My Decision To Stop Medication

After a tiring argument today with my doctor, I felt I'd talk about something that many of you may have experiences of or have particular thoughts about. As you know I am medicated for Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia, my lithium is still not an accurate dose and my antipsychotic gives me Parkinsonism - which I now get drugs for too. I had a very tough deadline and again, as you may know, I am on a Fashion Design course which means majority of the work I do is manual. Side effects mean I feel sick consistently and that I experience everything from facial tics to loss of muscle strength in my hands. It's very difficult as you can imagine, but particularly so when these drugs are no benefitting me in any shape or form.

As the drugs are at low doses still, they are not adequate enough to treat my mental health problems and so I've had to actively think of ways to help myself - inclusive of diet, exercise and meditation. I've came up with strategies to try and stop myself feeling certain ways and I use distraction techniques to help me cope with my constant psychosis. It doesn't work entirely, but it is doing more than the drugs usually do.

I made the controversial decision to stop all medication for the time being, as I am too busy to cope with the consistent side effects. As I said to my doctor - I will 'guinea pig' later on when I have less on. I am not urging anyone to follow suit, I'm sure the drugs when they are at their recommended dose they will help but I just don't have time and I'm falling behind because of physical illness. It's important to me to keep up and maintain my life as much as I can, so stopping the drugs for me was a calculated decision for the better - at least at the moment.

Inclusive of this, I have stopped all treatment altogether. I am trying desperately to get the GP off my back, but I've managed to cancel both nurse and psychiatrist appointments because they are almost every week and nothing good actually comes from that at all. I've had to make dramatic decisions - cancelling job interviews and other things of the sort because I am just not well. I'm struggling to progress with my life and the medication is not helping in the slightest, neither are the consistent appointments.

Of course, I didn't have to mention this at all to others but I felt I'd explain before everyone assumes I'm this 'unmedicated Bipolar' like Bradley Cooper's character in Silver Linings, and that I'll have some berky and attempt to kill someone. I probably won't. I just want to clarify that I'm a little better without it and I need a break before I go back to essentially torturing myself to get better.