I suffer from severe bi-polar type 2, depression, anxiety, mild aggressive episodes (more or less in your face arguments -- no physical danger),  OCD, and dyslexia.  At least that's all they have labeled me to date.  Due to all these problems, I think you can see that I do not get along well with others and therefore, I do not have a large or even small support group.


However,  as long as I am home, I am reasonably happy.  My home is a mess.  I have on going projects that will probably never get completed.  And except for my significant other, no visitors.  I have had a low-level, ongoing migraine that occasionally flairs into the incapacitating state that last for days/weeks, along with the occasional, restless-leg syndrome.  All this in addition to lupus, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart problems, poor circulation, gosh, the list goes on.  But you get the picture. This slew of physical health related issues demands medication.  I have worked with my doctor and take only those medications that I absolutely have to and for the shortest times absolutely necessary.  


I am no doctor and I do not advise others to follow my example.  However, even with all the above, I can safely make the follow statement: taking no anti-psychotic medications at all is far superior for my mental and physical well-being than taking the drug induced, side effects laden, pharmaceutical cocktail that doctors prescribe for me."


While it is true that I live at home, with my significant other without company, I do live.  I do not interact well with others, and I can deal with that.  No Problem.  Certainly I have bouts and episodes that I fight my way through.  But I come out the other side.  Me!  Not some drug-induced, comatose, outline with all my normal problems plus all the problems created by anti-psychotic meds.


The pharmaceuticals have the same effect that aspirin has on me.  For example:  I have a headache.  I take an aspirin.  It eases the headache somewhat, but gives me a horrible stomach ache.  I take stomach medicine.  The stomach problem moves to the background with the headache.  But oh, the diarrhea that occurs is almost unimaginable.  I take a diarrhea medication, that gives me a migraine headache.  The circle continues.  Never-ending.  For this reason, I don't take an aspirin immediately when I get a headache.  Most of the time, it does not bloom into a migraine, because I am careful not to eat or drink anything that induces migraines.  If it becomes absolutely unbearable, I take a baby aspirin, and hope that I do not have to take another.


It is for the same reasons I do not take anti-psycotics.  I cannot and will not live my life, it you want to call it living, in side-effects hell, or dead to the world in bed for weeks or months on end.  I am not a physical danger to others.  I am not a physical danger to myself.  I say things occasionally, the few times a year I am in public, that seems to fall outside the norm of how others speak.  I can live with the dead silences that occur.  And the sometimes, loud disagreements that occur when others decide to correct my wayward manner of thinking.


I cannot live without me!

Sorry, failed to include all my response.  The remainer is continued below.

Now let me be clear, if there were a miracle pill, that didn't have the side effects attached that would aid me to be the best that I could be and move me into the realm of what others think of as acceptable, while still allowing me to be me, then I might consider it.  However,  I am retired (after being gainfully employed, even with all my problems, for over 35 years).  So, at this point in my life, screw it!  Others will just have to deal with me, or not as they choose.  I can deal with myself.  


I know that the doctors who prescribed all those different medications through all the years of my life meant well.  Their goal was to make me better.  I know that the drugs did not do it.  I sincerely tried.  I just gave up.  And in doing so, I have found my peace with myself


So for those who can live with themselves and take care of themselves and their homes: (all-be-it surrounded by the never-ending projects and lack of external support and the roller coaster ups and downs of their illness), and for those who can feel as "themselves" as I do,  consider:  Just how well are you really doing on all those medications that do not "cure" you, that do not "ease your pain", that  simply bring more problems to the mix of episodes that you continue to suffer in addition to the so called "cures"?  My episodes come, but they will go.  I contend with them with what little strength I have...for on the meds I had no strength at all.


God bless you all; those who can; those who can't; and those who spend ever day in pain and agony as they search for relief.  Whatever path you choose, I hope you find what you need to survive with dignity and the strength to carry on.  Regardless of wither or not others find you as "normal" or "acceptable".  Find yourself that way.  Find Yourself.