Anosognosia: The Ghost Symptom & Why Bipolars Don’t Take Their Meds

Here’s a term you ought to know. Anosognosia.

It’s present in those with paralysis, but also those with mental illness. It’s also the number one reason people with mood disorders don’t take their medication and why they lack the perception to recognize their mental illness.

Ano-what?

According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, “Anosognosia, also called ‘lack of insight,’ is a symptom of severe mental illness experienced by some that impairs a person’s ability to understand and perceive his or her illness. It is the single largest reason why people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder refuse medications or do not seek treatment. Without awareness of the illness, refusing treatment appears rational, no matter how clear the need for treatment might be to others.”

Condition Denial

Without insight into our mental illness, those of us who are chemically imbalanced and typically have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, will refuse medication.

I’ve witnessed this occur in a few ways. For the person who doesn’t realize they have a mental illness and don’t perceive their brain-based disorder, they may initially refuse medicine. Why would you treat something that isn’t an obvious issue? To others it may be obvious, but to the person who has it, their own brain has a blind spot.

If symptoms persist and you end up taking medications, and you’ve been on them a while, you may think you’re doing well enough to go off your medication.

But the fact that you’re on your medication is why you’re doing so well.

(Or, in the case that you are a very religious or faith-word believing person, you may very well want to Name It and Claim It, and like myself once did, believe you’re healed in Jesus’ name. That’s also a version of anosognosia that can be detrimental to one’s mental health.)

Asking Why

If someone you know is refusing treatment, anosognosia may be why. Consider it from their point of view. Could they be believing that they’re experiencing mental health symptoms that are part of their nature or personality? Do they believe they’re doing it well enough on their own? Do they succumb to the belief that they’re in control of their behaviors and may be self-medicating, or just oblivious to their need to tone down the symptoms with prescribed medicines?

If you are the one refusing treatment, I would challenge you to consider why. Do you think medication has too many unwanted side effects? Do you think you’re better off without it? If so, why do you think that is? If you believe God healed you from your bipolar or schizophrenia, why do you think that is so? Do you function to the best of your ability without medications? Do you think you were perhaps mis-diagnosed?

The Miracle of Medicine

Granted there are different diagnoses out there, and sometimes there’s not a cut and dry label to put on someone who exhibits behaviors that are abnormal from abnormal thinking. It can be hard to pinpoint diagnoses and reasons why a person acts and thinks the way they do. And that’s not to say everyone has some form of mental illness. Quite the contrary, most people do not. But what if medicine was there for a reason? That by the grace of God, Scientists and Pharmaceutical Engineers were able to rearrange the biochemical structure of this matter, and by issuing it to be consumed by those with severe mental illness, thereby curb the brain’s chemistry to effect the way its’ neurology and cells function?

It’s a science, but it’s also an art. And art can be abstract. So it is with the brain’s recognition of an invisible disorder.

So what do you think? Is this the reason why you or a loved one may be refusing medication? It’s possible you’re handling it on your own. Is it also possible you can be better?