History Main / NoMedicationForMe

Many media show TheThemeParkVersion with a DrugsAreBad {{Aesop}}. It is, however, very common for certain patients to get on their meds, become functional, then decide they are cured, or otherwise don't really need the medication anymore, or they hate the side effects... then drop back into mental illness until they get back on the meds... [[ViciousCycle The cycle repeats]] if they're lucky. Sometimes if a patient stops taking their medication, it wont work anymore if they try to use it again to cure their illness again.

Many media show TheThemeParkVersion with a DrugsAreBad {{Aesop}}. It is, however, very common for certain patients to get on their meds, become functional, then decide they are cured, or otherwise don't really need the medication anymore, or they hate the side effects... then drop back into mental illness until they get back on the meds... [[ViciousCycle The cycle repeats]].

* Has happened to both Craig and Eli in ''{{Degrassi}''.

* In Lab Rat, the prequel comic to ''{{Portal 2}}'', Doug Rattmann avoids taking medication for his schizophrenia. [[SubvertedTrope In a subversion, however]], he recognizes he needs it, but because he's running low he saves it for when he really needs it to escape.

** "I've got this, what--ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I ''hate'' pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never... [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean well, you were there, you know what you said.]] Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills."

* In Lab Rat, the prequel comic to Portal2, Doug Rattmann avoids taking medication for his schizophrenia. In a subversion, however, he recognizes he needs it, but because he's running low he wants to save it for when he really needs it to escape.

[[AC:TruthInTelevision]]

* Check out ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat'' by Oliver Sacks for a few good examples, particularly the chapter on "Witty Ticcy Ray" where he needs medication to function in society, but when he takes it, he loses his beautiful drumming improvisation skills. Eventually he compromised and took it only during the week. (There was also kind of an inverted example, where after a night of heavy drug use, a man awoke with a greatly heightened sense of smell.)

* In IsaacAsimov's short story "Light Verse", a robot that is malfunctioning is the creator of light sculptures. When its unique problem is "fixed", it can't create anymore.

** [[LawAndOrderCriminalIntent Detective Goren]], who has experience with mental illness in the family, spells out the faulty thought process that leads to this trope:

*** Except that's not the thought process at all. It's more like "I know that I'm sick, but there's an aspect of my sickness that I cherish, and I'm not willing to medicate it away."

*** Excellent description. Which applies regardless of whether the patient is schizophrenic. Anti-psychotic drugs will make ''anyone'' feel drowsy and stupid.

* Doc Will Magnus, creator of the MetalMen, takes regular medication to treat his Manic/Depressive bipolar disorder with delusional episodes, but his 'stabilised' self is also less inventive. A group of SuperVillain MadScientist types kidnap him, confiscate his medication, and set him to work, intending to get him to recreate the DoomsdayDevice Plutonium Man that he made the last time he went nuts. However, this does not lead to the results that the mad scientist types had hoped for, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome and Magnus winds up tearing apart their criminal organization from the inside]].

* Doc Will Magnus, creator of the [[DCUniverse Metal Men]] takes regular medication for his bipolar disorder, but his 'stabilised' self is also less inventive. A group of SuperVillain MadScientist types kidnap him, confiscate his medication, and set him to work, intending to get him to recreate the DoomsdayDevice Plutonium Man that he made the last time he went nuts. This leads to a CMOA:
---> "You shouldn't have taken away my meds! I told you...I do ''crazy'' things without my meds!"

*** It's implied that he ''used'' to take it -- until he met Lady Myria [=LeJean=], and Igor arrived. Then he needed every ounce of brilliance he could apply to the project she presented him with...

* This is one of ''House'' reasons to stop taking the Methadone, which cured his pain in the leg better than Vicodine, but he also felt that the lack of pain affected his deducting abilities. He uses the same argument in the first episodes of Season Six when Dr. Nolan insists in giving him [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor SSRIs]], he's afraid of loosing himself and his abilities. He ends up taking them, anyway.

* Lampshaded/played with in ''RepoTheGeneticOpera''. We never find out what Nathan's medicine was intended for, and it's definitely got some ''nasty'' side-effects [[spoiler: given what it does to Shilo]]. And going off it may not have made any major difference - but we don't know that it really helped either, since [[spoiler: Nathan is noticably free-falling off the edge, if not actually leaping off of it, by the time the opera rolls around and he wasn't exactly the poster child for mental stability beforehand.]]

[[AC:{{Comics}}]]
* Doc Will Magnus, creator of the [[DCUniverse Metal Men]] takes regular medication for his bipolar disorder, but his 'stabilised' self is also less inventive. A group of SuperVillain MadScientist types kidnap him, confiscate his medication, and set him to work, intending to get him to recreate the DoomsdayDevice Plutonium Man that he made the last time he went nuts. This leads to a CMOA:
---> "You shouldn't have taken away my meds! I told you...I do ''crazy'' things without my meds!"

** In the episode "No More Mr. Nice Guy" occurs a little variation of this trope: House employees test a sample of his blood without his consent and discover that he has neurosyphilis. They assume that the effect of the disease in his brain is the reason House is such a huge jerk. They prescribe him with a medication. Suddenly he starts acting a little nicer. All the employees then start asking themselves wheter if they did the right thing or if he is going to loose what makes him so unique.[[spoiler: In the end of the episode it was all a prank of House, of course]]

* The [[AnimalCollective Panda Bear]] song "Take Pills" is about getting of of antidepressants.

*** It's implied that he ''used'' to take it -- until he met Lady Myria LeJean, and Igor arrived. Then he needed every ounce of brilliance he could apply to the project she presented him with...

* This is one of ''House'' reasons to stop taking the Methadone, which cured his pain in the leg better than Vicodine, but he also felt that the lack of pain affected his deducting abilities. He uses the same argument in the first episodes of Season Six when Dr. Nolan insists in giving him [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor SSRIs], he's afraid of loosing himself and his abilities. He ends up taking them, anyway.

* This is one of ''House'' reasons to stop taking the Methadone, which cured his pain in the leg better than Vicodine, but he also felt that the lack of pain affected his deducting abilities. He uses the same argument in the first episodes of Season Six when Dr. Nolan insists in giving him [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor SSRIs]], he's afraid of loosing himself and his abilities. He ends up taking them, anyway.

i

* This is one of ''House'' reasons to stop taking the Methadone, which cured his pain in the leg better than Vicodine, but he also felt that the lack of pain affected his deducting abilities. He uses the same argument in the first episodes of Season Six when Dr. Nolan insists in giving him SSRIs, he's afraid to loose himself and his abilities. He ends up taking them.

-->'''Kutner: We gave Van Gogh chelation therapy. Turned him into a house painter.'''
-->'''Taub: Maybe not, maybe we just put Hitler on Ritalin.'''