Did you ever wonder what would happen...
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| Mon, 07-23-2007 - 1:14am |
if you stopped taking your meds? I know that some of you have done that (some with the pdoc's approval and some without). But I often wonder what the world would be like off meds...you get to a point that you feel good-as normal as you are ever going to be-and you think "I can do this on my own" and want to try medfree.
I went on vacation last week and forgot one of my meds. I thought about just not taking it and seeing how I did without it. If I did ok, I was going to stop taking it. Then I decided I'd better call pdoc and have him call a script in to a local pharmacy so I don't miss any more than the 1 day I already missed. I didn't want to ruin the vacation if anything would happen to my moods.
I am fighting this mental war right now of wanting to stop taking my meds so I can drink (liquor) without the threat of being 302'd by my pdoc and just the idea of stopping the meds for the heck of it. I feel like I could do just as well without the meds as I could do with them at this point. But, coupling those ideas along with my staying up later/lack of sleep, heightened anxiety, irritability, crying spells, and increased energy, maybe it's best to just not do anything until I see pdoc again...

Yes, I know about this feeling all too well. We get to feeling so much better "on meds" and we "think" we can do it on our own, when really we can't. We feel so much better because of the meds. It is normal to want to do it on our own, but we must remember bipolar doesn't disapear, it is only controlled.
I am hoping you continue with all your meds, since it sounds like you are doing so well at this point. I would hate to see a set back and problems start up with out your meds. Then it is a long process to get back on meds for weeks and sometimes a couple months before we see a difference in feeling better and back on track again.
We have a chemical imbalance and the meds help replace what our brains won't distribute. It isn't a character flaw it is an illness that we need to treat like anything else. If we had high blood pressure and it got under control of meds and then we thought I can stop my meds now and did so, our blood pressure would shoot back up. When we stop our bipolar meds the flood gates open and all the meds go away and we our stuck with all those bipolar symptoms we hate so much. I hate taking meds but I am grateful they exsist so I don't have to deal with feeling so bad all the time or at least my symptoms are not as bad with taking my meds.
Your doing good keeping on track with your meds. Please keep them up.
Tina
~ Tina ~
A little while back I was thinking that one day I might be med free. Then I started having so minor ups and downs even with meds. At that point I remembered how much of a struggle I had to get stable at one point. The
It's something I think all of us think about and some of us even try (sometimes on our own & sometimes because of economic necessity).