are the meds necessary?

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Am agree DevonB,am second everything there.
sister is a councilor with a national drug rehab organisation and the types of problems her clients have are a lot more life affecting than taking medication that has been properly assessed for.
one of her clients had his legs amputated due to infection from injecting heroin,others have been removed from their home,got into a lot of debt,left on the streets,families ignore them,had their children taken into care,have been in prison because of their drug habit etc.


those who think bad of those who take medications for their autism or as difficulties or comorbids should not judge someone without having been in the same situation,and without knowing them and what they go through either.
and there's a lot more autism and as related reasons for taking medications than only the co morbids-depression or adhd,there's also meltdowns,sensory [meds can numb it to make it not feel so overloading],self injury,challenging behavior,lack of speech or speech impairment [some meds do help some NVers],obsesiveness [meds can lessen it for those who are strongly affected] etc.

am would be dead by now if it wasnt for the medications am take [they are for lessening meltdowns,self injury, headbanging etc].

Yeah I agree to but mine gave me more meltdowns.

why?

that's a massive generalization, although i'd agree is mostly true, but probably not for the reasons you think.

the problem with taking street drugs is people use them for recreation, and that's when they have side effects. you could use many street drugs to treat certain issues if you wanted. you could use cocaine for adhd, my methylphenidate has the same effect on brain chemistry as cocaine, the difference is that cocaine permeates the blood-brain barrier more quickly, and is disposed of more quickly. if you made a time release capsule of cocaine, you could get the same results as my time released methylphenidate. on the flip side, you can also use prescription drugs recreationally and have the same problems as street drugs. there are many people who abuse methylphenidate (although it's much, much more difficult with concerta because of the way the pill's designed) and other adhd medications.

i've spoken to many people who find that marijuana has significantly improved their quality of life. i also know many who's quality of life has probably decreased because of it.

anyways my point is that many drugs, legal or not, can provide effective relief of symptoms if used correctly, and can cause problems if used incorrectly, and when i say incorrectly, i mean abused for recreation, or prescribed incorrectly.

My 21 year old son was adicted to heroin...there is nothing loving about it....its a killer. He had two of his close friends die from overdose.

Abilify for meltdowns? Thats intsresting, I'm currently taking that for bipolar/mild psychosis, seems to be working. The Lamictal hs for my mood. I didn't take meds for a long time, but things happen and I need them now, I really didn't know how I was living with my depression before.

Of all the antipsychotics Ive taken (for severe depression in general), Abilify has been the most successful in treating symptoms and the most gentle (in terms of side effects) and the only one I would consent to taking again. Saying that, I would only take it in the short term - after 3-4 months the positive effects were wearing off and I was gaining weight despite what all the clinical trials have described, so I took myself off it after 5 months and glad to be off it now (but it did have a permanent effect in reducing the anger I felt - which hasnt returned, so it was certainly useful at the time).

I flushed my pills because I didn't need them. In fact, they were screwing me up more, making me fall asleep at random intervals or not be able to sleep, not eat enough or eat too little, wet the bed, have seizures and probably act out even more than I would've otherwise (as I did some crazy s**t on them and just about went crazy, apparently). Besides, they were mostly being used as control and punishment... because I did "embarrassing" things, because I obsessed over stuff that others didn't care about, because I drew violent pictures, because I freaked out when people made loud noises right behind me, that sort of thing. In the end, I wanted to be myself, not the person I was on medications and certainly not the person they hoped I would become if they found the right combination.

Now I'm off the meds, and I've been a lot more functional than I was during that six year period that I was on them. I've had my ups and downs, I've had freak outs, I've gotten angry, but that's not bad brain chemistry, unless you're of the conviction that any negative emotion is an indication of a mental problem (and I've known some who do think like that). I didn't need pills so much as I needed to figure out on my own how the world worked and how to get by. I'm still working on that somewhat, but I'm better now that I can do so on my own terms.

yes i need em if u really wanna know why spend 1 and ½ day with me when im not taking med and chances getting meltdown are high

preach it brotha... er sista
i was the same way, everyone was trying to figure out how to make me "less violent" but nobody was able to, or put much effort into figuring out the root of the problem. i pretty much had to figure myself out, and that's what made the difference.