I lump the two groups of medications together because I’m under the impression that lithium was the most popular option for schizophrenia/bipolar 50 years ago (typically associated with the diagnoses that result in the need of a mood stabilizer or antipsychotic today). Not to mention depression. Am I missing something here?
I also assumed that lithium would have been responsible for the comment to which I was replying talking about the side effects of the medications. (Lithium is known to significantly alter personality over the long term, yes? (Once again, often worth the alternative.)) The intended use of my comment was to clarify that the side effects of drugs prescribed for schizophrenia/bipolar have calmed down a lot.
You sound knowledgeable, and I’m expressing my curiosity. It’s such a soft science relative to something like cancer that I really have no idea what’s going on (I’m just a code monkey). I’m really not aware of any popular antipsychotics being prescribed 50 years ago, but I’m open to having my ignorance fixed.
Oh god so sorry! I meant useful. I found it useful to read of your personal journey.
Regarding Lithium for schizophrenia, I believe it's use only is to manage affective (mood) changes rather than psychosis.
Personality change is very hard to objectively consider. Personalities change with time, so it's harder to compare if a drug will alter someone's personality compared to being untreated for decades in an objective way.
All that said, it's commonly described that people feel different on some medications and I think that has to be accepted. Even if it's hard to objectively measure, and hard to quantify.
We often think of mental illness as distinct from personality (yet we also often see personality disorders as mental illness a paradox).
Of course then we should expect treatments will alter personality.
That said we seem to see personality changes claimed with a number of medications, from antiepileptics to statins used for cholesterol, and beta blockers.
I also assumed that lithium would have been responsible for the comment to which I was replying talking about the side effects of the medications. (Lithium is known to significantly alter personality over the long term, yes? (Once again, often worth the alternative.)) The intended use of my comment was to clarify that the side effects of drugs prescribed for schizophrenia/bipolar have calmed down a lot.
You sound knowledgeable, and I’m expressing my curiosity. It’s such a soft science relative to something like cancer that I really have no idea what’s going on (I’m just a code monkey). I’m really not aware of any popular antipsychotics being prescribed 50 years ago, but I’m open to having my ignorance fixed.
Even if you did call my comment useless :(