Friends don't let friends self-medicate

[esprix]

Did you ever just want to KILL SOMEONE for doing something stupid - like, oh, I don't know, GO OFF THEIR MEDS. Sorry, pal, but "I want to find out who the real me is" is the ABSOLUTE WORST REASON EVER to self-diagnose and self-medicate. These meds aren't working? Fine - find new ones. There's a ton out there. Still want off of 'em? At the

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[felis_ultharus]

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I can agree. I'd estimate that about half my friends-in-real-life have been on anti-depressants, and it hasn't helped a one of them. Usually they don't get their lives started until the drug wears off (one friend became suicidal when that happened) or they run out of money.

A friend of mine on anti-depressants is a brutally dysfunctional relationship, of the sort he wouldn't have put up with if he weren't on medications.

I also know how eager psychiatrists are to shove the stuff onto people. I had to storm out of a psychiatrists office because she was furious I wouldn't accept her five-minute, based-on-a-ten-question-survey diagnose of depression, in need of medication -- and this was a pre-requisite for personal counselling. I used my writing to pull myself out.

As for "finding out the real me," I think it's a pretty good reason. It's also especially necessary in the artistic professions, which often need these conditions and help them better than drugs can -- I take the edge off my manicness with meditation now, and ease the lows with writing, but find that both aid my work.

I don't rule out psychiatric drugs entirely -- schizophrenics, for example, who've crossed the line between "different interpretation of reality" to "different reality, period." A close friend of mine destroyed his life, pretty much, because he wouldn't medicate.

But, overall, I think we're medicating human diversity. I think our whole culture needs to have a dialogue on what constitutes a "disease to be cured," and what's simply part of the range of human life.

[esprix]

If you knew this particular individual, you would understand how amazingly stupid and asinine he's being. His life was, indeed, FAR better on medication. And if this wasn't the right medication, fine - find one that works better. But he's INSANE BATSHIT CRAZY - that's his "real me." You have no idea. Read my post after this one for his amazing insights, and how he's irritable when he's "the real me" and yells at his co-workers.

And even if he wants off the drugs, fine - but you can't do it by yourself! He needs to talk to his psychiatrist about how to do it. Self-medicating, in this instance, is a BAD IDEA.