No Medication for Me: Difference between revisions
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* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Discworld]]:
** ''[[Discworld/Making Money|Making Money]]'': [[Mad Artist]] Owlswick Jenkins is healed via turnip transplant (which leaves him quite content, but the turnip...), but, alas, he loses his artistic talent
** ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'': Jeremy Clockson used to take a spoonful of medication every
* 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)
* 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.
* In ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'' it is mentioned that the anti-seizure medication causes your teeth to fall out, which is a good reason why some of the patients don't want to take it. One gets the unfortunate side effect mentioned above, and decides he'd rather have the seizures; the other is terrified of having a seizure, and takes the medication intended for the first epileptic as well as his own to make sure he avoids it. In real life decreased salivation ("cotton mouth") is a side-effect of most psychoactive drugs of various kinds and daily use over a long period of time is likely to wreck your teeth.
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* Tragic example: ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' Season Two's flashback episode sees Niki trying to treat her [[Split Personality]] with medication, only to find herself as lively as a pile of seaweed. She surreptitiously stops taking it, and soon loses control of herself again, losing her husband in the process.
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'': Human telepaths are required to join Psi Corps or take drugs which suppress their telepathy for the rest of their life. Unfortunately, the drugs have side effects similar to clinical depression. {{spoiler|Ivanova despises the Psi Corps because her mother was a non-Corps telepath, and was eventually driven to suicide by her use of the drugs.}}
* The entire premise of ''[[The United States of Tara|United States of Tara]]''
* In ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', Reid's schizophrenic mother forwent her meds when she was pregnant with him. She goes off them again during the timeline of the series in an attempt to remember an event from Reid's past.
** The episode "Haunted" is about a man who went off his antipsychotic meds (with the approval of his psychiatrist) in order to access repressed childhood memories. These memories end up being ''much'' worse than anyone had imagined, causing him to snap and go on a killing spree.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* 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". A Tourette's-syndrome patient, Ray needs medication to function in society, but when he takes it he loses all his coordination and artistic
* Some psychiatrists will only prescribe medication as a last resort if nothing else is having any success or doing its full job because meds, as awesome as they can be for restoring full cognitive function, also have great potential for causing permanent brain damage as well as having other negative side effects, as detailed many times before on this page. Even without the numerous side effects, many people really hate being dependent on pills for control of their own bodies and minds.
* It's actually not uncommon for people with ADHD to forgo medication, instead opting to learn coping skills. The main reason, however, is not the lack of creativity but the lack of energy- some ADHD medications put people into "zombie mode" where they're almost constantly fatigued and lethargic. Even worse is that when kids' grades start slipping again, ''they're put on higher doses.''
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