Side Effects of Medication // Telling people

Former Member

I forgot how horrible the side effects are when you go back on medication. Someone give me some encouragement? I don't have a massive support group here in France, everyone is all lovely but they don't have any knowledge as to what my illness is. Which brings me to my second point. Do you think its unreasonable to ask people to read up a bit about what I'm going through? I find it very hard to express myself and I would love it if my friends could understand a little bit more coz on the whole its just frustrating for all of us. I don;t want them to know everything but just maybe understand a bit more how I'm not deliberately being a cunt all the time.
How does one broach this subject?

Former Member

*hug* to you.

Please consider yourself encouraged by me! Sometimes meds are worth the side effects if they give a positive effect.

Many of my friends and family have read up on my condition and I have found this very helpful. The unit I attend is a specialist personality disorder service so they have a really good leaflet for friends and family that explains BPD and the particular type of therapy they offer. I must of given out about a dozen of them! Also my boyfriend read a book on the subject of BPD when we first started going out, he made notes and we discussed them and I answered his question. Most people are glad to be asked to understand more if they have a good relationship with you as they want to help you and understand you better. I would say try to get something suitable for them to read and give it a go. Choose carefully what you give them. I found with BPD that a lot of the resources suggest sexual abuse as a common childhood experience and they stress a lot about suicide risk but I didn't want to give anything like this to my friends and family but luckily the leaflet from the unit I attend is more discrete with what they tell.

plugitin

Do you think the side effects will decrease over time?
Could you perhaps explain in short, because as the poster above me said, some of the side effects might be a bit OTT to tell them all at once...