Physical Symptoms of Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal

Why talk about the body?

Today I want to talk about the physical symptoms of psychiatric drug withdrawal. There can be quite a few, and sometimes they feel worse than the mental ones. It varies from person to person. Sometimes the physical symptoms are really bad, sometimes the mental ones are.

I want to cover the physical symptoms and discuss what helped me cope and heal, along with things that have helped other people I know. The symptoms can be pretty awful, and the intensity really varies. I want to highlight chills, sweats, aches, and flu-like stuff, how that can affect you, and what might help.

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Symptoms that showed up for me

About the physical symptoms, I had quite a few. I made a list. I remember trembling, shaking, chills, hot flashes, sweats. I had loss of taste. I couldn’t taste food for a while. It was only texture with no flavor. It was really bizarre. I had loss of appetite. I had digestion issues. For a while it felt like nothing stayed in me at all.

There were flu-like aches and pains, weight loss, hair loss. I had the feeling of bugs crawling on my skin quite a bit, and in my hair sometimes. I felt unsteady and slower. I had a lot of fatigue. It was powerful fatigue, and it was hard to do much.

Whole-body system in flux

Those are some of the physical symptoms I had. Some people I know have had others. I hear a lot about body aches and nerve pain. It is a whole-body nervous system injury, which is why both physical and mental symptoms show up. When you go off psych meds, your whole body has to figure out how to rewire and be organized again. It has to communicate and produce on its own. Once you take out whatever the medication was doing to keep the system running, the whole system is affected.

Sleep, digestion, breathing, and hormones can all be affected while the body finds its way back to healing and back to homeostasis. Physical symptoms are the body fighting to restore normal and figure out how to regulate.

During that time, it can be really turbulent both mentally and physically, but you will heal. It takes time.

Acceptance helps more than resistance

What I did for the physical symptoms was accept that I had them. Like with a flu, virus, or broken limb, there is a period where you are affected and can’t do as much. Acceptance helped more than resisting. After acceptance, I changed my day and routines to fit current limits.

Holding life and healing at once

There is a point where trying to keep life as normal as possible is useful, while pulling back enough to allow healing time. For some that might mean reducing work hours. For others, time off. It depends. Make a judgment call about what you can do, and what you need to set aside so your body can recover.

When staying home is wiser

In the very early days, going out and doing activities ramped up my symptoms and left me bedridden the next day. For a time I hardly went anywhere. I accepted that bringing the kids to the beach, going out, meetups, and activities were too much. I could be at home and read books aloud. Sometimes I didn’t even know what I was reading because my thoughts were looping, but I could at least read aloud and get through it.

Do what you can, even if it’s less

You figure out what you can do, then keep doing that. It helps you stay on a healing trajectory, stay in touch with reality, distract from negative thinking, and gradually rebuild clear thinking. Doing normal life activities, even in small ways, helps rehab you. Do what you can, even if it is less.

With the extra time when you can’t do normal activities, add as much positive input as you can. Expose yourself to positive and encouraging messages. When I couldn’t get out much, it was rough. Once I could, I added it back.

Reintroducing normal life piece by piece

For a while I wasn’t working or taking care of the kids much because I was so incapacitated. Then I asked, what can I do? I did some normal things at home, even very slowly. Dishes. Reading aloud. After some time, I tried to reintroduce normal things I had given up. If symptoms ramped up, it wasn’t time yet. If symptoms stayed about the same, I kept that task as part of my new normal.

Reintroduce more life piece by piece. Grocery shopping took a pep talk. Sometimes I asked someone to encourage me. Celebrate every small win. That is you getting your life back. If the grocery store can be part of life again, keep it in your repertoire.

There is overlap for a while. Symptoms start out taking up a lot of your life, and that goes down. Normal life starts small and increases. You might be doing things while still having looping thoughts or some symptoms. You can continue as long as it isn’t setting you way back.

Use symptoms as feedback

Use physical symptoms as feedback. If a certain event spikes symptoms, it might not be time for that yet. Scale back and try again later. Keep adding life gradually until there is more stability, fewer flares, and more everyday joy and normalcy.