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Old Apr 07, 2016, 05:05 PM
ickydog2006's Avatar
ickydog2006 ickydog2006 is offline
Poohbah
 
Member Since: Dec 2004
Location: NM
Posts: 1,455
I'd say it depends. For me it has become meds or death. However, I went mostly without treatment for hallucinations from age 7 til 24. It was obvious I had issues with depression and anxiety, and started meds for that around 14, but did not let Dr's know about the hallucinations til I was 22 and pregnant. The anxiety and depression meds did not help the hallucinations, but they helped me tolerate them. I had to go off all meds during pregnancy and that spiraled me down. I hated being pregnant, all I wanted to do was kill it, and I got to the point it was not safe to leave me alone, and was induced. Afterwards, meds made things bearable, and I was in control enough to not harm myself or baby, but the hallucinations were 24/7, and encompassed all my senses. I'd been in therapy since 14 and was well versed with self talk and reality checking, but by the time my son was 2 I wanted to obey the voices just so I might have some peace, and it was increasingly hard to distinguish what was real. My meds were upped but I was still refusing antipsychotics and eventually I hit a delusional episode where I thought I was supposed to kill myself, thankfully my delusion included that I believed everyone would understand and let me. I was hospitalized, medicated, and okay (thats the short version and doesn't include the meds trial and error process). Then I started lactating from the antipsychotic and my Dr decided to 'see how well I could function in society unmedicated'. Was back to hallucinations and delusions. The hallucinations got so intense I felt I was bouncing between dimensions. I would be walking along and then I would see/think I was somewhere else, then it would flash back (I almost walked into a wall). While driving I came up with the 'brilliant' idea I could drive into oncoming traffic and the vehicles would go through me proving I was going between dimensions. No one was with me so I recognized no one would believe me and even when successful my husband would be angry at me risking my life to prove I was right. Didn't take long for me to be hospitalized again.
All this to say, yes some can survive long periods of time unmedicated, I don't believe they can maintain close meaningful relationships and thrive like that, and many will die unmedicated / unsupervised. I also think of it as like diabetes and alcoholism. Diabetics can feel great when medicated, but feeling good does not mean you can go off meds. Similarly, those whose diabetes was triggered by something, are sometimes able to correct the problem, and go off meds. For those born with it, where it was not triggered (for diabetes: diet for schizophrenia: by trauma) then going off meds can be deadly. The similarity with alcoholism is you can go decades without a drink and be great, but one slip (schizophrenics going off meds), and the disease will be as great as ever and usually resume right where you left off.
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