A long time ago, I read an account online of someone who was looking for a new recreational drug experience and they got some risperidone, which is a popular antipsychotic.
They took a much larger dose than the normally prescribed amount, and it resulted in a vividly recounted seemingly interminable and utterly hellish experience.
I found it interesting and kind of funny, because we all live in a world familiar with crazy people, casually saying that someone troublesome "should get some help" or if more "empathetic" plaintively ask why nobody is doing anything about the poor untreated and downtrodden wandering the streets.
And yet, it's a shock to a normal (more or less) person to find out that such medications, which are cheap and sometimes effective, are not fun.
For some reason, the idea that "crazy pills" range from unpleasant to unbearable torture depending on dosage doesn't suggest itself as an obvious hypothesis to explain why people who obviously need them won't take them. And it never drives the development of better options.
Even if someone does try it for themselves, their take-away is that it was hell for them because they aren't crazy.
I’m bipolar II and thus “need” medicine. All medicines are a trade off: do the benefits outweighs the side effects. As someone who’s allergic to basically all chemicals they use for these (ADHD, anti depression and anti-psychotic) I would say that I sympathize with individuals who just don’t want to take them because they make you feel like “not you.”
I’ve also went years without them, instead using meditation and therapy to try and prevent any of my low moods or deal with them as they appear. It was during this time I went from depressed working construction (despite being more than qualified for a junior position) to running a YC-backed startup as my first programming job.
I am convinced that “religion” is the cure for most of these illnesses. Learning to be mindful and how to cope combined with open discussion about them goes a long way. But alas there is now an industrial complex around medication being the solution for this stuff.
You point out low mood. Does it help for hypomania?
In my small experience, it seems like people with bp2 are more aware of their condition than those with bp1 tend to be. What you describe sounds pretty scary when i think about it for someone i know with bp1. But it's totally something they might say when manic to avoid treatment.
Yes it does help with hypomania. A big part of mania in general is the ego and tons of philosophies (especially the mindful ones) help you to control and curate a more healthy ego. Buddhism in particular stresses letting go and thinking rationally about how our suffering is caused by clinging to things (and meditation helps to see these things as they come and go.) This has helped me to beat my once serious anger issues I would experience during hypomania
I can. By religion I just mean traditional theories of mind. For instance Buddhism has a lot of techniques to help you gain a clear mind and control it and most eastern philosophies use this to treat bad thoughts and triggers as “demons” which mindfulness can help to ignore or control. I say this as someone who a year or so ago was anti religious and the type to think it was all just dumb superstition.
Obviously there are extremes, but most people don’t suffer from these extremes. Now days we give pills to people immediately when I really think they should be a last resort. Instead it seems most people only resort to mindful coping skills once they get burned out on side effects.
I don't think that much higher dose then prescribed combined with a person that would not be prescribed the drug at all is a good example for your point. Dosage matters for the experience. And, whether your body has issue the drug is supposed to fix matters too. The reasons why people don't take drugs are more complex then that and for so.e of the issues there are simply no know drugs to fix it.
(https://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=20529)
They took a much larger dose than the normally prescribed amount, and it resulted in a vividly recounted seemingly interminable and utterly hellish experience.
I found it interesting and kind of funny, because we all live in a world familiar with crazy people, casually saying that someone troublesome "should get some help" or if more "empathetic" plaintively ask why nobody is doing anything about the poor untreated and downtrodden wandering the streets.
And yet, it's a shock to a normal (more or less) person to find out that such medications, which are cheap and sometimes effective, are not fun.
For some reason, the idea that "crazy pills" range from unpleasant to unbearable torture depending on dosage doesn't suggest itself as an obvious hypothesis to explain why people who obviously need them won't take them. And it never drives the development of better options.
Even if someone does try it for themselves, their take-away is that it was hell for them because they aren't crazy.