I am getting weary and tired of medication. I try to explain plethora of symptoms and each time i am prescribed a new medication. Right now i am not even sure what my issue is. It may be Bipolar, Sz, OCD, Anxiety, Psychotic depression, etc. I dont care what it is. But i am concerned about the prognosis.
Recently i came across a video of an unknown figure who was explaining about medication for mental illness. He says if mind is not in the brain how can medicine help it. He says to treat mental illness we need psychotherapy, social support, CBT, Talk therapy, etc. And to solve or help mind at unease we need a mind at ease.
It seems to be compelling. And to add to that, he recommends a book by a Psychiatrist Grace E. Jackson - Drug-Induced Dementia: A Perfect Crime. After which she was expelled from Psychiatric association. Not sure how many would agree with that person. Also he says most people taking anti-depressants commit suicide.
That’s stupid. The term “mental illness” is a bit of a misnomer, because the illness originates in our brains, not in our minds. It’s not who we are, it’s what happened to us. Just because something influences our minds doesn’t mean that it’s contained there. It’s like someone with Down Syndrome, right? The condition influences how someone’s face or body looks, but that doesn’t mean that it originates in the person’s skeletal structure.
Sounds like he is anti prescriptions for mental illness. Its an issue of cost, its more cost effective to use medication than psychotherapy particularly antipsychotics because they prevent relapse cheaper and more effectively than psychotherapy does.
Now I can understand part of this mindset cause I feel like therapy is extremely beneficial especially in the long run. But medication has its place.
I think the ratio of meds and therapy varies from patient to patient on whats most effective. But I do believe therapy needs to be used more to teach people how to deal with things like break through symptoms.
I feel like the issue is that, for most of us, the only reliable way to treat our symptoms is medication. Nothing works better than meds for a schizophrenic. Therapy may be able to help us with our anxiety or loneliness, but schizophrenic psychosis isn’t a psychological issue, it’s an organic one…
Honestly, I think you’d feel much better if you tried meds, maybe an injection so you don’t have to worry about trusting your alters to take pills. Take care of yourself, Noise.
Cause like will the power of "Postive thinking " make the voices go away? hell nah. But can a healthier mindset about how to handle things that are stressful help? You bet!
Same with meds. Can meds suddenly fix everything in your life so you’ll never have a bad day ever again? hell nah. Can they drastically reduce symptoms? Absolutely.
Learning things such as grounding techniques, and distress tolerance can be very helpful in managing symptoms. Because many people are not 100% symptom free even on medication.
The goal of therapy is not to “cure” or eradicate symptoms. The goal is to make symptoms more manageable when they arise.
Basically the point is coping mechanisms can help, yes there are simple ones like wearing headphones when hearing voices to lessen the impact. But there are also much more involved things like CBT (which does have variants specifically for psychotic symptoms)
Also therapy can help a lot of us from falling into unhealthy coping mechanisms, Which many of us struggle with.
Treating meds as the only viable method of management I believe hinders many of us from seeking other things that can help us improve further.
Like yeah if meds are helping heck yeah but it’s also helpful to have some tricks up your sleeve in case you’re having a bad night.
I’m not saying that therapy can’t help, but schizophrenic psychosis destroys the brain, and meds help slow that, even if they don’t get rid of every single symptom. I think that it’s highly irresponsible of your doctor to let you go without any medication when you’re diagnosed as schizophrenic, and I think it’s dangerous for you to be spreading this message on the forum when some people here are very sick and are looking for any excuse to go off their meds. I used to be one of those people, and trust me, posts like yours didn’t do me any favors. I’m really not trying to be an âsshole, but meds are the only thing that keep most of us sane, period. I’m glad that therapy is helping you, really, but if you’re schizophrenic, then you need medication, end of story.
Therapy helps me a lot. I go to individual and group therapy. I’m supposed to start DBT soon. But I am also a big advocate for medicine. Medicine helps me a lot. I go off the deep end when I’m not on medicine. Delusions of grandeur, and persecution, hallucinations, visual and auditory. There are side effects, but all medications have side effects. You have to weigh the benefits verses the side effects. Medicine also slows the brain damage from schizophrenia. Brain damage is seen in advanced schizophrenia of people even if they have never taken medicine. Anti-psychiatry people are the fringe of society. Most of the psychiatric community knows they are idiots.
Maybe i took that person serious without considering the fact that the whole world depends on medicines and doing well because of it for mental illness. Never heard anyone say is recovered only by doing psychotherapy. I also am towards the view that what good is psychotherapy if we are not receptive to anything or have an impact because of therapy. In such cases Medicine might be the answer to it. BTW i am taking medicines and hoping for a bright future.
" make the voices go away? hell nah. But can a healthier mindset about how to handle things that are stressful help? You bet!