It was a great talk. Have the medication clear in my mind and what is the right way to proceed. Sophie’s counselor doesn’t understand why the new medication nor that it would even benefit her.
Eating disorder treatment relies upon removing the psychotic medication in the medium term and to proceed with further therapy to ensure there is no slipping backward. Only if there are underlying other mental health illnesses, behavioural problems, anxiety disorders etc are psychotic medications continued.
Sophie has none of these. The asperger’s doesn’t need a psychotic medication. She is too far on the highly functioning scale to warrant any.
Her counselor also agrees ‘when is recovery recovery when you are still medicated’. She also said Sophie is in the best place right now, with all the support around her to try to wean her off the olanzapine. She also agreed it would be silly to do it late this year with uni and being away from home next year. She knows my daughter well and even though she isn’t seeing her face to face, they are (apparently) emailing each other in depth. Praise God. If she says Sophie is ready for this next stage, then she is right. I trust her implicitly and know she will not let my daughter slip backwards.
So plan is bring her back to a 1/4 of the tablet every second day, proceeding to every day. If she responds well, we can leave her there for a few months, then start to wean more. If we do it slowly and carefully like this, there is far less chance for relapse and more time to work on any anxieties that may arise. It is a plan that makes me feel calm and in control. There is a good safety net in place and the long term prognosis is to be off any psychotic medication. The anti-depressants will stay but that’s fine for now and for the long term. We can wean her off those later.
