I'm no medication expert, but I believe certain medications help make necessary connections in the brain. So perhaps there is a different way to consider them? Can you find a place of acceptance with yourself in this?

Take care.

Well, if you take it to extremes, a human is a remarkably inefficient chemical process that wears clothes. So, not going to be perfect, no matter what.

That's no reason to let people take advantage, though. They're just chemical bags who dress funny, too. :-)

Instead of slippery slope, I'd call it a continuum, a spectrum. Everything's a continuum, in that sense. And our job is to pick a balance point on each one, and the sum of all those choices is ... us.

The perfectionist in me helped me get along when I was a kid, get approval and appreciation, and avoid the disorienting effects of disapproval and the terrors of feeling unloved. But there’s a bit of the demon in mine – it kills off other feelings in order for me to stay on the straight and narrow. I still have the perfectionist and its demon part. Sometimes, on some things, a perfectionist approach is useful.

But not in human relationships, I think, or in evaluating who we are. And if other people are not perfect, either, and among their imperfections is a tendency to take advantage of us – well, I think we can accept them for who they are – imperfect and manipulating sometimes -- and still put “boundaries” on doing certain things with and for them. I’m still very much new to all this. Boundaries and distancing – another kind of continuum, maybe? Not all or nothing.

Maybe there will be a time to get off meds when the jagged edges come together?

I'll need to learn to accept myself on meds. Right now it's a matter of drawing the line between using drugs as an addict vs using drugs as someone who needs medicine to be well.

Boundaries - I haven't figured that out yet. I know I'm s'posed to have them, but not how to set and stick to them.

Boundaries - I haven't figured that out yet. I know I'm s'posed to have them, but not how to set and stick to them.

I don't really get them (yet) either.