No Medication for Me: Difference between revisions

* Todd Rice aka Obsidian of ''[[Justice Society of America]]'' and ''[[Infinity, Inc.]]'' averts this and knows he needs to take medication for his schizophrenia, and when he starts acting strangely his teammates wonder aloud if he's gotten off of it (turns out it was due to something completed unrelated).

* In ''Lab Rat'', the prequel comic to ''[[Portal 2]]'', Doug Rattmann avoids taking medication for his schizophrenia. [[Subverted Trope|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.

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

{{quote|"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 things, 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... well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills." }}

* Played straight in ''[[What the Bleep Do We Know]]'', when the main character tosses away her anti-anxiety medication after she starts feeling good about herself.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Discworld]]:

* In [[Isaac Asimov]]'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. The robot's owner murders the scientist who fixed it, but it's noted that the victim (who has just realized that he's singlehandedly cut off what could have been a fruitful avenue of robotics research) utterly—perhaps ''intentionally''—fails to defend himself.

* In ''The Phoenix Dance'', Phoenix is bipolar and becomes incredibly creative in her "up" moods, so she starts taking less of her medicine to keep the good moods. Unfortunately, this just means that her bouts of depression come back, too.

* Serge Storms, the protagonist of the ''Florida Roadkill'' novels, is supposed to be on quite a lot of antipsychotic drugs. He often skips doses because they keep him from thinking clearly. When he skips doses for too long (Something that he is usually in the middle of doing in every single book), he goes on killing sprees.

 

* An episode of ''[[Boston Public]]'' had a hyperactive genius piano player, who gets put on Ritalin and doesn't want to play anymore.

* Any and all ''[[Monk]]'' episodes where they try to cure Monk's OCD. He becomes really annoying and can't solve mysteries very well.

* In [[Harper's Island]], Henry's brother J.D. needs to regularly take multiple pills. Though he tends to stop taking them now and then because it makes him feel "foggy". When he's off his pills he tends to do irrational things, {{spoiler|like gutting a deer's throat and leaving it on the hood of someone's car and smearing threatening messages on their windshield with its blood.}}

* Has happened to both Craig and Eli in ''[[Degrassi]]''.

 

== [[Music]] ==

* The [[Animal Collective|Panda Bear]] song "Take Pills" is about getting off of antidepressants.

 

== [[Theatre]] ==

* Diana from ''[[Next to Normal]]'' insists on this multiple times, most notably in "Didn't I See This Movie?", after her doctor recommends electroshock therapy.

* Rebecca and Sara in ''[[Code 21]]'' feel this way, with good reason.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* When we first meet Gary in [[Bully (video game)|Bully]], he says he's taking meds for ADD and other problems. At the end of the game's first chapter, he says that he's gone off them and feels great. Because he's the main villain, this just ends up making him more unhinged.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209192806/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3187 Fuschia spits out her medicine]. Given that the problem is that [[Love Redeems|falling in love is making her better]], it ends better than most.

* A recent strip of ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' depicts Tycho looking over the last few strips he'd written while his Lexapro prescription had run out and marveling at his creativity. Gabe also called him out that during that time he was also [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/09 "wrestling with demons of the mind".]

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', Flash villain The Trickster isn't actually a bad sort, but only taking his medication "when he's down" means he's also open to the delusions that make him go out and commit crimes. At the time Flash confronts him, both over the medication and to find out information, he isn't even aware he's in costume until it's pointed out to him. Said scene was an in-joke of sorts to the dramatic difference between the short-lived live-action ''[[The Flash (TV 1990)||The Flash]]'' series, which portrayed Trickster as an insane Joker-rip off and the comic version of Trickster, who is more or less a villainous conman, who by the late 1990s had fallen into [[Anti-Hero]] territory as far as aiding the Flash against his former villainous allies. The fact that cartoon Trickster was voiced by [[Mark Hamill]], who played the live-action version of Trickster (as well as voicing the Joker in the [[DCAU]]) added to the wink-wink to the audience.

* In one episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Bobby is (apparently mis-) diagnosed with ADD, and abandoning the medication is seen as good. In another, however, Kahn goes off his manic-depression meds and despite his mania practically being a [[Disability Superpower]], it's soon apparent that he ''really needed'' those pills.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Madness Tropes]]

[[Category:Television Is Trying to Kill Us]]

[[Category:This Is Your Index On Drugs]]