The concept of meds makes me angry

[XL]

I get mad when people suggest I need meds. It seems like a lot of our friends are abusing various drugs for weak reasons.

My childhood was screwed up. I have a weird way of interacting with the world. It's constant. Meds aren't going to fix it. The only things that have fixed it have been behavioral therapies, art therapy, exercise, and attitude changes. I do have OCD, but it's not so bad it's a hinderance, and is not currently at a point where I would consider it debilitating. It also hasn't responded to 2 different meds. Both made me suicidal and forgetful. I also have sleep problems, but they're consistent and I wake feeling rested. I live around it. I'm fine with that. It's my life.

I also don't have insurance, and I get jealous of people who have access to all this extra medical care when I can't even get dental work.

There's one "arm chair psychologist" in my life who I avoid. This person brags about their bipolar med routine like it's some great act of self care. They tried to talk me into grossly inappropriate meds for my sleep issue, and I secretly got super angry and started avoiding them. I think this is causing tension in my family. I have a trigger from my childhood about BPD mother threatening to institutionalize me, and that interaction set me off pretty severely. I don't need to explain my family history or current mental problems to anyone without a degree, especially not someone who is ill in their own life, and also in the family. They are not remotely qualified to help me.

I'm also tired of everyone treating me like a total f' up because I don't sleep like they do. I grew up in a screwed up house where the only time I could get any solitude was at night. I took night jobs because I was desperate to get money to get out of my stupid house as a teen. I don't like explaining that element of it. That also triggered me pretty badly.

I need to confront them directly if it happens again, or else make more of an effort to let it go and interact with them. I'm being passive aggressive by ignoring them.

That is where I need to improve. I don't need to explain myself or feel bad about my reasons. But I need to stop shunning them at parties because of this one interaction.

[XL]

I also just realized I shun people with mental problems now. I no longer enjoy sitting around and talking about feelings and unsolvable problems. Mine, or others'. My latest attitude is "Sounds like you need therapy," maybe one line of advice, and then I walk away.

I'm recently avoiding people who try to get attention by acting sick. I think I'm on total burnout from 30+ years of BPDmom crisis.

I should probably find some middle ground and try to be a nicer friend.

[maria1]

Hi XL

All sounds very 'healthy' to me, I mean your reaction. Many of my good friends don't appear so great any more. I have one friend who is married to a consultant psychiatrist. She talks to him about my chronic fatigue syndrome and gives me hints at what I should be doing. I went to a yoga class with her but I don't want to go any more just because I feel she will judge me if I don't make a class. I'm seeing her more and more as super codependent and I just don't want her in my life any more. I get angry because I don't want to be judged. I hate it. My father judged me very negatively.

You are managing your life without meds. You know that is best for you. That's what matters. Leave them to think what's best for you but let them be.

The hard bit for me is detaching from these people. It sounds like you are actually managing that pretty well.

[Maryiscontrary]

XL, Maria is right.

Well, do you think you need meds, if you really examine yourself?


I have had horrible sleep most of my life, and you are right, most of the meds are garbage, unless you are super agitated and need knock out pills, like in mania. It takes a long time, but if you can remove exposure to superfluous BS in a "let's get real" way, the sleep improves. Now, this is assuming that you have proper sleep hygiene, like not drinking coffee late, etc., etc.

From my experience, if you can remove the pissed offness and worry, the core reason that keep a person up, sleep ensues. It sounds like you are just realizing how crappy people generally are. Seriously, most adults do not have it together, but righteously lie and act like they do. That is, people are very deficient with meta cognition.

If you know yourself, and feel like you need meds because of out of control nervousness, then you know for yourself, and nobody else does.

Yes, the amount of substance abuse addiction, legal, illegal prescription, is breathtaking. A huge majority of people I know have real issues with this.

[hithere]

I take melatonin, it is cheap and non-addictive, works great!

I had bad experiences with anti depression drugs in the past, I only felt better when I eventually went off them completely.

[XL]

I don't need meds, that's the thing. My mood is boring to mildly amused. My OCD is "slightly-upsetting/non-interfering/chronic". There also haven't been any drugs that have made a compelling research argument for working (for my specific thing), and the 2 common ones didn't work, so I'm done with that until some medical breakthrough happens.

I feel like I'm doing wellish, all things considered. A lot of my bad behavior and attitudes have been learned responses from a pretty severely dysfunctional upbringing. They're stress responses and bad coping tools, not chemical illness. The sleep doesn't upset me at all; someone has to work the night shift, I don't see why that equals 'loser'. I don't like explaining the whole history to anyone. I just get mad when people badger me to follow advice, out of context.

I've been trying to put my finger on why this particular person upset me so much. They don't know my history, they don't know how much literal insanity was around my household, and I felt they were painting me as the defective problem. I'm at a point where I'm thriving more, and it hurt me to be dumped back into that "dysfunctional/you need meds/your life is a wreck" role.

Regardless, other people can't read my mind and I should either explain myself or ignore them. I need to let this go. I'm good about filtering out unwanted messages in the moment, but then I put up a permanent wall with the person. This person's around a lot, and frankly isn't very well in their own life, and I'm being rude.

[Mara2]

Hey XL,

There is nothing you have to explain to anybody.  If you are happy with you then that is all that matters.  Sounds like you are doing well to me.   

Is it the fact that this person keeps bothering you and you cannot seem to get away from them?  Or is it your response to them that bothers you? 

[Grey Kitty]

Hmmm... .   you see your current behavior isn't working well with this person, and they are still annoying the crap out of you.

If I read you correctly, what you want is for them to STFU about meds you should be taking.

Can you think of a somewhat more polite but still assertive way of saying that?

Or since this person does have their own issues... .   do you need to find specific ways of communicating with them? (Like the set of tools we have here for communicating with BPDs, but targeted at something else?)

And the other question big is one you just asked:

I've been trying to put my finger on why this particular person upset me so much.

[XL]

Yeah, there was one incident where I feel like I was cornered (well, I was cornered). I was actually pretty firm about telling them their help wasn't necessary, but then I just changed the subject, and left myself to stew on it. I don't like the person now and have been slightly exclusionary towards them at family events.

I think I took it too personally because it's sensitive trigger (this incident was a real thorn in my side I couldn't stop complaining to partner about), but maybe I'm punishing them too much for that. They were probably trying to be helpful in their own weird, misguided way.

[Maryiscontrary]

Boy I understand that. It is extremely irritating when the person telling you is an unresolved head job themselves.

But then again, they may have had pure intentions. You probably don't want to drive away people with pure intentions, rather those who are controlling douches who want to subjugate. There are two types of possibilities here.

I mean, I really empathize with this.