Medication and Multiplicity

[jsystem.livejournal.com]

This question arose while I was thinking about the medications we've been put on in the past. I'm not going to go over the whole conversation we all inside had about this, but this is the question posed:

Is it really right to medicate the whole system for a psychological problem that one member has? Like, if one member is bipolar, should that person be allowed to take mood stabilizers when no one else in the system is bipolar. Or contrasting, is it alright to take Anti-Psychotics when only one person is a Schizo?

As well, should multiplicity be address before the prescribing of psychiatric drugs to a multiple? Should it be allowed if not everyone in the system is in agreement about taking the medication?


Most of the people in our system is against the use of psychiatric drugs, considering the common side-affects on the body as well as the system members when we're fronting. Everyone inside is a little differently affected by medication, and for a long time we've been apposed to it. However, a few months ago we were prescribed a barrage of different medications, all of which had adverse affects on us. We were not in agreement about the taking of said medications, and we eventually quit taking them because of how the affected out body and our system.
However, we're in unison about herbs. We have agreed that it's ok to take herbal remedies, such as St. John's Work and Ginkgo, which we now take daily. Not everyone inside needs an Anti-Depressant, but a for a few people it's a great help. We've found that we don't have side-affects taking the herbs that we do (except Valerian root, which we started taking every-so-often to help us sleep --- which seems to give the current fronter -when the body heads to bed- really strange dreams).


Opinions, comments, ect? We're curious what everyone else thinks. We know that some people in this community take medication for Bipolar, Depression, and probably Schizophrenia and the sorts.
Did you decide as a group to take these medications? Or did you start taking them without talking to your system members and because of the positive side affects you chose to stay on them? What are your experiences with psychiatric medications? Does it affect only the person who needs those medications or does it affect the whole system (and does it affect everyone differently)? Are you medicating the psychological 'issues' of one or a few system members or is it a body issue that you address with these medications?

I (Pandora), personally, am really very curious about how medication affects other multiples, especially the ones who take them daily with little-to-no negative side-affects.
I'm sorry if I offend someone, this is honestly an innocent curiosity and question... it's not meant to make anyone feel weird or bother anyone.

Pandora, Naomi, and Thomas
The Wonderland Group - J System

Comments

[hold-me-coldly.livejournal.com]

I'll let those who choose to answer this do so separately here. But I, the main fronter, am the one who chose to be medicated for Borderline Personality Disorder and chronic insomnia with anxiety. I take Topamax (an anti-convulsant that is used as a mood-stabelizer) and a low-dose of Seroquel at bedtime (an anti-psychotic that is a tranquilizer as a low-dose). I will admit that it honestly did not occur to me to consult the other group members at the time of choosing to be medicated. It was a survival move for me, and I think they respect this, but they may say otherwise here. I'm not sure.
-Leigh

---

Andie: I don't mind her Topamax cuz she does need it to function. Aside from giving all of us headaches, it doesn't really affect us otherwise. I don't like the Seroquel so much cuz it tends to drag us down in the day but I understand that she can't sleep without taking it. She's tried everything else and she gets hooked on things really easy. If she doesn't take a prescription she'll smoke pot and I don't want that. She doesn't want that either. So I'd prefer the Seroquel over other stuff, if I had to make a choice; still I'd prefer her be able to sleep on her own. BUT when she can't sleep no one gets sleep. It's rough. The onyl concern, sharing a body, is that both meds. cause dehydration and she's no good at drinking enough so I try to constantly drink when I'm out. If she's not out, I'm the one who is out the most.

Marsha- I dunno. I'd prefer the pot. lol I prefer natural stuff. But I don't know what would be a natural mood stabelizer which would work like Topamax and nothing else has worked. We've been through them all. I don't mind the effects of the medications so much as the others do. I'd just wish nothing be wrong with us, yanno?

Cassie- Yeah, so... I think she should just fucking DEAL. I don't like either medication. The Topamax makes me jittery and the Seroquel makes me sluggish, both in turns. It's really strange. I can't stand it and I do wish she had of consulted us. However, she didn't know about all of us when she went on them and I have to take that into consideration.

---

The rest are kids and don't really grasp what medications do or that they can affect the body. I know there is at least one more adult I have not met. Cassie and Marsha are adults, Andie is an older teen. I am 27 next week. ~~~For myself, I am willing to deal with side-effects if they keep me functioning and somewhat sane.

[pthalo]

ooh, we remember Seroquel! If it's working for you, the benefits outweighing the drawbacks that's good. For us, the feeling of absolute numbness and disconnectedness from the body while we were on it, combined with no benefits made us stop taking it. But meds work different for everyone.

medications

[catchild.livejournal.com]

we react very oddly to most drugs. some of us are allergic to certian antibiotics so we just list the body as allergic (even thougth the reaction goes away when CT leaves teh front). We as a group won't use any psycoactive drugs because of teh effects we get from other drugs.

even asprin has odd effects. (rangeing from no effect might as well have taken a placebo to works correctly to hallucinations)

things with really bad effects on some folks we will list the body as allergic to (like morphine never again will we let a doc give us that stuff)

teh one time we tried an antidepressant (amatriptalyn) teh body felt like it was strangleing. so we decided no more stuf fthat messes with brain chemistry for us.

we fully support other peole's right to decide weather or not to take meds. ( oh and herbal stuff reacts simallarly although fewer folks have odd reactions to herbs.) the more highly proccessed or refined something is the more likely we are to have odd or bad reactions.

[linnai.livejournal.com]

We chose not to take drugs for the effects that we, as individuals, experience in our day to day lives. The medication didn't work that well anyhow with switching out and such. If we decide to go the route of therapy in the future, we'll go it drug free, since the drugs don't do what we feel they should anyhow.

[jsystem.livejournal.com]

Hey, none of the medications we've been put on quite worked the way they were supposed to either. We had really bad side-affects as well. We're convinced that they misdiagnosed Us. The only thing that we noticed possitive with the Depakote is we didn't twitch or shake at all while on it (that actually surprised us because we didn't think our quavering could be medicate (Depakote is a mood-stabilizer/anti-convulsant - which apparently is what most mood-stabilizers second-hand as).

Pandora, Heather, Chan

[chaostiny.livejournal.com]

The group has given me permission to answer for all as we have discussed this in depth many times. I, Alex, take several meds for bi-polar disorder. The agreement is that I take them, and then stay out for at least 2 hours so they get into *my* system. Generally I take them right before bed because I sleep in the body so I get the full effect of the meds. No one else has complained of side effects, and to the contrary, they all have said I am much easier to deal with. The rest of them prefer cannabis to anything for dealing with pain and depression. I do too but it doesn't quite cut it as I am a severe bi-polar.

[redrainstorm.livejournal.com]

I am usually out in the body, if it's not me, it's a "little" who comes out. Most others prefer to stay inside. I am on different medicines for Cerebral Palsy (muscle relaxer), a heart condition, low potassium, arthritis, and an anti-depressant. For the most part, the muscle relaxant and the paxil have the biggest effects on others.
Even if a child is out, my body will always walk the way it does due to the CP, that part of the brain is scarred never to be reparied so the muscle relaxer is a must unless they want to feel very, very sore. But the medicine affects us diffrent. I get tired someone, and they completely are out like a light due to the meds.
The anti-depressant doesn't do much for us unless we stop taking it, the coming off the anti-depressant makes me crash, it makes them suicidal. So typically we either have to all agree to take it, or all agree that we're just stopping it because of the wide range of effects it has.

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

We take wellbutrin for depression and neurontin for anxiety and for what seems to be a
side effect of a long past head injury. These drugs work well for us.

The only experience we have had with anti-psychotics was very negative. We were put on
compazine for nausea on a ship journey and it shut down internal communications. I felt
like i was alone. I even hung myself off the side of the ship thinking about what it would
be like to drop into the atlantic in winter. I (little anthony) was 6 or 7 then. Have
never told anyone this before.

--- Miri of Mtribe and Little Anthony

[pthalo]

Risperdal shut down internal communications for us as well, and made us lactate, but at the time, we viewed it as a benefit because we weren't very nice to each other and internal communications at the time consisted of people whispering things like "whore" in your ear while you fronted. and we liked lactating. the doctors didn't, though, so bye-bye risperdal. we were 16.

[jsystem.livejournal.com]

The anti-psychotic they put us on screwed with our communications as well. We lost a lot of time during that period. They also had us on Lithium though, which had a nice habit of making us feel like we'd taken hallucinogens because we'd get really out of it and hear voices (there was one case while we were painting the hallusinations kicked right in and everything looked like it was made out of paint for hours).

We didn't feel like we could deal with that, especially since the anti-psychotic made our hands go numb and we can't sculpt or sew with our hands numb. (At which point the anti-depressant in Lithium just stopped working because we were so depressed because we couldn't do much of anything on the Anti-Psychotic... it completely screwed EVERYTHING up, so many things went wrong in the body while on that medication).

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to see why you feel prescription medications are a better alternative to marijuana. New experimental treatments are using marijuana to treat bipolar (as a mood stabilizer,) anxiety, and difficulty falling asleep. We as a system only seek treatment for problems that affect the system in general and not medications for system members. We have bad reactions to many, many medications.

[jsystem.livejournal.com]

I've read up on some of those studies and they psyched me out because MJ actually calms the hyper-active people down, and it also helps the people who get really angry with people.

I think Marijuana has a lot of medicinal uses, they just haven't researched many of the psychological uses because of the old stigmata that it makes you crazy (have you heard the speech that was given when they made THC illegal? It was complete and utter bullshit (Well, some things were right on like 'it makes to want to eat more' but we actually have learned to moderate out "munchies").

Medical Marijuana

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard the speeches, but I *do* own a copy of Reefer Madness 'nuff said. One of my friends who has a real bad problem with the munchies takes a diet/caffiene pill before she smokes, which limits her desire to eat constantly. I've found that marijuana doesn't so much make me hungry as it makes eating food taste/feel REALLY good. If I set out a reasonable size portion beforehand and then don't allow myself to eat any more, deciding instead to take advantage of my altered state to do artwork or color, I find that I get so engrossed in what I'm doing that I don't even want to eat.

The best thing I like about marijuana is that it is safer than tylenol. It's virtually impossible to overdose on, has a dosing method that makes precice, customizable, accurate usage very easy, and it causes no dammage to brain cells (unlike alcohol, which it has been compared to for recreational users.)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

*icon <3 *

and yes, medical pot!

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

OOOOOOO! *squeels* I <3's your icon, too. Thanks for yet another reminder of why I'd LOVE to be in Canada right now, in Canada I could get married instead of getting fired. :(

A little bit more about my icon. I had a normal Canadian flag icon with the text, and I'd wanted really bad to change the graphics, but I didn't have the software or expertise. After about 6 months of mulling around, I put out a plea on my friend's list for someone to do it for me, and whatdayaknow, one of my friends did. I was sooooo excited.

Can I steal/modify your icon? When I get on my own computer, I'd like to animate your icon and my icon together with the words "Canada is love" or "Canada is tolerance" or something of that nature. You could use it too if you wanted.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Sure, you can use it. We got the design from a website -- I don't remember which one, possibly http://kuckibaboo.blogspot.com/ (scroll down) Your idea sounds really good, let us know when you have it fixed up! (We still like "Canada looks better every day" with a changing assortment of reasons)

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if i could get a pic of Bush with a circle around and a line through . . . that would fit with the theme. (although not be a flag) Any other ideas?

[weirdiguess.livejournal.com]

Way we do it, is, if say like, Chloe has a problem. She doesn't front much and when she goes away, the problem goes away. Used to be that way for Selene. Problem was when her problems stuck around even when she was gone, or when she was fronting all the time.

Small system, easy going, not hard to get a consensus here. They'd only really worry about the opinions of the main fronters if it came down to it I think. Don't see why multiplicity should be talked about before prescribing drugs to them. I mean it's not like it's some big mental disorder. Only difference maybe if your system's had trouble like when they switch, the meds start doing weird things, or maybe it stops switching. Might want to mention it then.

Girls have been on a lot of things, mostly anti-depressants. Doesn't seem to affect people who are not really 'rooted in' the body much, haven't really paid much attention to it though. They've taken an anti-psychotic to sleep, which is pretty weird for me 'cause it doesn't really affect my thinking, but it's like trying to puppet something through oil or whatever 'cause the body's all drugged and not responding right.

Problem's are Selene's mostly, but they cause trouble for Lu as well, so. Had little to no side effect problems on a while lot of different meds, including SSRIs, tri-cyclics, anti-convulsants/mood stabalizers, anti-psychotics.

Damn, I keep getting distracted. Hope that wasn't too random, made some kind of sense.

[jsystem.livejournal.com]

We don't feel multiplicity is a disorder (of course, we do feel there is a difference in mpd vs multiplicity)... it's just the concept of how it may affect other members who do not have the disorder (like if you give one an anti-depressant because they have Major Depressive Disorder, and the other one's Hyper-Active of Bipolar it could send them over the edge).

No worries about Random... Pandora and Heather can jump through ten topics in a second.

Chan, Naomi

[shandra.livejournal.com]

It's a very tough decision. We don't take psychiatric drugs (we did take Prozac for a while and it worked, sort of, but with odd effects). I can't see us going on a drug for /one/ person's problem (we don't have a main front or anything like that) but if a number of us were having a problem we'd consider it.

[athousandmoons.livejournal.com]

We started taking drugs when the body was 11 and Mel was diagnosed with bipolar II. Since we have only a few main fronters, and since we co-run most of the time, we chose to continue taking it when the rest of us showed up. We take mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics and they only affect those who need it - which would be two of us. They don't seem to impair internal communication - we have quiet moments, but we don't think they're related.

We have addressed the issue of being multiple with the psychiatrist who prescribes medications, and he didn't believe us. We've decided that it's all right, because it's better to keep quiet and do what we already do, since we have no problems with the medications, and that's all he does for us. The psychologist is another matter, but you didn't ask about that, so....

~Mel and Andrew

[ques-nova.livejournal.com]

If only one or two members of the system have a specific disorder than it probably isn't caused by a chemical imbalance and probably shouldn't be treated with medication.

[pthalo]

I'm not so sure about that, having read the article recently posted here suggesting how different the brain looks depending on who is fronting. It might be possible that when that person is fronting the brain secretes too much or too little of certain chemicals, while when they're inside, the brain functions normally. You're right, there's probably more to it than that, and the person probably needs help with the behaviours associated with that illness, which may or may not be more beneficial than medication, or may need to coincide with medication.

I have severe OCD. 6-8 hours a day of engaging in compulsive behaviours. I have no time left for anything else. I get panicky about getting behind on the OCD when I'm not up front for a few days. Some of the others have it too, some have it pretty badly, some have very mild cases, some don't have it at all. I'm not sure where the majority lies here. OCD is one of those things that medication can help lessen, but behavioural therapy is required to really help someone learn to manage the obsessive thoughts. Medication hasn't been successful in the past, but that's us. If it was successful for another system in our situation I'd tell them to go for it.

[ques-nova.livejournal.com]

That's why I stuck with the "probably". ^_^

[pthalo]

It depends. Does the person who has bipolar (or whatever illness) need drugs? Do they benefit from them? Is the rest of the system harmed by them? Can the whole system manage properly and responsibly without taking medication? Can the person with bipolar behave healthily and responsibly without them? Does the person with bipolar do things that put the entire system at risk when they aren't on those drugs? If one person take the pills and goes inside, does it affect only them or does it affect the whole system? i.e., can side effects and actual effects be managed by ensuring that only one person, the person who needs it, takes the medication?

There is no One True Answer here. It's going to vary from system to system and from medication to medication. We generally react very poorly to drugs, the person who has the problem doesn't experience much benefit from them, and side effects are rampant. Even if we were singlet, this would be perfect reason to say "drugs, or at least the 14 different anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, etc etc etc that we've tried, don't work well for us."

We do take migraine pills. We take them when we have a migraine, even if it isn't effecting everyone in the system and even though the side effect is putting us to sleep (we take them at bedtime, and suffer through the headache till a reasonable bedtime). Even if some members don't experience them, and even if there were mild side effects, those who do experience migraines would probably still take them until and unless the benefits of the migraine pills stopped outweighing the drawbacks and side effects. (drowsiness from bedtime until wake up time isn't seen as a draw back by us, but drowsiness from 3pm to 10am would be. one antidepressant we took made us sleep 18 hours a day. sure we felt less depressed while we were sleeping, but that left us with six hours to go to school, no time for homework, we'd sleep from 3pm till 8am and were tired all day in school)

The only way to find out if medication works for your system, especially if you've never been on medication before, or never been on medication of that type before, is to try it out, in low doses, with a doctor or psychiatrist who understands, wants to help, and isn't pushing things on you, but listens to you, respects your feedback and is willing to work with you to find something that does work for you guys. You have to give them a fair trial to see if they'll help the mental illness of your headmate, several months, unless the side effects are severe enough that you don't care what the benefits are.

[jsystem.livejournal.com]

"Does the person with bipolar do things that put the entire system at risk when they aren't on those drugs?"
That is basically why we agreed to Pandora taking the St. John's Wort. Let's face it, St John's Wort may be herbal but it is an anti-depressant. However, Pandora is masochistic and when she falls into one of her depression pits her mind goes haywire and she feels she has to hurt herself. Usually, she's got front while all this is happening (though she has been known to also cut inside --- she hasn't done either in awhile and we think she's finally really turning it around).

We think everyone should do what works for them. The medication they tried to put us on was insufficient for anyone inside - it wasn't what we needed, neither together, nor as individuals. (Most of us take every diagnosis with a grain of salt now... but we're sure we know that Pandora is a Major Depressive. The St John's Wort keeps her stable without affecting the rest of us.)

[ex-pinkmonk.livejournal.com]

Us all shares the body, but only the one who gots to takes the medicine feels it - like, we all gots different brains, even if they's not squishy. Withouts it, she don't/can't talk to us as much, and her head-twin gets real depressed abouts that. Any kinds of drugs anyone takes, it only affects them. (But if the body drink alcohol, everyone goes under! :( So she don't drinks too much.)

~TW

hold_me_coldly mentioned not consulting other group members before choosing to be medicated - the body started taking medication before she was aware of anyone else here. For awhile, it was pretty rocky, there were some misdiagnoses, but we're fortunate enough to not have any of the grave, scary mishaps we read about. At some point, she picked up marijuana, which did/exceeded the effects of two meds and had no side effects (except munchies for nasty greasy food :p). Now she takes a mood stabilizer (Lamictal), and just decided to go off Alprazolam - while yes, it does reduce her anxiety, in the months where she couldn't afford it (but still had plenty of Lamictal), that particular anxiety went away...and only came back the day she started it again. :p We consider ourselves lucky...as always!

~Lola

[yellowsub723.livejournal.com]

I was always skeptical and critical of the psycho-pharmeceutical complex as a sociologist and psychotherapist. I never thought I would get to this place of peace about the whole thing. But when one of the members of my system was experiencing such horrific mixed states with utter exhaustion, sleep deprivation, panic, agitation, paranoia and flooding, it made it nearly impossible for anybody else to get front and enjoy life. The body simply wasn't resetting itself following getting triggered.

I can't believe I waited as long as I did to go on medication. We were terrified we'd all disappear except for the executive or be totally spacey. But what happened is that everyone is getting along much better, parts are less responsive to external stimuli (we choose when to switch more), we all get sleep and enjoy ourselves again. Boundaries between parts is much cleaner and someone can get really intense and upset without it taking over the whole system. Now when we get triggered, we sleep it off and it's gone.

On 25mg Seroquel and 100mg Lamictal...