What I have learned, in my near six decades of life on earth, is that whenever I'm a non-compliant patient I end up in the Emergency Room. I hate the Emergency Room.
If my meds fade (they sometimes do) I end up in the Emergency Room.
It's not just the psych stuff. I learned to deal with severe asthma a long time ago. The last time I was hospitalized for asthma was shortly after I'd met my wife, in the mid 'eighties. Mind-over-matter doesn't work for asthma, believe me, I tried. But my mom remembers doctors who blamed her for my asthma. I tried so hard, mind-over-matter, to make my asthma go away.
Expensive inhaled steroids, and sometimes oral steroids, keep asthma in check. (I love oral steroids so much they scare me. Is this what normal people feel like? Or at least until the psychosis sets in...)
Thanks to modern meds I don't die of lung issues. Siblings of my ancestors did die. My dad's sister died.
Mind over matter doesn't work any better for the psych stuff, of course, but it's been my misfortune that the very first thing to fly out the window when I quit psych meds (because I don't like side effects like anorgasmia or dullness) or meds fading, is my ability to judge my own mental state.
I've learned how important it is that I have a social safety net, people who will be my advocates when I land in the locked psych ward.
My last, too recent, visit to the locked psych ward was illuminating.
I've got some new meds now that work more or less, and a psychiatrist handling me with a fairly light touch.
I appreciate that. I'm a very lucky guy.
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