.. understand being human to mean. If we could somehow completely rid people of anxiety, sadness, loneliness, so called “negative emotions,” the effect on behavior would be profound. You’d be left with a person that didn’t fit what we know being human to be. Maybe for the better or maybe for the worse or maybe just different- but not the same person. It’s a difficult concept- what does the “YOU” without mental illness look like versus a person that isn’t “YOU” but is still your body and brain? Aspects of Codependency can be seen as kindness but kindness can exist without codependency. One might assume a codependent person is only doing a nice thing because of their codependency but how do we know if they might do that one thing even if they did not have codependency?

Overall though the general goal of medication isn’t to keep you on the medication, it is to get you to a place where you can make Sound and rational decisions and hopefully identify fallacies and other patterns of a condition causing you issues in your life and well being. The human mind is something we still know very little about in the broad sense. Your thoughts and feelings aren’t like enzymes and cells that we can look at and quantify and assign values ranges and follow some mechanical and theoretically predictable process. “Feelings doctors” can’t just put a cast on and expect your feelings to mend like a bone or prescribe a pill that “cures” your anxiety, even if they could it wouldn’t be so simple because there is a question of self- what part of your anxiety is you and what part is illness? Some anxiety os natural and expected. People without clinical conditions can miss chances or underperform etc. due to anxiety. The goal isn’t to eliminate anxiety as far as what we..

But strangers can’t tell us how we feel either right? So it’s tough. There is push and pull there but ultimately the whole thing is some balance with the main decider being how you feel. If you go to a psychiatrist voluntarily you obviously weren’t feeling your life and/or mental state were super great. If you’re ready to stop, you either likely don’t feel an improvement from seeing them or you feel like things have improved and you don’t need to see them anymore. Those can both be true and valid or they can be fallacy. Since you are seeing a mental health professional because your ability to think isn’t where you’d want it to be- there is a wisdom in placing some trust in them- or if you can’t, finding someone you can to work with. Ultimately it is your life and you are the one who lives with consequences so you decide and you live with the choices.

A depressed person might say something like “no one likes me…” but you can logically and concretely show that isn’t true. They can have 100 texts from people wanting to hang out, invites to parties and dinners and more- and you can show them and they will usually reject it all. “They don’t really like me..” “those people are fake…” “so and so has 200 texts…” some set of circumstances and excuses that reject clear evidence in support of their view they aren’t liked. That’s how many mental conditions work. A manic person might insist that everyone loves their singing even when people are telling them they do not. Many mental conditions make you the unreliable narrator- more so than the average human cognition biases and such.

Mental health is not one size fits all. The big secret is that there is no “normal.” There isn’t a single human being to point at as an example of what “normal” should look like. Our best go to for “healthy” is a person who is happy or content, has a good survival instinct, and fits in well to a society and is able to function and thrive socially and economically etc. while contributing to a community or larger society in positive ways. It’s a broad and subjective criteria.
most people would say someone who believes a bird is actually Satan and is telling them to burn buildings or they will steal their soul- most people would say that person had something wrong in the head. But… the person taking to the bird? Good odds they might not see that same conclusion. They may think they are the picture of mental health.

For the most part your psychologist just wants you to be able to live happily and productively and safely as possible. The biggest concerns in mental health are mitigating people harming themselves and others, and after that the next biggest concerns are quality of life and possible recovery.
Not all mental conditions are chronic. You can have depression or even manic depressive episodes, anxiety, even psychosis or more as temporary states. You can be fine for 20,40+ years and have a period or episode of severe mental impact, and then you can never have such an issue again for the rest of your life.
You can wake up every day and have those issues for as long as anyone can remember and never be rid of them completely. You can have those issues on and off again.
You can be in therapy and on medication and functioning and thriving and still walk around every day with depression or suicidal and self destructive thoughts and urges, anxiety, impending sense of doom, hearing voices…

Generally you shouldn’t just stop taking those types of meds as there can be mental and physical harm or complications if you do not properly taper off or “wean” yourself off, usually through slowly decreasing the dosage over a safe period of time to allow your body to adjust to the drugs not being in your system and having to self regulate again. This period can also help get some idea of chances for management without the drugs. As you taper down your dosage, you may start to feel differently and your behaviors and resolve may change. If you start to find that your state isn’t manageable as you taper, that can be a sign that you may be best to continue the medication but perhaps at a reduced dose or perhaps the original dose.

So part of the goal of medication in these cases is stability. If you have a manageable condition and the proper medications and doses have been found to help manage your condition(s), sometimes keeping you on the medications even when you are “Doing good” is wise. Sometimes stopping them has high likelihood of you regressing. Long term and depending on the condition and person, you can use a combination of drugs and behavioral therapy and tools as well as lifestyle changes to get away from the drugs by building your ability to have tools for identifying and stopping regressions and to have support systems and resiliency and routines and habits.

The key factor is that many psychological conditions are both chronic and unstable. Kanye West was overall doing fine and then… he wasn’t. He decided to stop taking his meds and… well, we have very publicly seen this effect his behavior and mental state as well as watching him get divorced, lose work, and all sorts of things as related consequences.
You can have long spells of being “fine” or showing little to no symptoms of a chronic mental health condition for years or decades even without treatment. In most cases of common conditions you might get weeks or months with episodes of various lengths in between.

It’s also the case that while you may be “flying high” and things in your life are going well and you are excited and motivated or determined so you’re making those positive changes; that over time that can shift. Almost everyone can relate to starting something strong and with enthusiasm but as times goes on losing that steam.
If your underlying mental state is such that without some sort of motivator or assistance that you can’t bring yourself to do “basic” self care tasks, when that steam runs out or you face challenges in life and things aren’t all feeling like they are on rails moving to a better place, people can crash or even become a danger to themselves.

This is how most long term psych meds work. Things like antidepressants and such can take a month to even start working and months to reach their full effect. “Cycling” or “yo-yo-ing” are very common in patients on these meds because they may take them and not feel better right away so then stop or start taking them on random schedules; or they feel better and are functioning well in their lives and meeting goals so they decide to stop. Then when the meds wear off they suffer symptoms of the condition the meds are meant to treat and start again, but it takes time for the meds to work. In the interim time their thought and behavior processes can cause issues in their personal lives and careers, and friends and family or coworkers who don’t have a full picture may be seeing erratic swings from happy or outgoing and reliable to sad, withdrawn, erratic etc.

Of course once you have started such behaviors and may be feeling a little or much better, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is advisable to discontinue medication.
This is seen all the time in medicine. People often stop taking antibiotics when they feel or notice a difference but if you don’t finish the entire course the infection can return.
Or think of it this way- say you had surgery and are bed ridden with pain. The first day doctors give you some pain medicine. It takes time to work but your pain becomes manageable. You feel better and can get back to life a bit. You’re out doing and living. The doctor said take a pill every 4 hours but you feel fine so you toss the meds. But when that last dose wears off, the pain all comes back, and now you are bedridden and suffering again.

There is a relatively small sub set of the population who needs to be told to perform basic care and wouldn’t think to do so on their own if they were being impacted by it. In fact, not doing these things can also be a symptom of conditions that affect your thought processes. So getting you into a routine of self care is often a priority, but if you have depression or anxiety or self destructive thought processes etc. hindering you in doing these things, medication can help some people reach a stable baseline to begin making changes that often help
In changing mood and habit through routine and results and thusly can directly and indirectly alleviate symptoms and even the underlying conditions causing issues for them.

People suck and every day you have to get over it and live with it. Even on their best behavior most people manage to suck. So I mean- sorry for you. Accept reality. Nothing you do can stop the suck. Just spiral into it. Let it consume you. Tragically, babies crying doesn’t bother me at all. I’m missing that wiring. I Can let a baby cry all day. I also Can sleep through anything. If you want that second skill and don’t have it you’ll need to go through long periods of very unpleasant conditions to develop the skill of being able to sleep through an explosion but wake up instantly if someone moves too close to you, says your full name, or touches you. So I don’t have a dog in the fight. I don’t really care if your baby cries because it doesn’t impact me, so it’s easy for me to say wah wah get over it.

Or… maybe get over it? Babies cry. Babies exist. In a just world you would never suffer for someone else’s weak pullout game- but- babies become children who become young adults who become adults, if they get that far. Babies are people, and let me tell you as someone who’s been dealing with people since I was a baby- people suck. Adults throw tantrums and are obnoxious. Teens, kids. They do dumb things and screw us over and get in our way. So wether it’s a baby or someone who smells like they bathed in scented products or didn’t bathe in their life or brought some food that smells worse than death or won’t shut up or keeps kicking your seat or whatever-

Baby laws. If a baby disrupts a flight, any passenger on that flight not legally associated with that baby and party or known as an associate is entitled to a reimbursement pro rated for length of time.
Do the airlines pay? No. Not fair to them. The parents? No. That’s the same as making them pay for a private plane to fly with a baby. Who? Baby travel insurance. To travel with a baby you must have baby travel Insurance or self insure with a listed bond that will cover the maximum occupancy of an aircraft. Problem solved. No special flights, no baby cages in the cargo hold or baby sedatives, no need to restrict access for parents and babies. A new lucrative industry is created and new jobs and if you get hosed by a baby you aren’t just stuck dealing with it. There is a cost to parents but not likely an unreasonable one, and it would encourage prudence and tact when deciding wether to travel with a baby.

So what do we do? Adult only flights doesn’t sound like an answer. Asides cost and inconvenience and such, in this day and age and environmentalism that doesn’t seem wise. Maybe babies can only fly certain hours or on certain days? Doesn’t work really. What if you actually need to fly with a baby and it isn’t one of those days? What about people who just can’t ever get those days or times free? Not fair.

I won’t give you $100 so you’ll have a good day. I won’t risk getting fired so you have a good day. I won’t give up my plans and drive you around so you’ll have a good day, and I would not lose sleep so you’d have a good day because I don’t know you like that. If I give up a nights sleep to facilitate your goals- and then the next day I do it or someone else… in a short time I’d literally die of sleep deprivation. So if I’m giving something up- why am I giving it to you? And shouldn’t I have the choice and not have you put me in a position where you’re taking it?

Not surprisingly it is a majority of people who have or have had or raised babies that are most understanding, and some who want babies or may want them. Your values are not everyone’s. Human beings have a nasty habit of value dismissal. We have great empathy for people who think like us but not those who don’t. “Your pet isn’t as important as my child.” “Your game isn’t as important as my plan.” “Your car isn’t as important as a new fridge..” well… maybe not to YOU, but who are you to tell people what’s important to them? News flash- your baby isn’t important to me. Your job isn’t important to me. Your kids, your parents, and what you want in life? Not important to me. I don’t know you. You’re no more important to me than any other of the billions of strangers in earth. I hope you have a great day but I probably won’t care if you don’t. While I’d wish you a good day, wouldn’t likely try to stop you from having one, might even do my little part with a smile or a small kindness to help-

So you can’t control the baby, and you know that it is possible, likely even that it will cause trouble for others, but you’re ok with that as long as you get through it and get what you want out of it. Now, build a portable speaker that plays death metal at high volume and is programmed with a randomizer so that it can go off any time for unknown time and cannot be reliably stopped or muted. Program it to donate money to a noble cause every time it goes off- for the future and societal good. Now go out into the world. Go to movies and plays and fly on planes with it. See how that goes. Bring your dog that barks constantly and isn’t house or crate trained around. I’m these examples most people see an obvious problem. But change the description to baby and many people change tunes.

So maybe that baby is moving or getting a transplant, or maybe its parents just wanted cute photos with Mickey Mouse or to be able to keep up brags to their friends or what not.
Control os something you have very little with when a baby is concerned. It isn’t really practical to drug a baby, too many social and ethical and potential health issues. You can sedate an animal or fly it in a hold below decks so that others aren’t bothered. Babies- that probably won’t work for various reasons. It wouldn’t go over well for sure.

go to them.
Not necessarily but VERY debatably humanitarian and arguably frivolous: guardians need or want a trip and can’t practically or emotionally bring themselves to leave the baby.
Clearly frivolous: guardians want the baby to see Disney/Paris/etc.
So it would be nice if we could assume people followed some sort of self enforced system like this. Babies would still travel and still cry, but we could all jeer the people complaining because that kid wouldn’t be on that plane if there wasn’t a compelling reason. We do not live in that world. We live in a world where people think that because it means something to them, it’s ok to force you into a situation.