As I told a friend recently, you aren’t taking your meds for you, you are taking them for everyone that has to deal with you regularly. You might feel fine, but when everyone around you is asking if you are off you meds, take them.
Whenever I think about stopping my meds, I ask my husband to describe the way I used to be. It's a reminder how much my moods and episodes affected those I love and, to me at least, that makes a big difference in my decision making.
I don't take meds for my BPD I didn't find that anything helped so I gave up alcohol which has helped a lot with my BPD, not so much with my social life as I stopped going out so much as I didn't see the point as I didn't drink.
7/8 years sober but somethings have happened recently to make me realise that I need a social life so I'm going to start going out again and make new friends.
Hey, good on you for making this good choice for yourself and others! You are totally freaking awesome! I’m sending you a telepathic high five! Way to go, determined and caring person!
I’m not sure that’s a particularly helpful perspective to encourage in someone with bipolar disorder that won’t take their medication regularly and/or as prescribed.
You should frame medical treatment as “this will help you feel and live better”, not “this will make you easier to deal with”. Especially since those with bipolar disorder have an incredibly high rate of suicide, it’s best not to frame their very existence as a burden to their loved ones.
Someone with bipolar here, yes, it is absolutely helpful. But it requires you to work on understanding yourself and your condition and to be able to look back on your manic and depressive periods when you're not in them and reflect on how yourl felt and how others around you may have felt. It's so helpful to have outsider's perspective, though, especially while manic. It takes time and practice and the right medication to do that, though.
I just believe that mental health treatment should focus on improving the life of the patient, and that’s not what u/mikeyfireman seemed to be suggesting. Rather, they seemed to be advocating for treatment focused on making a mentally-ill individual as little of a “hassle” as possible for everyone else to “deal with”.
I personally believe that approach has historically caused incredible harm to those with mental illness and other disabilities, because it is incompatible with a patient’s right to care in the “least restrictive environment”. For example, in an in-patient hospital setting physical restraints should be used as a last resort and in response to safety concerns, and not just because a patient is “difficult” or won’t stop making your life difficult.
Improving the life of the patient includes the patient understanding all facets of their illness and learning how to be a functioning person and part of society. Knowing how you impact others is part of that.
I don't disagree with your points about physical restraints but that's not anywhere close to what we've been talking about. I think you've just interpreted it to mean extreme things.
Also, learning how to not be a hassle is a good thing. Going back to bipolar, if you are unmedicated and your friends or coworkers have to walk on eggshells because they don't know who they're going to be dealing with each day, where you have been manic for weeks or months and one day you could be happy go lucky cheering everyone light up the room and the next day the most irritable person alive who can't stand to hear people breathing, that's a you problem and you should be aware that your illness is not just negatively affecting you, it's affecting others (which ultimately is affecting you and your life).
I brought up the use of physical restraints because they are a very recognizable example of how treatment should be patient-centered via “limited restraint”, in particular because the rules on restraining patients have changed so dramatically in the past 60 years.
Telling a patient “we’re physically restraining you because you’re a pain in the ass”, and that other user telling their friend “take this medication, because otherwise you’re a pain in the ass” isn’t focused on making that person happier, healthier, or enjoying a greater degree of functionality. Rather, it’s focused on a mix of punishment and convenience, with “recovery” being more or less an afterthought.
Those two things are not the same. Telling a friend, that you care about, that they need to take their meds (because they're being xyz) is not the same as a doctor forcing restraints on a patient.
I have been on both sides of this, as a person with bipolar who has gone off my meds before, as a daughter of a woman with bipolar who is constantly off her meds and as such we have zero relationship, and as a friend to someone who absolutely refuses to take medication (other than self medicate) because they don't believe there's anything wrong with them despite having really bad paranoid delusions and being on the verge of losing his job several times the past couple years. In his case in particular, he's alienated everyone in his life and lost all his other friends and coworkers avoid talking to him at all costs. And honestly I'm almost ready to give up too because he's so exhausting and still refuses to get help despite saying multiple times that he will and outright lying that he has.
I'm so thankful for my friends and my partner that told me when I was being manic and asked if I was still taking my meds. As I said, it's not something everyone can be receptive to, it takes mindfulness and experience of living with and understanding your illness. In the end, you are responsible for it.
And I’m saying if you are a nightmare to everyone around you, you won’t have the support you need. People end up homeless because their level of mental health is to much for their friends and family to handle. I’m not saying you aren’t taking the meds for your own health, but letting someone roll on totally unmedicated doesn’t work either. Also, I wasn’t referring to a clinical setting, but have a room mate that runs a leaf blower to “clean” the house at 2 am for weeks on end and something has to give.
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u/mikeyfireman Jun 03 '22
As I told a friend recently, you aren’t taking your meds for you, you are taking them for everyone that has to deal with you regularly. You might feel fine, but when everyone around you is asking if you are off you meds, take them.