DOSE:		oral	Pharms - Lamotrigine
		oral	Pharms - Olanzapine
			Alcohol
			Cannabis
			Amphetamines

I have been trying to figure out what happened since this experience. The introduction is that I have used drugs my whole life, and I resorted to antipsychotic medications for relief in a period of time that I was unable to get any.

I've also taken an anticonvulsant called lamotrigine since I was a kid for a really bad seizure I had. The neurologist said I probably wouldn't have another one but prescribed it just in case. I think it is relevant to the story. I was always afraid to quit taking it because the seizure made my body turn blue, an ambulance had to pick me up, and I was in and out of consciousness for about an hour.

In the winter of 2018, I was prescribed olanzapine by a psychiatrist. I was involuntarily committed for a suicide attempt. Sitting in a tiny room, I told the psychiatrist I was abused. I'm not really sure what I thought I was going to get by telling him that, but he asked me, "Don't you think that's a delusion?"

I said, "No."

And he said, "Zyprexa?"

I had done some research on antipsychotics prior to this. I couldn't get the amphetamines and benzodiazepines that I was so used to anymore, and I think I really dug a chemical hole in my mind from those drugs. I knew antipsychotics had a propensity to cause movement disorders, but not much other than that. I really did want to know what they were like - I wanted to know what all drugs were like.

I asked, "It has less extrapyramidal effects right?"

And he said, "Yeah!"

He said this in a way that I should've been worried. Something should've alarmed me by the way he sold me the olanzapine, but I didn't care. I was a miserable, depressed, and anxious wreck. If I had the money for any other drugs, I would've been doing them.

But I was unemployed for many years. I blame it on a communication disorder I've always had, except I didn't know. I always thought I was just really socially anxious.

Anyway, the first pill I got in me, everything went silent. It was a five milligram tablet. It was like I had no internal dialogue. The words in my mind were gone, and I thought that was absolutely amazing. I could also eat until food was up to my throat, and it tasted so much better than it usually did.

I was discharged and almost immediately after leaving, my parents made an agreement with me that they would pay for an apartment if I tried to better myself. In retrospect, I feel terrible for what I put my parents through with the attempt. I know they were doing this to make sure that didn't happen again, as I lived with them for decades and was really depressed that I couldn't make it on my own.

The room I got was in student housing with two other guys. My only work consisted of an hour walk with a dog. My parents had me meet this very sweet lady with a sad story. Her son died and her husband left, so nobody could walk her dog while she was at work. I got twelve dollars a day and that was enough to pay for daily vodka and cannabis. So for me, this was kind of like heaven. I could finally use like I wanted to without my parents up my butt about it.

But it wasn't as great as it might sound. The next three months, all I did was walk the dog, go back to the apartment, drink, smoke, and listen to Marilyn Manson until my legs gave out. There was an amplified effect mixing these with the olanzapine. Every day I would wake up and do the exact same thing, without any social interaction.

I started to get depressed, and I had gained over a hundred pounds since I started the olanzapine. I saw another psychiatrist, outpatient this time, and he told me directly that I'm going to regret taking the olanzapine. He told me I should get off of it and my depression might get better.

So I tried to quit it. I would stop my dose, and four days later, I couldn't hold anything down. I had restlessness from the depths of hell, rocking back and forth, aching for relief. I would end up taking a chip of a tablet, over and over again, and was getting really frustrated. I started developing ideas about psychiatric meds as a whole, that it's all a scheme to make people worse, and I decided I would quit all of my meds, including the lamotrigine.

At some point I actually managed to do it. I quit olanzapine and the lamotrigine that I had been on for over 15 years. The withdrawal was awful, but I thought I got through the worst. I believe it was the middle of October 2019, when I took the last pills.

I ended up moving back in with my parents after I almost burned the apartment down while I was drunk. I put frozen bread that you're supposed to cook in the oven in the microwave, and it caught fire and my room mates were pissed at me. I could hear one of them talking about me on the phone one day and knew it was time to leave.

Back in my parents home, the nausea from the withdrawal was still creeping on me and I would have vomiting episodes. It felt like I had some sort of mass growing in my skull, at the top of my head. I was sleeping less and less and didn't know why. That tired feeling that comes over me right before I fall asleep was suddenly gone, and I could be awake for nights at a time, only to fall asleep for four hours and start the process again.

I was scared. I knew brain damage was occurring but I didn't know what to do. I was also extremely thirsty, drinking multiple gallons of water a day and still not feeling quenched. Over the next few weeks, things got worse, and I was spending every waking minute of the day in the basement trying to sleep. I laughed at the thought that before this, I was suicidal. This was even more suicidal - I wanted eternal rest.

My parents were concerned that I hadn't left the bedroom for months. I was in a delirium from not sleeping. I was hallucinating - it looked like the entire house was being suspended in space, in thick darkness. My dad was telling me that I need to see a psychiatrist because I was not myself. I was aware that I was not myself, but I had lost faith in psychiatry. In my mind at that point, they were only trying to make me worse, maybe even trying to get me to take my own life.

I had an online telehealth appointment with a psychiatrist. My father was next to me on the camera. The psychiatrist said I either need to take the lamotrigine or the olanzapine. I didn't want to though, because I thought I had finally escaped meds and that what I was going through was just a phase that would pass when my body adjusted.

A couple weeks later, nothing was better. My father forced me to do another Zoom appointment. They asked if I took the lamotrigine or olanzapine, and I lied and said that I've been taking the lamotrigine again.

But this was it for me. In my mind, my life was over. I couldn't sleep so I was exhausted, my dick didn't work, I was thirsty all of the time, and I couldn't focus on anything. I was miserable and there was nothing left that life had to offer. My legs were also not working like they used to, like I had some kind of disorder of the cerebrum. I walked like I had been drinking daily for decades.

I called the psychiatrist's office and left a message to see if it was normal that I was hallucinating. When I was driving, I would see little spiders, and when looking at them directly, they disappeared. He called me back, and my clairvoyance told me that he knew I wasn't taking the lamotrigine or the olanzapine. He said something that scared me and that he had to get back to his day.

Now, it was the beginning of June, 2020. I went upstairs one morning and my parents were on the couch. They started asking more questions. I held my arms out, closed my eyes, and said, "Fucking kill me."

I looked at my father right after I did that, and never in the 25 years that I've known him have I seen the face he made. It was a smile, but he was not happy.

The house seemed really quiet after that for a couple of days. I noticed my mom crying on the couch, but my emotions were gone. My ability to empathize had disappeared. In my mind, I couldn't stop thinking, "My life is over."

I started getting thirsty and began walking upstairs. My dad heard me from the top and handed me one of those large stainless steel cups that you put iced coffee in. I said thanks, and then pounded the drink really fast. When I looked back down, he was gone, and I noticed an aftertaste of blood.

In an instant, my drunk-like gait stopped. My spine felt like it turned to stone. It was like a bolt of lightning went through my mind and body. I could feel the nerves in my arms overacting. I had no idea what was going on but I knew my father had just drugged me with something.

I was in shock, but at the same time, I was relatively calm for what just happened. The next thing I remember was seeing him in the living room, and he was watching a movie. I sat down and he got up and grabbed another drink and put it in front of me. I shook my head, refusing to drink it this time. All he said was "Haldol," and I didn't ask any questions.

I started having this really nasty feeling of a chemical burn under my skin, and my sleep got worse. I was probably sleeping two to six hours a week and didn't know how it was possible. I kept looking up Fatal Familial Insomnia on my cell phone because I thought that's what it was. My eyes felt so dry from not sleeping, and I really thought that I might die from the sleep deprivation alone. There were so many nights where I just laid there until the sun came up.

About a week after I took the drink, I started feeling something crawling up my throat. It felt like flies. It tasted disgusting and I would drink hot water to try to get them to go away. Something was alive and going through my circulatory system. I could feel crawling through my veins, my heart, my brain, and could see them in my vision. It was painful. I didn't know what the fuck was going on and didn't know how to get help because I could barely talk. My vision went red, like I was wearing 3D glasses but with only the red lenses, and I looked terrible.

The bladder pain is what got me to go to the ED. They gave me a urine screen and said they thought I had gonorrhea and chlamydia - a urinary tract infection of some sort. They prescribed me nitrofurantoin and sent me on my way.

But because I didn't understand why I would have an infection, I didn't take the macrobid, and within the next week, I had an awful sensation of something large squirming in my stomach. I took the prescription, hoping it would help, but it didn't. I went to my brother's room and cried out to him, "Dad drugged me with something and I don't know what's happening to me!"

But he didn't believe me. I wouldn't have believed me either. I was a shitty brother, a shitty son, and a shitty friend.

I spent most of that time pacing and drinking hot water. According to the step counter on my phone, I was walking many miles within the house every day. I had my whole family there - brother, sister, mom, dad - and I thought I might be totally insane. I had jaundice, like my skin turned yellow, and that's when I started shitting huge worms. I figured out later that this was probably an ascaris infection based on all of the symptoms and what the worms looked like.

And the vertigo. It was like flying and falling in every direction. I would have my hands out to my sides while I was sitting down because it felt like I was going to fall into space or some sort of void. One of the things that I never thought about before was going to hell. I never believed in hell, but now I did, and I was convinced that if I died, I would be going there.

This went on for months because I was certain nobody could help me. Eventually my brother drove me to the eye doctor. After looking into my eyes through the scope, he said, "I've only seen this in older people," and asked if I had experienced any darkness in my vision - that if I did, I would need retinal detachment surgery. I lied and said no because I was afraid of what he would recommend for treatment. I had a feeling he knew I was lying, and that if I would've admitted to it and agreed to retinal detachment surgery, he would've tried to extract worms from my eyes in that appointment.

Things got better after getting a prescription for amphetamines from my primary doctor. It helped me work up the courage to admit myself to the psych unit again and get treated for the worst of the stuff. The people at the psych unit took me off the amphetamines again and posted them in my medical record as an allergy. I don't think they did anything about the worms even after I told them. Hopefully they went away on their own. I had an LSD trip a couple years later where I swear I had the worms in my eyes, and it was the worst trip of my life.

So today, I can't say I'm that much better. I'm more intelligent and kind, but my thoughts are chaotic and I still can't sleep without drugs. I ended up going back on medications because I can't live a normal life without them. I'll be awake for days, only sleeping a couple hours at a time, until I'm hallucinating. It seems like the longer I stay awake, the harder it is to sleep.

I've tried long and hard to figure out what the drugs did to me, but most doctors and therapists are anxious to talk about the experience. My father got whatever was in the drink from the psychiatrist on the telehealth calls, and I've heard of it happening to other people in my city with mental issues. My father will not talk to me about any of the stuff that happened, and we pretty much interact as if none of it did. I forgive him, because I was really selfish and needed a wake-up call.

Honestly, the drink might have saved my life, but I move fast and jerky now, like I'm tweaking on methamphetamine. I kept most of the weight from olanzapine on, which is strange because I was always slim before that. My mood is all over the place, and I'm more anxious and fear is harder to cope with. I still get the chemical burn feeling, but usually only on my forehead, and it happens most when I drink diet soda for some reason.

The obsessions are also relentless - I've always had obsessions but never like this. One of the most prominent today is that I won't make it to heaven, no matter how hard I try, and it's disheartening. I don't know how taking those drugs took that hope away, but something is different with my perceptions and I can't explain it. I think about that darkness that I saw, and it's as if the experience is happening again. I believe that the only thing that separates me from that darkness is the body I'm living in now, and when I die, it will be my dwelling place.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 117936
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Mar 3, 2026	Views: Not Supported
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Pharms - Lamotrigine  (432), Pharms - Olanzapine (260) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Medical Use (47), Post Trip Problems (8), Health Problems (27), Alone (16)