Yes, Psychiatric Medications Do Help

We all know (or all should know) that psychiatric medications can’t fix a broken life. Psychiatric medications are designed to treat the symptoms of a specific disorder, such as bipolar disorder. That means that psych meds can treat things like depression. This is a huge win for anyone suffering from depression and is miracle enough, trust me. And although some symptoms of the disorder, like bipolar or depression, may remain, (ideally they won’t, but most of us don’t live in an ideal situation) there are still many positive things that psych meds can do for you and one thing that psychiatric medications can do for your is increase your resilience to things like life stressors.

SStress resilience is critical in bipolar disorder and psychiatric medications can increase stress resilience. tress and Bipolar

I’ve written before about how stress can lead to bipolar hypomania (among other things) and about how decision-making is tough, especially making the big decisions with bipolar disorder. And right now I’m in the midst of making a huge decision – I’m buying a condo. This means making big decision after big decision, not to mention all the little decisions squished in between. This is a hugely stressful situation.

And, honestly, this type of stress can easily have me lying on the floor praying for daylight. And, don’t get me wrong, it has. But what I can say is that I would expect to be doing much worse at this point and the fact that I’m not is a result of my psychiatric medication cocktail.

Stress Resilience and Bipolar Disorder

Resilience is your ability to withstand the negative things in your life like loss and stress, and developing resilience is critical in surviving bipolar disorder. Resilience is what makes horrible things not quite so horrible because resilience is what protects you from your bipolar getting oodles and oodles worse.

Psychiatric Medication and Stress Resilience

And while many people are down on psych meds, I can honestly say that mine have improved my stress resilience to the point where I can handle this very tough, grown-up, horrendously stressful situation.

[It’s worth noting there are other ways to develop resilience too – many of which are taught in therapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. Psychotherapeutic methods of resilience-building and stress-tolerance have also been very important in my life.]

So, I just want to take one minute and thank the medications for allowing me to survive this stress, not make my bipolar get too out of hand and even allow a little enjoyment through here and there. Yes, this is just another example of the fact that psych meds do work.