Question about drugs/medication for a new script I'm working on...

[MinionZombie]

HPOTD is always my first port of call for slightly obtuse questions, and I have another one.

I'm in the midst of mapping out my next feature length script, and there are a couple of characters who happen to be on medication - but I know sod all about that, so was wondering if anyone here might be able to help (lest I go hunting aimlessly and ill-informed across the entire intarwebtubez).

1) What medication (or combination of medication) would someone be using in order to cope with a tragic loss, which could result in hallucinations, memory loss/blocking (suppression of recent events), confusion, and/or blackouts and - when you run out - some form of withdrawal which could encompass some of the above (either for the first time since taking the meds, or an exaccerbated version of some of the above)?

2) What medication would someone be prescribed after an attempted suicide, if any? Mood stabilisers, for example, and what would potential side effects be whilst taking them, and then also when you no longer have access to the medication?

The script itself is a mystery/drama with a sort-of-supernatural skew to it, and the above refers to two of the main characters.

Cheers for any help folks! :)

[Mike70]

HPOTD is always my first port of call for slightly obtuse questions, and I have another one.

I'm in the midst of mapping out my next feature length script, and there are a couple of characters who happen to be on medication - but I know sod all about that, so was wondering if anyone here might be able to help (lest I go hunting aimlessly and ill-informed across the entire intarwebtubez).

1) What medication (or combination of medication) would someone be using in order to cope with a tragic loss, which could result in hallucinations, memory loss/blocking (suppression of recent events), confusion, and/or blackouts and - when you run out - some form of withdrawal which could encompass some of the above (either for the first time since taking the meds, or an exaccerbated version of some of the above)?

2) What medication would someone be prescribed after an attempted suicide, if any? Mood stabilisers, for example, and what would potential side effects be whilst taking them, and then also when you no longer have access to the medication?



the class of drugs known as benzodiapates (valium, xanax, ativan, etc.) can cause all of the above. they would also probably be the first line sedative for someone who is dealing with a recent trauma. i have a panic disorder so i've taken several forms of them over the years, usually the more mild ones like clonazepam. BUT there are benzos, like flourazepam that in large doses can cause blackouts, amnesia, engaging in activities without remembering, etc. in fact, all of the benzos in large doses can cause those sorts of side effects.

as for a drug after a suicide attempt, the benzos (most likely ativan, xanax, or clonazepam) are probably the drug of choice there too because of their sedative and muscle relaxant properties.

yes, i know far too much about mental health issues.

[Tricky]

It depends really, when I went through my bout of clinical depression 6 years ago, I took a course of Citalopram over the course of about 10 months which was an antidepressant, it did lift my mood and pulled me out of depression, although after a while I felt like it had flattened my emotions & I didnt feel like I cared about things either way which is when I knew I was ready to come off them to feel normal again, I didnt suffer hallucinations from it but did have weird dreams & it used to take forever to have a piss sometimes!
If you want to get into the more serious stuff though, try researching "Risperdal" which they use for Schizophrenia, or Lithium for Bi-polar disorders, although the condition causes the hallucinations, the drugs stop them. Risperdal is a strong one though, it has to be to hold a schizophrenics mind together!

I was told to expect brain shocks and withdrawal after stopping Citalopram, but I didnt really get either because I weaned off it properly, I did get a sense of anxiety because of coming off it though, at the time I was quite fragile and felt like a kid when your parents first take the stabilisers off your bike, I was unsure whether I'd be able to cope because of the way I'd been feeling before the tablets which led me to be on them in the first place (drug induced clinical depression, extreme anxiety & OCD, I've talked about it on here before), it felt like my safety net had been taken away, but I was ok in the end & have got better & better over the past few years on my own without any help

[krakenslayer]

I was told to expect brain shocks and withdrawal after stopping Citalopram, but I didnt really get either because I weaned off it properly, I did get a sense of anxiety because of coming off it though, at the time I was quite fragile and felt like a kid when your parents first take the stabilisers off your bike, I was unsure whether I'd be able to cope because of the way I'd been feeling before the tablets which led me to be on them in the first place (drug induced clinical depression, extreme anxiety & OCD, I've talked about it on here before), it felt like my safety net had been taken away, but I was ok in the end & have got better & better over the past few years on my own without any help

I know someone that came off citalopram and they said the withdrawal made them feel like their vision was comprised of a jittering series of single frames, like a new PC game running on old hardware.

One thing to be very, very aware of, however, is that many common pharmaceutical drug names are trademarks. If you are referencing a drug in your movie, be very sure that you are using the generic chemical name for the drug and not the marketized, trade name, otherwise you could get in legal trouble. It would be like trying to make a movie based on the idea of Coca-Cola turning people into zombies.

[Tricky]

The worst thing about Citalopram for me was when I first got prescribed it, I was taking it for about 3 days as instructed, and I came out in loads of hives & had this overwhelming anxiety & sense of impending doom, my mum had to take me to see a doctor who is a friend of the family to calm me down, I was crying & shaking & going a bit manic, so I stopped taking it for about a fortnight until I went back to my GP who told me to give it another try, and I was ok that time! I'd fried my brain with amphetamines so I guess introducing an anti-depressant into my system after two years of party drugs was a bit of a shock

[Mitchified]

It would be like trying to make a movie based on the idea of Coca-Cola turning people into zombies.

It...doesn't?

This is a very good point, though. You can indeed use trademarked names in books and whatnot depending on the circumstances (Stephen King had a hard-on for Pepsi in some of his early short stories), but you definitely want to avoid anything that even suggests negativity when dealing with a trademarked product.

[MinionZombie]

Hey guys.

Many thanks for your input, and for being so open about your own experiences too.

This info will be a big help for the script, because as I said, I know sod all about pharmaceuticals - so now I can take this info (very good point on the trademark names/chemical names too!) and see how it further shapes the mapping out of the script and characters.

It's interesting how you initially think that a character will be one way, then they'll turn out to be another way, or someone's traits are transferred to someone else, or characters combine, and relationships between your characters change etc. So it's all surprisingly fluid at times, but also very intricate to make sure I've got all the character info and motivations that I need in order to piece the script together (and indeed influence the direction of the plot itself).

On the last script that I sent to the BBC Writersroom, I was fortunate enough to get beyond the initial '10 page test' and get a full read-through with notes provided afterwards (that script didn't go any further at the Writersroom in its present form, but nonetheless, progress was made) ... indeed only the relative few get to that stage. I don't know what the exact figures are, but they do get 10,000 scripts a year on average - so thousands upon thousands must get rejected at the '10 page test' stage (for sake of argument, let's say it could be eight or even nine thousand out of the ten), so it was a significant step forward to get that far ... but point being, in the notes I received back they did say that the hardest things to do in screenwriting I had gotten right (namely characters and dialogue), so hopefully the effort I'm putting in again into this area will pay off (and indeed into areas that were underestimated last time).

Anyway, lest I ramble on, many thanks for the input folks. It has been most useful - so I can now take this stuff and see how I'm going to work it into the script, and then I'll possibly come back and ask a couple of more specific questions.

Cheers HPOTD'ers. :)

[kortick]

1) What medication (or combination of medication) would someone be using in order to cope with a tragic loss, which could result in hallucinations, memory loss/blocking (suppression of recent events), confusion, and/or blackouts and - when you run out - some form of withdrawal which could encompass some of the above (either for the first time since taking the meds, or an exaccerbated version of some of the above)?

Haloperidol or Zyprexa

2) What medication would someone be prescribed after an attempted suicide, if any? Mood stabilisers, for example, and what would potential side effects be whilst taking them, and then also when you no longer have access to the medication?

after attempted suicide some anti depressant (pick any) and add Seroquel.

Trust me.
Thats the drug combo that will be flung at you.

[rongravy]

I started out with Paxil and some lame ass seratonin blocker that cost me $300 a month. I ended up losing 40 pounds in a month and ended up taking off a month from work. I also wrecked 2 cars in 3 days and was batshit crazy. Paxil made me hear voices, which made me more depressed, which caused me to withdraw further, which caused me to add alcohol to the mix.
I ended up on Klonopin and Wellbutrin, but eventually weaned myself off of them.
I'd say try adding alcohol to the mix, as many turn to it.
Not sure how that helped, or what I was trying to get out, but I'm just saying...

[kortick]

your post interested me so the answers I
gave you were not just my opinion i also
showed your post to a dr and asked her opinion
for your reference this is the dr I asked.

http://www.lifespan.org/services/findadoc/detail.php?id=CS000033