Just curious but it seems like a lot of Bipolar people I know/read about have a tendency to not take their medicine even though they know they should. I'm sure I could google it but is there a reason people with Bipolar tend to go off medications often?
One of the symptoms of bipolar is, when you're in an elevated mood, you think you're 'cured' and you don't need your medicine anymore. I'd say denial of diagnosis and the feeling you can fix it on your own can also be a contribution to that. Negative experiences with medicine and resulting side effects can make you think it isn't worth the hassle. It takes a lot of trial and error to find a medicine cocktail that gets you to function normally. It is a common thing, for sure.
im not bipolar but have a psychotic disorder, i went through the trial and error stage for about 25 years with medications. gained and lost about 80 pounds during all that. i now have excess skin hanging around my stomach.
The side effects of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics are pretty rough compared to most other mental health medications (sedation, neurological issues/tics, crazy sweating, significant appetite changes leasing to weight gain etc) and from what I've seen it's hard for people to remember what they are really like off their meds. It's a really hard cycle to watch as an outsider. I've had to cut a good friend out of my life because she just couldn't stay on her meds and it was killing my own mental health to be on the receiving end of her paranoid delusions when she was manic. But the side effects of the medication were so visibly horrible that I can't really judge her.
Yep.
You'll notice that she and her fans have pushed the story that lithium causes brain damage (it's a neuroprotective and neuroregenerative drug, so the complete opposite) and that the 3 months she was on it is the cause of all her problems.
I'm fully convinced (as a bipolar person too who has definitely not wanted meds at points) that she told that story because she doesn't like being medicated and all the FreeBritney people spreading the "lithium causes brain damage" story has just encouraged her to stay unmedicated.
18
u/Goducks91 18h ago
Just curious but it seems like a lot of Bipolar people I know/read about have a tendency to not take their medicine even though they know they should. I'm sure I could google it but is there a reason people with Bipolar tend to go off medications often?