I don't want to give the impression that I am hypomanic, but having read about my three main medication's long term side effects on line this morning, has made me decide to, under my psychiatrist's guidance, continue to reduce them and get off them completely. I am also of the opinion that 20 years ago, when all of this started, I was not well informed enough about my disorders and about the medications, and that I was not able to make well thought out decisions. On top of that, I was offered the medications as being the only solution and was not offered any psychotherapy, even though it was clear that I was very traumatized and suffered from a broken heart and culture shock.
Consequently, nothing was ever done with the trauma of the events that led me to have a total breakdown, nor was there with any of the traumas that followed. I was, for example, not a grieving mother who had just lost her child to cancer, but a bipolar patient who was suffering from a depression. I can still get mad when I think about that.
Now that I have reduced the anti-depressants almost by half, I am able to think clearer and understand what I read better, and I think I can make better informed decisions. I no longer feel unquiet and restless and can be calm and think about things in a serene way. I do feel a certain amount of outrage that I have let myself be abused by the pharmaceutical and psychiatric system like this. I am not angry at the psychiatrist I have now, because he guides me well and has my best interests at heart. He is the one who got me off the overdose of medicines that the other psychiatrist had me on. I am sure that he will be of much help to me in the near future.
That's all I have to share for now. It's a lot for me to take in too. A lot of the side effects that were mentioned are things that I am going through or have gone through and it's a damn shame.
4 comments:
What wonderful progress! I think many medicines do cause more problems than they help.
Continue to heal.
We've all been abused in one way or another by the medical system, no matter where we live. We owe it all to Freud, I think, or a lot of it anyway. Everything that could possibly affect a woman, any sadness or grief or anger or whatever, was considered to be hysteria, linked to our menses and therefore belittled as "just a woman thing" and treated with drugs so keep us in our place. Not much has changed since then.
Although, you are older now and wiser and you know yourself better than ever before -- and also the drugs themselves have evolved (or mutated perhaps) to better deal with individual idiosyncracies. And on top of that, we're all works in progress.
Have a good weekend! xoxo
I think its only recently that that mental health have learnt anything at all. Thank Goodness that there is better understanding now about post traumatic stress and that pills are not the answer to everything.
However, over here, mental health is still very much the *poor relation* with less money available and less beds for acute cases.
I think that you have a good insight to what things you are suffering from and you've obviously been through the mill. Grieving cannot be cured by pills and I don't think that it is possible to ever get over something like that...... just to learn to live with it and hope it fades somewhat over the years.
Maggie x
Nuts in May
Medications are very helpful. But they need some kind of "talk therapy" to go with them, or they become chains from which you cannot get free.
Here's hoping something works for you!
Blessings and Bear hugs!
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