A Personal Perspective: Because psychotic episodes damage the brain, it is imperative to comply with treatment to prevent more damage.
When I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 21, I was absolutely convinced that nothing was wrong with my mind. I had been an honors student at the University of Southern California studying biochemistry. In my last year of college, I failed all my fall semester classes. I told myself I was not trying enough and that I could certainly do it again if I tried harder.
During my first hospitalization, I refused to take medication. The main reason was my unshakeable belief that I did not need it, but I was also afraid of side effects. What I did not know back then was that antipsychotics were the key to enabling me to get discharged from the psychiatric hospital and restore my freedom to live in the community with healthy people.
With the goal of never being hospitalized again, I became convinced I must adhere to antipsychotic medication. I would be hospitalized one last time a year later, in 2008. Still, over the past 16 years, after my new psychiatrist started me on the most effective antipsychotic drug that works when all others fail, my psychosis completely and permanently disappeared. I have been living in full recovery ever since.
Additionally, if one stops, relapses, and then restarts an antipsychotic medication, there is a high chance that “treatment resistance” will develop, and the medication will not work as it did before, even at higher dosages. These two factors are what often lead to chronic disability in schizophrenia.
I am very familiar with the antipsychiatry movement, where people with schizophrenia are invited and sometimes even pressured to discontinue medication. But I will never go off my antipsychotic medication ever again. Today, I understand the devastating personal consequences of risking another “brain attack.”
Today, I am grateful to be living a wonderful new life, thanks to effective medication and faithful treatment compliance.1. Nasrallah HA and Smeltzer DJ: Contemporary Diagnosis and Management of Schizophrenia. Handbooks in Healthcare, Newtown, PA 2011
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