When my dad mentioned it (usually out of the blue with absolutely no connection to anything going on), he’d blame my ups and downs on being a female. “Every girl in my family is bipolar,” he’d go on. (He was too, I’m 99% sure. He had manic episodes and psychosis which could’ve been substance-induced, but I bet he was self medicating something).

He still rather would see me on meds than off them though. He knew meds meant I slept more than a few hours most nights. He knew sleep meant I wasn’t doing something “stupid” at 3am. He did kinda teach me that recreational drugs counted the same as, say, a prescription of Lamictal “if used to control your emotions.” I had to unlearn that and then learn how to ignore those types of comments.

My mom is very pro-meds.

I had an ex for too long that wanted me off them. He saw me gain weight on them and lose energy (this was a dude that used me as a sex toy so that wouldn’t do of course!). He plenty of times offered to “therapy me” with shrooms and just a comforting chat (I think he did understand that a lot more of my stuff comes from trauma than needing meds though and he was great at taking advantage of that knowledge). It was never comforting. I was able to cut him out entirely thankfully.

The great thing is, you don’t have to talk to anyone other than your doc about your meds.