One of the side effects of lithium and atypical anti-psychotics is shaking. Your shoulders can suddenly go out of control and start shaking as if you have Parkinson's Disease. When you try to eat in a restaurant, your hand shakes as the fork goes in your mouth. If you have hurt your arm, healing is much slower because tendonitis of the bicep, for example, needs you to keep your shoulder still, and you can't take ibuprofen because that could bring about lithium toxicity.

It is socially embarrassing and further isolates the low-functioning bipolar patient. Patients with mental illnesses like this are not a set of symptoms, or side effects, or profit-and-loss statements. They are human beings.

They have a tough life dealing with pain, keeping away suicidal thoughts, and balancing side effects like shaking. The courageous ones take their medication in order to conquer the rage and delusions, which would put them in a hospital for the rest of their lives, and live with the side effects. For example, do you want your hand to shake sometimes, or do you want to live every waking moment in fear that you have blood cancer.

I found some resources to help people who have to make this choice. When you come to terms with this kind of an illness, which degenerates with age, you stop lying to yourself. For me, anyone who does that is a hero.
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/sfx/a/index_2.htm
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&Template=/T...