I've been on the edge of deciding I need medicine for a year now, but I feel like in some ways it'll be worse for me than better. I know my experience of day to day life would be so much improved, but I just can't get myself to do it. What's worse is that I know that if I did, I'd be happy I did and look back on myself now as some maniac whose hormones were making him think unclearly.

I still can't balance the psychiatrist's formula though:

you + chemicals = the real you

Whaaat?

I think psychiatric drugs are more of a tool to help you function in society, not a path to "the real you."

Good luck Carl. Bi-polar's a tough burden to carry around. I think you admitting that you need some help is great, and it certainly isn't defeat. What is it about our masculinity that forbids us from acknowledging weaknesses? Must we all be strong all of the time?

Carl, it is difficult to deal with mental illness. I've struggled with depression on and off for the last 12 years. It's not a walk in the park. I hope you find the right meds, which is often a difficult task.

I've been on the edge of deciding I need medicine for a year now, but I feel like in some ways it'll be worse for me than better. I know my experience of day to day life would be so much improved, but I just can't get myself to do it. What's worse is that I know that if I did, I'd be happy I did and look back on myself now as some maniac whose hormones were making him think unclearly.

 

I still can't balance the psychiatrist's formula though:

 

you + chemicals = the real you

 

Whaaat?

you + chemicals = you functioning on chemicals vs. not functioning without chemicals

it's a tough choice. It took me four tries before I found the right antidepressant that works for me without too many awful side effects. Frankly, I cannot deal with SSRIs effect on libido (zero) and physiological response to stimulation (no erection/no ejaculation or no erection/pathetically unsatisfying ejaculation).

What bothers me the most is the mood stabilizer. Emotional response zeroes out. Life settles into a mediocre median where happy and sad are dampened to just okay. It's hard to live like that, but at least you're not hiding under the covers because you're so depressed you don't even want to walk all the way to the toilet, but you know you gotta, but you don't until you can't hold it any longer, and then feel like a failure because you gave in to a need; or, as is my case right now, your irritable to the max, you don't need a lot of sleep, you tend to focus on one thing at the detriment of everything else around you, and you don't care one iota about anything.

I don't want to, but I'll take the drugs. I've been at the edge and it is very scary trying to decide if the fall will kill you or only maim you until the oncoming semi turns you into a bloody smear on the pavement (a few nights ago I ran over either a large raccoon or a coyote, THUMP! THUMP-THUMP! followed by a queasy feeling that it could have been a suicider diving under the front tire causing that sound. No, I didn't stop to see what I killed.) and now, to experience what must have been a truly psychotic event and live to tell about it. When you can scare yourself, it's time to take a few pills and return to something close to normal.