I’m going to give my opinion and views on the various types of drug treatments I’ve been prescribed in order to deal with PTSD and depression. In actuality, the drugs have all been prescribed for depression only. Can you suffer from PTSD without depression? Good question, but in my case the answer is no.
In no way shape or form do the doses apply to the reader or anyone else. Since they are all prescribed you need to work with a doctor. I’m just writing on how they affected my journey.
Some of these opinions may be short, others like this one on Abilify, a bit more descriptive. Why? First off some of the drugs have had such bad side effects I couldn’t stay on them long enough to build up to the required dose. Rise in blood pressure, nausea, more insomnia. Dizziness has been one of the major reasons I dropped a drug. Fainting can be quite painful, I’ve found.
In Fall 2024 my depression had grown out of control, and the suicidal ideations weren’t just occasionally, they were several times a day. The trip to the 2 doctors, psychiatrist, and the Safety
It was the first time in dealing with my ongoing suicidal thoughts that I actually began to fear for me own life. That the logical voice, (yet mentally ill), would finally take control and go through the steps in my plan. How to take your own life, down to making sure the police would be the first to find you, the dogs taken care of.
After spending 5 days (well the 5 hours that felt like 5 days) with the psychiatrists they put together a drug plan to coincide with CBT therapy in a group. The first few drugs failed miserably, as they both affected blood pressure and balance. That being the increased dose of mirtazapine and doxazosin, used for fighting nightmares.
So much for those, but there were more recommendations to follow.. According to my doctor they had sent him a list of choices, try this first, then this one, then this, then this and so on.
So the next suggested step was a revisit of a drug called mirtazapine, since I was already on it, and hopefully a slight increase would be just as good. Unfortunately it had the same effect on dizziness, but we didn’t drop the drug completely and instead reduced it to the lower dose again in an effort to sleep more than 2 – 3 hours a night. It did help with pain and sleep to some extent.
The next on the list was a drug sold under the trade name Abilify. It was the first of November when I started, after 2 months of the other failed attempts. The proper chemical name is aripiprazole. Here’s a brief link to the Webmed.com site on the drug:
Abilify Oral: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions, Pictures, Warnings & Dosing – WebMD
The drug comes in a tiny little 5mg pill, which for starters was broken in half for the first week, then increased to the whole 5 mg the second. Split sentence. Then I was to hold to see how well I tolerated the drug.
I noticed the changes pretty quickly, both in easing the depression and the suicidal thoughts. No dizziness, or nausea, so it was really looking promising.
I informed my family doctor that the medication might be having some positive effect.
How to describe it? After going up to 5 mg I felt like the door to the pathway downward seemed to be closed. Locked. I simply was blocked from my own negative thoughts. Trust me I tried to go there, tried to focus on the depression. But I could not.
I think I also wanted to open the door and go down the rabbit hole as it was a place of some comfort. I was used to being sad and depressed and suicidal, lost in negative thoughts for hours and hours. It was familiar to me, a worn out chair I could sit in. I knew the feelings all too well, and although painful I was accustomed to what that pain was like.
My thoughts would be short lived though, and when my mind was wondering if the drug was working I kept trying to test the waters. I couldn’t maintain focus on negative thoughts, suicide, or depression. I wanted to go down, curl up in a fetal position of mental illness and stay there. But that door was fixed tightly closed.
I still wasn’t sleeping well, between the pains in my body and the fear of what sleep brings.
I was out of the black though. Depression and suicide hadn’t been forgotten, it just couldn’t be my focus.
I was out of the black and into the gray. Numb, apathetic and tired. Fatigued, not just tired.
Not being able to focus was now spilling over into everything else. Concentration was gone. Doing simple chores like feeding the dogs took a focus I hadn’t relied on in the past. I would find myself drifting onto something else, unless I walked step by step for every little chore. Just to get anything done. It was the only way to get anything done.
Pick up the dog dish…done…put out the kibbles…done…add the freeze dried…done.
Week 4 of Abilify. Now I found myself so stuck in the gray area that there isn’t any sunlight either. Not only was I unable to go down the rabbit hole, to be depressed, I couldn’t take any pleasure or enjoyment out of everyday things either.
I was blocked in both directions. I couldn’t cry, but now I didn’t laugh or smile or see the sunshine. Apathetic to even the pain that is my constant foe. I just didn’t care one way or the other.
Playing with the dogs, playing piano, going for walks. It all went by the wayside. Things I loved to do that brought a little bit of joy – unneeded.
Writing blog posts was a struggle. This requires a little bit of focus and a ton of mood changes throughout the process. The process of writing about a life you don’t understand, your own life, and bringing focus to those painful moments so you can park them once and for all.
Yes Abilify was great for breaking the depression, but would I rather continue fighting the emotion than be this way? Would I rather suffer from the lows in order to have a few highs in my life, no matter how simple?
I decided to have this conversation with my family doctor. Was the benefit worth the loss of emotional apathy, the loss of a little sunshine? Now instead of fearing the suicidal thoughts my mind began to fear the chance of becoming catatonic, so wrapped up in nothing I couldn’t escape.
We decided not. I needed to see for myself if there was a pathway to contentment, to conquering these fears, to rising above the depression and self hate that existed.
5 weeks after I started Abilify we dropped it completely. Within a week the side effects were lessening.
But it is really really important to note that afterward, and up to this writing at the beginning of 2025, a New Year, the overall level of depression is much better. It doesn’t weigh me down as much as I still don’t go down the rabbit hole to the same extent I did in the not-so-distant past.
Suicidal ideation isn’t completely gone, as I face the real fact that my body is dealing with more pain, more pain in just moving around, and a heaviness brought on by years of use, abuse and gravity.
Abilify had at least accomplished that, breaking the chain of increased depression and lightening up the black. It hasn’t block the pathway to the bottom, but it has helped a real lack of interest in going there.
It certainly isn’t a drug I would use on a full time basis, but we haven’t scrapped it entirely.
If it comes to the point that my depression and suicidal thoughts return to the levels of the this past fall, the option of pulling it off the shelf is a very viable one. Perhaps just a short term dose to break the chain, block the pathway down by shutting that door.
In hindsight, it was what I needed at the time.
Today I’m okay.