If a per­son with a men­tal health dis­or­der is will­ing enough to be open, there are al­ways “pre­scrip­tions” from those with whom they share. Some­times, with­in fam­i­lies/house­holds and com­mu­ni­ties, pres­sure mounts to find al­ter­na­tive op­tions, es­pe­cial­ly when the prog­no­sis comes with psy­chi­atric med­ica­tion.

Over the decades of help­ing peo­ple man­age ill health or new di­ag­noses, I have seen par­ents, spous­es, part­ners, friends, church­es and rel­a­tives com­plete­ly de­rail a pro­fes­sion­al’s pre­scribed course of ac­tion be­cause, well, every­one be­lieves they are an ex­pert.

Many clients have suf­fered un­told dis­tress be­cause dis­clo­sure has led to sug­ges­tions about al­ter­na­tive ther­a­pies, lifestyle changes, or holis­tic ap­proach­es as po­ten­tial sub­sti­tutes for med­i­cine.

Look, I get it. Med­ical sci­ence does not pro­vide all the an­swers, and tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge (TK) is an ac­cept­ed an­cient and oral prac­tice in many cul­tures. In some in­stances, TK en­joys in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­tec­tion sim­i­lar to ge­net­ic re­sources and tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions.

The World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WIPO) works to help pre­serve cul­tur­al her­itage that pro­vides eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to the com­mu­ni­ties that hold this type of knowl­edge. TK, WIPO says, is “knowl­edge, know-how, skills and prac­tices that are de­vel­oped, sus­tained, and passed on from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion with­in a com­mu­ni­ty, of­ten form­ing part of its cul­tur­al or spir­i­tu­al iden­ti­ty.”

I take no is­sue with tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine as an in­ter­ven­tion for men­tal ill­ness­es. Peo­ple have al­so suc­cess­ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed al­ter­na­tive reg­i­mens that in­volve phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty (ex­er­cise), spir­i­tu­al ac­tiv­i­ty (prayer, yo­ga, re­treats), mind­ful­ness (med­i­ta­tion, yo­ga), and talk ther­a­py (psy­chother­a­py).

What as­sails me are the pre­scribers who might have in­flu­ence over vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple who are ei­ther ex­hibit­ing signs of men­tal dis­or­der or who have re­ceived a di­ag­no­sis of men­tal ill­ness and who de­cide, based on very lit­tle in­for­ma­tion or ed­u­ca­tion, that the per­son should not take the med­ica­tion pre­scribed.

My first point of vex­a­tion with this is that we live in a coun­try with some of the high­est rates of dis­eases and a well-sub­scribed Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme to man­age the non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble ones, and most of the pre­scribers fill their pre­scrip­tions and re­li­gious­ly take their med­ica­tions to re­main well.

If there is a di­ag­no­sis of di­a­betes mel­li­tus, hy­per­ten­sion, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease or can­cer, for ex­am­ple, al­most every­one I know ad­heres to med­ical pre­scrip­tions.

Again, I am aware that some take the “tra­di­tion­al” route. And I have heard of many con­coc­tions and their prowess es­poused by users and pre­scribers. Peo­ple of­ten be­lieve that these herbal reme­dies and al­ter­na­tive ther­a­pies com­ple­ment or re­place con­ven­tion­al treat­ments, but their ef­fec­tive­ness and safe­ty are of­ten sub­ject to de­bate.

When a per­son is ex­hibit­ing symp­toms of men­tal dis­or­ders, the stig­ma (tak­ing the meds means/con­firms you are “mad”) and mis­in­for­ma­tion im­me­di­ate­ly work to tell them they should not take the meds. And where the client may be con­sid­er­ing fol­low­ing the doc­tor’s or­ders, they soon get ad­vice or a pre­scrip­tion from some­one of in­flu­ence and may back out.

I have seen too many peo­ple pro­long men­tal ill­ness­es that a course of med­ica­tion may have curbed. It is sim­ply heart­break­ing.

Peo­ple al­ways ask me if I take med­ica­tion. My re­sponse re­mains, “I al­ways do if I need to.” But gen­er­al­ly, I am at the place where I am well-reg­u­lat­ed and en­trust­ed by doc­tors with self-man­age­ment.

How did I get here?

First, med­ica­tion. I took the doc­tors’ ad­vice over the years. I want­ed to be well, and some­how their knowl­edge seemed su­pe­ri­or to mine and those around me. And yes, I too lis­tened to peo­ple who ad­vised against it. Those led to the worst crises I have ex­pe­ri­enced.

In time, as the med­ica­tion helped with clar­i­ty and lu­cid­i­ty, I was able to de­ci­pher is­sues, learn trig­gers, em­brace cop­ing mech­a­nisms, pray, med­i­tate, jour­nal and do what­ev­er else was use­ful for my re­cov­ery.

Heal­ing looks dif­fer­ent for every­one. But my con­tention with peo­ple’s pre­scrip­tive­ness is that some­times peo­ple get in the path of the heal­ing and re­cov­ery of oth­ers in detri­men­tal ways.

I have had a par­ent say, “Med­i­cine did not work for me when I had my is­sue. My grand­moth­er prayed over me, and I will pray over my child.” Or, “I know some­one who went to a ‘de­liv­er­ance meet­ing’ be­cause a neigh­bour’s friend daugh­ter was ‘de­liv­ered’,” and many vari­a­tions to avoid the pro­fes­sion­al pre­scrip­tions.

Of­ten, when the health is­sue is one of the mind, it seems eas­i­est to take the ad­vice of, or sub­ject the per­son who is ill to the ad­vice of pre­scrib­ing non-pro­fes­sion­als.

It is wor­ry­ing, this pre­scrip­tive­ness in our cul­ture. Last Sun­day, I met a woman who seemed about my age or above; she was in the su­per­mar­ket look­ing for co­rian­der seeds, cilantro and sundry oth­er things on a list. She asked me to help her look. I al­ready knew this gro­cery does not car­ry many of those, but I searched the shelves with her and then sug­gest­ed where she should go.

She laments in dis­tress, “I need to get this. I have heart prob­lems, and some­one tell me to get these things and use them.” I was re­al­ly very hap­py I was wear­ing a mask!