Hi
msbrooks108!
Okay, it’s caveat time!
- Not a doctor
- Not a therapist
- Not certified to deliver actionable advice
- Suggestions only
based on experience
And now the good stuff.
It’s all about quality of life.
Being bipolar means that you have a condition that directly affects your quality of life. While it’s a chronic disease that you have to manage for the rest of your life, in this aspect it is no different from any other medical condition.
It you have a broken leg, there’s the pain you have to deal with while it’s healing.
Which sucks, sure.
You also can’t do stuff you want to do. Like, uh, playing basketball? Getting up to make a sandwich? Which also sucks.
With your bipolar experience, it’s similar. You may not be able to play basketball, which sucks. And getting up to make a sandwich can be tough. And also, because of the bipolar experience, you may experience pain. Existential, but still real.
Both of these elements – the inability to do things and the pain – impact on your quality of life.
Now, let’s focus on the point of medication.
It exists to help improve your quality of life. To help you manage the pain, and enable a more normal existence, whatever that means for you.
So, why might you want to cease medication?
It might be expensive. It might cause complications, unwanted side effects. There might be a social or cultural taboo associated with the type of medication. Or you might be uncomfortable with the thought of ingesting “chemicals”.
For me, none of these reasons are invalid. They all make sense. But alone, they are not enough to make a decision to quit medication. Especially with chronic illnesses.
So let’s look at context.
You’re studying – which takes time and effort and costs money, but delivers “education” and “opportunities” and maybe “friends”.
You’re working – which takes up time and energy, but delivers benefits like “experience” and “money”
.
You want to cease taking medication – what are the reasons for this want?
You want to try alternative therapies – what health/time/financial changes do you get from these therapies?
Then you have the wider impact.
Okay msbrooks108, here are the tougher questions. Some you can’t answer, because you don’t know the answers. And that’s important, because you have to measure how much “I don’t know” matters in your day to day.
So,
msbrooks108,
how will going off meds change your ability to work? How will it shape your approach to education? Are you in a place where you can slow down the volume of work/study in your life and focus on managing on your mental health? If it comes down to it, how do you feel about quitting your job, or cancelling your education? And how do the benefits of your preferred alternative therapies weigh up against these decisions, and their impacts?
For more context, check out this post where I answered a similar question.
Now, it’s important to note here that I’m not pro-medication or anti-medication.
I’m 100% pro-you.
I’m throwing these tough questions at you because it’s easy easy to give in to personal bias. To shape facts to get what you want. To ignore lines of inquiry because they might give you points of view you don’t want to have to consider.
Whatever you do, remember the following:
- there are no do-overs, you’re alive here and now
- everything is recoverable, the pendulum swings both ways
- keep both eyes on your end goal which is having a good life.
And please, let me know what you decide and how you reached your decision!