I got to a point where I was on 7 psychiatric medications, plus 1 "as needed". Eventually I got to a point where I wasn't getting manic, and wasn't EXACTLY depressed, but it was too much. I would never have gone off all of them. For one thing, going off meds too fast can cause some downright evil withdrawals. It can also bring on an episode like you've never seen before. That's what happened to me when I went off meds cold turkey twice. Of course I ended up hospitalized for both experiments, but also my illness itself worsened.

It's easy to just think that "I'm not doing great on them, I'll be back to my old wonderful self off them", but that's often just some kind of dream. If it does work like that all the best to you. It sort of worked like that for a bit for my nephew. Then his depression came back with a vengeance and he ended up killing himself at only 24 years old before his medication doses could be brought to therapeutic level again. It's true that before he went off his meds cold turkey he was not in a good situation, but I certainly think a major med change would have been better than the shock to his system. So, he had a reprieve? Was it worth it for him?

I'm now on 4 psych meds plus 1 "as needed". Slowly but surely meds were discontinued. I'll admit that two were only discontinued because of severe side effects. It's a shame it had to come to that in order for them to be removed. But my pdoc took me off of them slowly. Actually, as my one med dose went down down down my life improved. The other wasn't as easy, but adjustments really helped. I'm still not the person I was at 28 years old. Hopefully I'll get a taste of "her" someday again, but I won't make a deal with the devil to do it.