I got in a bit of spat in my support group from a guy who was the opposite of supportive. (It’s not the groups fault, sometimes new members are angry) He ranted… I left.
But the guy sort of ripped into me for “swallowing” my diagnosis… that I just drank the cool aid and I’m weak and that’s why I go along with what the docs say and I have no fight left… how stupid of me to just take these pills without question…
My biggest question was… “why do you care what I do?” (I wish I had the cojones to actually say that)
I’ve been pondering… if I fight my diagnosis, then I won’t take my meds and that won’t help me fight the Sz.
As I look at this little glass with my meds in them, I have to fight myself to swallow them two times a day. My brain is screaming out that I’m not ill anymore. I’m doing so well lately at functioning through my day… No more pills, I’m cured…
But then I have to tell myself… “do you have time to spend in the hospital? Because it’s these little pills that keep you from going back”
Parts of my head argue with other parts. Somedays it’s really hard and it takes a half hour, but I take my meds. Other days I’m on auto pilot and just take them.
So, Ok, maybe I “gave up” and swallowed my diagnosis. But in doing that… in finally accepting it and not thinking that it’s all a big mistake or misunderstanding, I find I have more will power to fight this illness.
That guy has problems that he’s taking out on you. You’re in the right and he’s in the wrong. Just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s unfortunate that someone attacked you for being successful by co-operating in your own treatment.
I fought my diagnosis hard, and I still ended up having to take med’s. Sometimes I see the med’s as punishment and not as therapy. Sometimes I think I don’t need them, but I have gotten off my med’s enough that I know what happens when I don’t take them.
You are not weak and you have not given up. You are fighting sz the best way possible with support and help. Your journey and recovery is be commended not ridiculed. He is on the losing end by continuing to hold on to his anger.
But then I have to tell myself… “do you have time to spend in the hospital? Because it’s these little pills that keep you from going back”
This is what brought my son to his own Recovery. I found a couple of things I knew bothered him, paranoia and the hospital. Once on meds and a little insight, he still needs to be reminded when he wants to come off or wants to self medicate, Son I don’t want you to go back to the hospital and neither do you. Or on the paranoia, Do you remember that always makes your paranoia worse? I feel like I’m using his illness against him, but he forgets quickly what can happen. Sometimes we just stumble upon what works/helps.
I wish I had your strength to accept my diagnosis but I don’t and I fight it everyday and I know that it’s not healthy or wise to do that. Because as you know I did quit my meds and what a big mistake that was.
when i was diagnosed i just accepted it, i still had the sanity to know that my thinking was messed up so i just went along with it,
the only thing that i had trouble with was the medication, i thought i could control it myself you know, i thought i was strong enough without medication so they forced it on me and i have had to take it ever since. the only thing was that i didn’t realise i was on a bad med for seven years, it controlled my symptoms mostly but it also was giving me a chemical lobotomy, no thoughts or feelings or emotions or moods i was just a blank, like a zombie, luckily i got on a good med.
I don’t hear this kind of stuff from fellow mentally I’ll but my in laws. They tell me someday I can come off medication and deal with reality. But I know without the medication I don’t know what reality is. My father in law supposedly cured himself from major depression after he tried to kill himself when my mother in law refused to marry him. He said he did it without taking medication.
if the first shrink i saw had been helpful and kind i would still be on meds today…instead he wanted me to be put in the mental asylum and drugged out…
i had to find other ways to cope…
it takes strength to take meds and not take meds…taking meds works for you…look how far you have come.
take care
DO NOT LISTEN TO ANTI-PSYCHIATRY. It is stupid. I am a different person than I was before meds, people who saw me go through schizophrenia to come out stable and pretty normal seeming on meds, healthy and muscular and only having good news to report about school have told me how different I am. Just take your meds and dont think about it. I take mine no matter what and I know how they work as a psych major concentrating in behavioral neuroscience, I dont just blindly swallow pills.
People who say that medication means you are weak or anything like that often suck at life. Just take your meds and prove them wrong.
Dont listen to people who bring you down. Keeping our illness under control is our number one priority in life, it comes before school, work, exercise, social activity, everything. I have a serious problem that requires serious treatment, I accept that.
I fell into my diagnosis like a soft bed. I was diagnosed during a very bad episode, when I was extremely anxious about everything and in no state to argue with what the doctor said. With the diagnosis came medication, and with medication came clarity and silence and blessed relief. I don’t fight it, I don’t question it, the meds work and that’s good enough for me. I don’t see the diagnosis as the enemy, it’s just a label, just a way to quantify what was going on with me, and how to alleviate it.
I feel like this a lot then I have an episode like Friday night where it reminds me That I’m, we’re all, walking on a thin line and it’s our medications and various treatments that are keeping us balanced. This is fighting your illness, if you weren’t fighting it you’d be giving into your delusions and hallucinations. Some say you don’t need medications, but Schizophrenia is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and medications help sort it out. At least that’s what I’ve found out, not only from my doctors but from independent research online.
I don’t believe you’ve ‘given up’. I think you are mature enough to care for yourself and realize what is best for you at this time. I think you are doing the right thing taking your medicine because nobody wants to end up in the hospital again. I have those same ‘in head’ arguments about taking my pills every morning and evening. Sometimes I don’t, but most times I do. When I don’t I tend to have really bad days, yet knowing this, I still refuse to take them sometimes. I wish I could have your maturity.
I think you’re an inspiration James, you fight each day and take responsibility, you do the right thing. You just said how hard it was to take your pills each day, I understand that struggle, mum is slowly letting me take control of my evening pills, I’m already in control of my afternoon ones, my morning ones I’m too asleep to think of consequences. I sometimes put it off for ages ( my evening pills), thinking I’m a political prisoner and this is to control me, other times I’m alright, I’ve had a hellish day and just want to sleep.
It’s an honourable battle in my opinion, it’s not something to be embarrassed about, it takes will power which you shouldn’t take lightly, as you said, new members are angry, he was just using you as an outlet, probably battling to accept his future so he’s angry. Don’t get worried over what he has to say, just remember you don’t want to be like him, so his opinion doesn’t matter!
I have no patience with the anti-psychiatry team. There are real, detectable, physical signs of sz and BPD. The evidence can be seen in genes and brain scans. It’s an illness. I understand when people don’t want to accept they have a chronic illness. But that’s a social/cultural problem. It derives from ideas of “the survival of the fittest” - so if you have an illness, you are somehow “inferior”. But, seriously, if you had diabetes, would you take someone seriously if they told you to stop taking your insulin?
I accept that the meds are not great. They only treat the symptoms. They have to be adjusted again and again throughout your life, etc, etc. Guess what? That’s exactly the same as for diabetes too. It’s a condition. You have to manage it. If you choose to use meds, that’s your choice. He can’t know how you’re feeling. You know your meds make you feel and manage better.
At some time in the future you may change your meds, you may be able to reduce the dose, you may be able to come off them. Who knows? Certainly not that guy!
The only excuse really for the “Kool Aid” remark is that he is unfortunate enough not to have insight (yet), or maybe he can’t face his diagnosis because he hasn’t got a supportive family to back him up.
Stand your ground. But also give him space to be wrong if necessary.
