Okay, to answer this question seriously, I was on one main med for years (just lamictal 200mg), and .5mg alprazolam three times a day as needed, and I only took it once at night to sleep.

And with the above I was fine. I had a pnp who never wanted to overmedicate me because she didn't want to squelch my creativity.

But, you know, things evolve. Psychotic breaks happen. Going over the deep end happens. I'm sure they happen to people in other countries too and not just the USA, and then your one mood stabilizer just isn't enough anymore, and they give you an antipsychotic in the hospital to get you back to reality.

And then you leave the hospital, still on your mood stabilizer (which isn't working anymore), and the antipsychotic they gave you.

And the plan was to ditch the antipsychotic after a few weeks, but then you start having hallucinations and terrifying paranoia attacks and whenever you try going off the antipsychotic (because it's seroquel and you hate it, and it's making you eat enormous bags of m&ms almost every night and jars of strawberry jam, and in total, after being on it for seven months, you've gained eleven pounds) you get suicidally and crazily depressed and do risky things involving alcohol and lots of clonazepam.

So you're stuck. In between doctors. Don't know what to do. On three meds: lamictal, seroquel, and clonazepam.

Besides being sucky, the seroquel isn't helping with your delusions/hallucinations/paranoia.

So... you see a new pdoc, who puts you on a new antipsychotic which will hopefully help, wants you off clonazepam, and replaces the clonazepam with vistaril and propranolol for your anxiety.

And after all of that crappiness you end up on lamictal, geodon, vistaril, propranolol, and a long clonazepam taper.

So, if I'm on ALL of these meds just because I live in the USA... okay.

Didn't mean to summarize my entire life story for the last seven months, but seriously. I'd rather NOT have terrifying paranoia attacks, see Tom Wait's face contorting and twisting into a nasty grin on the poster above our TV, see shimmering colors on walls, be stalked by a negative entity that WILL NOT leave me alone (hopefully it will leave me alone once the geodon kicks in) and actually feel it resting on my back and occasionally saying nasty things in my mind, see shadows moving in my living room, see designs in black and white vibrating on the wall in the bathroom (that actually looked kind of cool), see a painting on our wall breathing, hear keys jingling in the kitchen and thinking someone is in our apartment when the door is locked and there's no way anyone can be there, thinking that every person on the street is going to hurt my daughter and I when we go for walks.

And NO I'm not on illegal drugs.

And I love Tom Waits. Just not that poster of him. Lol.

My point is that it depends on the person and what they need.

Fingers - If one med is working out for you, that's fantastic.

But I don't think what country I live in has influenced what meds I'm on.

Sorry.