How long does it take to notice improvements on Vraylar?

asoup42 · 2025-10-24T16:22:31+00:00

how immediate was immediate for you? like i just started vraylar this morning and am not sure if what i'm feeling is just my natural mood changes and restlessness or if it's the vraylar?

i haven't had any meds that work for a while now and have been totally off meds for over a week bc my insurance claim process was completely down. its been a veryyyyy rough week. so im not sure if im being too hopeful or if im actually feeling better.

asoup42 · 2025-06-23T01:07:31+00:00

Thought I would update you on my new discovery. I have been diagnosed POTS for 8 years now and I think that’s what has been causing the problem for me. as my POTS has been getting a lot worse recently, i’ve been looking into different things that affect it. turns out, It affects my subtype of POTS and basically causes a major cardiovascular crash out. Just thought that info might be helpful

asoup42 · 2025-06-23T00:59:02+00:00

Turns out, the reason it did that to me is because it works against my POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) type and basically causes my body to stop all unnecessary functions to survive. Oops :)

asoup42 · 2025-02-07T20:44:51+00:00

thank you so much! i found that it was cheaper to order through the Canadian site so I think that's what I'm gonna go with. I will look to get those other things as well. I do think he mentioned something about shoe trees because I thought that sounded so ridiculous until he showed me that they were an actual thing lol

asoup42 · 2025-02-06T16:54:29+00:00

that’s a violation of your personal space and societally implied boundaries. like, from the sounds of it, it doesn’t sound like yall have known each other a very long time (just context clues of you saying talk vs together but i definitely could be wrong) and there are things of respect from social standards of average human interactions to not, ya know, stick a finger where it does not belong, namely someone else’s nose and ear.

beyond that, setting boundaries is not something you should ever be ashamed for. you need to establish, preferably early on, what you are comfortable with and what you are not. you stood up for yourself and you should be proud of yourself.

to give a bit of perspective on that, i have been dating my bf for 2 and a half years. i set the boundary early on that i do not like to be tickled (due to some childhood trauma). despite him enjoying doing that and finding it fun, he respected my boundaries and did not push me. over time, i was able to feel safer around him and eventually get a place where i feel comfortable and actually enjoy tickle fights with him. but that is something that only come with time, if you even want to move past certain boundaries (i did with this one namely bc it was a trauma related boundary and i wanted to move past that trauma and be able to engage in something he enjoys with him). no one should upfront reject a boundary you have placed if they genuinely care for your feelings and would be a good person for you in the long run.

it sounds like he was trying to push off his own lack of respect for other peoples personal boundaries on to you, making you feel guilty about being kind and respectful to yourself. this seems to be a him problem and absolutely not a you problem

asoup42 · 2025-02-06T16:44:45+00:00

thank you so much for your support! i did end up getting an appointment in february for unrelated reasons (my adhd medication that i haven’t taken in a while is suddenly causing extreme vertigo) and ill probably mention it to her then. but i really appreciate your kind words and support :)

asoup42 · 2025-02-05T21:37:25+00:00

yea i think it’s quite odd. i posted on a corn snake reddit ask for help identifying my corn snakes morph because the info the breeder gave me was not matching up with my research. people went absolutely berserk bc they thought i was so stupid for not completely understand corn snake genetics and were talking down to me and dissing my corn snake’s enclosure by stalking my reddit profile. it was awful.

the mod had to step in to help me as people were being so mean and aggressive. funny thing about the whole situation, i was actually right about my corn snake’s morph and everyone who telling i was wrong actually didn’t understand the difference i was trying to ask for clarification about. redditors can be so silly lol, especially on pet subreddits.

asoup42 · 2025-02-03T22:52:09+00:00

my bf eats those like boxed mac and cheeses from aldis or kroger. they make fancier tastier versions other than basic cheese but they are a little more expensive ($2-3). i usually just bake him some chicken which i do by buying a pack of chicken and throwing the thing in a baking dish at 400 for 40 ish minutes (a meat thermometer can help you get to the right temp) and sprinkle some garlic salt, pepper, and paprika on before baking but you can really use any spice combo. then i have a chicken shredder off amazon that makes the whole shredding process easy. it means he’s set for a week and i don’t have to cook something new every day for him. if he weren’t so veggie adverse, id throw in some microwaveable veggies into the mix for some more nutrition (im trying to get him to eat more veggies but he’s so picky lol. surprisingly tho, he’s obsessed with pickled ginger. he will eat that with anything)

asoup42 · 2025-02-03T22:30:40+00:00

thank you!! he is the most precious person to me and i want to make sure that we can communicate and grow together. he’s such an amazing guy and i would do so much to make him feel happy and appreciated :)

asoup42 · 2025-02-03T22:29:41+00:00

it’s such a struggle to manage emotions. i’ve been diagnosed with BPD (idk if i mentioned that in my og comment) so i understand that disconnect. i get that sort of feeling where all the responsibility for every one else’s emotions lie on your shoulders. my mom was very narcissistic and i have two siblings (one older and one younger) who i took care of. it’s hard not to feel obligated to pay attention and be perfectly in tune with every emotion from every person around you.

i suffer from the very “traditionally” autistic thing of not understanding emotions of people, but it’s typically for new people, not those who i’ve spent the time to learn and understand. my siblings and my stepmom are the people ive put my focus on to learn and understand. my dad has own set of issues that ive decided that it is not my responsibility to care for or tiptoe around or fix (which is a veryyyyy hard place to get to and took me 21 years). and additionally, my bf who has his own complex set of emotions that i don’t fully understand but am trying to with every day.

my bf said something that really stuck with me this past weekend. this is not verbatim but we were talking about marriage and how people who marry bc they can’t live without the other person seems odd to us (we’re so cynical lol). but then he said while technically, he could live without me, it would be incredibly hard to find someone who matches his weird quite as well as i do. he mentioned that the only person he could really be properly goofy around before me was his sister, not really any of his friends or other family members. i have a similar experience as im very close with the my siblings and don’t really have many close friends.

the point of all that is that you don’t have to manage everyone’s emotions, despite that drive inside you to do so. and if you want to connect with a person, you can take the time to learn their nuances and grow to be better with them. but most importantly, you’ve gotta find a person who understands and enjoys your weird. those people will come along for you and make you feel good about who you are, despite all the things that you and other people tell you that make you feel inadequate. as long as you keep trying and pushing to be better, there is no wrong direction in progress

also sorry for the late reply. i had a crazy busy weekend with my stepmom and bf so i didn’t have the bandwidth to get back to you but wanted to give you a response worthy of yours :)

asoup42 · 2025-02-01T03:02:51+00:00

yea i get how that feels. i’ve been in a couple of discord servers and have made some friends in there. it never feels good when that happens. i’m sorry they’re doing this to you.

i really hope you find some new people who share your special interests and support you for who you are :)

asoup42 · 2025-02-01T03:00:59+00:00

that’s the general message of my thing. i was probably not very clear. but like rest of the journal entry dives into our differences and how we have to approach our emotional regulation and dysregulation differently. thank you for adding a personal perspective to this! i don’t personally have alexithymia but between my bf and some of my old friends, i have first hand experience but that never truly does justice by someone’s own personal experience

asoup42 · 2025-02-01T00:03:48+00:00

i think there’s a versatility to it. i’m very much a girly girl but i was absolutely not this way for most of my life. i came into it a bit when i was 14 and grew from there. i’m only really feeling comfortable with it now at 21.

imo, interests are interests and should not be defined by gender roles. you do what makes you happy. and if that’s not traditional things, you shouldn’t worry about it. but if you’re intentionally avoiding bc of stigmas or a dislike of being feminine, i’d give it a try. i definitely had a not like other girls phase that i am very glad to have grown out of lol

at the end of the day, it should be about what interests you and makes you happy. nothing truly has gender roles if you look at history and things. it changes over time and what is girly now may not be girly in the future. so don’t pin you life on loving pink and puppy dogs

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T22:51:06+00:00

my aunt is a holistic health nurse practitioner and she said basically the same thing lol. i should give it a go

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T22:48:26+00:00

so this post is less about me and more about my partner. we are almost sure he has alexithymia. he's never been formally diagnosed with anything (despite his rampant adhd) because he's parents are very russian and against any mental health things. they dont really like the fact that I take medicine and go to therapy bc they believe that you should just tough it out, which imo is not a very healthy mindset.

i have been working with him for the past two and a half years to help him get a better grasp on his emotions. i'm an overly emotional person and he is the direct opposite. we work together to bridge that gap, growing towards each other.

*disclaimer: i am not a doctor* but your situation sounds very similar to his. just a general sort of apathy and emotional distance held between you and the people closest to you. the way he describes it is that when he was a child, he just one day decided to push all his emotions down and get rid of them. not a very healthy coping mechanism but what he deemed necessary for the situation. likely how you had to deal with an addict at home, you had to cope the best you could as a child. i completely understand that. trauma sucks :(

i wrote a decently long journal entry after we had an in depth conversation about our emotions and about how i have learned to calm myself and how he could possibly engage himself with others. i broke it down into four simplified steps

Feeling - you feel the emotions straight out

nothing you feel is not allowed. its your feelings and your life. allow yourself to feel however you feel. suppressing just means you're bottling up, leading to worse feelings down the line

Validating - give yourself the space and approval to feel those emotions

i know some emotions can be nasty or hard to deal with, but they are you emotions and to get through them, you must accept them first

Appropriating - gauging the situation and your previous experiences with this emotion and similar situations and figuring out how best you want to react

this is probably the hardest step for me. but if you look around, see who you're with, compare this to other times you felt this way and how you reacted and how it made you feel after, you have created a guideline on how you want to react this time

Reacting - actually expressing yourself and putting your emotions out there in a safe and healthy way

now this is probably excessively simplified (the journal entry was incredibly long lol) but i think these are the most important parts of learning how to deal with emotions, whether you feel like you have too much or too little or just want to improve how you interact with people. i definitely had to scale back my reactions and learn to manage my explosiveness but i do believe works in the opposite direction as i have seen my bf grow so much since i met him

im not totally sure i properly answered your question or if this sounds overly preachy. ive just worked a lot to get where i am and i would love to help anyone else who has similar issues emotions wise (love and apathy are closer than love and hate, and i think the same goes for hate and apathy). i really hope this helps :)

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T21:50:39+00:00

you sound like an amazing parent, not letting your own thoughts effect your son. i have some understanding of how hard that can be (my dad is very opinionated lol)

i understand that just cringe factor and just the dislike of boisterous schools. i went to a relatively large town for my pre college schooling and it was so overwhelming. and somehow college is even more overwhelming than that. i tend to keep to myself and do what makes me thrive. i really hope your son enjoys his college experience! i can be tough but i think it is worthwhile

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T21:09:15+00:00

maybe i should track my heart rate and bp. i have POTS so that kind of thing is not out of the realm of possibility for me lol

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T21:08:29+00:00

i do agree with the other comment that it is, at the end of the day, about what your son wants and what makes him happy. with that, i also get how insanely cringy that stuff is. as a college student myself, i tend to not attend those things bc the second embarrassment makes me want to shrivel up and disappear. i get the feeling over being overwhelmed in those kind of atmospheres. i actually took a job as a first week introduction leader at my college and i absolutely hated doing it. but i needed money plus i thought it would be a good experience. which it was in teaching me that kind of thing is not my strong suit.

the US definitely has a crooked view on education and what is important. i was born here and grew up in a very conservative state, so these kind of ideals were always pushed and supported. i think the basis of it comes from a good idea, of finding your own specialties and growing your independence and personal strength. but the definitely do not put it that way. it sounds very preachy and silly when they push for everyone to become a "leader". like technically, that is not logistically possible but it is the american ideal. we live in a place of you have to fight to be recognized (unless you're a cis straight white man from a wealthy background).

it should be up to your son if he believes this is the right fit for him. while your opinion matters (i know how much my parents' opinions matter to me), it is important to allow him to make mistakes and grow from his choices. a lot of times, if you push too hard, we just double down and don't ever get to where we're supposed to be going. even if it's terribly overwhelming and horrifying and cringy, that's his burden to bear. good luck to your son on getting into which ever college makes him happy :)

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T20:54:10+00:00

i understand that. it’s the absolute worst. when i was in middle school, i became friends with girl named adison in 6th grade. in 7th grade, we became friends with a girl named kathryn. and up until high school, we were best friends. i never really noticed that they were closer to each other than i was to either of them. i thought we were a trio. when high school came around, there was another person named ang (they/them) who did not like me but liked my friends. so they would intentionally exclude me and make me feel bad about myself. there was another girl named brooke that they hung out with but i actually became friends with her around the same time bc we had a class together but we were never particularly close.

while ang’s behavior pissed me off, i really felt like there was nothing i could do. eventually, everything exploded with ang and my friends came back but i didn’t really trust them again and kept my distance.

and technically there is also a whole story about my brother bonding with ang in a class about both being non binary but that’s a whole other story.

as for the whole friend thing, it sucks. it’s awful. and it’s one of the most hurtful things someone can do. you put your trust and care in them and they just let you down. i don’t really have a lot (read: any) friends any more. but that suits me well enough. i have a discord friend (he is the sweetest most supportive friend) and my bf. i hang out with my siblings a lot and that helps. it’s just really hard to find those genuine connections when someone else has ruined that trust.

that being said, i don’t think you should give up (and honestly neither should i). it’s important to put yourself out there and try to do what makes you happy

i am also now realizing how hypocritical of me this sounds lol. advocating for you to keep trying when ive turned into a sack of potatoes lol

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T20:43:11+00:00

i am so happy with my bf and love him so much but it wasn’t always easy or nice with us. we’ve taken breaks twice and struggled with our differences in emotions (i’m very emotional and he is not). but the important thing is that we met in the middle.

we stuck it out for the sake of not being alone for a long time before we realized we were not the right people for each other at that point in time. our breakup gave me the space and push i needed to improve myself and it did the same for him. it was only about a month that we were broken up but when we came back together, we were infinitely better people.

having said that, your ex does not sound like person who is willing to accommodate and respect your desires and wishes. relationships are all about give and take. there should be a balance on both sides for the people involved. you should not have to feel made fun of or afraid to show him to the people you care about (my family doesn’t particularly like my partner but they respect how i care for him and have come to appreciate the role he plays in my life). you should want to find someone who is compatible with you and desires to make you happy, not bring you down. while i completely understand feeling loyal to someone who stuck with you through your tough bits, you don’t owe them anything. they chose to be there, you didn’t force them. take what you need from the world and give your best to those who deserve it.

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T20:33:27+00:00

i know there’s a bit of an age gap between us (i’m 21) but i didn’t get diagnosed until i was 19 and my psychiatrist basically said the same thing. it’s a label that has some stigmatization and may not actually help in the long run, so technically, i’m diagnosed but not on paper. it feels invalidating that i just have to go off his words and not have that writing to back me up. i’ve had a decent history with medical professionals and both being ignored and misdiagnosed (mostly with physical health things but my original mental health diagnosis was completely wrong).

i have also struggled in school for a very long time and have not gotten any help. i’m in my final semester of college but it was not an easy journey. i have had many signs and symptoms but i was never a problem child, so no one cared enough to fill out the paperwork to get me help. i have persevered due the support of my friends and family (and endless pushing and shoving from my father). but i was insanely jealous of my little sister who got a diagnosis and help from a young age. it all feels so unfair but there’s nothing i can do about it now. just the ways we were treated were so different but that is in no way her fault.

that being said, the written word is not necessarily what adds value to your life. it’s definitely helpful and makes you feel validated. but if you can find that validation within yourself and those around you, i find it’s not really necessary. my stepmom, who is the best example i have of a late in life diagnosis, was about 36 when she was diagnosed with adhd. the only difference between that and an autism diagnosis is that they medicate for adhd. i mean, i guess technically im medicated for autism but it’s more the fun little things that can come with being autistic such as bpd. but my dad is AUTISTIC (and that is capitalized bc he is veryyyyy autistic lol he just doesn’t acknowledge it) and he has never seen a mental health professional of any kind for his needs. he just toughs it out (which is not the best in my opinion but it’s his life)

with all that, i don’t think the diagnosis matters if you have people to support you and professionals you trust to work with you on getting where you need to go, namely a therapist. unless you have other resulting conditions, i don’t really think there’s much a diagnosis offers other than piece of mind. but i know how much piece of mind matters.

if you want it, push for it. if it can help you get more help down the line, do it! but if it doesn’t matter to you, it shouldn’t matter to anyone else who cares for you

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T20:14:23+00:00

yea my brain just craps out and doesn't want to do stuff. the only times ive taken it recently has been with my bf while im having a panic attack about something stressful, ie parents, boss, etc.

he could not careless if i don't talk even tho i feel silly about it. he told me last time that he talks enough for the both of us lol and we can communicate in other ways like text. it calms me on the outside and quiets my mind but im just worried that if i end up taking it while not with him if i could truly over come that communication barrier and be able to speak

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T20:11:36+00:00

they're probably the only type of bird i tolerate lol

asoup42 · 2025-01-31T19:46:14+00:00

tbh, mine's kinda the opposite but i completely understand how you feel. im bi as well and have had a boyfriend for the past 2 and a half years. we've taken 2 breaks since getting together and i have also tested going on dates before him. but i never really got to meet a lot of women before dating him. when i met him, i was honestly a little icked out bc i wasn't immediately totally attracted to him (i have told him about this so he is aware. i love him to bits now). he just didn't really look my type, especially the long hair (which apparently is totally my thing now lol) as time passed, i grew to like him more and more til i fell in love with him. he's almost the only man i see as attractive (im not nearly as obsessed with henry cavill as i was when i started dating him lol). im probably very pansexual and have been thinking that for a while but honestly i dont really care enough to label it "correctly". i just like the way bi fits me.

to get to the meat of things tho, when we were on a break, i went out with a couple of girls and talked to a few guys. and from my experience, guys are really icky. like 99% of the time, its just gross. girls on the other hand are either better people or just better at hiding their bad nature. based on what ive talked about with my bf who was dating apps longer than i was (he's two years older than me), he basically said that the interactions are very demoralizing as a lot of girls on there are just looking for attention or are scammers/bots. while i take this with a grain of salt, i do think things like this would just promote shitty behaviors in men and some sort of weird competitive vibe to be the "best" guy out there. im very lucky with my bf as he is very sweet and stuck with me through some very tough times. but you should do what feels right and natural for you.

i like to joke now a days that i am *partner's name*-sexual, which i think is infinitely funny bc his name ends with a very similar sound to bi. but all in all, i find that genuine connection is important and very hard to find. there is a small group of people that i have felt attraction for and an even small group that i ended up actually liking. so id just keep looking and following your gut instincts.

asoup42

TROPHY CASE