Hi Miguel'smom. I understand what you are going through. I used to regard my episodes (pre-diagnosis) as "brain flues". Even after my diagnosis, I would sometimes go through periods when I thought I could take a break from medications. Or even more often I thought I could then handle my illness on my own. LOL! Like how? I don't know. Willpower? Toughness? Well, that didn't work. Also, my illness grew worse over time. I learned that I truly needed my medications to keep me stable (or as stable as possible). The glory days of long remissions were over, for me. Plus, once I finally developed some insight into my illness, I was able to look back at my past bipolar behavior with a different eye. I'm not going to say I was downright horrible all of the time before treatment, but I now see it as illness. Illness. Not just exuberance or "Super Woman". The behavior was illness that really needed to be treated.

We never get cured of bipolar disorder. If you have it, you have it. Sure, some people are lucky to have long long remissions, but many of us don't.

You mentioned seizures. My mother had epilepsy. When she was a young woman (in her 20s), she decided to try to go off her medications and use therapeutic strategies alone, instead. It was a disaster! She had three young children and she suddenly started having seizure after seizure after seizure. The kindling effect worsened matters and she ended up in the hospital for several days. After that, she never stopped her medications again. In fact, she was so dedicated to taking her medications that in her last week of life, she would remind the ICU doctors to not forget to give her her epilepsy medications.