The following is a comment I wrote over at I'm Somewhere Else. It rather stands on its own and it talks about something I've been meaning to talk about here so I decided to repost it. Of course, check out the article in question; I'm Somewhere Else is a wonderful blog.
I think one of the things that is most hurtful part of being told you have to be on medication you do not want, even if you're able to refuse it, is that it leads to yet another way your disability becomes minimized. I refuse to take drugs for my tourette syndrome which, by all accounts is severe. Yet, because I don't take medication people compare me, and I compare myself, to people who are like me and who's symptoms are as bad as mine who are on medications. I feel that because I'm not on medications that my disability isn't really as severe as it actually is because if I were to just accept the treatment, I tell myself, it would be so much easier.
Sometimes I tell myself that I'm a drama queen or an attention seeking snowflake because I refuse to take medications. Sometimes I feel like I actually want my symptoms to be worse because I need to feel validated as a disabled person.
Sometimes I feel guilty because the outward symptoms of my disability might be reduced if I were to accept medication and those symptoms are sometimes very disruptive and negatively impact people around me. I feel like a nuisance who, because I will not accept treatment, wants to be so.
I tell myself that the reason I don't take the drugs for it is because they did nothing to ameliorate the stigma and that the side effects of the drugs made life truly miserable. This is true yet the real reason I don't take drugs is because drugs are not right for me because I do not want them. The truth is that's all there is to it.
And that's okay.
Hello world!
1 year ago
4 comments:
i commend you for not taking pharmaceutical drugs. aside from your valid and insightful reasons the pharm' industry in general are really just white collar racketeers whose product can and does lead to severe side effects for those who take them. they have even now somehow made it that they are not liable in cases of death brought about by their poison due to some shill senator pushing a bill through the house (think that's it?) making them immune from prosecution. beggars belief!
Well, I don't think that medications are bad, per se. I certainly take medications, just not ones for my neurological symptoms.
What I'm saying is that they're not right for me, as an individual, and that I should be able to not take them without having my experiences minimized.
I guess, for me anyway, it is a case of personal power, of having a say in one's own life. Perhaps you should take drugs, perhaps it would make your life easier, but equally that might not be true. Ultimately though, it shouldn't matter - it's a personal choice, one that should be respected. I think that's the biggest problem I have with society, and with the medical profession in particular: The need to police our choices. It's necessary up to the point where my choices impact on those of others, so my choice to harm somebody should be restricted, for example, but society has a way of bloating that policing into every other sphere of our lives.
I've been thinking about choice a lot in the run up to my starting with a new psychiatrist soon, and yeah, the only conclusion I can come to regarding policing personal choice, is that people are protecting their personal biasses and beliefs, and ultimately, protecting their arses from being sued. What we actually need or want from them doesn't matter nearly as much.
Ah, that is an excellent point, Mina. I think you're right that a lot of my choice did have to do with personal choice and personal agency.
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