berries: pink--maybe you were misdiagnosed & you aren't really bipolar & that is why you don't need meds? it is just that i've never heard of a bipolar who can get by w/o meds.
I have. His name is
Steve Morgan and although he started out on medication he did eventually withdraw. What I found intriguing about his personal recovery story was that he found Jungian insights to be helpful. You can read his story here:
Patient Voices ~ Bipolar Disorder. Just scroll down until you see the fellow with the big beaming smile.
The idea that people who move beyond medication were never really ill to begin with is one that I've heard repeatedly. I heard it again just the other day from a young man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who had carried that diagnosis for several years. He's currently doing so well off meds he, too, was told he must have been misdiagnosed. Another example is Daniel Fisher; he was diagnosed as schizophrenic as a young man but he no longer takes meds and recovered to the degree that he was able to pursue a career as a psychiatrist.
Neither would it be fair to suggest that these people were somehow
less ill -- their personal histories often read with the same severity as anyone else's and yet, many have recovered fully or to a significant degree. Their experience is a valid experience of severe mental illness, their face is one of many, and their voice is as necessary as any other.
~ Namaste
See also: