I had to give up on rejecting meds for side effects or general fear (sometimes working in psych as a psych patient wasn't the best combination; I was nearly phobic about Seroquel b/c the pdoc where I worked mis-used it to snow people and I couldn't be convinced that it didn't have to be like that) about 11-12 years ago (and many, many meds ago when it became clear treating me wasn't going to be easy or follow normal trends) and I honestly found it freeing. I hate the weight gain. I hope that I have more motivation to work on that as I am starting to wean down to less sedation, slowly.

Honestly, knowing that I was in a place that I didn't get a lot of choice with meds was freeing. I deeply trust my pdoc and I doubt I could do this if it weren't for that because I've pretty much had to tell her "whatever you tell me I'll do" and then I give it a good try. But I also trust her to stop things that don't work and to listen to me. Last summer I had problems with the typical AP I was trying and she let me stay on it longer than she really wanted to because I wanted to see if we could trick my body into accepting it. She knew we couldn't but I wasn't ready to give up and told her that I wanted to try just a month and would not complain (I was in pain from it tightening my muscles). Then when I said I was done with meds and could we please try ECT she pursued that because she listens to me and understood why I was so sick of meds. I just wasn't a good ECT candidate. She looked into rTMS but I couldn't afford it. Same with IOPs and Phps. We did everything to make sure clozaril was the last resort, just as we'd discussed for years since she knew I would probably end up on it eventually. It was like a long checklist to be sure.

So it's been a team effort but after 13 years together this clozaril has me as close to stable as I'll probably ever get. And I can't imagine too many meds I wouldn't take if she suggested it and explained why.

You need a good pdoc that you trust. Some of it is deciding to trust and some they earn. I hope this one is it for you.