Big Pharma And Me, 4

When I disclose to a client that I have never been on medication I am careful to say, "Kids, don't try this at home."  I am well aware of what can happen if someone who is not ready to goes suddenly off their meds.  It is never pretty and can end in tragedy and usually there is some hospitalization required.

I also don't want to give the impression that I am anti-medication.  Far from it.  Without psychotropic medications our work as mental health practitioners, clinicians, rehab workers and peer support workers would be next to impossible.  Given that a lot of mental illness is organically based (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, for example) to take someone suddenly off their meds would be considered cruel and unusual punishment and should also be an indictable offence, if it isn't already.

I think there is also a kind of tension or balance between relying realistically on medication to reduce symptoms and stabilize the consumer and encouraging the consumer to develop good life and social skills and abilities to strengthen their minds and their emotional and inner reality so that they can learn coping strategies to ward off voices and delusions and paranoia. 

It's a noble idea but it would, for many, be akin to expecting a traffic light to stop a buffalo stampede.  Given how isolated people often are to begin with, by the time they are receiving treatment they are often so far-gone with symptoms that it is going to take nothing short of a strict medication regimen to help them stabilize and then hopefully benefit from various therapies and programs of rehabilitation.

My psychiatrist confirmed to me several times that the amount of work I had already done on myself, and my excellent self-knowledge and self-awareness virtually made medications unnecessary for me.  Not everyone is so lucky and even, and often, people who enjoy good mental health really do not have the self-knowledge nor have done the spiritual and emotional work to make them strong enough to cope without ever having to go on medication, should they ever happen to need to.

Of course, for rehab therapy to go well the consumer has to be fully involved in and fully committed to the process.  I am sad to say judging by my own professional experience that this does not always happen.  Our mental health system is also so dependent on pharmaceuticals as treatment that even in rehab accepting personal responsibility for one's recovery too often stays in the back seat, recovery is partial or superficial and the consumer still remains in a dependent relationship with his care providers and this is going to be counterintuitive to any real and qualitative mental health recovery.

The million dollar question here could be how much does it take to bring an exhausted and traumatized consumer to a place where the voices, delusions and paranoia no longer have the power to terrorize and paralyze them; and what else is it going to take to convince her of the importance of taking full responsibility and becoming fully engaged with her journey of recovery.

I imagine that it's going to be different measures for different people.