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Originally Posted by Matthew Shea  Also, a lot of psychiatric medications have the effect of spacing you out. No one really wants to feel that way, even though the medications do work for what they're designed to treat. |
The side effects of psychiatric medications can be terrible. Some (certain schizophrenia meds I think) cause symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease. Our understanding of the brain and the sophistication of medications we have for psychiatric disorders are extremely primitive right now. I personally would not have the heart to force someone to take medication knowing all the kinds of awful side effects the medication would have.
I myself suffer from occasional depression for many years now, but I would never take medication to treat it. Exercise and diet have helped me significantly, and although I'm not cured completely I'd still prefer to have the occasional depressive episode to losing the power of my mind (the thing I value the most about myself) in favor of emotional stability.
If possible it's always best to avoid medication. I don't know how much can be done for schizophrenia without medication, but I'm pretty sure that bi-polar (which consists mostly of depression, with occasional manic episodes) can be improved with diet and exercise. They say that depression causes changes in the brain. Well, they also say that exercise causes changes in the brain. Perhaps that's why it helps so much.