Listening to Madness

What Cara said, adding that being able to refuse medication is a nice choice to have providing you have access to that medication in the first place.

Shorter version: I second what Cara, Caroline, and Linoleum Blownaparte said. ;)

I had all sorts of clever responses to this article, but then I realized that I simply could not relate. I suffer from anxiety, not schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I have never experienced a period of euphoria that didn’t have something to do with winning a game of Trivial Pursuit. When I take my meds, I never feel like I’m losing a part of myself; I always feel like I’m being liberated. Because there were no bright spots in my illness and there was no wisdom to be gained: it was nothing but endless misery and mindless fear.

So I get that I don’t get it. I see it as a disease to be treated; other people don’t. That’s fine. But the problem I have with avoiding medication or advocating “natural” treatments for serious mental illnesses is pretty simple: you aren’t the only one who has to live with the conseqences. Will Hall “periodically descends into dreadful mental states. He considers harming himself or develops paranoid fantasies about his colleagues and neighbors.” That doesn’t just harm him: it also harms the people who love him. Talking someone down from suicide is not fun or easy, and it does not leave you undamaged. I just…I get that people don’t want to lose themselves, but these illnesses cause so much collateral damage. I don’t believe we have to be ashamed, and I don’t believe that drugs are always the answer, but I *do* believe we have a responsibility to those around us. And accepting periodic suicidal or paranoid states as just a fact of life? I’m sorry, but that seems selfish to me.

I have a lot of sympathy for the “mad-pride” approach, and certainly view medication as a port of last resort rather than “diagnosis-prescription-cure”; fact is, many mental health conditions don’t “go away” after treatment, so talking about a cure is misleading anyway. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who do need the port of last resort, because everything else has failed. I respect the “pro-choice” line that the Icarus Project claims, and I think that Kramer may not be as far from them as would appear judging by the works it says he’s written on this pro-choice line.

My own experience is of depression, at times very severe. The first time I went to my GP with it he wanted to prescribe medication, but I was resistant to the idea; just knowing that what I was feeling was real and had had a cause, was enough for me to deal with it. That was definitely the right decision for me at that time. Some years later, however, I had a very severe relapse and I knew that I had to get help that was more than just talk-therapy. In short, I wasn’t going to survive without something extra to balance the chemicals in my brain for me. Medication was the only way to stay alive. Again, I think I made the right choice by asking my GP for meds.

The attitude that my depression is a “dangerous gift” is familiar to me – I think the approach I have is that I take the meds because dangerous gifts need to be treated carefully!

My (now ex-)girlfriend Julie suffers from bipolar, and I supported her through a period of forced treatment. I was very much opposed to her being heavily medicated, but on the other hand, she shared with me a lot of what was going on for her; again, she was not in a reliable state to choose whether or not to take her medication. I also witnessed how rapidly her moods went out of control when she did refuse her meds and I had to talk her down from some very dangerous indeed mental states and help her cope with the idea that actually, she did need them just in order to be able to function. In the first week or so, it really did require someone else to take charge of the situation, and to force treatment, otherwise she would not have survived (the requirement in UK law is that a patient be a danger to hirself or others before zie can be detained for treatment). For Julie, the medication is what allows her to be herself and allows her condition to be something beautiful instead of just destructive.

I think the key thing is for PwMHC (People with Mental Health Conditions) to be allowed to be the experts on our own minds, as much as possible: so that we can make our own informed choices about whether or not to take medication, and have the support needed in order to carry out our choices safely. I think, from that article, that this is what the Icarus Project is about, but the activist that they interviewed did not really make his case very well on that point. Also, of course, there does have to be a recognition that sometimes a mental health “storm” such as Julie suffered can make that unfeasible.

I would certainly agree with the Icarus Project’s rejection of describing these conditions as illnesses or diseases though: even though I resolutely say that I do sometimes suffer from depression, I also sometimes suffer from tiredness or muscle strain! Recognising that PwMHC can function perfectly well as human beings in work, play, social interactions etc, just as PwD can, and eroding the stigma surrounding mental health conditions, is very important.

. . . his half Native American ancestry evident in his dark hair and dark eyes.

Um, am I the only one who couldn’t get past this part of the first paragraph?

I agree, Liza. Why did they need to mention that he is a Native American? Would they have described the man’s round eyes and pale skin had he been caucasian?

I see this article as a general cry for better mental health care. Whether it’s individuals wanting to be on medication and not having access, or people wanting to be without medication and being denied that wish, we should be taking much better care of each other’s health. What is best for a person should be decided by the individual (unless they are a direct danger to other people) and a reasonable array of options should be accessible to the average person.

Yes, Bushfire. And the journalist implies that all people with Native American ancestry have brown hair and brown eyes, which is not true at all!

I hope I’m not derailing the discussion mods, this just bothered me a lot.

I have bipolar disorder, with mixed episodes, and I have seen both sides of the world of mental health treatment. For years I suffered from horrible medication side effects, therapists and psychiatrists who proved condescending beyond belief and didn’t believe me, and the like. But I was lucky enough to find a wonderful p-doc who has worked with me over the last three years until we’ve found a cocktail of medication that leaves me stable with relatively minimal effects.
So I can understand the desire to free oneself from the restraints of uncaring doctors and meds that leave you doped up, but I cannot imagine life without treatment. I would be dead by now if it weren’t for my care network, so perhaps I am too biased to give my opinion, but I firmly believe that medication and therapy is the best avenue for most mentally ill people to take.

I don’t know if it makes sense to call the problem a choice between self-determination and cooperation with treating physicians. When patients feel that they have no autonomy or dignity, they’re less likely to be candid, less likely to seek help in crisis, less likely to describe their feelings and wants in nuanced terms. An adversarial relationship is not conducive to conscientious, individualized treatment.

It’s not just a choice between crazy or no. Psych meds have some pretty hideous side effects. Diabetes and tardative dyskinesia, not to mention the truly horrifying withdrawl effects benzodiazepams can have if you are unable to get a refill. It’s not just about the madness as a gift framework. There’s a real need to calculate what you can deal with, and I’m upset this article doesn’t address that many mad pride people are rejecting things much worse than their creativity being hampered.

And it’s not like most of these people are receiving heavy medication in a perfect system. They have sky-high medical bills, managed-care plans that may keep them from seeing their doctors regularly for updates, and any number of administrative barriers between them and actual care providers when they have concerns.

I am an regular poster who is writing this anonymously.

I have a history of severe depression and suicide attempts and have been on and off medication at various points. I am currently NOT on anything only because I cannot afford either the meds or the treatment that should go along with them.

One thing that I really do feel has been addressed in the comments so far, is how much YOUR mental illness can affect the people you love. I’m sorry, but I have known too many people whose lives or livelihoods have been destroyed by people with severe mental illnesses. If you read domestic-abuse boards, you find a high prevalence of people in relationships with people with bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

Borderline is particularly problematic. I personally have had the last five years of my life destroyed by someone with this and, from everything I have read, there is no such thing as a functioning unmedicated borderline.

So I guess my point is, yes, meds are given out too freely, and yes, many of them have horrendous side-effects, but for certain disorders, regardless of how you feel about yourself, you should take meds to protect the people around you. The guy in the article even says his relationships are “tumultous,” which makes me wonder how much pain he is causing others. I think it is extremely irresponsible and selfish to advance this as a “cause.”

I’m writing my dissertation on the ethical principle of autonomy, so I’m predisposed to supporting the Icarus mindset, although I’m coming at it from the opposite direction. For me, the problem is that in our society the mad are just about the only people, outside of children, who we tolerate overt and systematic oppression. Time and again the mad are given the message that they are allowed to exercise their rights only so long as they are willing to not exercise them.

The mad are in an interesting catch 22. On the one hand they are told that their condition is an illness that makes them incompetent, on the other they are told that they only way to prove that they are cured is to prove that they are competent. If you’re mad you can’t be trusted to make your decisions, and once you’re declared mad the only way to prove you can be trusted is to prove you aren’t mad. Its a impossible situation, and one that allows us to justify treating the mad as dangerous animals or untrustworthy children.

I get it, and then I don’t.

On the one hand, I’m very aware of the way that the psychiatric industry has been used as a weapon in the past. I also value the idea that people should have agency in their lives in whatever way is possible, and firmly believe that we need to keep in mind that the people around us are human beings, and not animals to be drugged or locked up.

I also very much agree that the problem is largely with the system. There are probably a lot of people who could manage their conditions without meds in a utopia where mental health care was readily available to everyone, to mention just one drop in a huge bucket.

On the other hand, I was once sexually assaulted by someone who later excused it as part of “a manic streak”. Which, uhhhh, I feel for you, I really do, but sexual assault is not OK, even if you have a medical problem. And refusing to keep your medical problems under control in a way that causes you to hurt others is also not OK.

Borderline is particularly problematic. I personally have had the last five years of my life destroyed by someone with this and, from everything I have read, there is no such thing as a functioning unmedicated borderline.

You can’t really medicate Axis II disorders. Borderline is a problem of personality, and a pill can’t fix that. Sometimes long-term therapy can. Still, people with Axis II diagnoses aren’t really a part of this discussion.

Still, people with Axis II diagnoses aren’t really a part of this discussion.

That was really dismissive of what I feel is a valid point. How do you know this isn’t treatable? What authority do you have to say that?

This is a really tricky issue. I was involuntarily hospitalized during a psychotic break during a manic period. If not for the people who committed me against my will (and I was literally kicking and screaming the whole way), I would have died that night. Because of my experience, I have a strong appreciation for their ability to commit me involuntarily. (And can speak only for my experience – I recognize that it has been degrading and awful for others, Erika @9.)

The cancer/brain injury analogy is an interesting one, and I like EKSwitaj’s take @21. Some of my cognitive abilities are definitely impaired by the medication – when I was manic, I could stay up for days and the art and poetry I created was unlike anything I can produce now. I just can’t get my head in the same place. For me, though, those effects feel minimal compared to the abilities the medication has restored to me. My depression removed my ability to be interested in anything, to do anything. I think of my depressive periods almost as an absence of function or ability. I feel that the person I am when I’m depressed is much less authentically “me” than the person I am in with medication. And that’s why I choose to take it – which, as others have noted above, is a privileged choice to have available to me.

I think these movements and ideas have a lot more to offer, though, than just take meds/treatment or don’t. During a recent discussion on the vocabulary of disability, I said that I didn’t like the term ‘disability’ to describe myself because it focuses only on the abilities I lack (to regulate my moods without chemical support, basically) and entirely elides the enhanced, or extra, or bonus abilities conveyed by my bipolar. (Again, speaking only for myself – can’t say whether other people feel this way.) I prefer the terms “neurotypical” and “neuroatypical,” which is more of a descriptive than proscriptive definition. That kind of discussions and identification is, I think, part of these movements too, and more interesting to me than the “should people take psych meds” discussion.

I also think these movements and discussions are extremely applicable to Axis II diagnoses – the amorphous diagnostic criteria, the gender issues discussed by bellereve @29 all make it extremely necessary for people with that diagnosis to have autonomy and control over their own experiences and treatment, rather than having that dictated by a doctor who may be trying to cure them of being different than the ideal woman.

first of all, i’m glad this conversation is happening.

second, as a person who has dealt with mental illness in some form or another for most of my life, i would like to STRONGLY request that extra care be taken to make this comments section a safe space for us “mad” folks.

if you don’t have first hand experience with mental illness, please consider taking a step back to listen instead of comment. for the most part it looks like this has been happening so far, but i really want to emphasize the need for folks to be able to speak from their own experiences on this issue.

Hi, I’m Bipolar I with Psychotic Features. I’m unmedicated.

I, too, went through an artsy-fuck period as a teenager of “OMG MENTAL ILLNESS IS SO BEAUTIFUL” while I was in my depressive stages, but that is distinctly different from how I feel once I grow up. Comparing adult attitudes to that is disrespectful and insulting, because you’re implying an immature lack of understanding.

I understand better than anyone what my condition requires. It requires that I be on my game at all times. It requires that I use the cognitive-behavioral techniques I learned. It requires that I am open to understanding and interpreting my own behavior for other people.

I’m not an immature idiot thinking that I only have a gift. Nor is anyone else I’ve met who has adopted my same outlook: that we have a unique disposition and part of us that needs care and cultivation.

Care and cultivation, here, refers to being able to limit the harmful effects and increase the positive effects. It means learning what triggers me and how to avoid it, and learning what ’sane’ means for me. It means taking a rational and disciplined stance to any psychotic symptoms I manifest, and it means making myself as comfortable as possible.

It means identifying what is important to me in my life and what I need to do, and working to make those happen.

At one point I was so sick that nobody thought I would amount to anything. I heard the doctor telling my parents that she didn’t know if I could go back to school. I heard them telling me what was best for me.

If I am angry, it is because I have been silenced and othered my entire life, and I have been told that I do not know what happens inside my own mind.

I am intelligent. I don’t mean to brag. It’s a statement of fact: I am intelligent and it shows through to the extent that people feel entirely disconnected from me. I am intelligent enough to understand what happens to myself.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy was the only thing that worked for me, because it focused on survival and it focused on empowerment. I tried to kill myself when I was told that I would never have a normal life, probably not even if I took these pills every day for the rest of my life. It was my only suicide attempt. I was 17.

I am 19 now. I am a successful student. I am aiming to become a virologist. I have not had a crippling episode in a year and a half.

My bipolar manifests itself as a part of who I am. I can be on fire and sparkling, or I can be distant and inside myself. I get wild impulses to do things, positive things, and I do them– right now, I am sculpting marzipan for my friends. Sometimes I feel gross and sick and incredibly nasty inside, and I can realize through that what I do not like and why I do not like it. Sometimes I get passionate rages that keep me up for days at a time.

Very few people in my life know that I am bipolar. It does not come up often. They know I am strange and intense and different and sometimes scary, but they see me as me, if they know me at all.

I joke about my “crazy time” with people I know understand. It’s not gone. It’s just something I can channel now, and deal with. I can use my rage and fear and sick-feelings and passion and love to do what I want to do with my life.

When I was on medication, it did not make me better. It made me emotionally flatline. It took meaning out of life, no matter what I tried. I felt glass walls in my head. I read everything I could and everything I read said that if I was on my own I would destroy myself or others.

I only recovered when I refused to believe that.

This is hard to explain to people who have not felt this, but I hope I have done a good job.

I said I would not read, and yet here I am.

Honestly, I’m really annoyed with this post. Haven’t read all the comments yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be annoyed with those, too.

Just going to say that it if you don’t know much about a topic rife with controversy and stigma, there are a thousand better ways to research it than offering up the comment section so that anyone who has ever known someone who’s all crazy and shit can voice their opinion on what’s best for them.

I mean, really? We’re really going to have a psychophobia 101 thread?

yno, the commenters who are saying that my depression and anxiety are some kind of “danger” to others (so oh so utterly dangerous that my roomate did not even know about my anxiety/depression until i told her, despite the fact that i had cut myself, so well did i insulate her from my issues) and demanding that i take my medications, you are putting me in a trap. i would love to do so. however, i do not have health insurance. i cannot afford health insurance. i cannot afford to pay a psych $300 per session to straighten my not-particularly-effective meds, let alone find a psych who will respect my gender identity and not treat my transness as a pathology. the only clinic in the city that knows how to treat psychiatric conditions in the glbt population has such a long waiting list that they won’t even put my name on it. and even if i can get an affordable psych, how about meds that often cost $200 or more a month.

so yeah, maybe you can fund affordable treatment for me and find me a psych who considers trans women to be human beings rather than freaks, then *maybe* i’ll let you tell me when i should take my meds.

i’m getting damned tired of being treated as less than human and a danger to society because i have anxiety / depression, am an aspie, and am a trans woman. and this thread isn’t doing a hell of a lot to change that.

I hear you GallingGalla and others who are feeling hurt by some of these comments. This thread had me in tears earlier – the idea that my loved ones are collateral damage to my illness is really, really upsetting.

The reality is that finding (and paying for!) decent mental health care is impossible, even for those who are privileged (I include myself in that category). I live in the magical land of socialized medicine, and was getting psych prescriptions filled at walk-in clinics, and eventually the university health centre when I went back to school. I finally got to see two decent psychopharmacologists after the first was convinced she should see me because I was an “interesting case” as my anxiety does not respond to the usual drugs, and the second after spending 8 months on a waiting list. And I’m still not satisfied with the combination of meds I’m taking, or with the care I’m getting.

I get why people don’t want to see shitty doctors and therapists who don’t listen to us because we’re crazy after all and we couldn’t possibly know anything about ourselves and our brains, and if you’re trans, queer, poor, a person of colour, basically don’t think you’re human. And then factor in the cost, the side effects, and so on. For some people, refusing treatment may be a manifestation of their illness, for others it’s a matter of survival.

I think it’s interesting how many of the TAC and NAMI memes have shown up in this thread: Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy; crazy people are a danger to others; families are burdened by their crazy loved ones; crazy people are a group unto themselves, separate from Teh Normals; crazy people don’t know what’s best for themselves (unless they’re taking their meds).

Those who don’t know who TAC and NAMI are, find out because they are defining the terms of this conversation whether we recognize it or not.

And no, I’m not paranoid today.

Caty Simon: Yes, antidepressants have an extremely small chance of killing my mother. You know what has a much larger chance of doing it? When she refuses to get basic medical treatment for illnesses and injuries (up to and including, so far, fractured vertebrae in her back that made her nearly incapable of walking). When she has panic attacks while driving, particularly on freeways, which are a particular trigger for her. When she refuses to take other medications that are vital to her life and health, because this week she’s decided they’re poison, despite the fact that she’s been taking them for years with no ill effects.

I’m not talking about a rational assessment of risk, here, and frankly I find your implication that I’m not aware of the potential side effects of these drugs, and your assumption that you know my family situation at all a little insulting.

Cara, I don’t think you were as guilty of it as the people who posted agreeing with you and expressing their concern (gee, thanks) that individuals with mental illnesses were incapable of understanding the limitations of their condition. It’s not as bad coming from you because you have depression, which at least puts you as more of an ‘insider’ than people with no inside knowledge talking about how individuals with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc., cannot make informed and educated choices about their treatment and their health.

I guess I see this kind of like I see the fat-acceptable movement – it’s a great thing, but only to an extent. I think that getting rid of the stigma associated with mental illness is great, and I think that someone needs to say that certain meds don’t work for everyone, and that pills like Prozac aren’t “miracle drugs” and they do have adverse effects for some people. Certainly, it worries me how pill-popping-obsessed our culture is, how pills are seen as the answer to everything – it worries me as someone who, while not diagnosed officially with any mental illness, has a lot of personality traits (introversion, most of the symptoms of but no official diagnosis of Aspberger’s syndrome) that are seen as undesirable, if my personality will be seen as a mental illness one day to be “cured” with a pill.

At the same time, as pointed out above, we forget that some of these mental illnesses do drive people to suicide or even just interfere with their daily lives. Just because Icarus and the other “mad pride” people are able to go fine without pills, doesn’t mean that everyone has the same reaction they do. I know some people who are bipolar whose lives have been enriched so much by being able to control their symptoms with prescription drugs.

Anyways, I wanted to explain my analogy to fat acceptance (before anyone objects) – I’m overweight, and I’ve found the idea of fat acceptance rather empowering. No one should feel “shame” for being overweight or obese. The fact that our culture stigmatized overweight and obese people, that the media and the fashion industry acts like they don’t exist, is completely wrong. However, there is an obvious health risk associated with obesity, and the idea of someone who is severely obese and at risk for heart disease, diabetes, etc. getting the idea to keep eating the way they do because it’s only stupid society’s closedmindedness that believes that obesity is unhealthy is really quite troubling. Of course, it is annoying how many people outright dismiss fat-acceptance on that idea while failing to see how our culture’s skinny worship promotes the opposite effect (women not realizing that it’s bad to be unhealthily skinny and developing eating disorders). But in the end, these things should be about getting people to accept their bodies the way they are – not promoting self-destructive behavior such as eating processed foods all the time.

I hope I articulated that right, and I just wanted to let anyone know if I accidentally offended them, I meant absolutely no harm or insult :)

Hey, Caty, how about you focus less on telling people how they should manage their own lives and a little bit more on empowering them to do it themselves? I’m pretty anti medication (both as a provider and as a patient) but its arrogant to assume that an option that you feel passionate about is an option for everyone. This isn’t a battle for finding the Right Option, its a battle for allowing people to find their own.

Those who don’t know who TAC and NAMI are, find out because they are defining the terms of this conversation whether we recognize it or not.

And no, I’m not paranoid today.

Heh…I hadn’t noticed that until you pointed it out. Good call.

Salome, I used to think the same things about fat that you did. Know what changed my way of thinking? Being on psych meds that increased my body weight by 50%.

In doing so, I realized that weight is not unlike income; even if you could prove that it’s “better” for one’s health to be a millionaire than to make minimum wage, that’s not very useful information for minimum-wage earners, most of whom will never become millionaires no matter how hard they work or how dutifully they set goals and visualize. Before, I bought into the personal-size-is-a-matter-of-personal choice meme; now I know that the “choice” between not taking the drugs and staying a size 10 and risking imminent demise, and taking them and becoming a size 20, wasn’t much choice at all, really.

(And I’ll stop there before I go too far off topic.)

Oh, goody.

I was afraid there wouldn’t be any comments along the lines of “…but I know this one bipolar and s/he was TOTALLY unable to function/daaaaangerous/suicidal/attacky/OMGcrazy! and Those People Should Take Their Medication, but I see plenty of people already have that covered.

Thanks for continuing the stigma and making my life harder!

I mean, really? We’re really going to have a psychophobia 101 thread?

No shit, it appears the idea here was to serve ‘em up for public consumption. And revel in your ignorance.
Like the pre-civil rights South. But more unbearable, since y’all are supposed to be fighting the good fight.

Re-boot.

I didn’t dismiss the entire thread. I think there were some very interesting and valuable comments, and plenty of people I would totally like to take out for coffee, my treat.

On the other hand, comments didn’t even get to double digits without second hand accounts of Manic Depression and what THOSE PEOPLE are like, and that is so depressing. Not the chemical kind of depression, the “Oh, come on, really?” kind.

I get really tired of hearing what THOSE PEOPLE are like.

Incidentally, why is it considered socially acceptable for Crazy people to die from their meds, but not to kill themselves?

When I started my most recent med (which, full disclosure? This stuff is seriously awesome) I was told that the only significant side effect was a very rare but also very FATAL skin condition upon commencement of treatment.

How crazy does someone have to be to say “Wow, fatal side effects? Sign me up!”? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE meds, but these things aren’t tic tacs. The whole “We must medicate them for their own good” bit tends to hit me wrong.

“Icarus” is an interesting choice for a name – sad and beautiful.

I think this conversation is important. I also think it’s pretty impossible to avoid having our feelings hurt here -because it’s just one of those topics that cuts close to the heart.

I suffer from depression and severe anxiety – and can specifically relate to what Cara was talking about above.

It’s hard to talk about these things, because someone is always waiting to brand you as less-than. You worry about potential employers deeming you “damaged goods,” etc. You worry you might lose friends.

But I think it’s an important topic, and if more of us reject the stigma – maybe some good can come from this.

On the other hand, I wanted to address what bellareve said upthread:

An abuser is an abuser, and a liar is a liar. Whether or not that person is neurotypical really isn’t relevant to the discussion, just as their race, gender identity, or sexual orientation would not be relevant.

I don’t know about that, because some people change very radically when they don’t manage their condition. This is an ongoing situation in my family, involving two marriages. In one case, the husband became convinced that treatment was holding him back (he’s an Afghan war vet who already suffered from mental illness before his PTSD, so you can imagine what it’s like for him). What worked when he was younger wasn’t working anymore, and he made the decision to abandon all treatment altogether.

He became so violent that the marriage broke up. He is not himself, he is not in control – and what’s tragic about it is that there are flashes of the old him sometimes. While all of this is happening, another member of the family is also dealing with an ex husband who has developed a mental illness and will not get treatment. There’s threats, police involvement, etc. Some of us have tried to say “I’ve been there, I think I can understand some aspects of what you’re going through. Let me help.” But if someone chooses not to listen, you have to make decisions such as – “Can I watch this man, whom I still love, throw my child against a wall in a fit of rage he will later regret?”

It isn’t anyone’s fault either. That’s just life – people don’t ask to be sent to Afghanistan, they don’t ask to inherit their father’s condition. You just have to pick up the pieces as best as you can.

I don’t know how to talk about this without avoiding stigma – stigma that’s cast on a great many people, including myself. But I can’t minimize what has been happening in my family either.

I think the bottom line is – no situation is the same, but there is one common denominator: either you want to be part of a society or a family, or you do not. I think the decision does not hinge on eccentric behaviour either. I think eccentric and dangerous often have little in common.

Victoria said “second, as a person who has dealt with mental illness in some form or another for most of my life, i would like to STRONGLY request that extra care be taken to make this comments section a safe space for us “mad” folks.”

I had my first psychotic episode in my early twenties. Terrifying. But also terrifying for those who cared about me. Shoot me down if you like, but I think meaningful dialogue between mentally ill folks and those who have been on the outside looking in ( family and friends) is invaluable. Because psychosis wasn’t safe. And this article is something that we should definitely be discussing with those around us who may have to second guess whether or not we are making decisions that might hurt or damage us. My sister ( who cared for me) said throughout the whole thing she was being called on to make decisions for me and she had no idea what I wanted because I could not communicate meaningfully with her. ( word salad) I think that not only has she a right to speak, but that her experiences of mental illness are as valid as mine. There were times she put her safety at risk for me ( removing me from a predator in a pub, he punched her in the face.) These are the people to who we are never ‘less than’. And they might not have the disease but they certainly suffer from its effects.

All I know is that, unmedicated, I really was a danger to myself and others.

It’s hard to reach any other conclusion when I came close to burning down my place of work (that was the reason I went to my GP and got prescribed SSRI medication, which WORKS FOR ME). The only reason I haven’t been institutionalised at any point in my life is that I managed to keep the most extreme moments of madness a secret when they were happening, and dealt sometimes.

Because I don’t believe a person who is depressed is capable of making hir own decisions about whether to end hir life. That takes away my friend’s agency and autonomy, and means ze’ll be involuntarily committed for at least a short period of time. But I think not doing that is wrong.

So your friend wants to die, and that is proof that they cannot possibly have the agency to make that choice? Thats a wonderful way of defining norms.

This spectacularly misses the point. It isn’t that decision itself that proves the incompetence, it’s knowledge of a pre-existing condition prior to the attempt that implies that the decision may not be competent.

As someone speaking as an expert in my own mind, I can tell you that definitely, when I was severely depressed, I was not competent to make decisions about ending my own life, because those decisions were based on completely FUBAR data about my life. That’s one of the big things about what depression does to people, see? It fucks up your ability to interpret what the world is actually like and what your own value is in that world. This can lead to ill-considered and ill-informed decisions about whether or not to end one’s life – or indeed, about whether or not to burn down my place of work, or whether or not to walk 7 miles in bare feet in the dark, or any number of other seriously unwise things that I’ve done thanks to severe depression.

If I hadn’t been aware of that fact when I was actually having suicidal episodes, then people could have just said “Oh, he’s made his own decision, we shouldn’t interfere”. And then I would have died and that would have been the end of what could still turn out to be a pretty good life for me. Thankfully, I was aware and didn’t act on the impulses but was able to take action myself to get the medication I clearly needed; I am only just coming off the meds now (very slowly – the first dosage reduction caused a very distinct “wobble” and I took the decision not to proceed with the next reduction as planned, but keep it at the same level).

On side-effects: ones that I have experienced include weight-gain and finding it much harder to achieve orgasm; early on I experienced some paranoid hallucinations including large spiders and the conviction that people were putting catchwires at neck height to catch me (those, thankfully, stopped happening after the first few weeks on the meds).

Finally, I noticed that people have criticised the “loved-ones” post, so I want to be clear about why I mentioned Julie (incidentally, I should have said earlier, she has given me permission to discuss openly all these issues surrounding her mental health treatment so I am not breaking her privacy here by relating this).

I mentioned Julie because I was particularly wanting to be able to talk about how I was close to her while she was involuntarily treated. I saw at one remove her clear distress and humiliation, and how a great deal of the time during the early weeks of her being held, she felt as though control over her mind and body were being wrested from her. Because she was not restrained physically, she at one stage walked out of the institution where she was being treated and came close to throwing herself under a bus. But I also saw at one remove what the effects were when she refused to take the medication they prescribed for her (again, she was not physically forced to take the meds): I seriously believe that my support (usually, alas, only at the end of a telephone line or internet connection) was strongly instrumental in keeping her from losing control over herself completely. Her decisions to stop taking the medications, I believe to have been influenced by her BPD but I supported her until it became clear that the effects of not taking them were serious enough (including actually making the distress worse, not better!) that the price of taking them had to be better. Her clear distress at the effects of the medication was genuine, but her reaction to that distress, and the level of that distress, were influenced by the tumult in her brain so that her decision could not be taken as fully competent. My role (again, on the end of the telephone) was to help her deal with that distress, and let her pour it onto me instead of onto herself. By being someone whose judgement she trusted, and by being able to detect (even at the end of a phone line – her voice was very expressive in that time of how her emotions were coping) that the meds really were having a beneficial effect, and talking her through the ways in which they were helping. And, just to be clear, I was always on her side, felt the same distress as she did over the effects of the medication (to the point that my parents were having to talk me down from a strongly militant stance at one point!) and always felt that they were using them in part as a chemical truncheon to try to stop her being “awkward” (Julie is a very forthright woman!). I wish I could have done more to help her, to get the chemical truncheon element of the prescriptions removed sooner, to be physically there more often, and so on, but I did all that I could (and more – the trip I did make to see her cost more money than I could afford).

As I wrote before, I strongly believe that medication should be the absolute last resort, and the medical community’s tendency is to use them as the first answer to any variant mental conditions (including my GP – as I mentioned before, I chose not to take meds the first time around, but his first response was to prescribe them; the second time around, it was my choice to go with the meds and that was why I went to him). For Julie and me, we did actually need that last resort. Thankfully, for my mother, talk therapy and a 6 month medical leave from work was enough (she soon afterwards took a different job elsewhere, which has also helped immensely).

There does need to be a sea change in the way that mental health issues are handled. As I said in my earlier comment, I am absolutely for trusting PwMHC to know their own minds and be able to make their own decisions as much as possible. I am against medication except as a last resort (but then, I have a friend who swears by them and always says “give me the pills to make it better!” so that’s her free choice too). However, I am also (acutely and painfully, from personal experience) aware that sometimes that can’t work. Julie now is competent to make her own decisions about her medication because a) she knows what works for her and b) she knows what the costs and benefits are of each course of action. This is my competency too, in making decisions about my medication. Ideally, everyone should have that same competency as a matter of course. Unfortunately, as many have outlined here, sometimes it can take years to find what works – and sometimes, nothing does. For that, we need the support and agency to find non-medical solutions as the first (and preferably only) resort, and even in the socialised healthcare system in the UK, talk therapy is very hard to come by even though it’s by far the best option. In some ways, my monthly 15 minute GP appointments for repeat prescriptions on my meds have filled that role to some extent.

Bellareve, I’d like to respond to your comment #37, because I feel that it was in a lot of ways directed at me.

When someone hurts someone else (and I mean HURTS THEM, not inconvenience or narcissistic whiny me-me-me ‘hurt’), and then justifies what they did with, “I was going through a manic period” or “I wasn’t taking my meds”, then it’s pretty likely that the person who was hurt is going to take away from that interaction some unsavory ideas about untreated mental illness.

Obviously you, others in this thread, and other people with bipolar or other mental illnesses are not the person who did that to me. But the bottom line is that it’s a double edged sword. If one wants to be seen as someone having full agency, one had best not blame their actions on their health problems.

The essence of prejudice is to generalize from your experience from one person who hurt you and become intolerant and other everyone else in that group for the actions of one. @Opoponax. I am the victim of domestic violence in my childhood, in my adulthood and of sexual assault in a psychiatric hospital. I have PTSD and DID and no, I really don’t care if you believe in DID or not or want your opinion on whether it exists or not unless you are a DID professional. I believe my DID is both trauma caused and genetic, how’s that for not politically correct? And there is no medication that works for me that doesn’t cause medical damage other than benzos which are now under attack by both the psychiatric and Pharma establishments AND the Will Hall types of this world. I am constantly put in a double bind which isn’t exactly mentally healthy for me. I am withdrawing from all mental health advocacy because of this peers are better than therapists b.s. It’s not black and white. Some peers are wonderful, some have no training, no clue and shouldn’t be allowed to work with people with mental illness just as many MH professionals shouldn’t be allowed to work with people with mental illness. I’m now not even supposed to use the word mental illnesss nor psychiatric disability, I am supposed to pretend that it’s all made up by some of these groups. On the other hand, the powers that be who are writing the new DSM are going to take DID out of the next DSM, in my opinion because there is no drug for it, just a hell of a lot of work in therapy by a very skilled professional. No money to be made in that. Very few people have access to therapy anymore, it’s once again become the luxury of the rich. Thank God for Medicare and the money to pay for secondary insurance. I do not tolerate bad behavior by anyone, well that’s not true, I’m just beginning to stop tolerating bad behavior towards me finally at my age, but guess what? I’m now being abused by a medical system that marginalizes me, yells at me, won’t listen to me when I speak of real side effects, is taking shitty care of me, threatens me on a regular basis and I can’t get any help. The only decent psychiatrist in town doesn’t have a private practice. My lesbian psychiatrist (who broke boundaries with me by telling me her reason for becoming a psychiatrist was coming out as a lesbian and not wanting to be accused of molesting teenagers-WTF?) will not advocate for me with my medical team and didn’t even make an appointment to follow up with me after surgery and guess what my original trauma was? Medical. As a three year old.
Yeah, double binds, just stop it.

Let me clarify what I meant about “safe space”.

lethe @66 and anon@67, I think it’s entirely appropriate for loved ones who have been caregivers to speak of their feelings about their experiences. It’s important for us to hear your side of it. However, the danger is that your personal experience with one or two individuals can then jump to a universalizing statement about what should be done for all people with mental illness. Then we end up with blanket statements like Dissent@68, who wants to silence the entire discussion b/c s/he knows what’s best.

If you’ve been deeply affected by someone with mental illness, share your story, share your feelings. But don’t assume that makes you able to make the leap into saying “therefore, what should be done is ______ .” The decisions about treatment are still ours to make, even if you wish we’d make different decisions.

Still spewing NAMI talking points I see. Catapulting structural propaganda without the first clue, or how that nonsense got into you. Yes, you have a lot to learn. But think about “consciousness raising”, and why that is so difficult to achieve with feminists. It’s still no alibi.

Stop making this about pro-med vs. no-med, and your excruciating justifications for how you shake out on the use of pharmaceuticals. We are passed that. This thread is a distraction, the way Chomsky uses that word. What is it we don’t want to look at? How NAMI rules your world, but you don’t even know what NAMI is? Get to work.

I’ll show you work, Lethe @ 66:

Lethe: And this article is something that we should definitely be discussing with those around us who may have to second guess whether or not we are making decisions that might hurt or damage us.

http://www.nrc-pad.org/index.php

That’s the work. Use it, fight for it.

William,

Just to clarify…are you taking the position that there is no situation in which a person is too mentally ill to make decisions on their own behalf?

Victoria,

If you note, I didn’t speak about my feelings at all. My feelings aren’t relevant to this particular issue. I was pointing out that there is a huge difference between types and severity of mental illness. Most of the people who had commented (at that the time I wrote my post) had struggled with what seemed to be less severe cases. They can make choices and decisions and understand the impact of those decisions. They can dress themselves and remember their names. They know what toilets are for and that water isn’t really made of knives.

So this discussion has for the most part been centered on the needs of those who are able to speak about their mental illness in a coherent and understandable way. Compared to some others that is a relatively privileged position.

The essence of prejudice is to generalize from your experience from one person who hurt you and become intolerant and other everyone else in that group for the actions of one.

1. I’m not generalizing from my experience to an entire population. I’m simply saying that, yes, some people with mental illnesses can be dangerous* to others, and that people who have that dynamic going on ought to seek treatment and/or work to manage their condition in whatever way is realistic for them. With full knowledge of how fucked up the system is and how fucked up our society’s stigma about mental health problems is. And with total awareness of how hard life is for people with mental illnesses.

2. I wouldn’t really consider the above opinion to be “intolerant”. As I’ve said, I know full well how impossible the situation is, that everyone’s needs are different, how fucked up the system is, etc. And I absolutely respect the agency of people with mental illnesses. But there really do exist people who are dangerous to others due to untreated conditions, and it is absolutely irresponsible of said individuals not to seek treatment if it is available to them.

3. By the way, my opinions on this are by no means based on an interaction with only one person. As a teenager and in my early 20’s I had the pleasure of knowing quite a few bipolar individuals who thought it was really cute to go off-med for whatever reason and totally fuck up the lives of everyone around them (many of whom I truly sympathize with, but still…). It would be unfair to generalize from those individuals to all bipolar people. But to insist that such people do not exist, or that the people hurt by them don’t really count, is a fucked up lie, I’m sorry.

*and by “dangerous” I don’t mean inconveniencing, or annoying, or hard to deal with. I mean dangerous.

I know a lot of people are talking about force, here, and I just wanted to point out my comment again (#9). I am a 22 year old college student. I went to a top 10 liberal arts college. I was the valedictorian of my high school class. I was not psychotic; I was not dangerous to anyone else. Involuntary commitment does not only happen to violent people who “act crazy.” Everyone here who is creating that strawman needs to realize that this is not at all the reality of the situation. I don’t care what you “honestly believe” about safety and mental health, because until you have experienced being a successful, healthy, normal young woman with a mental illness screaming and crying in a hospital because they won’t let you out or keep your clothes and belongings with you, you don’t know the reality of the situation. You JUST DON’T.

I was put on involuntary medical leave because of what happened. I ended up transferring to a university close to home because I didn’t want to go back to the place that that had happened.

A lot of these comments are disappointing. They make me really sad that people see the lives and desires of people with mental illnesses as totally secondary to their own. No, you shouldn’t have a right to lock people up against their will. That is my firm belief on the matter, and I understand it better than you do because I have been there and it was traumatic and it didn’t help. If this system allows that to happen, it is wrong. Period. It needs fixing, not defenders who argue that people with mental illnesses are burdens to their families/friends/caretakers.

William, thank you so much for you comments.

This is really tricky for me to talk about or address. There are a lot of things being said in this thread that are working my nerves. One thing I don’t believe a lot of people (even in this thread) understand is the nature of mental illness. It isn’t quite the same as being diagnosed with a physical condition. In my honest opinion, terming certain behaviors “mental illness” seem to be more a mode of social control than an honest attempt to help an individual, especially because diagnoses and treatment are often given to people who do not consent or believe that they are **suffering**. A lot of what’s considered delusional or strange is based on cultural norms, not on anything objective. Even the concept of “reality” is a subjective one. I don’t feel that reality is ever defined the same way by two different people; that, at best, definitions may be close, but will never be identical.

It is completely unfair to force a person into a treatment they don’t want or need, to tell a person that they “suffer” from a “problem” when it isn’t a problem for them, or to assume that it’s one size that fits all when it comes to how to treat a person and whatever distress they are having with their lives. It is COMPLETELY absurd to assume and actually advocate that all “mentally ill” people need to be on drugs because a **few** manage to do horrible things. I’m sure there is more crime being committed by people perceived as “normal” than there are by people perceived as crazy.

As someone who was sexually assaulted by someone I believe to have been bipolar, I understand where victims in this thread are coming from. But to group every person diagnosed in with your abuser is ridiculous, okay? It’s like saying that every black man is out to rob you. Like someone said, an abuser is an abuser. That he/she may be labeled with a few things as well is arbitrary to the point.

If a person chooses to seek out help, then they have they right. If they don’t want to, I believe they have their right as well, including the right to suicide if that person wishes.

There have been a few times where I’ve been put on the ward against my will, as well as plenty of times I’ve been dehumanized because there are too many, TOO MANY, people out there who fail to see that even with a diagnosis (or two, or four) WE ARE JUST LIKE YOU, we are human as well. I have had horrible reactions to a lot of medications, to a point where it seems even if I want medication it’s too risky to chance it.

I don’t understand why the topic of mental illness brings out the close-mindedness in people, and why it seems to be such a struggle for people to understand others who may not want to be “treated”. I don’t expect to change anyone’s minds or their stereotypes, but I just wanted to add my bit. This should be a matter of choice, like any choice involving a person’s health and life.

In my honest opinion, terming certain behaviors “mental illness” seem to be more a mode of social control than an honest attempt to help an individual, especially because diagnoses and treatment are often given to people who do not consent or believe that they are **suffering**. A lot of what’s considered delusional or strange is based on cultural norms, not on anything objective.

Sure, OK. I certainly agree that this was heavily true in the past, and don’t know to what extent it is true anymore. It seems to me (as an outsider) that the focus of diagnosis nowadays tends to be more about whether the person being diagnosed is capable of living a functional life without any sort of treatment or therapy.

I guess one could argue that in an ideal world there would be no need for theraputic treatments for neuroatypical people, that we could all enjoy perfect freedom to behave however we want at all times. But right now that doesn’t exist. People need jobs and families and relationships, and even a wider society to be a part of. Insomuch as treatment options can make that happen for people, some sort of mental health system needs to exist. I happen to feel like the one we have now is deeply flawed, and still probably too centered around removing those unsightly “crazy people” rather than helping actual human beings interact with the world in a functional way. Not to mention that a lot of people have no recourse due to lack of access, or have their options severely limited for financial reasons.

But, no, I really don’t think we’re anywhere near the freedom for neuroatypical people to just be special snowflakes who everyone walks on eggshells around all the time.

Good God, William, way to twist my brief statements. So because I think people with extreme cases of certain types should take their meds or get help if it is within their power to do so “I’m speaking in favor of oppression and violence?” Give me a break. Why don’t you just call me Hitler and get it over with.

I mean really, how did you get all that from what I’ve said? You are too much!

You need to think through the implications of your statements. Saying “people should gtake their meds or get help” means something. Words mean things. The options for that statement are pretty limited. Either you’re talking about some general moral guideline you think might be a good idea for people to voluntarily follow (like “people should say please and thank you”) or you think that it should be public/social policy, which implies the force of law. Saying someone should do something is all very well and good, but out in the wild “oughts” tend to turn into “whats.”

Shouldn’t anyone who commits crimes go to jail? I’m pretty sure it’s only the crazies among us who get locked up preemptively. And it really sucks, trust me on that.

The Opoponax: Again, not everyone can tolerate the medication. It can be cruel and unusual punishment when the medicine creates physical hell for you far worse than anything you’ve felt unmedicated.

Your issue is with your abuser, in my opinion, not with me or anyone else in this thread expressing opposition to you.

And nearly 90 comments in, no one has pointed out the Newsweek completely misrepresented The Icarus Project by painting it as anti-med or that they “balanced” the article by getting a quote from the Treatment Effing Advocacy Center.

No. Let’s keep parroting the same debate over just how dangerous those crazies are and what kind of treatment they should get when.

Stop letting TAC and NAMI define the terms of the conversation, and then maybe we could start talking about Mad Pride.

I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with said commenter, but even that statement (”I think I might perhaps agree with involuntary institutionalization in certain life-threatening situations”) is hardly the same as advocating that medication be mandated for all mentally ill people who have any negative impact at all on anybody.

Well…realistically and historically those two statements aren’t too far off. It wasn’t too long ago that we did just that. Anyone who was mentally ill enough to get the label was either locked away or pumped full of Thorazine or Haldol. To this day we do more or less the same thing. Once someone has lost the assumption of competency they’re pretty much at the mercy of a system that is designed less to provide care than to maintain the comfort of those on the outside. An everyday statement (“I coulda killed him I was so mad!”) that would be dismissed coming from the mouth of a normal person becomes evidence of danger and a justification for a PRN or hospitalization coming from someone with a diagnosis, even without a history of violence.

People with little social or political power tend to be oppressed and there aren’t many people lower on the totem pole than the mad.

Jaleesa, for what it’s worth, I’m not here to argue. Aside from honesty and openness, I really don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m also listening and learning a whole lot more than you or other participants can necessarily see.

The bottom line is that, to the extent that mental illness goes beyond the kinda neat staying up all night writing manic poetry type stuff, there probably does need to be some kind of way of dealing with people who cannot function in society due to their neuroatypicality.

As someone who suffers from SAD, for instance, I really wish I could just take the months of December through February off from life. Or spend those months in a sun-drenched paradise. In an ideal world, universal socialized medicine would totally cover that for me, and I’d be helped to find a lifestyle that would minimize my symptoms.

Until that happens, I either have to deal with going through 2-3 months of terrible depression every year, or I have to spend several hours a day in front of a special lamp (which I have yet to be able to afford). It’s kind of a shit tradeoff. But, well, such is life.

Semantically, can I decide that this particular neuroatypicality is a feature and not a bug, and anyone who thinks I’m a crabby bitch in February can just fuck off? Sure. But to the extent that I have to interact with other human beings to get by in this world (and have yet to score a job that allows me to spend half the year in Rio), that’s not really a good way for me to look at things.

Have to add that asking for respect concerning being mentally different ISN’T the same thing as using it as an excuse for bad behavior. There is admittedly people who use this to excuse criminal behavior or to excuse being an asshole or a bitch. But to use that as a basis for arguing against the rights of every individual with that same diagnosis is a stretch, especially because bad people will ALWAYS look for excuses. It doesn’t ever mean that whatever excuse named is the actual reason behind their actions, and we should all know that by now.

“And nearly 90 comments in, no one has pointed out the Newsweek completely misrepresented The Icarus Project by painting it as anti-med or that they “balanced” the article by getting a quote from the Treatment Effing Advocacy Center.

No. Let’s keep parroting the same debate over just how dangerous those crazies are and what kind of treatment they should get when.

Stop letting TAC and NAMI define the terms of the conversation, and then maybe we could start talking about Mad Pride.”

Erm, maybe this is because the author admitted that she didn’t know about the movement? What is the Icarus stance on medication, anyway? It also seems that a lot of people here are going by Thomas Schanz’ social model of mental illness. I also think a lot of you are talking past each other: mental illness means different things to different people, some of you seem to automatically assume that others know and understand what “mad pride” is thus they must automatically support it otherwise they are oppressive ableists.

@ Oppanax: I agree completely. But there also needs to be space for people who don’t feel they are suffering from anything at all and who seem to be better people without treatment.

I don’t at all believe that any one side (for or against treatment) is better than the other. I just take issue with the assumption that treatment benefits everyone, whether is therapy or medication. Just as free-birding it doesn’t work for everyone, neither does treatment and I just want it impressed that’s it’s high time that view is respected.

Like I said, there are bad people out there who do use their “illness” to justify shitty behavior. I don’t feel these assholes should be chosen as representatives of what happens when people choose not to medicate, that’s all.

Most of the mad aren’t dangerous, some of them don’t have a problem with their state, and a significant percentage feel that the problems that come with madness aren’t so terrible that they’re willing to put up with the devastating side effects that some of these drugs have. We accept people making those decisions with diseases, why is madness different?

I agree with all of this. And I don’t think madness is different from making decisions about any other medical issue.

Again, I don’t think people should be forced to take medication. I think if people are able to live functional lives, they can do what they choose. You like your mental condition, and are able to live with it and provide for yourself and aren’t a burden on anyone else? Awesome, more power to you.

And, hell, I think even people who are not able to care for themselves should still have the autonomy to make their own decisions. I think nothing short of complete and total inability to make or communicate decisions should interfere with that.

I think our health care and welfare systems should be reformed to enable more people who might not be functional in the strictest sense (unable to work, for instance) to live good lives, including the agency to choose what that means for them. And there should be no strings attached, no carrots and certainly no sticks.

But then I also think that there comes a point where people have to abide by the so-called social contract. You have to follow laws. You have to at least attempt not to unnecessarily torment others. Unfortunately, society exists. If you want to be a part of it, you have to find a place and somewhat conform to what that place means. You don’t get to have the parts you want and opt out of the rest.

Again, this is all a hell of a lot more complicated than building a ramp or training a seeing eye dog.

Suicide as a right really needs to re-enter the discussion. There’s a way to possibly avoid burdening society with sick people. It’s been my personal experience that downsides to being crazy isn’t forcing a person to conform insomuch as it’s forcing a person to live. Life is too often toted as mandatory instead of what it is…a choice. Survival itself is a choice.

But I think that’s another discussion alltogether…

I also must add that I was heavily medicated when I chose to overdose, and there’s a lot of evidence to support that both medicine and my shitty excuse for a psychiatrist (who would up my doses for expressing atheism, for example) had more an influence in that than anything.

I’m sure, as I said, that there are things that really work for some people but when it comes to this, it’s not one-size fits all. By extension, when it comes to life, not everyone is made for it. I’ve often viewed insanity, pure insanity, hallucinations, delusions…these are how some people can survive. If you take that away from them, how can there be so much outrage on what a “burden” they are? Forcing people to live while you disable the only way they can adapt to life is cruel in my eyes.

And again, there’s no excuse for bad people but there’s an awful lot of criminals who dream of suicide and who, from what I see, would probably be no trouble to the world if there weren’t so many safeguards in place that don’t really allow a person to chose the life they want, or choose to end it, without feeding them so much bullshit about what’ll happen to them if they do it. Where suicide can be considered more morally abhorrent than rape or murder.

Fear of death has shaped everyone’s ideas of how the world should be, including how we take care of ourselves and how we fit into society. We tend to dismiss the uncomfortable, but true fact that death is something we can all count on.

If you asked a person to choose their life (instead of telling them that they should or medicating and stigmatizing them when they’re not sure), I honestly believe that even the most apparently suicidal would choose life and learn how to live it.

I think that is very well said, lark.

To add:

I’m aware of how back breakingly difficult getting adaquate mental help can be, and that those people who aren’t lucky enough to have money and caring families are often a short step away from homelessness or death. So take the last paragraph of the previous comment to mean that if you have the resources at your disposal, you have a responsibility.

Meowser, I think you kind of got the sentiment of my comment wrong, no offense. I’m not against fat acceptance; in fact, as someone who is overweight, I consider it an awesome thing. I agree that overweight does not equal “unhealthy,” just as underweight does not equal “healthy.”

What I meant is that fat acceptance, like the “mad pride” thing, only works to an extent because when you have people at either extreme of the weight spectrum – whether unhealthily obese or unhealthily thin – then they should realize that they could be putting themselves at risk for certain health problems, and their body weight isn’t healthy. They should not be stigmatized for their weight, of course, but just because they don’t deserve discrimination or belittlement doesn’t mean their weight is healthy. (Likewise with “mad pride” – just because they don’t deserve to be discriminated against, it doesn’t mean it’s the best idea for them to refuse medical attention.) It’s true that that may not change anything, but I don’t think it’s quite the same as income. People who are unhealthily overweight can get medical attention to alleviate some of the issues associated with obesity, such as heart disease, diabetes, etc. even if they don’t actually lose all that much weight. Most low-income people aren’t going to get “richer” unless we change our system more so that education and job opportunities are more evenly provided to people of all income brackets. I also think that an individual decision to eat better and exercise could make a difference for some (not all) obese people, but the idea of poor people just “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” doesn’t work when they don’t have access to any of the opportunities that would allow them to move up on the income bracket.

Like with the “mad pride” thing, it does depend on the person, whether their weight and the health problems associated with it are worth seeking medical attention or not. But telling everyone “you don’t have to do anything about it!” is not the best idea, IMO.

I, too, find this discussion…mildly disturbing.

1) The majority of people do not live in reality by choice. Just because there are consensual necessary delusions (religion, currency, free will, things of that nature), does not mean that there aren’t a multitude of “unnecessary” delusions that people indulge in. Many of these delusions are highly, highly destructive to themselves or to others. Most of the time, the public at large accepts their attitudes as one they have a right to have. The disturbed are just that…disturbing to others. Meanwhile, many of the disturbed think that the norm is fucking nuts, and they’d (we, really) be right.

2) My real problem with this thread is how much it is about desperate mental illness rather seeing psyche as a spectrum. It’s basically parallel to the ticking time bomb torture frame. There is little discussion on people who are functional and even less about what functional means. Perpetually talking about mental issues in terms of crisis moments precludes real discussion, which I think has to include a bit of patter on exogenously created crazyness (like mental breakdowns from overwork). I also think there needs to be alot more discussion of how much society needs “crazy” people as a captured market for pharms and service companies. Not to mention the whole reinforcement of what is normal.

3) Oh, and to reinforce what has been said before, the majority of the time, psychotropic drugs are poorly prescribed and administered because a major reason they are used is for control of people who are different (or to make lots of money). It is understood that they work for some people here. However, is it understood that people who comment here are one hell of a self-selected population? That if you actually had a representative sample, you might find something other than you expect?

I have such mixed feelings about this. I’m in a relatively unique position, I think; I’ve been hospitalized without my consent. Being involuntarily committed to a locked psychiatric facility is, and I cannot say this forcefully enough, the absolute most degrading and humiliating thing that has ever happened to me, and I cannot imagine anything worse.

Give me a break, that does not put you in a unique position. I’ve been involuntarily committed and its not pleasant (and varies from hospital to hospital) but I can’t help but read your comment and think, wow, you must have a pretty cushy life, if you’ve seriously never experienced anything (or can even imagine anything!) more humiliating and degrading than that. Come on.

That said, I’m all for this “pro-choice” and “mad pride” stuff.

this here “special snowflake” is done with this thread. it’s triggering too much anger and pain to keep on reading.