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<p>Well, in all respect, then OP probably shouldn’t be creating threads regarding his health to nonprofessionals with mere opinions.</p>
<p>Erm… yes? Of course people shouldn’t ask “hey should I take my meds” to a forum full of uninformed strangers.</p>
<p>Agree with amarkov, obviously</p>
<p>well, just throwing it out there. Can’t really tell someone to keep their opinions to themselves - when that’s the whole point of this place. If OP was seriously looking for advice he would highly consider - obviously he wouldn’t come here for that. Lets give him a little credit he’s not dumb enough to take any advice here too far.</p>
<p>Sharks just scored game winner in OT. Series tied 2-2 biatcchhesss. WOO!</p>
<p>I can’t really tell someone to do anything.
But I do think that posts that can have a big impact on someone’s future (health, abilities, etc.,) should be left for people with at least some reasonable level of expertise.</p>
<p>In has nothing to do with what you’re allowed to say on a forum. I’m just recommending being mindful when the effects of his posts could be significant if the OP heeds his advice.</p>
<p>" But It’d be best for everyone if you didn’t use your knowledge to form unprofessional opinions on someone’s current and future health."</p>
<p>I agree. It’s irresponsible, thoughtless and dangerous to give unprofessional medical advice to someone with a serious and possibly life-threatening illness.</p>
<p>The OP also needs to seek advice from qualified medical professionals, not well meaning, but uninformed strangers on an Internet board.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, if the OP were perfectly fine without his medication, Case Western Reserve wouldn’t have had to send him home one month into his college education and Case wouldn’t be insisting that he get on meds in order to return.</p>
<p>The college didn’t send him home for no reason. Presumably, his behavior was so bizarre, even possibly life-threatening, that the college took the unusual step of sending him home.</p>
<p>I’m not giving medical advice, simply a rec from one citizen to another. I don’t like the way how current antipsychotics are aggressively prescribed and they seem rather personality-destroying.</p>
<p>Multicultural, this is an example of your giving medical advice, and your advice was potentially very dangerous. You do not know the OP and don’t know why Case Western Reserve sent him home one month into freshmen year. He could have been threatening suicide or doing other things that made him a danger to himself or others. </p>
<p>It’s unlikely that the college sent him home so quickly for no good reason. Your advice is stupid, thoughtless and potentially dangerous.</p>
<p>If someone has an illness that has caused them to be sent home by their college, they need to do more to address that illness than “be careful” and have a friend (what friend would have the knowledge to take on that responsibility? And what kind of friends do first semester freshmen have anyway?) look out for him.</p>
<p>Your advice was: “Just have a friend look out for you and be really careful.”</p>
<p>And it was medical advice since you were suggesting that as the way for the OP to treat his illness.</p>
<p>A court should rule on whether he is a danger to society … I mean, if he was that dangerous he would have been institutionalised against his will.</p>
<p>If you go into an emergency room and they feel that you are a danger to yourself or to others, then they should be able to (or perhaps are required to) involuntarily commit you. You will then need some kind of approval to be released, maybe a psychiatrist, therapist, social worker, etc., along with a treatment plan. I think that this is how it is supposed to work. I imagine that things go bad with a lot of people just due to the expense of the process and hospitalization.</p>
<p>“A court should rule on whether he is a danger to society … I mean, if he was that dangerous he would have been institutionalised against his will.”</p>
<p>For all we know, that may have happened. People who are involuntarily hospitalized (which happens if they are believed to be a danger to themselves or others) aren’t kept in the hospital forever. They are hospitalized until they are no longer believed to be a danger to themselves or others. </p>
<p>They may have calmed down after being given medication. If that’s what happened to the OP, that may be why the college is insisting that he be on medication in order to return to school.</p>
<p>It may be that a maintenance dosage is a lot lower than the dosage required to calm an immediate crisis and that the OP can live with that. That’s something that would have to be discussed with his psychiatrist though.</p>
<p>To the OP, while you are still well enough to post your question here at cc:</p>
<p>Please ignore all advice from those who tell you not to take your meds. Northstarmom is right, all the way. I hope you follow your doctor’s recommendations and take your meds. Be pro-active in communicating with your pdoc about side effects. Even more important, allow your mom or other trusted family member to communicate with your doctors and therapists, because there may be times when you are not able to do that effectively. </p>
<p>Of course, when you had your first “break” the meds you were given were very strong. Once the patient stabilizes, the levels get reduced, sometimes meds are changed, some are added, some subtracted. It takes a lot of time, months or years before the right drug level or combination is found. You need a doctor you really trust. Maybe you’ll be ready to go back to school next fall, maybe not. Your health must come first.</p>
<p>Good luck to you. Please get some support from NAMI or other support organizations.</p>
<p>The most difficult part about all this is accepting your diagnosis. Once you do that, and you realize that you can be a productive, happy individual, you can stop thinking about the stigma. That’s what it is, really. Taking meds would be an admission of having a mental illness, which, sadly, is still a stigma. It shouldn’t be, and that is changing. It really is a physical illness, your brain not balancing the chemicals that regulate your thinking and behavior. There ARE good meds out there, and good doctors. Not taking your meds is a sure path to a MISERABLE existence. Guaranteed! Please reconsider, if not for yourself, then for those around you. Your mom and/or dad do not want to watch you deteriorate. You, in the throes of a psychotic episode, won’t know the difference between illness and stability. So trust your doctors and your loved ones. If you don’t, you will eventually find yourself alone and on the street. You know those filthy homeless people on the street who mumble and shout? They are mostly untreated people with mental illness. No family support, no $ for therapy or meds. They think they are well. That will be you eventually, without meds. Is that what you want?</p>
<p>Don’t listen to these ignorant posters giving bad advice. They’re not going to take you in when you’re homeless. And you don’t have to be dysfunctional.</p>
<p>The OP is in Bangalore and maintaining a close relationship with his psychiatrist in India would probably be a challenge if he’s attending school in the United States. One of my coworkers (Indian) said that mental health is looked at differently in India and the level of stigma is less. His family is fairly well-off so I guess that view is at his particular economic level.</p>
<p>Oh, man do I feel your pain.
I pretty much had to give up higher math to take antipsychotics. My thinking became very linear and that pretty much made it impossible to prove stuff except in a very brute-force, algorithmic way. As a math major, this was very painful. But I’m doing a lot more work now than two months ago when I was constantly trying to strangle myself. And a side benefit…it’s a lot easier to read stuff now that my mind’s not going a zillion directions at once. My head is a lot more boring now, and sometimes that can be a good thing.</p>
<p>Whether you take your meds or not is your personal choice. One thing that helped me with the decision was writing out a list of pros and cons, ways the meds helped and ways that they hurt. It helps to see everything on one page because if you have strong feelings in both directions you usually end up changing your mind a lot and not actually seeing the full picture.</p>
<p>(Also, I’m sure you know that some meds can be a lot nicer than others. So if your side effects are unbearable you may consider switching rather than giving up on the class entirely.)</p>
<p>Have fun and be careful -</p>