, unfounded in facts that you can look up online, and unlike anything you’ve ever sought after in your life. 

But…I still say everyone should pursue the spirit realm for answers rather than the medical realm. The medical realm is there for emergencies of the body…the spirit realm is there for emergencies of the spirit. The trick is to know yourself well enough to decipher the difference.

Alright…now I’m kind of tired. I may have to expound on my opening statement another time. I promise I won’t wait 3 weeks or whatever it’s been…

Stay well, friends! Seek those spirits. I’m serious.

P.S. I forgot to mention that just by going off anti depressant/anti psychotic meds I lost 10 pounds. These drugs do make you kind of fat & unhealthy. I had much more energy — actually way too much energy for awhile — to ride my bike or sing, just more energy for daily activities as well. Then I lost even more weight.

So I was also able to stop taking my cholesterol medication. No harmful side effects felt from that.

Now I’m only on:

Testosterone (for gender dysphoria)

Gabapentin (for anxiety, too low a dose to go through those pharma withdrawals, but okay now)

If you can, read my blog Adventures in Akathisia 2014, before I expound on the cannabis/akathisia connection.

Can You Get Akathisia From Typing "aka" Too Much?

 Frienz,

The reason I had such severe akathisia, on both occasions, is because I live a pretty sedentary lifestyle. I did mention that dopamine is metabolized by inhaling great gusts of oxygen & exchanging those for full exhales of carbon dioxide, aka BREATHING!!!???  When you live an active lifestyle and do a lot of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, you aren’t at too much risk of getting dopamine clots. As a writer/artist whose days are spent typing at a computer or drawing at a table…I did not have much oxygen breaking up those clots.

So not all akathisia looks like mine. If you have a very active job like landscaping or porn star, you may just feel anxious & sleepless in the middle of the night. You may feel overly caffeinated at times, but will be able to dispel all that restlessness as you work. You may or may not feel the depressive symptoms of akathisia. If you work a desk job, you may feel more anxious and jittery at work, and more depressed and restless at night. It can manifest in many different ways. It may not knock you over the head like it did me, so just pay attention to your own reaction to any medication you take.

'Juliet' was my alter ego before I was Vin. Very complicated — don't even try to understand

************

SO, I’ve made some bold claims as to why I KNOW certain celebrities & school shooters died from akathisia. I stand by those claims whole-heartedly. And I will defend them for you now:

HOW I KNOW ROBIN WILLIAMS DIED FROM AKATHISIA:  more intuitively than anything else. Because RW’s suicide happened during my own worst phase of akathisia, it came with flashing warning lights. Of course, I thought at the time that it was because I was getting the same disease that RW had been diagnosed with — Lewy Body Dementia. I had no idea until recently that the reason both RW & I were feeling so horrible was not because we had Lewy Body Dementia*. I have since read commentary from his family that states they believe it was medication side-effects that were the direct cause of suicide.

*RW did have LBD, but that was not the direct cause of his suicide. 

HOW I KNOW DAVID FOSTER WALLACE DIED FROM AKATHISIA: When I read ‘Infinite Jest’ in 2017, I was absolutely bowled over by the passage in the middle of the book in which Wallace writes w/ such painful clarity about “DEPRESSION”.  

“This is exactly my 2014 experience!!!” I thought. I couldn’t have described it with any more alarming accuracy. In fact I was jealous that Wallace had captured the essence of “DEPRESSION” with his brilliantly simple metaphor. I had tried to write about it when I was going through it but I could not capture the profound horror of it.

Of course, I thought then that I had been suffering the same level of Major Depressive Disorder as David Foster Wallace. Wow, maybe depression really IS that bad, I thought.

And of course, I later found out that it was akathisia and not depression that was being described. If you google ‘David Foster Wallace akathisia’ you will find the passage from ‘Infinite Jest’ I’m referring to. 

Reports from Wallace’s girlfriend at the time of his suicide reveal that he was experiencing some pretty severe akathisia symptoms for quite awhile. Amazing that he hung on for as long as he did.

post-akathisia art 2015 (I was still calling it a *nervous breakdown*)

HOW I KNOW THAT ADAM LANZA (& ALL HIS VICTIMS) DIED FROM AKATHISIA: 

NOW PAY ATTENTION! The other two were easy. They just killed themselves. I told you akathisia looks different for everyone. Mostly it manifests as a strange combination of severe restlessness and horrific sadness. But it can also manifest in violent ways. [Is it any surprise that extreme sadness & restlessness could lead to violence?]

Now here’s the part of this story that’s going to get weird if I’m not careful how I tell it. You may or may not know that from 2017 — 2019 I went on a ‘psychic safari’ that was planned, open-ended and not focused on writing things that sounded like gibberish today but might mean something in the future. 

It started with simple automatic writing in Dec 2017, and soon it found its purpose after the Feb 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school. I knew that i wanted this psychic safari to ‘show me’ what we need to do about school shootings. That’s all I knew. I wanted answers to all this deadly violence that no one seemed concerned about. [No one being Congress & the gun lobby.]

I was very focused on the guns. And I was very focused on Nikolas Cruz for much of 2018, as we all were at the time. Sometime in the summer of 2018 I started experiencing some out of character emotions (like really violent bouts of anger). And a persistent, urgent voice seemed to be emerging from the din — ‘Lambert.’ Lambert seemed to be taking direction of my psychic safari.

As the whole experience deepened and sharpened into something I can only call ’shamanistic fight club’, I hope you all were astute enough to guess that it was Adam Lanza & his mother Nancy whom I met with from Mar 27 — Apr 29, 2019 on the psychic plane. Lambert was Lanza.

Before I embarked upon my psychic safari, I was not particularly interested in school shootings; I did not have a special interest in any particular shooting or shooter (though I had read Elliot Rodgers manifesto, mostly for knowledge of the enemy]. I just knew I was tired of feeling helpless & hopeless every time I heard another report of multiple dead bodies on school property.

So…to end up in communion with these two spirits was UNEXPECTED to say the least. Frustratingly enough, I still had trouble understanding what they were trying to tell me. I remained focused on the guns.

And don’t get me wrong — the guns are bad. GUNS ARE BAD, mmmkay, and STUPID. They just are. They suck. They do kill people. They were to blame for all the school shootings just as much as the shooters & the medications involved. It is a three-pronged problem.

But I was missing one of the prongs. In an effort to keep the gun lobby from deflecting blame onto MENTAL ILLNESS, there was a big push to deflect blame right back onto the AUTOMATIC WEAPONS. And rightfully so. No civilian human being should own an automatic weapon.But I digress.

If anyone had told me that it wasn’t so much MENTAL ILLNESS that needed looking at, but the MEDICATIONS used to treat mental illness, I would’ve decried it as another distraction from the GUNS.

It took me going through it myself — experiencing the potency of these side effects — to understand that yes, this could definitely contribute to a person’s urge to commit utter destruction.

Anyway…my time in the spirit realm with the Lanzas was not easy to understand, but the dialogue we did maintain led me to believe that Adam was feeling very “strange” for months before the killings. That’s all I kept hearing “I feel strange” “I feel weird” I feel bad all over”. And in 2019, I just thought that was because he was a psychopathic school shooter. Of course he feels weird & bad.

I felt weird & bad the whole time I was communing with them. I was angry the whole time & my arms hurt really bad. Switching between spirit world & real time was a harsh transition every afternoon when Tony came home. I yelled at him a lot. I yelled at my mom. I yelled at my cat. I felt weird & bad…but it wasn’t quite the weird & bad I needed to feel to understand…

One thing I forgot to mention about my 2014-15 akathisia was…I used to RUN. I carved a path through my house & whenever I felt unbearably restless, I would RUN back & forth through my house—too embarrassed & scared to go outside—FOR HOURS. 

If I tried to run for 10 minutes right now, I would huff & puff & fall to the floor in a heap of out-of-shape exhaustion.

And I was NOT in great shape in 2014-15. As I said I was living a pretty sedate lifestyle. But I was able to run for hours at a time. Three hours was not unusual. Non stop until I could feel my dopamine clots loosen.Until I felt like I could finally sit down & think.

After communing with the Lanzas, I had more questions than answers. I went online to find some more personal stuff about Lanza. I had never had any interest whatsoever in the freaky kid with the asylum haircut who had killed all those children! I expected to find out he was a silent loner, a computer geek with no life beyond the screen.

And there was some of that — but not until later in his life. He presented pretty normally until puberty, when it seems he developed some pedophilic feelings. He also started seeing a psychologist and taking Lexapro (or Fanapt) around this time. Reports vary on which medication it was, and the fact that Lanza’s records from this psychologist were destroyed shortly after the crime is…SUPER SUSSSPICIOUS.

But the details of his life in the months before he committed the murders? Riddled with textbook akathisia. Nancy had reported many mornings Adam would spend crying for hours on the bathroom floor. He covered the windows in his bedroom with black bags & hardly ever came out of there. (I can attest to light-sensitivity during akathisia —especially light shining through windows. Unbearable.)

The only reason Adam would leave his room was to go to the local movie theatre, where he would spend HOURS playing Dance Dance Revolution in the lobby. Three — six hours was not unusual, according to employees at the theatre.

I don’t know any normally functioning human who could play DDR for 3 - 6 hours. Just like I don’t know anyone who could or would run through their house for 3 hours. When the tv says “restless legs” do you picture someone playing DDR all day or running frantically from room to room?

I don’t.

Anyway..there’s the nutshell version of why I KNOW all these famous names died from akathisia. I hope I haven’t scared you or sizzled your synapses with all this info. I hope that if you are experiencing any symptoms that resemble akathisia, you may recognize them & call your doctor, or tell someone you trust.

Hope you enjoyed this comic strip about Vin doing all of Juliet's emotional labor, while she walks away, ungrateful…isn't that the way alter egos always are? 

************

And so…if these famous people can kill themselves, and if these kids can feel so badly that they pick up weapons and shoot their peers, and it still goes unnoticed that they were all taking the same kinds of medication…

…then I have questions about the other suicides-- an alarming number of famous suicides in the last decade --

Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Scott Hutchinson, Naomi Judd, et al…

and what of the other mass shooters? I remember the kid who shot up the movie theatre in Colorado was schizophrenic and had stopped taking his meds; same with the kid who shot Gabby Giffords in Arizona. Elliot Rodger took medication for awhile but stopped. So what meds was Nikolas Cruz taking; what about Ramos? What about the guy who shot up the concert in Vegas? How about the guy who shot up PULSE nightclub? I have questions!!!!!!!!! [exclamation point]

And I have questions about the people in my life —

my uncle Brett who committed suicide during the time I was separated from my family? He had Parkinson’s for several years and was on different medications — did they play a role in his “decision”?

My friend James who committed suicide in 2010? My step-cousin Diana who killed herself in 2013? My friend Jenna who killed herself in 2016?

I worry about our veterans, so many of whom are on these medications for their post war ailments. Are these meds only compounding problems that are unbearable to begin with?

In the next installment of the Akathisia Series I will share some of the more esoteric, conspiratorial things I’ve found about akathisia. And I will also share some links to interesting akathisia stories. You read them yourselves, and decide what you think about what I’ve written here today.

Adventures in Akathisia 2014

 FRIENDS,

I’m sorry to leave you hanging for so long on the Akathisia Series. It has been a busy autumn so far, and my brain is very electrically-challenged & needs lots of encouragement to FOCUS on things these days. Damage.

As you probably saw, we took a trip to our old home Bloomington, IN last week. It was a fun getaway, but it wasn’t without turbulence. I had a surprisingly visceral reaction to being back in a place I hadn’t been in 20 years. If you are old enough to subtract 20 years from your life & still land squarely in adulthood, you may understand how jarring revisiting your 20-yrs past self can be. There’s barely an ounce of cellular material left of that person, you have moved & changed in so many ways, and yet…there you still are, right in the next static realm. Memory.

20-yrs-ago me could work all day, eat and drink anything with little consequence, including more alcohol than anyone else in my social circle, go out to concerts, events, parties, drink more, go to work in the morning, write fiction and submit it to journals, spend time with people without feeling exhausted, write, write, write, work, work, work, drink, drink, drink, play, play, play…I still played music back then too. Jesus.

2022-me was handed a dose of humility, as I stumbled around campus w/ my sore back, my clumsy feet, my sober personality, my fried brain. We had to return to the hotel for lots of down time throughout the day. I couldn’t possibly eat as much as I wanted. I could not sleep. Anxiety, mania & rage mingled in the long dark hours w/ none of the coping mechanisms of home available. My mood needed constant monitoring. As it does at home. Quadri-polar.

But it was all good. That is just life now. And it’s only gonna get, uh, more change-y.

Akathisia Art July 2014

 

************* ADVENTURES IN AKATHISIA 2014***************

SO! I promised you all the story of my 2014 adventures in akathisia. I’m still not ready to tell you HOW I got akathisia, so you’re just going to have to suspend your curiosity until it’s time to reveal that portion of the series. Just accept that it was indeed a very severe & prolonged case of akathisia, and I still don’t know how I survived…

It all started on May 23, 2014. A Friday — the Friday before Memorial Day. Tony was going to come home early from work & we were going to lunch to celebrate the long weekend. But of course Tony was running late. 

In my memory, the news of Elliot Rodger’s killing spree in Santa Barbara, CA was on the TV and that’s what set me off…that’s what upset my mind so violently that my body started to vibrate like I’d drunk 10 cups of coffee…

…except that records state the killings in Santa Barbara took place on the EVENING of May 23. So…whether that was the exact thing that upset me so much, or whether it was something else, I definitely associate the onset of my 2014 akathisia w/ the Elliot Rodger story…

…all Memorial Day weekend I felt…strange…weird…bad…unpleasant…disturbing…But nothing worse than that. I downplayed it in my mind, and may have mentioned to Tony that I felt “funny”, but I kept thinking “Any moment this weird feeling will pass.” 

And it finally did…by Tuesday I was feeling back to normal. I got on with my life, but still wondered what was that weird feeling? I’d never felt anything like it before! I was so glad it had passed.

"denial sublimation suicide" 2014

In June 2014 I had more good days than bad, but I still noticed on some days that I felt “funny.” No other words to describe it yet. Like nothing I’d ever felt. And really unpleasant. 

At the end of June, I was hit with a very strong wave of this strange feeling and it really undermined everything. I knew something was wrong. Something out of my control was happening and it scared me. I lost a lot of confidence. There was a huge depression that accompanied the shakiness.

I wondered if it was the peri-menopause!

I wondered if I was having a nervous breakdown.

In July 2014, I had more bad days than good, but I was still keeping my head above water. I was determined to get to the bottom of this…get my old life back! I had shit to do! I started emailing Tony at work that I was having a rough day. I emailed my friend Brooke and told her I was in menopause and feeling really awful. I needed to stay in touch with people & let them know I was feeling “weird.”

I was scared. As July went on, things were not getting better at all. On July 26, 2014 I called a gender counselor, thinking that I was having some flare-up of gender dysphoria. This had happened to me before. I’d be cruising along in life & then suddenly feel as bad about being female as I had when I was a little kid. I knew this was not exactly what this “new feeling” was…but I knew I needed help. I secured a spot in the Transgender Support group that would meet again on Aug 9.

August 2014

On July 30, 2014 I was so depressed I felt like crying so badly but my body could not release any tears. Instead I rolled around on the couch, my back burning & aching like never before. I laid there all day, unable to cry, unable to think, unable to get comfortable in any position. 

I was tired of this new strange feeling, and I wanted to be able to turn it off with my awesome positive thinking skills. But there was no positive thought strong enough to turn that dial to off.

My days in July were spent pacing, hurting, feeling like tears were coming but they never did. I could barely write or draw, though I did. I was still shielding Tony from how bad I really felt. 

On the a.m. of Aug 5, I was sitting there drawing. Dots! I was doing dots, and I was overcome by the most horrific feelings of depression, pure sorrow, and agitated coffee nerves that I got up and wandered aimlessly around the house. When I got to the “green room” I finally fell to the floor & let out all the tears that had been building up for weeks. Screaming, crying, weeping, baby-tears! Loud, uncontrollable sobbing that I was afraid the neighbors would hear & call the police.

And those loud-ass tears continued all day long!

All the creepy-crawlies — rat, snake, worm, bee

And they happened again the next day, and the next day, and the next day…just as forceful, just as loud, for hours & hours! As soon as Tony would leave for work, the Great Sorrow would come & it would ravage me for 8 hours & usually by the time Tony came home, that wave of post-cry exhaustion would wash over me. And what a relief! The DAYS of the summer of ’14 were torture; the EVENINGS were fine. Just fine.

And thank God for that.

By August, I was more convinced that this was a test from God.

A real spiritual firewalk.

Or a delayed response to having solved my mystery in 2012? [from 2010 to 2012 I spent time writing about my life & realizing some important things I’d been in denial about; I found some hidden landmines, some buried violence & abuse…I had figured it out intellectually, but had I processed it emotionally?]

I could rack my brains all day long, but I could not figure out what was happening to me.

On Aug 9, I attended the Transgender Support Group for the first time. It was a great distraction from my state of inner torment, but I was still not sure if this was the path to a cure. I was pretty sure this feeling was not “gender dysphoria” — that was something I knew all too well.

Akathisia Art Summer 2014

I honestly don’t know how I survived Aug 2014. I think back to those 31 horrendous days and just shudder at having lived through them. A sickening feeling. A too-close memory. If you wonder why I remember all these dates so well, it’s because this little chunk of my life is so magnified in its pain. I couldn’t possibly forget. Also I have a “superior biographical memory” to begin with.

So…Aug 11, 2014. The news man tells me Robin Williams has committed suicide. Robin Williams?!! Nawww…

but, what is happening in the world? Is this somehow related to what’s happening to me? Is everyone depressed? Is everyone feeling THIS BAD, and they’re just hiding it?

I began to have an overblown concern for how my fellow man was feeling. Was everyone on the verge of suicide & I was the last one to find out? I knew Tony was not feeling bad. I knew he never felt like I was feeling. But how many people did?

I cried & cried through August. Loudly. Violently. I figured, one day I’ll be done crying & I will be back to normal. But it wasn’t just crying. There was a …PAIN… a discomfort that went right along with the tears. My chest hurt. My back hurt. It ached to cry. My body still felt jittery & nervous to the point where I wondered if I had Parkinson’s. It wasn’t just sadness. There was a physical component.

Tony knew that I was struggling with…something. I was still shielding him from HOW very awful it was. He still did not know I cried & cried all day. I was kind of embarrassed to tell him.

This akathisia art from 6-30-14 contains an image of an airplane getting hit by a missile (upside down on the dolphin's back) On 7-17-14 a Russian rocket hit a Malaysian airliner

 

On Aug 23 I saw the gender therapist alone at her office. We both agreed that what was happening to me was beyond gender dysphoria and she referred me to a psychiatrist. I called the psychiatrist right away and she gave me some date waaaay in the future that she could see me, and I just cried and said PLEASE! I’M Desperate!!

[I actually remember saying that!]

Somehow she was able to schedule me for Sep 2. 

On Aug 29, 2014 I was having the roughest day yet with my unknown condition. I could not even stand up I was crying so hard. Usually I cried & paced. On this day I was on the bathroom floor and probably could’ve decided to end my life if I hadn’t been very determined not to. I called Tony at lunchtime. I was ready for him to see what was really happening.

And though he stood there as I cried & screamed on the bathroom floor, I could not even begin to describe to him the downward journey I’d been on all summer. I knew he would never comprehend the true horror of it. But he was there, and the truth was out. He was worried. Supportive. Loving. Everything I needed him to be, and thank God for that.

Those hours between Aug 29 and Sep 2 were survived with white knuckles, lots of crying, lots of butterflies & moths swarming through my skin, lots of physical discomfort & mental anguish. Lots of bubble baths. That was all I could think of to do for “self care.”

 

June 30, 2014 Alter Egos w/ akathisia

There were no real answers for me on Sep 2. I went to the doctor. I described what had happened to me in the last 3 months. I was diagnosed with “Major Depressive Disorder” and “General Anxiety”. I did not think these were correct diagnoses, but I accepted them, and my prescriptions for Klonopin and Lexapro.

The Klonopin was very effective at relieving my symptoms. The Lexapro was dubious in all aspects.

I felt a lot better in Sep and Oct 2014, though I still cried a bunch in the day time. In Nov and Dec I felt a little worse. I cried a LOT and felt the creepy-crawlies pretty bad.

In Jan 2015 I started a new medication, Gabapentin, ditching the Lexapro & its SEXUAL SIDE EFFECTS. Early 2015 saw an improvement in overall levels of peace and physical comfort. But I still cried a lot in the day.

Spring of 2015 was going well; I still cried in the daytime, but Klonopin and Gabapentin helped. I was getting back to writing and doing stuff that had been put on hold for a year (almost).

But in June 2015 I had a huge flare-up of my symptoms. I spent much of June ’15 as I’d spent Aug of ’14. Barely holding on. And I don’t know how I did it — I wrote a lot in June 2015. I played guitar a lot. I just comforted myself with words & music.

And in July 2015 I felt better. And in August 2015 I felt even better. And in Sept 2015 I felt even BETTER. By October of 2015, I was no longer crying every day. I was writing, drawing and planning on moving into our new house.  I had an appointment with the endocrinologist to start HRT in December***. I felt like I was out of the woods!

But I was still scared. I was still mystified. What was that THING that happened to me? Was it really…depression? Nawww…even Major Depression did not seem like a big enough descriptor for that horror. Could it happen to me again? How did it happen? Why me, and not Tony? Our lives were pretty much identical — we ate drank & lived in the same environment.

I was on guard. And rightfully so.

One watercolor that survived the summer of '14

When my symptoms began again in Dec 2020, I recognized them right away. Akathisia feels like a lot of things, but nothing else feels like akathisia. If that makes sense.

And in Dec 2020 I was already in a very bad place. Life was not going as wonderfully as it had been in 2014. My will to survive was not as robust as it was in 2014.

I would say, having written this retrospective, that the 2014-15 experience with akathisia was way worse. It was longer for one thing!! No one knew what it was. I went from being super happy to being in a horror movie, so the drop was more sheer. In 2014, suicide was not an option! We’re surviving this come hell or high water!

Not so in 2021.

This is already a really long blog, but I want to mention one more thing. In the summer of 2014, in Sarasota, FL, right across town from me, a 63-yr-old man named Louis started taking an anti-depressant medication because he had just retired and was having trouble sleeping. He began having symptoms of akathisia right away, pacing, rocking back & forth, feeling more depressed than he did before taking the drugs. But no one in his immediate circle knew what was wrong. His doctors did not know how to help him. Louis committed suicide in the Spring of 2015. 

When I don’t have akathisia, I don’t cry very much. But when I heard Louis’s story on the MISSD podcast, the tears were flowing. There was someone, living in the same town at the same time, and we couldn’t reach each other. Didn’t know each other. Couldn’t talk to each other. And he didn’t make it. And I did. And how many more were there? In Sarasota alone?

Okay, we’ll end there for now. Enjoy all this wild akathisia art I found for you! At the beginning of 2014, I was all about learning how to do watercolors. I was determined to get it! But what I ended up mostly doing is throwing out my paintings, and keeping the brush pads with all their random marks & taking an ink pen & making something out of those instead. That’s how most of these arts happened. 

***yes, I stuck with the Transgender Group, and did make the decision to transition as I started feeling better in 2015 

Your Rx and Their Special Side-F/X

 FRIENDS & HURRICANE SURVIVORS,

You are alive and that’s all that matters. Alive to read this important thinkpiece about why everyone is dying of akathisia! (and not hurricanes)

I’ve made some bold claims on this internet lately. Robin Williams died from akathisia. David Foster Wallace died from akathisia. Adam Lanza & all his victims — they too died from akathisia.

But didn’t they all die from horrific automatic rifle assault? Well…yeah, that’s what it says on their death certificates. But I boldly claim & guarantee that if Adam Lanza hadn’t been experiencing akathisia, the massacre of 12-14-12 would not have happened when it did, how it did. 

This is a well-kept secret that Big Pharma and big medicine do not want the general public to know. 

2012 prophetic rx art

I have a lot to say about this topic after surviving akathisia in early ’21. When I say it is the most horrific thing I’ve ever experienced, with the exception of alcohol withdrawls, I am not lying. I’ve been alive a long time & have had injuries, surgeries, illnesses and other indignities that I would much rather re-live than akathisia. And to be fair, alcohol withdrawals only last 3 or 4 days…

So…this may be a 3 or 4 part thinkpiece. Have your attention spans handy like you did for the Detransitioners Series. It should be interesting & informative even if you’ve never had akathisia.

I just have to figure out where to start…with all my bold claims surrounding the high profile deaths mentioned above? With all the lesser known deaths this horrific side-effect has caused in our country and around the world? With some mindblowing secrets about how these drugs & their side effects have been used on the battlefield? 

I mentioned that I also had akathisia in 2014. This is a whole ‘nother can of worms to open, because I did not get akathisia from a pharmaceutical medication. I will tell you how I got it, and nobody will like it, but it needs to be said.

I think I’ll just start by lightly reiterating some akathisia information. This is a terrible side-effect that mostly occurs with anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medications, but can be caused by ANY medication. Anti-nauseants, anti-biotics, recreational drugs. The only drugs that miraculously seem clear of causing akathisia are opioids (heroin) and alcohol.

When you take the offending medication, akathisia usually occurs as the chemicals go into their half life. So usually you’re fine right after you take your meds, but about halfway between doses you start feeling horrific.

Art I did on 2/6/21. I remember that being a very difficult day.

For me it would start with a burning spine. My back would burn, then tingle, then all the bugs would come crawling out. I had to rock back & forth, rub my legs, roll around on the bed to stop the bug-sensations. I felt like tears were about to come crashing out of my skull but they wouldn’t. I would hold onto my bedroom door so I wouldn’t fall down crying. I remember begging the angels to pass a suicide vest down from the clouds so I could blow myself up. 

These were my 2021 symptoms. My 2014 symptoms were slightly different, but totally recognizable as akathisia. In fact, when I started feeling awful in 2020, I called it 2014 Syndrome, because I never found out what it was that happened to me back then until it happened again.

Anyway…the romance language they use in the TV commercials to describe the symptoms of akathisia really offends me! I never would’ve identified what was happening to me as “Restless Leg Syndrome” or “suicide ideation”.

To me restless legs is something that happens when you’re kind of tired & need to lay down. Suicide ideation sounds like you’re sitting there sadly taking inventory of your life, and deciding to end it.

There is no sitting with akathisia. No thinking straight or deciding anything. There is the terrifying feeling of losing one’s mind. And my request for a suicide vest should give a clue as to how urgent and violent the desire to end one’s life becomes. [it can also be a clue as to how these drugs are used in the most nefarious scenarios]

Someone else's akathisa art which is eerily similar to mine! Unfortunately I don't know the artist's name. It is from an article or blog called "Mad in America".

I guess the most alarming thing I’ve discovered about akathisia so far is what a race against the clock it is! I’m basing this estimate on what I’ve found reported on the internet by families who have lost a loved one — but from the onset of akathisia, the time of death is usually 6 — 8 weeks.

6 — 8 weeks of akathisia is about all anyone can take. I lasted for 12 weeks before I got the right help. Could I have made it another week? I honestly don’t know. I can tell you I wouldn’t have made it all the way through March of 2021. Guaranteed. I would’ve found a way to end it.

And some kids (the ones at most risk are younger people) kill themselves right away. One girl jumped off a roof after 2 weeks. People with illnesses like schizophrenia or bi-polar have chronic akathisia from their medications. They have to constantly keep adjusting their doses & medicines to keep it from getting too bad. And unfortunately for me, akathisia can cause permanent damage to your dainty little dopamine pincers. If you’ve had it before, you’re likely to get it again.

What causes akathisia is a flooding of the dopamine centers of your brain. Your dopamine receptors get clogged & can’t move the chemicals around freely. Basically, you have dopamine clots in your brain. And that’s just about as bad as having blood clots in your heart. Accompanying this is often a depletion of serotonin, causing indescribable sorrow to go along with all the creepy-crawly sensations.

2014 akathisia art. I had just finished drawing this when I heard of RW's death. Note the Hanged Man from the Tarot in the lower left corner.

When the news of Robin Williams’ death broke on Aug 11, 2014 I was sizzling with akathisia. I didn’t have a clue what it was, but I knew that I was on the verge of suicide myself.

My akathisia had been building slowly all summer long, and by August I was in a desperate place…

And I think that is a good place to start this Series — with my earliest experience with the horror that is akathisia. I’ll stop here for now… your attention spaniels have been good little puppers today.

I will let you know that I successfully tapered off my medications — Seroquel and Cymbalta — this summer. These drugs are both on record as causing akathisia if you are on them for too long. I was feeling very happy & strong in June & decided it was a good time to do the dreaded taper.

Tapering off Seroquel was easy. I didn’t notice any side effects. Tapering off the SSRI (Cymbalta) was a whole ‘nother story. It was rough. For the last 10 days in August I experienced “brain shivers”, which are exactly what they sound like. If I had to work outside the house or drive anywhere, it wouldn’t have been possible. This is why people stay on these drugs for too long, far after they’ve re-couped their serotonin/dopamine levels. It is hard to get off of them!

I’m doing much better now. I have the occasional “brain shiver” but it doesn’t seem to be interfering with daily life anymore. I am VERY scatterbrained & low on concentration powers. Writing is near impossible — all manuscripts are on hold for the moment. But I can do art. And I have the energy for music now that I’m not sedated!

The latest drug to be heavily linked to akathisia is Rexulti. I hope none of y’all on that one!!!

So…next time…I’ll tell you all about how I survived akathisia (for about a YEAR!!!) before anyone knew what the fuck it was! PLUS lots more exciting cutting-edge info that will blow your pea-sized pituitary glanses! Stay tuned, don’t drop out! Of The Octopus Diary, a safety net for subversive thinkers like yourself.