Does Requiring Certain Prescribed Medicines Cause You Deep Shame?

[goingonhope]

I'm really interested to know if others experience any of these feelings when in need of and requiring prescribed medicines for specifically mental health (psyche) concerns, but perhaps even physical pain and/or health:

• Deep sense of shame
• Feelings of inferiority
• Fears & Anxieties that one is weak willed
• Complete feelings of failure

And, if so why do you believe this is so? Also, do you continue despite your feelings and any beliefs you might hold to take your prescribed medicine.

Have you found any way around such lousy, or even intense feelings regarding needing medicine, but not necessary wanting and/or willing to accept such need?

If you don't take any prescribed such medicines, Why? Is it because you don't need it, or because of any of the above reasons or something else?

Also, are you or have you ever been proned to think you're a stronger person or more successful if you don't need or take medicine, then if you did need them?

I know it's a lot of questions, however still if anyone has any input, answers, experience, comments etc. it would be most helpful.

I've allowed myself, (perhaps to some degree others), unneccessary hurt and confusion in my life-time simply because I generally feel, have believed for sometime and still am prone to believe all of those bulleted thoughts and feelings about myself when needing prescribed medicine, ...specifically nuero, psyche and/or a pain medicine.

 

[becvan]

Hi Hope!

I do not feel any shame, blame, bad feelings or remorse of any kind because I need to take a medication. I did though, when I first started to take them. I guess what really helped me was the dramatic change I've had since being stabilized on this medication. I don't know if I will have to take it forever or if I will only need it for the duration of therapy and really I don't care! I'm able to function now. I couldn't before. I have control over my rages. I didn't before. I can use coping skills and they work. They never worked before. Just that makes it worth every second and every cent I spend on them. I refuse to beat myself up for taking something that is helping me.

Really I think I'm a strong person because I have come to a point of acceptance about it. Look at it this way.. would you think less of a person for needing insulin? Would you think less of a person for needing pain medication for a severe back injury? Would you think less of a person for needing medication to control MS? If not, then why in the hell are you thinking less of yourself? It's there to HELP YOU. It's a tool, nothing more nothing less.

Hope that helps some.

bec

 

[Marlene]

• Deep sense of shame
• Feelings of inferiority
• Fears & Anxieties that one is weak willed
• Complete feelings of failure

If you don't take any prescribed such medicines, Why? Is it because you don't need it, or because of any of the above reasons or something else?

I don't take meds anymore. I've been off of them for a little over a year now. While taking them I felt all of the above feelings at one time or another. Actually I've felt all of the above feelings in reference to my PTSD...it continues to be a battle for me to not let the negative feelings win.

But with the meds, the fact that I needed to take them in order to just function really got to me. Part of the reason is that the parent/InLaw generation are so saturated in pills that it's scary. Another part is that it felt like my control was being taken away by medication. That my feeling better was because of taking a pill rather than my hard work really bothered me. It took me getting off of the meds to really believe that my progress was really mine and not generated by a pill.

I took them while necessary and when both my therapist and psychiatrist told me that I could get taper off of the meds, I did. It gave me back a feeling of control in my life that the PTSD had taken away.

Lisa

 

[nic]

Yes, I have had feelings of shame when taking certain meds.

First off, I don't like taking meds., esp. PTSD medication. It makes me feel like there is something wrong with me. The more meds I take, the stronger this feeling. Once, I was on four or five medications at once--a nice little mix of ant-depressants, sedatives, and psych. drugs--and even though it made the PTSD a bit more managable, I felt like total shit about it.

It also depends what medication is prescribed. For instance, when I was on Topomax, I didn't mind taking it because I could say it was for migraines...which was sort of, partly true. When I was on Risperdol, I was very ashamed, because it's strong as hell and typically prescribed for schitzophrenia. I would make sure it was well-hidden whenever I had company at my apartment.

 

[2quilt]

no shame

I don't feel shame because it is just a simple fact that I have this illness and it's a simple fact that I need meds right now.

I decided to get off Cymbalta 2 months ago and joined a clinical trial for Reboxetine (NSRI) and since I am not doing well on Reboxetine (I think I got the highest dose available in the double-blind study) I was told to stop it cold turkey and go back to Cymbalta. The last two months have been unstable for me going through the terrible withdrawal of Cymbalta, then getting used to Reboxetine, now in withdrawal of that too. I am in hell.

So, during all this I have been in miserable pain, deep depression, crying for no apparent reason, going two days without a bath, you all know the deal. And I have missed several social gatherings too, and I explained myself by telling them all about my meds, the clinical trial, and that I have depression and PTSD. They never asked me why I have PTSD, so I didn't have to divulge that to those who don't already know. But I can tell you that just telling them in front of their high school kids that I have depression made the kids' eyes enlarge in surprize.

Surprize that I have depression or surprize that I would divulge such a diagnosis and tell them about my medication problems ?

Well, a few weeks later, I met up with an older person in the group of friends, who told me quietly that she also had depression. She seemed embarrassed to admit this. I told her all about my depression and explained how I know a large number of women and in every case, either that woman is an incest survivor or knows one, like me. There's been enough wars in the world to make people have PTSD, there's 9-11, domestic violence, there are car accidents every day, ...I mean, there's opportunities to have PTSD every day, and life is not easy so it does not surprize me to meet someone who has PTSD and depression for some reason.

It is also not a stigma to me to admit to having depression and getting help for it. In her day, (the older person I spoke about) mental illness had a stigma, but I am trying to stop that by talking openly about it. This forum sure helps that. And this lovely lady found out I have depression through the family grapevine. She and I now have bonded. I am happy about that.

 

[tude]

I used to feel this way about taking medication. The acceptance of pharmaceutical help came very much the same way I came to accept my alcoholism and the suggested treatment for it- the misery and pain of not accepting it became worse than those feelings you listed. Then it came down to making a choice. With that decision, I had to change my thoughts and beliefs. First and formost, I had to concede to the idea that perhaps there was a physiological component to all this that was beyond my control. With the PTSD, I don't fully believe that component applies and I don't like the bad, physical side-effects of meds. Again, a choice was made and I became willing to believe that medication could be a helpful tool in my recovery. That's how I view medication today. It's a tool that I can choose to use or not. Like the many other tools at my disposal, the decision to use them sometimes requires that I change my thoughts and beliefs about them.

I still have those feelings today. However, they're not in relation to medication. I have those feelings about help from people. If I have any honesty or integrity, I will also have to apply what I have written to that as well. Thanks for that dose of honesty buddy... arghh.

tude

 

[kers]

I initially felt very embarrassed when I went on meds. What I think has made the difference in my attitude is finding the right combination. Once I had that, I could suddenly actually effectively practice all the strategies I had been learning about in counseling. That makes it easier for me to face the fact that, for right now, I need these medications in order to function optimally. Where's the shame in wanting to be myself and not a miserable shadow of who I really am?

 

[goingonhope]

There has been a lot of good things said and responses here, and I'm trying like heck to post again to this thread and having a bitch of a time doing so. It's frustrating.

Bec, you've mentioned acceptance. I guess I'll being having to accept that tonight I cannot put into words what I want to respond with and add in relation to this subject.

If I can't write ..(say), what I mean and mean what I write ..(say), adequate to my self-requirement then I cannot allow myself to post ..(talk); It otherwise would become a self-imposed set-up for me to have to later go back and clarify or explain myself, ......meanwhile while life is going on, I've then set myself up for increased levels of anxiety, and then if I never get the time to clarify; This all becomes a set-up for me and gets me feeling frustrated beyond belief, on edge and pissed off with myself.

I guess I'll have to wait for a better time when I can think more clearly again and feel like I have some control over my thoughts.

Hope this makes sense! And, thank you each for your experience and responses with this.


Hope

 

[Moonshadow]

I have avoided taking psych meds, so far. My reasons aren't from embarrassment, but because I don't want to deal with the side-effects and/or dependency. I've had enough trouble overcoming my other addictions, I don't want to get hooked on antidepressants. Also, my husband has made it very clear that he does not want me to take those kinds of medications. So, if I do decide to take them, I will have to do it secretly. Not the best situation.

I do, however, take pain medication. I have to, just to be able to function in any capacity. I started taking Vicodin a while ago, but I have a hard time with it, because it makes me a zombie. I cannot think straight, I am very sluggish and tired, and it is not as effective as I need it to be for my pain.

I have been taking Percocet since mid-June, and it works much better. It does not make me tired, and works much better for my pain. I am very careful about taking it only when needed, as I do not want to abuse it. My urologist has been prescribing them for my Interstitial Cystitis, and I'm afraid that he will stop giving them to me if I start relying on them too much. They also make me itchy, which is frustrating, but not as bad as the pain.

Without the Percocet, the pain is unbearable. I don't want to have to keep taking it long term, but I don't know what else to do. I have been getting weekly DMSO bladder treatments, which is supposed to help with the IC symptoms. The treatments have helped with the urgency and frequency, but the pain is just as bad, if not worse.

I have quit caffeine and stopped eating soy (which is not easy for a vegan), and I haven't been drinking any alcohol. I've also cut out anything else that's acidic, from my diet, as all of those things are supposed to be problematic. The pain just will not go away.

My doctor told me that if I'm still in pain after the treatments are done (I have 4 more), he will send me the the Mayo Clinic, for further evaluation.

 

[goingonhope]

Really I think I'm a strong person because I have come to a point of acceptance about it.

You know, I understand this bec, really I do. It wasn't until I once accepted the reality that I needed to be medicated and allowed myself to be so, that my whole entire world changed in the direction of good.

I then went from a hopeless state of having not functioned at all even in some very basic capacities, ..(but pleasing to others), ......to functioning quite well. In addition to having put together a portfolio, interviewed and afterwards landed a reputable career job; That job was necessary and also it was something really good for my self-esteem at the time. All this after not having worked for a number of yrs. following a series of severe traumas.

There was once that time that I accepted that I needed medication, and I kept my mouth shut about it to others. I didn't tell anyone other than my then fiance.

When he and I had met, I had told him from the very start that I had PTSD, though I didn't then have any clinical understanding whatsoever of it, I did have the diagnosis; But what I did understand was that I lived the symptoms and now knew what it was to unpredictably suffer with PTSD, and I explained this to him.

What I did not know was that it was incurable. Though perhaps, I'd figured that mine was because of the countless obstacles and walls I failed to continue to overcome in finding continuing proper help and treatment for it.

However, then when I took my prescribed medication regularly it managed things so that I was allowed to be me. And, sometimes even without the medicine, (bc I couldn't wait to get rid of it, or at least seriously restrict its dosage,) I managed well for short intervals, but then ....the life's responsibilities expected of me were not comparable to what they are these days.

...Posting here tonight got me going and so I had to cut from this post, .......ramblings.

 

[goingonhope]

Regarding me accepting having to take prescribed medication for PTSD: (quite possibly with a beginning, middle and an end to it and only for a needed period of time) maybe I can one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, ...perhaps......allow myself to put the bat away and stop beating myself with it for needing my PRN prescribed medication more regularly for the time being, for my PTSD.

I have near 21 days away from ciggerettes and I've known for a long time that I've used and abused these uncontrollably so, sort of as a self-medication for my PTSD. How smokes have worked to sorta lengthen the duration of my denial and yet in each moment help me with my PTSD symptoms, yet ruin me at the same time, I don't exactly know, .....except they've worked well as a debilitating hinderence for me and while stabalizing me in denial for yrs. now.

 

[goingonhope]

Hope that helps some.

Yes bec, you and everyone else have helped in getting me to think on this and consider things differently, constructively so, and from other points of view ...and besides my own anxiously fixed, fearful and self-rejecting present belief.

Hope