Looking for help for bipolar son

[YoungLeo15]

I am trying to find a support group for my son who is 22 and has been diagnosed with bipolarism but will not take meds but he is willing to go to support groups. Can someone recommend any that may be national so I can see if they service Kansas City Mo.

[c-mac]

Man, I was confronted with taking meds for the first time when I was 27, after years of spinning my wheels, wasting time being bipolar. How I would love to have been given the chance to take them when I was younger, before I had a chance to lose loved ones and just be generally lost. My life is okay now, but my 20's and early 30's were pretty much wasted on hypomania and depression.

I remember staring at these two little yellow pills -- I think they were Paxil, which is what doctors were trying out on people like me with bipolar II. (They didn't work for me.) But I stared at them, thinking that everything I'd learned to that point in my life about working hard, getting your mind right -- all that seemed pointless if I just put a drug in my body that changed my behavior. I really hated the idea.

And it didn't suddenly get easy, it took about another six or seven years before I found something that worked, made me stable. And then there were rough side effects for years after. But it cooled things off to the point where I could find a soul mate and get married, and after being very stable for a few years, have a child.

If he can start all that at a younger age, and get over those problems while he has active support from his parents, he's a really lucky guy.