Bollockybollockybollocky HTT

[EnpoTree]

Basically I have to take bloody diazepam three times a day and be visited by HTT every day and even then the nurse reckons it's 50/50 if I'll need to go into hospital or not. This has gone too far. I'm absobloodylutely sodding fine and visited the drop-in as I was worried I was going to become not-fine and wanted to know how to stop DP worrying unnecessarily after having spoken to CMHT as I was referred from GP as I wanted to avoid becoming depressed and how to maintain my current good humour and general sparkling and effervescent nature. The lesson apparently being that being responsible and proactive with your mental health gets you accused of poor insight and told to take drugs on pain of hospital admission.

She's really fucking scared me. I will not go into hospital. So to avoid it I have to swallow pills that make me slow and stupid and sleepy even though I am totally happy with the way I am now and it's everyone else who doesn't like it. Maybe its everyone else who needs bloody medicating.

I hate this so much. I know its a bad idea to get involved in MH services. So why do I ever go back?

well I think you said you have a diagnosis of hypomania currently and have been treated for episodes of depression in the past

not that that matters, it's the fact that you are so keen for things to be different, to have more control over your moods. Lots of people with or without the diagnosis exert an awful lot of influence over their mood swings without drugs

My DP WON'T ring the doctor to make an appointment to deal with his mental illness.

Manic depression fellowship?

I guess if anyone knows how to deal with moods without drugs it would be them.

They've rebranded twice since then. Are you under 25? There is also STEADY for younger adults

it's just about finding what works best for you

sounds so fucking lame but it's true

No I'm not under 25

Just had a call - there's a nurse and a psychiatrist coming round at 1 today. Though I thought the psychiatrist wasn't due until tomorrow. At least they rang when they said they were going to ring and have given me a definite time to expect them.

I assume this is a discharge meeting.

DP is going out and I am going to go out and run around to try and calm down before they get here.

Hope the meeting goes ok Enpo it sounds crap at the minute :(

whilst I am apparently perfectly at liberty to discharge myself, they won't actually tell me how to do that. I have managed to get them to agree to come at the same time every day and to stay in touch with me to tell me what is going on. And to not nag me EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY VISIT about aripiprazole. And the psychiatrist does nor appear to understand and refuses to accept that trying to persuade me to take aripiprazole followed by the statement "we really do want to keep you out of hospital" sounds like a threat.

When i. Complained abo the clonazepam making ng me drop things and spill things and fall over all the time he did not seem at all surprised and said "that's why you would be better on the aripiprazole". So basically the while idea behind giving me them was to make me so dysfunctional that anything would seem to be an improvement. Hebalso asked if the zopiclone left me hungover and when I said yes he told me I didn't have tobtake it and could just take a clonazepam instead (which won't be happening). I didbtelo then thofh that the main thing distressing me at the moment is having to fight my corner every single day against aripiprazole and its getting to me. So although I wont be discharged, I'm now off all meds (woohoo!) and althoighbim being visited every day I won't be nagged about aripiprazole.

Result.

Are you really dead set against aripiprazole because from where I'm standing it could do you the world of good and would get the HTT off your back. It's a good drug with very few side effects.

And I am afraid i may have become irritable when one of them started talking about chakras

I just can't take antipsychotic drugs. Every few years a new one comes out and they tell me that THIS one is so much better/less sedating/won't cause the particular side effect that the last one did. Well, no. Maybe it doesn't. But its the side effects I DON'T know about that bother me . besides which I need to stay sharp and alert if I am to avoid being coerced into things i don't want to do.

Aripiprazole really is different. It's not sedating and doesn't cause weight gain. I say this as someone who prescribes it and as a patient who takes it. Maybe you could just consider it, especially if it keeps you out of hospital.

And as the repeaedly tell me I am lucid and clear and comprehensible and clearly have capacity so a) I can refuse and b) ttheres no jistificatioknor indication for "antipsychotic" (I.e.trouble-maker-quieting) drugs - convenient isn't it how the same drugs work in such disparate conditions? Unless of coursr they're just bring used to oppress a whole class of inconvenient people the way blacks were stigmatised as agtessive and in need of medication for "schizophrenia" during the civil rights movement (rather than justifiaboy angry about being treated as subhuman) or political dissidents diagnosed with "sluggish schizophrenia" and locked up

They said that about risperidone too and it made me tachycardic.

MP, I won't be going into hospital anway, so "it'll keep you out if hospital" just sounds like a threat whenbthey say it (and an empty threat at that).

I ^have considered aripiprazole. Very carefully. I have investigated it in great detail and have chosen not to take it as I quite enjoy my experience of mild hyperthymia and feel no distressing emotions except when provoked by oeiole with the power to steal my personal integrity and right to self determination.

IN fact I've considered it MORE carefully than the doctors which is why I know that it's inappropriate for me as I'm diabetic and have low blood pressure.

Not that they have even bothered asking of taken any kind of history.

I'm sorry MP: I've just realised that came across as really hostile towards youm I didn't intend it to soubd that way and I'm so sorry if I upset you

Don't worry Enpo, I'm not offended in the least. You can't be too delicate a flower in my job.