Hey Moodiegirl, as Hamster and Trippin said I have Bipolar 1 and a dx of psychosis NOS. I started getting psychosis at 11 years. I was medicated for years and years, but I am med free now. In my case the medications helped keep me in a constant circle of mania, psychosis and depression. The side effects of the meds we use can in fact be the very symptoms we are trying to treat. From what I can see this can become an endless circle for many people. Maybe not all but it's pretty common in my opinion.

Tho I am med free I and have been for over a year, I have not had an episode of mania, psychosis or depression since September last year. So since I have been off meds I have not had any mood episodes. Prior to that the longest I went without an episode was a month to two months at a time. Most of the time I was caught in one or the other.

It took me quite a long time to get there tho. I had tried dropping my meds cold turkey about 20 or so times, which never worked. This time I took it really slow. I also did a lot of leg work. Healing old wounds, working on my cognitive thought distortions.. like black and white thinking that kind of stuff. Finding my spirituality again, which for me is mostly about how I live and how I choose to view life and all that comes with it. I use mindfulness a lot, it can just become a way of life, and meditation with a lot of yoga. I also cut out gluten when my dr's found a link there. Gluten actually can create symptoms you would see in mental illness including psychosis. There is some research on that end and more with schizophrenia, and autism which is quite interesting if you look at the idea that add, autism, bipolar, schitzoaffective, and schizophrenia might very well be a spectrum. There are some studies on mania and gluten, which do show a link.

That said, food basically is chemicals, so no wonder it can have a big effect on your mind like any other chemical you put in the body. There is also nueroplasicity which deserves to be looked into if we also look at the chemical imbalance theory.

So I did change quite a few things, my perspective I would say probably the number one thing that keeps me balanced. I realize not everyone shares my opinion, but going from someone who thought I was always going to decline mentally and had, with no hope of every getting better let alone stable.. to now. I cannot help but think there are other possibilities within our reach.

If you want to chat or talk you can PM me anytime. I hope that helped some what, you have to decide what is best for you and what you want in life, but I think there are a lot of possibilities out there. What I can honestly tell you is that I have not been this peaceful or content in my life before. This is what has worked for me, others might find different ways, you just have to find out what works for you, and give everything a fair shot.. just like how we do with medications.