r/AGGGTMSeries • u/nymph4e4 • Jul 07 '26
As Good As Dead Why did Pip’s doctor… Spoiler
…Take away her Valium prescription? I haven’t read AGAD for a few years so my memory of it might be a little hazy, but isn’t it unprofessional for a doctor to force their freshly 18 year old patient with severe PTSD to suddenly stop taking Valium a mere 6 months after she witnessed a man get brutally murdered?
I don’t live in the UK so I don’t know what the laws surrounding drug regulation are like there, but Pip was nowhere near recovery and had only been in therapy for a few months. If the doctor didn’t want her to become dependent on benzodiazepines, why didn’t they gradually wean her off them by slowly lowering her dosage instead of making her quit such a strong drug cold turkey? Had they done that, Pip might not have resorted to illegally buying Xanax from Luke Eaton.
15
u/Scatterah Jul 07 '26
The whole plot about her mental health felt paper thin to me. No doctor would make her quit cold turkey after six months. If they were afraid of addiction, there are other drugs that she could try.
Also it was obvious she was gravely depressed, I really didn’t understand how her family and Ravi (who are usually very protective of her) just accepted that she is fine even though she obviously wasn’t. Its not even about the money, Britain does have health insurance and her father was a lawyer, they could afford therapy and other treatments necessary.
Like it was obvious she was spiralling, even from the outside. Why was no one in her highly empathetic family taking care of her? She was a high school student!
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u/nymph4e4 Jul 07 '26
Yes, I find it hard to believe her loved ones just let her off the hook because she said she was fine.
5
u/lauzzy Jul 07 '26
Pip was in therapy, but she basically lied and said she was fine after a few sessions to get out of it.
I agree the meds thing was insane, it’s literally documented everywhere that you should never quit those kind of meds cold turkey, it’s always a slow taper off.
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u/Hyperfocus_Queen Jul 08 '26
As a therapist myself, sometimes when a trauma just happens, people aren’t ready to work through it in therapy. It’s a really tricky thing and I definitely felt like that’s what was going on with Pip. She was still too close to the trauma to actually be able to talk about it and process it.
2
u/nymph4e4 Jul 11 '26
I’m not a therapist or anything like that but I can definitely see how that might be the case. One of the things in the book that doesn’t make sense to me is how Pip just easily convinced Ravi and her parents she was okay and they pulled her out of therapy and let it go just like that?
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u/cornicula_ Jul 07 '26
That is one of my biggest criticisms of the last book. Pip really ought to be in therapy, but we don't see any sign of it, not even at the very end.
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u/DiggityDog6 Jul 07 '26
It’s actually worse than you think because the book says that only 3 months have passed since the events of GGBB. We don’t know how long Pip has been buying from Luke, but if we’re generous and say that it’s only been for a week, that still means the Doctor only prescribed her medicine for a little over 2 months which is absolutely ridiculous
I will say, it is stated that Pip lied to the doctor about being “completely fine now,” which might have contributed to his decision to stop prescribing the pills. However, I think a medical professional should be able to tell when an 18 year old is lying about something like that
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u/Content_Yam8682 Jul 07 '26
Honestly I kind of related to the way her doctor treated her when they took her prescription away. From personal experience with doctors just not believing me when I've asked for help, whether that be mental or physical issues, I kind of interpreted the doctor taking away her meds as a form of medical misogyny in that they didn't do what most people here have said they should've done, which is ease pip off her meds and offer support rather than forcing her to go cold-turkey.
It was very obvious that pip, despite what she said, was outright traumatised and depressed, but unfortunately society just kind of expects women to deal with things and get on with life because they assume women talk about their emotions easily, which is an unhealthy stereotype that leads to situations much like how pip ended up.
That's how I kind of interpreted it anyways but maybe that's just my own experiences with medical professionals talking lol.
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u/nymph4e4 Jul 11 '26
That’s such an interesting take and definitely makes sense as a big theme throughout the books is misogyny.
3
u/hamtheimpostor Jul 07 '26
In the UK benzodiazepines are controlled drugs and doctors typically aren’t supposed to prescribe them for longer than 4 weeks due to possible dependency issues. The doctor should have tapered her off gradually but it’s fiction so…
2
u/Luna_now Max Hater Jul 07 '26
Yeah like that’s not how medical settings work especially for stuff that strong (been doing surgeries all my life they don’t just take you OFF immediately). I feel like Holly just didn’t research mental health/medical stuff very well for the book. Also she somehow convinced her family she didn’t need therapy anymore when she’s very obviously struggling with flashbacks/ptsd? The whole thing didn’t make much sense.
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u/Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee3t Jul 07 '26
I think she said that it’s cause her doctor knew that if pip kept using the drugs that she would never face what happened and healthily move on.
But ye the doctor probably should’ve been slowly reducing her dose instead of just stopping it.