The webinar with The Family Stew Cartoon “Medication” is a continuation of a ten post series to highlight the webinar titled Loving Your Special Someone with a Psychological Disorder (“Loving Someone with Bipolar”). My idea behind these posts is simple:
Loving Bipolar Lost | Loving Bipolar Cow | Loving Bipolar Cosmic | Loving Bipolar Shovel | Loving Bipolar Proposal Proposal | Loving Bipolar Shovel | Loving Bipolar Depression | Loving Bipolar Hairline | Loving Bipolar Medication | Loving Bipolar Again
- It is a way to celebrate and share with my readers–my wife, Joan Winifred, and myself, Chato Stewart, our Silver 25th anniversary!
- It is a way to tell the severe traumatic story in a comic fun cartoon style which allows peers to relate not only just to our words but to the cartoons/illustrations. (A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say.) And maybe some can relate better to the story found in the comics.
- Chato’s Notes will give you more info on each cartoon, kind of a bonus behind the scenes for the cartoons.
Nope, Joan Winifred, or myself Chato Stewart are not here to hand out marital advice! We’re not relationship therapists. We are a couple with lived-experience sharing what worked for us. Hopefully, if a peer can relate to something in the webinar as to what is said, read, or seen…and finds it helpful, great! (Trust me, it’s not intentional.)
This webinar might seem like a happy and fluffy-bunny style love story. At first!
- Read between the lines, you’ll start to see a new dialog.
- A picture is worth a thousand words (in this case a lot of cartoons)
- Learn about our not so fluffy parts of Bipolar or Bipolar Depression affecting our relationship.
- See the much deeper story exposed; it is raw; It is scary, at times, and it tells two sides (the light and the dark)…With The Family Stew Cartoons.
The following is a little more background info for some of the cartoons, adding to the 1000 words between the lines, one might say or just extra gossip:
Chato Says:
Ugg! The medication it’s the bane of my existence! I started out with a diagnosis of Bipolar Depression. Start out being treated more for the depression symptoms more than other typical Bipolar Symptoms. The very first choice I had, (not that I had any other option) was a chemical option! Lithium and an antidepressant. I’m not a proponent for or against medication as something you need to take…I am more for do what works for you. If medication works for you and you can get it at a reasonable price (and you feel that it is something that is successful in your wellness plan) then that is something between you and your doctor and no one should try to convince you otherwise. You should stay on every medication your doctor put you on. Do not stop any medication unless a therapist/ doctor is advising you to do so.
Do not allow someone to convince you to do so otherwise to ever stop taking meds because of an agenda or cause. Stopping any medication might and can cause harm if not monitored by yours, doctor.
We Understand that with any medication we know our body better they anyone else, and we’ll find out when a drug is, or is not working. Or if it is having an adverse effect, we should immediately contact a doctor. It is up to us to make that choice with supervision. I think that’s the key. One of the things I learned is that I do not do well off medication. I’ve been off medication. For a 2 year stretch after diagnosis…my wife refers to those years as the worst years of life, and the worst years of our marriage.
So am I medicated? Yes, I am! I do it so that I can maintain a reasonable life with my family and have control over my illness/my disease/my whatever you want to call it. Do I like it? Of course not! Do I wish I could stop all meds? Do I hope someday to come off my meds permanently? Of course, I do. Have I tried? yes? Of course, I have!
Last year I attempted early in the year to reduce my medication (and things were going well for about a month and a half) until one morning I woke up into a major depression! It took almost 6 months or longer for me to get out of that episode. There were some periods I wouldn’t even leave my room. I thought that this was going to be it. That this illness finally won.
So, do I believe I need medication? I’ve been told by my doctor, a few doctors, I’ll probably be on medication for the rest of my life. Or until they find a cure for what ails me. Sounds daunting, until you realize that people who have diabetes are on medications for a long time. In reality, it’s just part of a health condition that needs to be treated with medication, just like any other health condition. Bipolar disorder and mental illness is a condition that can be treated with medication that I choose to take. If you choose other natural venues and they work for you, fantastic. Share them. Or other non-med therapies that work for you, share them with networks/group support networks with social advocacy. There is no need to be medicating shaming someone who chooses to medicate or not medicate.
We don’t need to shame peers who choose to go the route of medication, or who choose other forms of wellness programs.
We advocate for them, for our peers, for healthy forms of wellness. One day I hope to be off all meds, and it may just be a hope right now, but but that is my wellness plan.
This Is part of Story in a Webinar titled: Loving Your Special Someone with a Psychological Disorder. Hosted by Zoe.
Mental Health Humor and psychological disorder humor and cartoons by Chato Stewart
Here is a cartoon that you’ll see only in the Webinar:
Mental Health Humor and psychological disorder humor and cartoons by Chato Stewart
The Joy of Bipolar medication Combo Hunt