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No Medication for Me: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
When a character takes medication for a mental illness, they might feel that something that made them unique is taken away. Alternatively, the side effects make them miserable. So the character (or sometimes a parent/guardian) decides to drop the [[Blessed
In fictionland, however, it is very common for certain patients to get on their meds, become functional, then decide they are "cured," or have some kind of epiphany and decide they don't really need the medication anymore. This is often accompanied by a shot of the character throwing their bottle of pills in the trash.
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{{quote| "You shouldn't have taken away my meds! I told you... I do ''crazy'' things without my meds!" }}
* 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 ''[[
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* In ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'' (itself ostensibly based on John Nash's life), his anti-psychotic medication impairs his mathematical ability. Because of this, he ends up dropping it so he can continue his career. This is also subverted, since he mentions to his colleagues during the Nobel ceremony that he is taking the latest medications (probably due to the fact that modern medications have less side-effects). As well as that, when he's off the medication, he occasionally has to consult with people he's familiar with (e.g. his students) to make sure the things he's seeing are real. The [[Real Life]] Nash never got back to medication; Ron Howard added the line to the movie specifically to avoid the negative implication toward anti-psychotic medications, but this has been decried by (some) mental health advocacy groups.
* Played rather disturbingly in ''[[Observeand Report]].''
* Lampshaded/played with in ''[[Repo!
* A rare [[Subverted Trope|subversion]] in ''[[As Good
{{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 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... 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.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s [[Discworld]]:
** ''[[Discworld
** ''[[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.
* In ''[[One Flew Over the
* Serge Storms, the protagonist of the ''Florida Roadkill'' novels, is supposed to be on quite a lot of anti-psychotic 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.
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* ''[[Ally McBeal]]'' angsts that medication that takes away her hallucinations takes away her uniqueness.
* Several episodes of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' featured schizophrenics of this type, who were usually forced to take drugs to testify after witnessing crimes. It explored both sides of this trope at different times. In one instance, the medication allowed the guy to get his life back together, and he eventually reunited with his estranged wife and son. Another episode had a different schizophrenic, who was so used to living with hallucinations that, when the drugs made them go away, he missed them so much he got depressed and killed himself.
** [[Law and Order: Criminal Intent|Detective Goren]], who has experience with mental illness in the family, spells out the faulty thought process that often leads to this trope (when it's not a conscious choice):
{{quote| '''Goren:''' Only sick people take medications. If I don't take the meds, I'm not sick.}}
*** [[Law and Order|The original series]] was the first to explore this trope with the episode ''Pro Se''. A schizophrenic man who has been off his meds for years kills about 8 people in a clothing store. When forced to take his medication, it's revealed that he is quite the brilliant attorney and represents himself, almost beating McCoy in court. When his sister comes forth with damning testimony, he pleads out and goes back off his medication. His reasons for not taking it are the reasons many people on anti-psychotics refuse to:
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* Averted in ''[[New Tricks]]''. If Brian "Memory" Lane stops taking his meds then, as he puts it himself (when he was speaking to a medicated schizophrenic), "I turn into Mr. Loopy, like you.". A couple of episodes demonstrated this; when he didn't take his meds, he was intensely manic and unstable, and thus no good at his job whatsoever.
* Leads to tragedy in more than one episode of ''[[CSI]]''.
* 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.
* ''[[
* The entire premise of ''[[The United States of Tara|United States of Tara]]''--She went off her meds to discover the cause of her DID.
* 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.
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== [[Theatre]] ==
* Diana from ''[[Next to Normal]]'' insists on this multiple times, most notably in "Didn't I See This Movie?", after her doctor recommends electro-shock therapy.
* Rebecca and Sara in ''[[Code
== [[Video Games]] ==
* When we first meet Gary in [[Bully (
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' had one where Bart takes "Focusyn" to combat ADHD, and it makes him wicked paranoid. Major League Baseball is out to get us! Turns out...Major League Baseball ''was'' out to get us. Not quite a [[Broken Aesop]], not quite a [[Rule-Abiding Rebel]], [[Rule of Funny|just another Simpsons plot with no actual point.]]
* 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 series)|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.
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