(double post, now VH's quoting me before my post! LOL)

Not to be the paranoid 1 or anything, but it hasn't been proven that bp causes brain damage. It's been suggested... Same with schizophrenia...
If you research a little bit, there is evidence that the 'patients' who's brains that were tested, were long-term psych patients and thus were on meds,mainly AAP's for a number of years. Which like TS mentioned,does cause brain atrophy.

The book Toxic Psychiatry,by Dr Peter.R.Breggin.MD
Suggest that these 'findings' were used as a cover up for what their drugs are actually doing to us.

Now I'm not saying this book is gospel, to me, EVERYTHING is questionable, but I like to hear all the versions of the story,not just the 1 that's safe.

I understand that alot of us,at some point or another might indeed need a chemical straight jacket, but what scares me is that people are so willingly and blindly trusting perfect strangers with something as important and precious as their brain... I might be wrong, but I get the feeling that once dxd, 'my "normal" life is over, it's meds for life for me' feeling. As if some were scared into submission. I don't hear many if any stories about 'how i coped before I got so messed up meds were the only option' stories. And this REALLY saddens me.

Dr's make this disorder seem SO hopeless, it's disheartening how they dx you and then give you a prescription. Without a hope of a semblence of future normal. the general message I got from pdocs is 'you now need these drugs to be ok'

Newsflash, i AM ok,without your drugs. Yes i still struggle,but no more than with a safety net of meds.

Being undxd, I had to learn my own coping mechanisms,and then tried the med route. For now I'm trusting myself to know myself well enough,to know when I can apply those coping mechanisms, and when I need help. And if in a few years time, for some reason meds are the only option, I pray that they are safer by then.

I don't mean to come off as a poster child for 'rebel against meds' and I don't mean to offend anyone. I just want my friends to make informed decisions AND have a fraction of the faith they have in pdocs in themselves...