</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
altonwoodsdrphil said:
... finally the people themselves who take the drugs expecting them to fix their problems without being willing to do the cognitive work in therapy critical to restoring mental health. If thats you, I urge you to take an objective look at your goals involving any meds you are on. IN NO WAY AM I SAYING THAT YOU NEED TO QUIT TAKING THEM!! I just really am interested in seeing people get the help they need, and I feel like I have to say something because it's not happening enough...

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> (I added the emphasis)

I am new to posting here, so I don't know if its good for me to just jump into this...but here it goes.

I find it very difficult to see that this entire post isn't extremely judgmental and entirely unfair. Are you a psychiatrist? physician? Have you gone to medical school? Since I am familiar with only my own physiology and brain, I can only use this as a reference point. For me, my mental health problems started from as young as I can remember. Literally from 5 years old I have these notebooks where I would scrawl, in my first grader handwriting, how I felt alone and I thought no one loved me and I felt like I had no friends and on and on. Truly heartbreaking stuff to read knowing it was from the mind of a tiny 5 year old girl. My entire life (I'm 32) has been an agonizing and constant struggle to maintain a tenuous grip on sanity. And at the same time, being born with a mental medial problem, I also grew up in a very hard family life, culminating with my brother committing suicide when he was 16 and I was 18. Even after I left my home tons of things happened, both good and bad, but the constant was my never-ending battle with my mental health. Not until just 2 short years ago did I ever even consider going to a psychiatrist and I have found relief; from both the medicines and the therapy. As I have a physiological medical problem as well as having suffered from serious traumas most of my life, I think it is quite necessary to take medications to try and sort out the malfunctions of my brain. Cognitive therapy is a very useful tool, but for someone who has chemical deficiencies, its insulting for people to basically say "get over it". No amount of therapy is ever going to make my brain create the correct chemical combinations. Just like no amount of cognitive therapy is going to make a diabetic produce the correct amount of insulin.