i decided to stop all my meds. i was on lithium, trileptal and zoloft. i have been on meds for the last 8 years (since diagnosis). since then i've gotten my degree, started and then stopped a career, had 2 children (now 3 and 16 months) and gotten married (thus inheriting a stepdaughter full time). i feel that i don't know myself anymore or my symptoms. i weened myself off per my doc's instructions, i am only on 1/2 dose of zoloft until next week and then i'm done. i naturally turned to alcohol almost immediately (i know that is not the best decision so don't write back berating me for that), but i can't stop crying either.
does anyone have any advice on what i can expect next and what if anything i should document or take into consideration to tell my doc. i know i will probably be back on something eventually. i guess i wanted to be free and normal for a little while and i wanted to reset myself since i've had so many life changes and i feel like a lab rat w/ all the med changes. i want to stop eveytihng, clean out my system and start over.
Logical or dangerous?



Hey Kris, hope yr good :o)
Well i just might be yr ideal person. I recently did exactly what you've done - a 4 month stint of no medication. To be honest i go through that phase of being very clued up on Bipolar yet just don't want to be fake an plastic. I need to be me, the real me, -(i'm sure Kurt Cobain put it as 'i miss the comfort in being sad'! Oddly true though), and i don't want to fit into this one size fits all society we have. At the end of the day a good way to judge it is if the majority of people in the world were bipolar we'd be the normal ones. Does that mean they would then have to take medication to fit in because they're not normal? I'm deliberatly being provokative with the statement, but it's to open peoples eyes - we all are who we are we just experience life in different ways. I felt massively better when i stopped taking medication (sodium valproate and lamotragine), however i recently went back on meds due to a down turn in mood this is to ease me through that - but my decision is a work in progress - i don't know whether i'll take medication long term. I do however feel a lot better taking it in this down phase than i would if i wasn't taking anything. The science is there for taking the meds, it just depends on yr lifes perspective. Read my profile, i only joined the other day and put my views much more succintly on there! lol! Hope this helps. Stay well, much love and have a top evening, Brendan x - always here to offload to by the way :o)
Kurt Cobain killed himself :(. Talented musician, tortured soul. Maybe meds would've helped him.
yes maybe and then again, maybe not Hopeful Mom
a lot of folks with this illness, or any form of MI, commit suicide everyday even while taking their meds
sometimes there just isn't enough meds when one has made up the mind to do it.
Alcohol abuse can lead to suicide too...but, let's put this in perspective, Kris has said she's turned straight to drinking. That's not good whichever way you want to look at this...its an insidious drug that is "normalised" because it's legal. I think that's been overlooked here, off meds, well OK, but turning to alcohol is self-medicating and that needs to be addressed.
N