Unmedicated success?

Meds are used to manage symptoms but its the individual that decides what to make of life and its challenges.

I like to use metaphore of having a killer headache on deadline night. You take aspirin to that care of your headache and finish the task, cause you are able to focus on what you need to do.

But your aspirin is not gonna do it for you.

Same with meds. You manage symptoms so you can focus on life. But you gotta make your decisions for yourself. Meds will not leave a toxic relationship for you. Meds will not make smart career choices for you. Meds will not teach you say "no" (important life skill). Meds will not give you something to live for... so on.

So are they the "main" part of treatment? I don't think so. It's a tool.

Venus,

Interesting comments and a merry Xmas to you and everyone else posting.

After having a BP diagnosis and BPD diagnosis from reading up on the "official" government health sites the consensus appears to be that with BP meds are the mainstay of the treatment with psychotherapy in conjunction with meds and with BPD psychotherapy is the mainstay of the treatment with meds used in conjunction when needed. Interesting that a lot of the BPD meds are the same as the BP meds ie lithium and antipsychotics.

However, these things appear not to be written in stone with a debate about BPD having a similar affective instability dimension of BP2 etc suggesting some wide spectrum of experience.

That said we live in a westernised world based on an extreme form of capitalism with the drug industry no doubt having major influence on government departments. I bet if we looked at an Eastern approach to mental health with Chinese medicine they would state the illness is a result of energy imbalance and would suggest holistic treatments. I am just guessing on this.

I was just so surprised at the amount of people with BP diagnosis who don't appear to take meds are do take them and then have breaks from them during pregnancy etc. For those with very severe BP1 for example I should imagine meds must form a mainstay of treatment but there does seem a debate further down the spectrum. Steven Fry, the British celebrity from the other side of the pond was med free for over 15 years following his cyclothymic diagnosis and seemed to function quite successfully.

At a deeper level the radical psychiatry of Wilhelm Reich and primal therapy of Arthur Janov claim that even the most severe forms of bipolar and schizophrenia can be stabilised by reliving early repressed subconscious memories. However, the amount of psychic pain experienced by doing that is pretty unbearable for many unless in a nurturing environment.

On this issue I am still unsure from my own personal experiences of the whole genetic and environment debate or meds or no meds debate.

What Venus said!

I was on meds for years when things were really bad, but have been off for 5 years. Considered going back after recent relapse, but instead took sleeping pills for a few days to sleep again, and now feeling ok again. Started swimming and walking again (my meds of choice). Have to take care of yourself and watch out for stress (and family of origin (;