Medication Compliance

[Lady of Longbourn]

Most side effects - especially ones like drowsiness, dizziness, etc., will greatly improve or even disappear, the longer and more regularly you take the meds.

My medications still cause these issues. Mostly dizziness. Parking lines for examples will...sort of lean in (depth perception)? I now get dizzy looking down in escalators, going down stairs and looking over railings. I will have random moments of dizziness during the day.

Drowsiness...It is still hard for me to wake up. I really hate this. I hate the hung over feeling even after all these years. It's really improved but it's still there. This does not help my sleep cycles and messes with taking medication.[DOUBLEPOST=1402470557,1402470485][/DOUBLEPOST]

you sound very strong willed

Sounds like my therapist. :laugh:

 

[Alfred.Greene]

I was using rhetorical questions to establish my point...

I'll be more direct.

It's natural to have inappropriate thoughts, and its natural to want to imagine what life could be without your medication. Your said that medication makes you feel like you lost apart of yourself, particularly your creativity. Perhaps, you need to seek more creativity in your life to satisfy this need. Happiness is a strange concept and not at all concrete.

Creativity is defined by it's lack of structure, and I would say that you need to add more time to be creative. For me this is often evident in my life, as I am a natural born writer who does not often write. One way to combat this is to spend my time writing on this forum, and focus my creative energies in planning, and growing, and understanding more things in my life. I spend many hours honing my many skills.

What I am trying to get at, is that yes you're quite right that you need to stick with your medications, but you have a unfulfilled emotional need/ambition it seems. Fulfill that goal and going off your meds may become obsolete.

When I ignore my needs my PTSD becomes more active, and that shows me how I need to change, and grow. When i deal with this my PTSD recedes and I have conquered the issue. Anything I should clear up?

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

I know in myself that I can focus at the right time and wean myself off of this pill

This is not an opinion for me. This is life time for me.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

I was discharged from the Military with a serious spinal injury that has seen me on medication for pain control nearly a quarter of a century already. I know I will have to take these pain relief pills for the rest of my life and eventually I will end up back in a wheelchair.

Until that day inevitably arrises I will keep my head high and carry on. Take my pills ass the dr's tell me too and enjoy my life.

I wish you health and healing.

So just as you rightly say Ayesha. Me taking my pain meds like you is not an option. If I want to be physically active it is my life.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Your said that medication makes you feel like you lost apart of yourself, particularly your creativity. Perhaps, you need to seek more creativity in your life to satisfy this need. Happiness is a strange concept and not at all concrete.

Yes, my therapist talks about this a lot too. He worries I do not do enough creativity things and enough 'fun things'. I used to paint. I have ideas and I want to get into those. I am very excited about them.

I write a lot in my diary and I use that as a creativity outlet but it's not enough. I need more.

It's natural to have inappropriate thoughts

Yes maybe. But I think mine were worse. Incoherent.

I notice a huge difference in thoughts before and after medication. Now it's like someone went in and filed all my thoughts. They are clear.

I am me and I have a future. Before it was just depression, mental illness and hospitals.

Sorry, I wish I could explain it better.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

@Ayesha

Have you written a TOP TEN favourite things in life note. I employ this strategy and it can be adapted to pretty much any form the user wants to take.

My thread was as follows.

https://www.myptsd.com/threads/whats-on-your-top-ten-list.45122/

I am sure as a structured form of coping this may fit into possibly what your Therapist is suggesting in the F
"Fun Things"

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

@Santa_Laurie I will try that out in the morning. Thanks.

 

[Deleted member 20280]

You are more than welcome.

:hug:s

 

[Alfred.Greene]

Do you have a definition of creativity? I could suggest a few things for you.

1. there is a book called the passion test, Chris and Janet Attwood, this has really made my life better.
2. You say you love college and learning? Take art classes, I love my writing courses to bits! Hopefully painting is your thing!
3. Call me a epic nerd, but this term I did two crazy things, I took comics as literature and it has got to be one of the most complicated classes ever, it started with "because Batman" next thing I know. I am making claims about what the author is saying about morality, philosophy, Politics, sociological perspectives on society, and how these and more are weaved into the comics themselves....who would have thought?!
4.Call me nerdier, I bought a dictionary of literary terms from oxford....for the fun of it I pop this puppy open and devour various writing terms...I can't go very long without thinking "hey there is that one thing I found in my dictionary! What was that called again? Eh who cares I know to recognize and use the damn term!" I always feel more creativity flowing through me, understanding my craft better.
The concise oxford of dictionary Art and Artists
The concise oxford dictionary of Art Terms
5. The Artist's Way: a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julie Cameron, another life changing book.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

@Alfred.Greene Thank You for the creative ideas. I did take a English class last term that I was very happy with and that will get me into more classes next term that I also signed up for. All my classes next term I am excited about. One of them is a Lit class and a philosophy class.

I actually wanted to get into digital art. I can't draw and I have ideas, and those ideas I can't express on my own. Expressing them on my own would be impossible, unless I could draw really really really well. And even then it really wouldn't get my point across.

Thanks for the book ideas. :)

 

[catjudo]

Ayesha--I have very similar struggles. For me, even my best combination of medication doesn't really keep my bipolar symptoms away. I still cycle even while on the medication, though overall the cycles are a little less frequent and less severe while on the medication versus being unmedicated.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. Earlier this year I had just recovered from a pretty severe depressive episode. I had only been feeling stable for about two months when I suddenly got hit with hypomania and then into a mixed episode. Times like that make it really difficult to remember why I take the meds.

Right now I'm not taking any medication. I haven't for about a month and a half. I didn't make some big conscious choice to go off my medication. I got sick for a couple of weeks...really bad bronchitis, etc. And when I was sick I just didn't manage to take all of my medication. As I got better, I couldn't will myself to restart the meds. I was just at my psychologist's office yesterday and even he had to admit that despite not being on medication I'm equally or more stable than I have been at any other point in the past year. I don't want to restart the meds right now. It feels so good to not be dulled down and exhausted from the medication, but I'm not too high either. I'm realistic; I know it won't last.

Surprisingly, my psychologist (who has threatened before to not work with me if I didn't stay on meds) didn't give me a hard time. Said he could understand why I didn't want to be on them right now and maybe a med holiday would be okay as long as I still continued to see him and my psychiatrist and go back on them at the first sign of any trouble. Also suggested that even without any sign of trouble that I make sure to get back on them no later than Labor Day because that would give me a couple of months to get them back into my system before a time of year that I always tend to cycle into depression. It's a different approach than I've ever taken before...making a choice to stay off the medication as long as I go back on them at a pre-planned time.

All that, I guess, just to say that I completely understand the difficulty with staying on medication. Try not to beat up on yourself when you find yourself not taking all of your medication. Just get back to your routine as soon as you can. Make whatever choice is the best for you and if you find that your needs change over time, it's okay to reevaluate your medications (with your doctor, of course) and change those to meet your evolving needs or priorities.

 

[scout86]

I really don't have any experience with bi-polar. Is the creativity you perceive with a manic episode "real" or is it your perception? You know, like a drunk might think they're the most charming person at the party, because one of the things they've lost is their ability to clearly read the situation? I can see where, during a manic episode, you might DO a lot of stuff. Do you ACCOMPLISH a lot too and what does it look like when the dust settles?

I guess it seems like that creative part of your brain is still there, because it's a part of you. It's a matter of accessing it and harnessing it without the mania. (I can see where "manic" might seem to be fun. I have no defense at all for the "depressive" side.)

You should keep taking you meds even though it isn't fun. I'm trying to picture the "manic" version of Ayesha as a moderator and wondering if that would actually work. I think "not". But, you DO have my sympathy and I can easily understand the temptation to quit.

As time goes on, maybe they'll come up with better drugs with fewer side effects. It can't be fun to have to take pills every day!