How long does withdrawal typically take for antipsychotics?

I was wondering if anyone had the same experience I am currently facing. I am 51 days off olanzapine (tapered off of in it 21 days cause I realized I had akathisia and it’s likely caused by olanzapine) and every day since getting off I have struggled with horrible nausea severe insomnia and akathisia (I had akathisia from day 1 on olanzapine as well). The symptoms had been pretty bad, consisting of at least one awful day once a week where my nausea would get severe. A week ago instead of my normal awful day my symptoms escalated and  I ended up vomiting 7 times (this was the first time I ever vomited off olanzapine). Exactly 7 days later I’m hit with another severe wave of nausea this time lasting 3 days- 3 days straight of vomiting at least once a day and my akathisia is significantly worse. Basically I’d rather die than continue feeling like this.

I don’t know if the symptoms will get even worse next week I’m already my breaking point. Is this normal? ChatGPT says this could be normal to hit peak withdrawal at 7 weeks but I need to know if anyone else has gone through this and how long this is likely to last? I’m suffering so much currently to the point I’ve been contemplating death just to end this intense torture it’s already been more than a month off the drug and things have been getting harder then I’m even capable of remotely dealing with 

Basically I started antipsychotics two years ago (ironically to help with my severe Insomnia that I didn’t know was actually caused by vitamin deficiencies but due to the vitamin deficiencies and said insomnia I was barely thinking clearly, I don’t have a psychotic disorder, but I did have psychosis due to low b12 )and I struggled with severe akathisia for two years, sadly I have a dissociative disorder which made my thinking so damn fuzzy and the severe insomnia wasn’t helping so for LITERALLY 1.5 YEARS, I couldn’t make the connection that my meds were probably causing the restlessness, and because I was a complete idiot who completely underestimated the power of the drug, thought it was like sleep medicine and didn’t think it could hurt me, I would take the 15mg olanzapine once every 3-4 days because I thought it only worked when I took it like that cause it could only sleep when I did that. Biggest mistake of my entire life. Need to know how screwed I am. My current pain as I write this is currently 8.7/10, its extreme torture

Posted Apr 10, 2026, 12:46 AM UTC

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