Various factors have been linked with nonadherence in patients with schizophrenia, including side effects, substance abuse, relapse of positive symptoms, poor therapeutic alliance, low socioeconomic status, younger age, and poor insight.
Alternately, greater insight into the illness, positive attitudes toward medication, and strong therapeutic alliances are associated with improved adherence.
Yeah medications dumb me down and give me negative symptoms. Thats why i dont like taking them. I dont like how they force people to take medications through long acting injections and putting people on community treatment orders. The doctors never talk about these meds causing emotional blunting, cognitive decline and lack of motivation. They just talk of physical problems like weight gain and tardive dyskinesea.
they don’t talk about akathisia until they see you walking around very quickly and unable to sit down or sleep either…
I also hate how most (not ALL, tho) medical providers get upset when you, the patient, make suggestions regarding trying new or different medications. I had to fight my provider tooth and nail to start clozapine, and she wouldn’t even agree to it until I had them start it during a hospital stay, then she couldn’t say no. A year and a half in, I am doing better than I have in years and that doctor is no longer my provider. The medical community in general seems to think that people with mental illness are all idiots. Let’s prove to them that we ARE the most important part of the treatment team!
Thank you for stating this very essential part of so called medical treatment and for providing a free space to openly say these things.