Thank you for your detailed message, MWM. I have to agree, I am not thrilled with treating the disorder rather than the symptoms and I know it's been discussed a lot on the board.
She doesn't do any other drugs and doesn't drink alcohol. She smokes a couple of puffs from her tiny bowl in the morning and then again in the evening. She uses it to treat her severe anxiety. She was using more before the doctor put her on Prozac. Now she is using less. If she were taking other drugs and drinking, I would be more up in arms over it...when she was a teen, I was glad she stopped taking her medications because I knew she had begun drinking a lot and smoking pot and god knows what else (actually I do know now and it would have been very scary).
My feeling is that with just the right amount of Prozac and the addition of Xanax for anxiety attacks, she's mostly stable. She does have impulsivity, such as shopping and overspending and then forgetting she did that. She can sometimes be excitable, but her mania is still fairly low level. Risking her hupomania by remaining on the Prozac is more desirable to me than deadening all her emotions by taking a mood stabilizer. I guess I have to do more research. Ultimately, it's up to difficult child. She said she would like to stop the Prozac because she has zero sexual desire and her fiancé is not happy about that and neither is she!
Thanks again!
