“27th November 2015”

According to all the experts, mental illness people can have a normal lifestyle as long as we take our medication obediently. They suggest mental illness people to follow these three things: don’t stop our medication, consult our psychiatrists on time, and also talk to a therapist.

It’s common for those mental illness people in the West to talk to a therapist but it’s less common in the East. In my country, general hospitals do not have therapists. I’d had eight years of experience for not taking medication. During that time, when I consulted my psychiatrist, he almost didn’t know what to do. He even thought that I had been totally recovered. There are therapists in private hospitals. The fact is the consultation fee is awfully expensive.

For my own experience, it’s possible for bipolar disorder people to live without medication. However, you are under high risk of falling into a severe relapse. After 8 years for having no medication at all, when I was studying master in Nottingham, I went through critical mood swings from time to time. It was shockingly painful and almost hard to bear. I yearned to get a part time job but failed again and again. A subject that I thought could get a high mark ended up with a poor mark. Moreover, the tutor commented that I did not know how to write a report. The anger burned wildly in my heart. Not soon after, my mind had entered into the state of fuzziness.

Already one year and three months I’m under medication. Of course my mood still swings from time to time but the range is much smaller than when I was not under medication. When I was not under medication, the range could be up till mania to severe depression. All these while, my mood swings from hypomania to depression. It’s still not comfortable but much easier to bear.  I’m a stubborn guy and do not want to surrender and that was why I stood still for such a long time without medication.

Frankly speaking, I do not like to take medication. Every time I take it, it reminds me that I’m sick. When other people can donate their blood, I cannot do so because people cannot donate blood if they are under long term medication. It hurts my dignity for taking medication. Anyway, to have a normal life as others, I take it, I take it.