Laura Paxton writes a lovely missive on the necessity for medication to treat bipolar disorder. She makes very important–and oft-missed–points about how long it can take to adjust to medication, how it can help rather than hinder creativity, and why it’s so valuable to hang in there through the process of finding the right medications for you.
You see, what I did not understand was that it takes time to adjust to medications- like several months, or even years sometimes. You need to be patient and bipolars aren’t good at that. You will probably need a cocktail of medications. It is extremely rare that only one medication will work on its own. And you will have side effects. And you will hate them. And you will NOT feel creative. Yet, I promise you that this will pass.
I had a necessary medication change a couple of years ago due to a side effect that popped up. It has taken multiple years to slowly and carefully pick out the right medications and adjust the dosages of them, and now I think maybe I’m finally starting to stabilize this latest configuration of meds. When my meds are right I get stuff done (note that I’m reviewing/blogging again!). I get exercise. I sleep. All of this is very much worth all of the time spent working out meds and all of the interim bouts of side effects, just to get to this point.
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