[edgyquant]

I’m bipolar II and thus “need” medicine. All medicines are a trade off: do the benefits outweighs the side effects. As someone who’s allergic to basically all chemicals they use for these (ADHD, anti depression and anti-psychotic) I would say that I sympathize with individuals who just don’t want to take them because they make you feel like “not you.”

I’ve also went years without them, instead using meditation and therapy to try and prevent any of my low moods or deal with them as they appear. It was during this time I went from depressed working construction (despite being more than qualified for a junior position) to running a YC-backed startup as my first programming job.

I am convinced that “religion” is the cure for most of these illnesses. Learning to be mindful and how to cope combined with open discussion about them goes a long way. But alas there is now an industrial complex around medication being the solution for this stuff.

[asveikau]

You point out low mood. Does it help for hypomania?

In my small experience, it seems like people with bp2 are more aware of their condition than those with bp1 tend to be. What you describe sounds pretty scary when i think about it for someone i know with bp1. But it's totally something they might say when manic to avoid treatment.

[edgyquant]

Yes it does help with hypomania. A big part of mania in general is the ego and tons of philosophies (especially the mindful ones) help you to control and curate a more healthy ego. Buddhism in particular stresses letting go and thinking rationally about how our suffering is caused by clinging to things (and meditation helps to see these things as they come and go.) This has helped me to beat my once serious anger issues I would experience during hypomania

[RealityVoid]

For what is worth, one of the smartest, most amazing people I met was bipolar. From the outside he really had his shit together.

> I am convinced that “religion” is the cure for most of these illnesses.

Can you expand?

[edgyquant]

I can. By religion I just mean traditional theories of mind. For instance Buddhism has a lot of techniques to help you gain a clear mind and control it and most eastern philosophies use this to treat bad thoughts and triggers as “demons” which mindfulness can help to ignore or control. I say this as someone who a year or so ago was anti religious and the type to think it was all just dumb superstition.

Obviously there are extremes, but most people don’t suffer from these extremes. Now days we give pills to people immediately when I really think they should be a last resort. Instead it seems most people only resort to mindful coping skills once they get burned out on side effects.