Anika, I agree with your insight into the whole matter of psychotropic medications
and the effort to steer as clear as possible from them. One of the major problems in my view is that everyone has a unique chemistry and not everyone can metabolize things the same way.

For example, many people take lithium and it works very well for them. I could not
take it and was told by my endocrinologist that lithium is one of the most toxic medications on the market. So I dropped it; my kidney function improved markedly
and nerve function was much more stable. Others take it without any problem and advocate it for use. My nephrologist was concerned at the time that lithium was
still considered the benchmark for treatment of bipolar illness. (It causes closure of the tiny arteries in the kidneys, and there's nothing doctors can do about that.)

It is the idiosyncrasy in individual chemistry that accounts for much of the effort to
combat bipolar illness with orthomolecular medical treatment rather than a psychotropic dependency. One problem of the latter method is that, for some, the
problems don't emerge immediately; it often takes years for the damage to show as it did in your boyfriend. That's the tragedy of it when that happens.

As long as we are in tune with our own physiology and are alert to the feeling tone changes when we fall away from a diet that works for us, we can always step back into balance with immediate changes. It's that learning step that we take that keeps us within ranges of acceptable feeling tone for each of us.

This society that we live in lends itself to the use of medications so strongly that one almost feels as if she/he is facing a strong wall of resistance when we speak about not using prescribed medications to treat an illness.

Don't lose heart, Anika. Your view is a very valid one and is being looked into by
more people than ever before, in my view, simply because it may be a way to
preserve the safety of our vital organs in the long run. I think you said that your boyfriend has a malfunctioning liver as the result of a medication.

I really don't see the need to defend the view; it's as valid as any other presented in the treatment of bipolar illness, and it is certainly defended by doctors and hospitals familiar with orthomolecular medicine.