Why medication doesn't help me

I started seeing psychiatrists when I was eighteen, I was finally diagnosed at 43. Like you I have had all those other diagnosis and drugs and nothing made any difference whatsoever. It was only when I discovered they had put personality disorder on my record that I remembered reading that this was a common thing for autistics to be misdiagnosed with so I did a lot of research and realised I was autistic which is when I then pushed for diagnosis because I was sick of nothing working for no reason.

I can't say that being diagnosed makes a great deal of difference however during the research really has. At least now I understand why I react in certain ways to certain situations, why I am constantly feeling like I'm going to explode (I am constantly in sensory overload as I am extremely sensitive). Personally I have come off all antidepressants and only take a blood pressure tablet and I am experiencing no difference with the exception that my brain can now think again which it couldn't on the antidepressant medication

Maybe you should look at non medicinal help. I am autistic and bipolar. I take anti-depressants for my bipolar and although they aren’t doing me any obvious harm they are also not obviously doing much good. When I remember I do some chanting, meditation and tai chi / chi Kung exercises and I find the chanting in particular far more beneficial than the anti-depressants.

Maybe it’s time for a second opinion. Maybe you would benefit from seeing a different psychiatrist.

I have experienced the same over the past 40 years. I didnt know that i was autustic until this year. I was switched from one antidepressant to another. They helped short term. What i didnt realise throughout my life was that those times when i met with the GP, crying, unable to cope was that i was having melt downs, from overwhelm and taking on too much. So, the antidepressant was changed or increased. I dont believe antidepressants can help with melt downs? Now i know that i am autistic i manage better. If we know what is going on with us then we are more able to make changes to our lifestyle to help us cope better. 

Like you i always felt s**t

I dont want to try any more antidepressants. I am very very very slowly reducing my current one. I accept i may not be able to come off them completly, but bit by bit i can reduce safely. 

I rarely visit the GP now, because i know what is going on with me. 

This is one of the reasons i feel that it is so important to have the diagnosis. 

How confident are you in their diagnoses?  Autistic people are often anxious (not always a generalised anxiety disorder - sometimes it's a "phobia" or otherwise situational), but the MH profession doesn't understand us very well and misdiagnoses are common place for us.  Obviously, meds for any conditions you may potentially not have aren't going to do you any good and could start to create problems.  Errr that's quite a cocktail you have there.  

It is also a possibility that our neurologies don't handle some psychiatric meds the same way others do and I'm not sure enough is understood about that.  

I'd start with the diagnoses and challenge them to explain why they've arrived at any of them you feel might not fit.  Personally, I wouldn't touch any of that stuff with a barge pole, but that's my personal view not a recommendation.  We must each do what feels right for us.  But what we can be confident of is the need to be comfortable with the diagnoses before expecting any meds to be the appropriate ones.  You need to feel what they are saying genuinely fits you and you are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

 I've been on that med rollercoaster, too. It's frustrating when nothing seems to click. Just know you're not alone in this struggle. Keep talking to your docs, and don't give up. It took me a while, but eventually, we found the right combo. Now I enjoy my favorite [link removed by moderator] Stay strong, buddy!

I would slowly come off everything but anti-anxiety medication could help in the right dose. Maybe use it to see if you cannot work out problems that need Actual Solutions. while they're highly addictive, they can be amazing short-term solution to be able to think clearly for once and sort out what is at the root of most problems. 

Most of us are a mismatch for a society which is riddled with bad manners and bad ethics. Taking medication doesn't fix the problem. But with a "clear head" one can begin to start re-evaluating things we can control. A home environment can have an overwhelming amount of problems from unnatural lighting, unnatural chemical scents, airborne toxic 'smells' - or poorly designed buildings and homes which are full of unhealthy materials. Sometimes just changing the home environment is enough of a start to create a safe, anxiety free space you can feel anchored in within a chaotic world. 

There's good enough new evidence to support the difference in neurological "design" of autistic and ADHD individuals: we have less of an ability to filter out unwanted incoming sensory input and we can have Gamma waves which accelerate into anxiety due to less GABA inhibitors (for whatever reason). Pfizer makes Xanax for this specifically. I take a half dose when there's an orchestration in my head on repeat accelerating ad infinitum. It won't stop - I may burn out by 5 am, and then the whole week will be impossible. 

Most of us were raised without the details of an overwhelming amount of chaos that's happening around us and end up not knowing how to trouble shoot actual problems or navigate danger, compounding what's already overwhelming. I've spent the last nearly 30 years digging through libraries of material to try and work out what is going on. I don't have a ton of solutions, but I have found that a some environmental problems are due to 'planned obsolescence' or just having the most money to get away with something until there's too many lawsuits. Houses are built, builders cut corners, and cheap materials have long-term health impacts, but they're not discovered till long after too many people fall ill and the company no longer exists. This happened with cigarettes, smog, and so on. Meanwhile, doctors blame patients and call it sick building syndrome, as if a company shouldn't be held accountable. Pipelines get built, protesters are ignored and they leak into water supplies on repeat. We live in this kind of society. LEDs are enough to make me want to throw things on a good day - I'm part of lightaware.org. AND THEN there's the social aspect, which is also part of the problem: most Non-Autistics can filter out these unwanted signals and don't realise they're unhealthy. This filtering is also part of how they're 'coded' to behave socially to fit in, by suppressing 'desire' and misrepresenting it purposefully. This article seems to be a good way of helping make sense of these things: autcollab.org/.../

All of this^^ is enough to go mad over. Autistic or not. I've found that creating a safe environment with breathing space provides enough room to learn to listen to myself and learn how to navigate socially, which has been necessary for financial survival. But the thing that's the most difficult is always the very close 1 or 2 relationships with unresolved issues. Those just take a great deal of wisdom. 

and paying a lot of money for it ..

I probably shouldn't say but I'm going to anyway. Same for my son nothing works..if we were in the states I would be straight down to the doctors getting medical  marijuana.

What are the medications you are taking meant to control?

Are you diagnosed with autism?