There are some people here who do well off meds. It requires a lot of insight, a lot of self control, a patient and devoted support network with the full trust of the person, and the willingness to make a lot of sacrifices.
Those people don’t hide what they’re doing, but I also never see the most successful of them pushing this path on others, perhaps because they are most aware of how difficult it is.
I’d ask yourself, how did you end up with this diagnosis? What were your behaviors? You say you had the delusion that all women wanted to sleep with you, and you were aroused all the time- how did that make you act? It sounds like a pleasant fantasy for you, but how did it affect people around you?
I have to be honest with you. Wanting to dwell in delusions doesn’t sound promising to me. Do you think you have the insight and self control to live productively and peacefully without meds?
When i talked to my doc he said excessive dopamine can damage my brain. I had some other delusions too but i was quiet peaceful . i left my home thinking that i will become super rich. All those things were good for a reason. But my doc said my brain can be damaged. I searched on internet regarding this but couldn’t find much. I need good opinion from doctors. Did anyone of you ask your doc regarding this?
My delusions get a bit big and out of hand… along with the visual and tactile hallucinations… the voices… and all the other problems, I’d end up back in hospital.
I also have some pretty big negative symptoms… and without the Latuda, those would come back again… I don’t want to go back to that.
I become psychotic without meds. I am afraid in my episodes. It’s a living nightmare. Voices take control and force me to kill myself. Meds are voice control. Before meds I almost killed myself. I also get apathy because That is how I react on too mych input from voices and tactiles. I shut down.
Personally, yes, I can live with delusions, but I’m not sure my family and friends would approve and there is evidence to suggest that on-going psychosis is a degenerative process that harms your brain. I have moods and agitation without meds that are intolerable, so I plan to stay on meds permanently. I have already tried living without AP meds three times.
My delusions typically give rise to all sorts of distress: fear, shame, guilt, hate, etc. They prevent me from doing things I value in life. Medication gives me a powerful control over myself, in the sense that by choosing to take medication, I can choose whether I experience such excessive distress, and I can choose to be able to do things in life that I value. This is an easy choice for me, living with delusions is not an option for me. The question then may become whether medication is the only thing that allows me to make this choice. Of this, I am not entirely sure, I must admit.
To me, delusions seem to force themselves upon me. I can, judging from my single relapse, feel how I am tempted to endorse a delusion. Yet there seems also to be a possibility to resist such a lurking delusional interpretation. It makes sense to me to try not to endorse a delusion. There is something interesting and significant to this, I believe. For I take it that if one in principle cannot succeed in something, it follows that it does not make sense to try it either. Accordingly, if it does make sense to try resisting delusion, it follows that it has to be possible to succeed.
Now, games of logic aside, my experience tells me it is a very tough struggle, resisting delusion without medication. And once having fallen for a delusion, it is all the more difficult to think oneself out of it. Although it was rewarding to have done so, I do not feel like going through it again. It is pointless to me. I want to spend most of my efforts on challenges of my own choice.
I’ve been paranoid about meds and feel unable to try them. If you’re already there, on meds, and still, or more, yourself, then stay and let them help you. I always believed they would damage my brain, and maybe they really would, but I have noticed in the past few years that my memory, concentration/focus and energy level have diminished. The amount of energy I’ve had to expend just to keep one foot in reality is tremendous, and my constantly heightened stress level can’t be good. We all have to make our own choices, but just know the costs and risks.
Well actually psychosis untreated does worse to the brain than the meds. I get your fears I used to have them, as many othes here. They’re just fears and unfounded, in the end it’s a choice. For some not even that.
There is lots of research that shows that psychosis actually harms your brain. You can see some of the recent research here:
There is also some evidence that a small amount of brain shrinkage is caused from medications - perhaps 5% of the total (and this seems to happen with the older medications, and not with the newer ones), which isn’t much compared to the brain impact of being psychotic.
The problem with not being on medications - is that you never know when you’re delusional. If you do ever go off medication, make sure that your family has what is called an “Advanced Directive” which allows them to get you into treatment if you become delusional and psychotic again.
