I received my diagnosis 8 years ago and honestly have never taken it seriously. I take medication since it is a condition of me staying married but I miss doses take them at odd times and generally have said “this is not how my life was supposed to turn out so screw it.” What landed me in this place was a manic episode that should have landed me in the hospital but that only would have made it worse. I would never have trusted anyone again and the mental health system where we were living at the time was abysmal. I ended up trying to end my life but got talked out of it and our friends at that point told my wife to keep me as drunk as possible so I sleep all the time until they could fit me in at a pdoc.

I go through med changes almost monthly as I can’t find something I can tolerate the side effects. Recently I was on Quetapine and had to drop that as it felt like I had taken blotter paper LSD without the good effects. Now I’m on Saphris and my doc told me to supplement with my stockpile of risperidone until it’s working. I’m not doing that and I’m in a full blown mixed episode and have been for about a week. I actually now at this point have finally come to terms with it. Without meds I’m a mess and my diagnosis is correct.

My question is, has anyone been on this and does it really take two weeks to totally become effective? I hate risperidone and don’t want anything to do with it but I’m being perused by a recruiter for a job I really want and I can’t be jeopardizing that,