Medication

[OCN]

Lately i've been in a hospital for reasons probably connected to but not limited to the abuse and i had to stay for three weeks. What i found was that i was the only one not taking medicines on my ward.

I was pretty much in shock the first time i saw the amount of drugs people have to take. My stand is that i believe people are strong enough to cope with issues and situations without taking any drugs. I know that it may help people deal with situations, but yet.. here i was.. sole non-druggy with a drug (MJ) history on a ward with everybody else taking pills.

What is your opinion? Do we need medication to survive? Or are we getting used to medication too much? In my therapy group i see a lot of medication usage where i - if i'd been a therapist - would have suggested it would be wiser to not take any drugs

My personal premise is that i think there is too much prescription, which creates additional problems to the ones allready present.

But i have to admit, i dont trust medication too much if it's not antibiotics or something like that..

 

[lostc]

There is too much unnecessary 'medication' pushing in my eyes yes, encouraged by big pharma. You feeling a bit sad? You need antidepressants for depression. Your kid a bit stressed? He has adhd, he needs medication. See the world differently? You have schizophrenia, you need medication your entire life, etc.. They are a crapshoot in any case right now, just a shot in the dark. Never worked for me in any case, and I've tried pretty much every single common and less common medication from every category and the only effect I ever got was side effects.. Sorry about the hospital stay, hope you're feeling better now.

 

[OCN]

There is too much unnecessary 'medication' pushing in my eyes yes, encouraged by big pharma. You feeling a bit sad? You need antidepressants for depression. Your kid a bit stressed? He has adhd, he needs medication. See the world differently? You have schizophrenia, you need medication your entire life, etc.. They are a crapshoot in any case right now, just a shot in the dark. Never worked for me in any case, and I've tried pretty much every single common and less common medication from every category and the only effect I ever got was side effects.. Sorry about the hospital stay, hope you're feeling better now.

Thnx Lostc,

Can't say im feeling better at this moment, but i am working on a new and deeper level in/off myself so in a way i am making progress. Feels like i'm finally getting in touch with the inner child again.

The hospital stay was briefly, i'm now attending therapy while sleeping at home. It's helpful to be in therapy, but sometimes it seems to be counterproductive. But i'm making steps to get something out of it. Time will tell what will happen, i'm noticing more and more that i'm fine with it.

Concerning medication, i know i am biased and against it. But i also see that people are somehow 'trained' to ask for medication in case of need. Perhaps it's that society can't handle too much people living out their craziness in full - especially outside with the 'normal' world to see it all. It would shock too much. Better to dose em to sleep..

I hope you can live without meds nowadays, cause you've been through the circus..

 

[txb]

I agree that medication is overused. I'd prefer not to take any medication. I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I'm still unsure about this. I wonder if it's really a real thing or if it's a (temporary?) side effect from the things that happened to me? I agreed to go on medication for this and I feel like it helped a lot. They say that 1 in 5 people with bipolar will commit suicide and my doctor told me that lithium was the only drug with anti-suicide properties. It really worked for me, even just after a couple of days I felt different. It's not like that was a placebo effect, because I was expecting it to be bad and do nothing for me. Unfortunately it has side effects. But hey, you can always take more drugs to get rid of the side effects. It makes me pretty angry in a way, that there are only two choices. 1) suffer from bipolar or 2) mask the bipolar with drugs but suffer from some pretty horrible side effects.

My doctor is pretty good and knows I'd prefer not to take medication, so I'm hoping i'll be able to be on the smallest dose possible, and gradually come off it at some point.

OCN, I'm glad you are out of hospital now. It's really not a fun place to be. Apart from keeping you safe, I'm really not sure if it helps much.

 

[lostc]

OCN: It's great that you're making progress in a way at least. Sometimes therapy has made me feel worse too, because its hard for me to be social. I think people turn too easily to medication yes, and its expected when theres so much advertising and encouragement to use medication. I think in some cases it may have its place like with severe schizophrenia and other things perhaps. I always also disliked feeling like I'm taking a chemical thats changing me and my personality as a person, I didn't like that unnatural feeling.

There is the anti-psychiatry movement which has a lot of good points, the 'Icarus Project' is also a group which helps people see the alternatives to medication and outlines the bad side, this ebook from them is quite interesting, "A guide to coming off psychiatric drugs."

Ha, thanks yes well I am on nothing now and plan to never take medication again either as it was useless for me personally. I've been struggling for so long I could really do with a magic pill though of course, but there is no easy quick fix.

txb: It is a complex thing, because I remember reading in articles about reaction to abuse that often people's reaction to their abuse is misdiagnosed as being a disorder in itself, though often I think people do develop issues like depression/anxiety/ptds of course on top of the reaction to the abuse in any case. I've known people long ago who were also bipolar and seemed to think the lithium helped too. I don't have bipolar so I can't be much help with it specifically, I just am very wary of how easily that diagnosis is thrown at people, like schizophrenia/depression also is. There are some times natural/herbal options too, but they can also have their own side effects and disadvantages.