Take your meds already.

The BBQ Pit
1

Bitching & Whining About An Illness (that’s the real title) - entire body of post quoted below, to save people working multiple windows.

Okay, this isn’t a rabid pitting. It’s not even a rant. It’s the culmination of having put up with a mother and aunt all my life who are both bipolar and neither of whom will take their meds.

Take. The. Fucking. Meds.

Stop whining (it was an accurate description; I’m not going to contradict it) about feeling regret when you’re on the meds. Welcome to the real world. People feel regret. Everyone fucks up. The important thing isn’t that you screwed up, it’s that you don’t keep repeating the same hurtful cycle.

Besides, who do you think you’re kidding? On a downer you’re just going to wallow in misery and moan to whoever will listen that you’re a bad, bad person. (You’ll even start threads about it.) Better to be a bad person who’s determined to be better, than a bad person who’s determined to keep on a destructive course.

People are forgiving. I truly believe that essentially, people want to believe the best of those they love. They adapt. They flourish when things stop being bad and start improving. Children, in particular, just hug the good things to themselves and work at the new, happier reality - given half a chance.

Your kids, and anyone who loves you will:

[ul]
[li]Be prepared to let the past stay in the past. (Unless it’s completely egregious - but being off your nut isn’t going to make them feel BETTER about it, believe me. But even things that aren’t forgettable are forgiveable, given time. Wounds only get better when you don’t keep re-opening them.)[/li][li]Want to actually relate to you. You know, as someone they can talk to. Sensibly. Not having to tip-toe around every conversation because there’s no telling which way you’re going to jump on any topic or what’s going to set you off.[/li][/ul]
It can get better - a lot better. Provided you’re willing to make the effort. If you want people to love you, make an effort to be loveable. It’s no harder than that.

Stop hurting them. Stop hurting yourself. Right now they love you, but they can’t trust you. It’s like loving a drug addict; just as soul-destroying and at least as frustrating.

Sorry if it’s not a sufficiently vitriolic post to satisfy Pit requirements. I’ve spent way too many years being worn down by it in my family, and it’s worse - far worse - at this time of year. I have two relatives who both suddenly decide that Christmas Is For Families and both get completely irrational about it, fight, develop their paranoid theories about each other and everyone else, cry, get suicidal…and after 33 years of it I’ve actually reached the point where… I don’t care.

**Message to my family. **
I don’t care. Fucking kill yourself. If that’s what it’ll take for it to be over with and out of my life, go right ahead.

So there you have it,** Inigo Montoya**. The life span on love from children is apparently about 33 years, more or less.

I wouldn’t push it that far, if I were you. Take the meds.

2

Well, or he could take the medicine, go to counseling, and find a psychiatrist who actually cares enough to work out a good theraputic dosage for him, so that the negative side effects are tolerable or non-existant. Patients don’t have to “settle” for being stable/sane, yet having nasty side effects. (Or very rarely do they have to.) It can take years to work out the right medicine(s) needed, and the proper dosages. It is frustrating, and I think people going through it have a right to gripe, so long as they are sticking with it and working to continue growing.

3

I couldn’t agree more.

There’s nothing in that particular post that would indicate either that he’s under medication or counselling at present - but if I was mistaken (and I did not research through backposts, so it’s very possible) and he’s undertaking treatment, then I apologise to Inigo Montoya unreservedly. I have a great deal of respect for anyone who makes a sincere effort to seek proper help, and sticks with it.

I certainly didn’t say anything against seeking proper psychiatric care, undergoing counselling and finding appropriate medication. They are all part of taking treatment seriously, as opposed to a token gesture meant merely to placate.

4

Bites was absolutely on target – no “yeah buts” needed.

twicks, daughter of a bipolar mother (who’s a hell of a lot more loveable now that she’s been dead 20 years)

5

It’s generally easier for the caregiver when anyone you have to give constant care to is dead, right? Cancer patients. Heart patients.

No more having to change Aunt Sarah’s diapers. No more carrying Butch to the bathroom. No more lifting Mama from the tub. No more explaining to Ron that I am his wife.

Aren’t they all more loveable when they’re dead? Or is it just people with mental illness?

If must be terrible to have to live with a loved one’s mental illness. I know that it’s a strain and takes enormous patience. I would need to rant too. And I agree that where mood disorders are involved, taking the medication very often makes it better for everyone. But the person taking meds must be monitored by a professional on a regular basis.

6

Good rant. I would expand it to include anyone with any kind of mental issue where a pill will help but they refuse to take it. Depression, mania, both at the same time, ADD, or any other kind of disorder. Take your meds. They don’t work quite right? Get with a professional and work it out and stop bitching to me about it.

-LA
Son and brother to those with bipolar disorder, and exboyfriend to one with bipolar disorder and then some.

7

Not taking sides in this argument, but psychiatric meds are very much a ‘hit and miss’ affair with all psych conditions. They’re not the same as antibiotics or antimalarials (as examples), insofar as the patient displaying x symptoms will respond in the same way to the same medications.

Haranguing someone for ‘not taking their meds’ is pretty pointless really. For some psych patients, taking their meds might mean no discernable difference to their mood or their outward appearance. For some it might have an antagonistic effect so that their mania turns to severe depression, or vice-versa. For folks suffering from schizophrenia, taking meds might mean they turn into veritable zombies who can barely walk or talk normally…it’s really painful for them, and I’m sure, painful for those who love and live with them too. Sometimes taking meds is worse than the ailment.

Not everybody gets the ‘right dose’ to cope with their condition. That’s the nature of psych illnesses, and hopefully, with more research, they will refine the meds and doses so that everybody can live a somewhat normal life. It’s really hard for the families and friends of those who are sub-medicated, but unfortunately, that is something that has to be lived with…like the person who is living with the illness themselves.

8

He admits the meds work – he just doesn’t want to give up that manic buzz he enjoys so much. Even though he knows that his decision to not take the meds is doing serious damage to his relationship with his kids.

A couple of us are just coming in to say “hm, yeah, voice of experience here – your kids would prefer that you take your meds.”

9

There are plenty of bi-polar artists who work with their psychiatrists to find a “middleground” that will let them be able to create, without the bigger mania symptoms. For some, this is possible. Read “Touched With Fire” to better see what I mean.

10

I am on drugs. Switched just this October after an…incident. Turns out the previous stuff wasn’t working and I started rapid-cycling in about July. Finally crashed in September and dragged myself to the brain care specialist.

My problem is that I’m a kind person by nature so I care, maybe too much, about how I act when I’m not right. As I understand it, normal people get sad about things sometimes, I figure I’m entitled to be sad aboutwhere I am and what I’ve done–illness is an explanation but it’s not an excuse. I think my point in that OP was to share the frustration of having an “intermittent” life. Where one day you’er building relationship & then you spend the next week destroying them. You kind of fall “behind.”

11

Not all people with a psychiatric diagnosis find the drugs to be an improvement on their condition au naturel.

As is the case with any other medical patient, a psych patient has the right to go against medical advice and not participate in recommended medical treatment.

Antipsychotic meds are clumsy things that have been developed to treat conditions that we don’t understand well, doing what they do through mechanisms we also don’t understand well. They often cause pretty awful side effects (some of them quite permanent), and in some folks’ subjective experience the primary effect itself is worse than the condition it was prescribed to treat.
Many folks diagnosed bipolar would strongly prefer to be treated like anyone else, including being held responsible for their actions using the same yardstick of responsibility and accountability that applies to everyone else, in exchange for which you folks who are acting (inadvertently or otherwise) as cheerleaders for the medical model of mental illness can kindly go shut the fuck up and let us make our own medical decisions, thank you very much.

Do you retain the right to complain about the unpleasant and disruptive behaviors of bipolar (et al) people, whether they do or do not “take their meds”? Sure.

12

I agree with you with regard to “right to refuse treatment” issues. But in the OP’s case, he really does like himself better when on meds, because he can be a better parent/partner when things are working properly. I got the impression at first that he isn’t taking meds, but his most recent input here suggests he is. He’s just bummed when they don’t work. I understand his frustration.

My ex BIL is exercising his right to live an unmedicated, evil existence. At this point I’m not sure medication would have the desired result. But he is making everyone around him miserable. The situation has gotten so out of hand that it’s a chore to be anywhere near him. Everyone just wants him to go away.

13

And bummed when they do–which is the point. Think of it like, um…like watching a messed up TV. Your choices are either to have the volume up way too high and the color turned up so high that it is unwatchable because the pictures all bleed into each other, or you can have no color and no contrast at all and the volume so low you can barely hear it. In either state you want the merits of the other, and those rare moments of balance are the worst because you learn exactly how your life isn’t, what you’re not for other people. And, when balanced, you can deal with it, but you never are for long. Maybe I’m not on the right candy, or maybe this IS “as good as it gets.”

As for “The Manic Buzz” tm, twickster referred to, I don’t much like it anymore because it’s less a high than it is the 4-hour herald of two or three really bad weeks.

14

What are you taking?

15

I miss mania, I’m not going to deny it. Youth is wasted on the young, senility is wasted on the old and manic episodes are wasted on the craz… um, mentally challenged. I’ve never taken cocaine or heroin but it’s probably what the addicts are going for, and GOD ALMIGHTY the wit and brilliant ideas you can have. The bad part is that you can’t do anything with them because that would require concentration and focus and sitting still.

Anyway, I accepted several years ago after having gone off my meds for a few years that I’ll always be on medication. Unfortunately medication is like cars- you’re gonna have problems and eventually you’ll need to replace them. After two years on Paxil (DAMN what fucked up dreams that gave me), Prozac (which totally blahed me out- pardon TMI, but it also has MAJOR sexual side effects, leading to the first month long period I’ve ever had when I didn’t even have the desire to masturbate) and others before I found Zoloft and it worked wonders. For seven years or so, then it stopped, which is when I had my famous meltdowns here on the Dope. (Body changes of aging, a new medication for narcolepsy and onset of diabetes all played a part.) Now I’m back on track after conferring with a psychiatrist (which I had to pay for out of pocket as I was between insurances at the time, but it was only two visits).

Anyway, the point if there is one is that even with medication you still get the lows. And this is a great place to kvetch and moan about how you feel as you don’t have to face anybody here in the waking, so ‘search your feelings’ Inigo and feel free to vent all you like. Better here than to your kids and all. Just be sure to have a safety word if you’re gonna beat yourself up. (My safety word is “ouch”, the cue to stop doing that, but I don’t pretend it works for everybody.)

“Not everything in life work like it supposed to, but aspirin do.” (The Black Fuhrer of Harlem from Mother Night- the character’s name eludes me as does why I like the quote in this context.)

16

Oooh… oooh, idea for an in person DopeFest…

Two things that are really hot right now: One is Texas Hold’em, another is psychotropic medications. And they make perfect chips and we can all benefit from trying out new scrips once in a while…

Who’s in? First hand Black Queens are wild and a minimum 20 mg/maximum 50 mg buy-in.

17

It sounds like you’re coming to terms with the shit your brain does. My apologies if you feel like I’m jumping all over your shit – but you and I have had (brief) encounters before, when you’ve been posting manic, I’ve said something, and you’ve said, basically “yeah, whatever, woo hoo, shut up.”

If you’re not doing that – great. If your meds are putting you into a depressed state, as others have said, they’re not the right meds – go back to the doctor and see about trying something else. (A different med, not an additional med. My bipolar brother has spent the last six or eight years merely adding new drugs to the existing stew, to the point where he’s not entirely functional – to the great delight of his wife and children.)

18

300mg Wellbutrin nowadays. Prozac sort of worked for a couple months, then almost nothing for a long time, and then it turned on me. My kid’s got some Abilify and Lamictal which has really helped him–it wouldn’t be right to gamble them away. I never did get the hang of Texas Hold 'em.

19

Oops, sorry.

::climbs down from soapbox, straightens out recently jerked knees from response posture::

Sometimes all a person can do is what the best shrinks themselves generally try to do, which is try something, and if it doesn’t work, try something else. But it’s best (IMHO) to avoid polyphamacy and to detox completely off Drug A before giving Drug B a whirl, otherwise one’s state of mind and emotion can’t be attributed to anything specific.

20

I actually remembered that little quip of yours and took it to heart by the way. Not an episode goes by that I don’t think about it. But that’s what I’m talking about–it’s like having three brains all going full speed at the same time and only one body to express anything. The result is you took away “yeah, whatever, woo hoo, shut up” from the exchange, and I took away “Hm, good point–let’s watch for what’s really going on next time and adjust accordingly.” So because of you I don’t enjoy mania anymore. Bitch.

But you didn’t know that because I wasn’t able to consider anyone else as an independent being and so didn’t care to validate your point to you. The inability to escape from those one-way interactions is what does the damage that I end up facing later.