Medicated vs. Unmedicated

Posted on September 14, 2010 in Bipolar Disorder Psychotropics

Someone saw my meme about my invisible illness and took offense with my answer to #15 which was “The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: That it is going to be like this all the way to the end.”. He felt compelled to tell me that I should not feel that I had to take meds, that I should learn from his example and not allow myself to be “contained”.

I plan to ignore the advice, though I feel a reply is warranted which is that I spent many years avoiding using psychotropics to curb my mood swings, possibly more years than my critic has been alive. In the end, I decided to go with them because I saw the ruin that my unbridled manias, depressions, and mixed states wreaked upon my family. I chose safety out of a conviction whose basis lies in strength of character.

Having said that, I must comment on the threat that I represent to some of the unmedicated. I have made the choice to take medications. It’s a free act. While I have told people that the pharmaceuticals have helped me, I also acknowledge the freedom not to take them. So why was this guy so threatened by me?

I have met a wide range of people who choose not to take medication. Many are depressives who choose to ride out their pain as a matter of character. I have great respect for these, though I have to wonder why one would choose pain over relief. It’s ultimately not mine to make.

Then there are those who just can’t give up their alcohol, their pot, their slim figures that come without attention to diet or exercise. I find these a problematic and ultimately vain. But it is still their choice.

Then there are those who have been hurt by overmedication or mismedication. I have more sympathy for these because they have been forced to suffer involuntarily. Still, I know also of those who have been put through the psychiatric wringer who, nonetheless, kept searching for a decent doctor who listened to them and prescribed with a mind to preserving the personality. It doesn’t need to be “stand up and don’t take your medications versus cower and do.” It’s more important to get the facts, measure the sacrifices, and choose intelligently versus emotionally.

I value emotions. I value the love I have for my wife and pets. I value the way my mind reveals the world to me. These emotions informed my decision to build dikes around my harbor so that I would not flood those around me with extremes. Yes, I like moderate amounts of safety alongside adventure. I wouldn’t climb cliffs without a rope. I wouldn’t put the pedal to the metal and go down El Toro at 100 mph. And I won’t terrify my wife with scenes where I talk about agents of the government following me and people on the net coming to destroy everything I have come to love. I won’t permit myself to be narrowly pigeonholed as a dupe of the psychiatric establishment. Yea, I prefer to within the sense of relative safety that the dispersal of my paranoia by medications afford. Admitting that ugly things happen when I don’t take themmakes me no coward but courageous in matters of my self.