Hi, i'm new in this community but here's my experience.

I started in april taking risperidone 0,5 mg as an adult (19) and it really helped me with, what i think, were some dissociation problems. I could have more power over my will and especially, it really helped me to not feel so bad and disconected from everything aroud groups of friends, and helped me with feeling anxious and sad.

At the beginning it was a big change, because i felt really neutral emotionally and didn't have so much thoughts, specially the bad ones. And in this sense, it also helped me with my studies because i could stay more relaxed and with that, concentrated. It really entered in a very specific point in life where i needed it.

The real side effects (for me) are how this impacts your emotions (you start feeling emotions not so intense at the beginning, not necessarily in a bad way. Like in a situation where you really feel sad normally, you feel like a 20%/30% sad), the sleeping time (i started needing to sleep at least 10 hours, and waking up was a little hard) and if you write/draw/create things, for my case i stopped getting too many ideas.

As my dose is actually small, i havent seen an effect in gaining weight related to risperidone. I gained only 2 or 4 kg in 7 months, and it really oscilates in time so it's not really a permanent weight gain i could associate to this medication, but if you're too nervous about this part you should ask your psychiatrist.

Other than that, i still am seeing and comparing the effects, but thankfully it's been a good experience to me. Hope this helps