EDIT: Hooray! Purnell is gone!
Read what my friend Nev has to say on the matter.
You’ll be pleased to know that my housing benefit has finally been sorted out. It’s amazing what a pushy social worker and a midgetty mentalist with an unnaturally detailed knowledge of housing benefit can do. Best part is of course that instead of me oweing them money, they now owe me money for paying me the wrong rate for three months and leaving me struggling with my rent. The Kinder Eggs are on me.
While I’m here, I have a question.
Some people fear medication because of its ability to alter your mood, behaviour and so on. What I’m curious about is, how do you view depression, manic depression, schizophrenia and so on within the context of being “natural”? Do you see it as something that’s part of you, therefore taking medications for it puts you in an unnatural state? Or do you see it as an illness outside you, that’s an anomaly, therefore the medication is attempting to return to you a natural state i.e without symptoms of mental illness?
I get caught between the two. The worries about creativity and medication for me have proved valid. I find I write far less on medications than without medications. I only take antipsychotics but it’s bad enough. I don’t know whether I see my having manic depression as just a part of me that maybe I should leave alone and let be, or as an outside force that shouldn’t be there. It does lead to a shaky sense of identity, and it is strange to actively suppress a part of me. In my case, and I suspect yours too, I’ve just weighed up the benefits of medication vs the effects of my illness and for now, taking medication is the lesser of two evils. And strictly speaking, all medical intervention is “unnatural”, and natural doesn’t mean good, no matter what aspirational chocolate companies would like to lead you to believe.
I do often wonder if my medications are just keeping me in a state of stasis. Because of my illness, I’m told that extremes are bad. It also means I have no idea why I feel a certain way. Is it me, or medication?
What do you think?
Filed under: Bipolar Disorder
Stumble It!
I’m glad that you have finally sorted your housing benefit. It must feel like a huge relief
)
I take my meds as told to do, I let them change them round if they want. I refuse to go on antidepressants as they make me manic and my first original psychiatrist told me never to go on them. I still struggle everyday, I can’t work and have lost most of my hobbies, socialising is hard. How bad would I be if I wasn’t on meds. Well the quick answer is I would be dead, though you may argue that that is the most natural thing, I think I’d rather be alive, each to their own. Don’t think there is a correct answer here.
Glad housing benefirs sorted out.
I’m gonna send you that book and DVD again…they speak to this issue exactly…I’ll get new copies…he talks about how our extreme states are a natural if also extreme part of the human experience…drugs can help in the short term until we learn how to manage otherwise…the thing is WE CAN LEARN TO MANAGE otherwise and we’re routinely told we can’t. It’s simply not true.
if I had understood that earlier I wouldn’t be toxic now and I would have use targeted medication for a very brief time as he did (the author of the books I told you about and tried to send you)…
now I’m off drugs and totally sane…but physically impaired after 2 decades of heavy psychotropic drug use which unfortunately poisoned me….now I’m different than you as I was on 6 different drugs at astronomically high doses and you’re on one drug…but still…any neuroleptic long term is potentially damaging in multiple ways.
I’ll ask for another (more reliable) address to use and send them again.
Peace to you.
oh…and I am by no means surprised you figured out the benefits quandary…people like you and I are blessed with skills to help resolve all this shit…so many of our brothers and sisters on these drugs lose the capacity to problem solve such issues.
“so many of our brothers and sisters on these drugs lose the capacity to problem solve such issues.”
And so many people off their medications lose their capacity to deal with real world issues. It works both ways.
Just because a medication-free life works for your problems, doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. In fact, for some people it will be harmful
Whether you’re pro or anti medication, you cannot deny that:
– some people are better not taking certain drugs
– some people are better taking certain drugs.
For some people, they find the right medication or combinations of medications, and they’re effectively ‘cured.’
For others, they never find the right medications, and the ones they try only make their symptoms worse.
But I think the most harmful thing is to generalize and say “people should take pills” or “people shouldn’t take pills.”
hmmm…were does your hostility come from??…Seaneen did just fine ON drugs…I made no suggestion she should come off them.
Glad your housing stuff is sorted out!
I agree that taking medication seems to be the lesser of two evils, and they must be pretty big evils considering all the side effects that come with.
By the by, I tried to go on this site on the hospital computer and it was blocked for adult content, yet the men can still look up ‘xxx sexy porn girls’!
Take care
xx
I think that manic depression is natural but it is also pathological. In the same that way Type 1 diabetes is natural.
Manic depression is shit and has added nothing to my life. A few funny anecdotes perhaps but they are little comfort when contrasted with the handful of medication I need to take.
I am going to post a proper reply on my blog soon.
Hurrah for getting your housing benefit sorted! Glad you didn’t have to resort to shitting in the envelope
As for your question, what question.
Will just throw in
1) that mental illness is hard, but the consequences of it can be harder. In my case, I think I could cope with the depression if it didn’t exclude me from so many facets of everyday life – education, employment, relationships with other people, etc. And theoretically if these things were a bit more bendy, it wouldn’t.
2) that I often suspect some illnesses are medicated (and even diagnosed) not for the benefit of the patient, but for the comfort of other people. We used to lock people away – not for their own safety, not under the assumption they’d get better, but because society didn’t know what to do with them and it was easier not to look. It’s not that much better nowadays: they put you on medication, they put you on benefits, but they don’t help you to live an integrated life. You may as well be in an asylum if you never leave your flat. Dementia is prob the best example of a condition that’s more distressing for the person witnessing it than the sufferer. There are vets who will prescribe medication for dementia in animals, for God’s sake. (We have a 20 year old cat who has lost it completely, but generally she’s happy. She hasn’t a clue who is stroking her but she knows she likes being stroked, purr purr. She was even at her scratching post and pawing her toys the other day!) Also, a lot of health professionals have suggested I have a problem with my mother’s death – and I had to reply of course I had a problem! They can give me as much grief counselling as they like, but they will never turn it into a neutral event; it will always be sad. But I am OK with my sadness, it is only a problem for other people. In essence, it’s their problem, not mine.
3) that I have been on medication all my adult life and so do not know what it’s life to have a life without medication.
4) echoing Stace, I hate the pills but I’m too afraid *not* to take them.
Frankly, this is a question I wrestle with all the time. Am I like this because I have an illness rooted in my brain chemistry? Or does society cast me in the role of a sick person because it doesn’t know what else to do with me? And the answer to both is probably YES. I contradict myself a lot, but two contradictory things can be true at the same time. My psychotherapist has a fun time.
Anyway, sorry I haven’t thought this out. My brain is like ragu today. Urgh.
I wonder if Purnell will cross the house to join his chums on the tory benches.You have to wonder why the likes of Purnell and Blair joined the Labour Pary in the first place it must have been because the university group had better looking guys/girls and they must then have decided they could do more for the tories in he Labour Pary than they could in the Conservative Party. Blair hardly left anything for Purnell to foul up..
Sleeping tablets work for me and are of use now and again but with anything else the side effects outweigh the benefits. I prefer to trust myself to get down from highs is the same way as if I was stuck on a motorbike doing 150mph I wouldnt look to drugs to resolve the situation.
I have been taking Lithium for so long I dont know if there is any advantage from it.My old GP used to say it was a natural product but so is arsenic.
My 7 day pill dispenser(how sad) fell into the sink recently wetting some tablets.As an experiment I dissolved the tablets in a watering can and without exception all the plant I watered with it died- which was a bit of a surprise.
I have come to believe it is all about quality of life. Your life. As you perceive it. But then there it is, that tricky thing popping it’s head in. Perception. What is natural or unnatural does not play a role in this except to change your perception of how you are achieving a change in quality of life. All the pills, diagnosis and therapies are to address just this. Perception. Quality of life. How do they play each other? Where is your quality of life? Do you, should you, care about others quality of life around you? Your children, your spouse, parents, siblings? Answers to these questions are fleeting because perception is fluid and fleeting, for everyone. The system doesn’t attempt to address perception or quality of life because it can’t. For a system to work it must be standardized. You cannot standardize any person’s perceptions of or about their own quality of life. You just can’t. And so any person who chooses to think will struggle with these questions over an over…Is it natural or unnatural? Is it me, or medication?
This is such a good question I’m thinking of writing a post too. But briefly, apart from the horrendous times, I find the little good demon that keeps the bad demon in check too useful to cosh him simultaneously. Yes, I’ll take the drugs again when necessary. But everyone has a different line about where that ‘when necessary’ is. A friend nearby has been on lith for 30+ years – always increases the dose the moment he feels the slightest bit jangly, or if he finds the world a bit too vibrant. It’s his choice, and I respect that. He respects me too. Cuts both ways I suppose.
P.S. Yes, good to see that wanker Parnell gone. Like you, I dread the future.
Take care, Dx
How do you define natural. If human beings are part of nature then you could argue that everything we produce is natural.
Personally I do whatever it takes to get by, right now & try to preserve some sort of hope for the future.
I hate the medication for forcing me to go to sleep at a certain time & for stopping me from drinking & staying out till the next morning, but if I fuck with this (as I found out last night) things get pretty strange, pretty fast.
I remember when the kinder eggs were on me with regards to housing benifit, what a good day getting that giro was!
I have a love hate relationship with meds.
I collect them weekly, but never seem to take them because I dont think I need them. I dont know what I’m playing at.
Thats great you got your housing sorted
And about the medication vs effects of not taking it, I have epilepsy and depression, and I’ve learnt from the effects of missing doses of my anti epileptic meds that taking the medication is so so so much better than the effects of not taking it.
It has always been the same for my antidepressants, I don’t want to miss doses, cus, I know I’m in a crap place at the minute, but without the meds I’m nearly sure that I wouldn’t be here. Its shit having to depend on something so much for any sort of life, but for the minute I’m still taking all my meds, like Stace and La said, I’m too scared to not take them.
Midge
I am going to plead ignorant if any of this doesn’t make sense. But I believe that mental illness is in many cases the inability of the mind to maintain control/manage itself.
Meaning that it’s natural for all these thoughts, ideas – to exist in everyone.
Drugs tend to be tranquilizers for the subconscious itself. Symptoms tend to fade because the subconscious no longer has power to impact the conscious. But… that also means that the subconscious is not available to function in the capacity that it’s designed to thrive at — dreams.. creativity.
Without dreams, you don’t get as depressed, cause you don’t have an expectation or desire. On medication, many feel like a zombie.
The way I look at it is that the subconscious is a caged animal. With mental illness, the door to the cage is broken.
Fixing the door solves the problem.
Trainquilizing impairs the function of the zoo as the mighty lion is asleep
The animal gets out and neither the zoo visitors or the animal are safe.
Mental illness can often lead to far greater achievements than without — because that caged animal is also very powerful. Belief is very important to success.
Whenever I hear about a zoo animal escaping and being shot… It makes me sad, because the animal was not evil or broken, it was functioning as it should.
So although I do feel drugs can help in allowing people to be less dangerous to themselves and others. I think that cage door is what should be focused on. I believe the breakthrough would be achieved there. Cause tranquilizing the mighty lion, is quite depressing to think about.
This analogy is not endorsing zoos — I believe that animals belong in the wild and uncaged
Glad about the housing benefit, my dear.
And just to add a big *YES* to the departure of that odious little c*nt Purnell. who you would have thought would at least kept his own books clean while blaming IB claimants for virtually everything wrong with the country. Bastards. How dare they lecture the rest of us.
He was rampantly ambitious for the PM job too and i think his resignation was a stunt to try and bring down Brown and stand himself. If so, looks like he may have egg on his face.
Fucker.
Perhaps some of them might now have a feel for what it’s like to have your every penny and aspect of lifestyle subject to scrutiny on a regular basis like we claimants do.
I’d love to see a prick like that on 60 quid a week – but that will never happen, they make sure of it.
I’d love to give him a good kicking (speaking as a pacifist!).
I, too, constantly struggle with these questions. My blog is littered with these questions. I have gone off and on medications since I was 12 years old, searching for that solution.
This will always be a dilemma for the following reasons
1. The mental health industry has its flaws far and wide, research is driven by money, and we still have no idea how the brain works (even though recent research has brought us leaps and bounds).
2. It is impossible to define personal responsibility from an ethical standpoint because scientifically speaking, we are just a walking chemical reaction. It’s just a matter of where you draw the line, and who has the right to draw that line.
I think the psychiatric world’s methods of medicating are outdated and need to be re-evaluated. This thought that people should be on medication constantly for the rest of their lives is terribly skewed and I think somewhat fueled by pharmaceutical companies. After putting the same chemicals into our body for years non-stop, our brain adjusts its own chemistry to live with that chemical, making the drug ineffective.
It’s manifested in drug addiction. That’s why people always increase their dosages when they are addicted to drugs. Because our bodies are programmed to survive and adapt, no matter what external environmental influences are there.
I think instead of this “set it and forget it” attitude of medicating the mentally interesting (which they often do for societal and familial convenience, not for the health of the patient), treatment should be an ongoing adjustment. Instead of medicating 24 hours/day and just increasing dosage after dosage, maybe just medicate intermittently during times when you know you’re most vulnerable. But unfortunately, there is no money in that, it is not cost-effective, and it would take a lot of re-evaluation and therefore, man-power, which as I said, is not cost-effective.
As for being “natural,” I think about those religious folk who refuse medical treatment because they think God will take care of it. Like the little boy who has a curable cancer, but his family refuses treatment because of their religious beliefs. They are now on the run from the government because a court ordered the chemotherapy treatments. One could argue that these chemotherapy treatments are “unnatural,” which I guess is true, because they are preventing death, which is perfectly “natural.” But isn’t it our responsibility to use the knowledge and technology that’s out there to possibly extend or enhance our lives? Otherwise, what’s the point?
On the other end of it, though, we are talking about the brain. And our current perception is that the brain makes who we are (before advances in medical science, they thought your heart was the center of being…interesting to note) and when you mess with the chemicals in the brain, you are essentially messing with who you are.
In that sense, mental illness is absolutely natural. Just like cancer is natural, just like diabetes is natural. On a simple level, it is brain chemistry, it is genetics, and it is environment. From a scientific standpoint, all these things make up what is ultimately You. Remember, love is a chemical reaction in the brain, attraction is a chemical reaction in the brain, happiness, sadness, you get the point. So does that mean when you’re in love with someone that it’s not valid because it’s a chemical reaction? No. Absolutely not. We are sentient beings, and our emotions are very real and cannot be categorized and boxed in by science, no matter how hard we try. And I think that’s one of the reasons mental illness is so hard to treat. If you take away our emotional reaction to things, you take away what makes us human.
From this spiritual/personal standpoint, you are not defined by your chemistry, but defined by the actions you take in your life (in my opinion). Life, itself, is an anomaly, really. If your mental illness keeps you from doing the things that you want to do, then why not use the technology that we have developed to treat it? Unfortunately, the system is not perfect, and there are still so many unknowns that medications often cause much more harm than good.
Just remember, the feelings you feel have been arbitrarily defined as symptoms by a group of people that really don’t know any more than you do about what is right and wrong. It’s an invisible line in the sand. They may have done studies and research and noticed trends, but they are just as clueless as anyone else. No one in this world has any kind of answer to any question. We are all groping around in the dark trying to find order in this chaos because that is what our minds are programmed to do. The human brain is desperate to find patterns even where patterns don’t exist. Because it is much less scary to think you know what’s coming next than to have no earthly idea.
My Doc told me the other day flat out, “Look, we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. We know next to nothing about the brain, and we don’t know why the medications work. You just have to decide if it helps you enough to be worth it. It’s completely up to you.” And that is the most honest answer I’ve ever gotten from a doctor. It’s true, though. They can say they’re experts, and “studies have shown…” but the funny thing about studies is that they are extremely political and driven by funding, opinion, and reputation. It is not an exact science!
Therefore, the ultimate decision lies with you, which is difficult because, being mentally interesting, you’re taught to doubt your own mind.
It’s different for every person. If you have learned to live with your mental illness and lead a “productive” (personally productive, not productive according to society) life without medication, then go for it. However, if your mental illness causes more life disruption than the medications to help you, then I think it’s worth it to stay on medication.
For me personally, it’s difficult because half the time I am mentally “ok” and half the time I am not. So it’s difficult for me to justify taking medication all the time when I have problems half the time. However, it’s the days when I am sure I will jump off the next tall building I see, that I think maybe medication isn’t such a losing situation. After all, what if I did jump off a building? Then it wouldn’t matter how creative I was off the medication because I would be dead.
But then again, what kind of quality of life is it when you’re constantly adjusting medication that ultimately always stops working in the long run because that is what our brain is programmed to do?
I’ve gone on for much too long, but my point is, you have to define the answers for yourself. It’s about feeling better and living the life that you want to live. And whatever it takes to feel better, that’s what you have to do. And it doesn’t matter what your doctor says or your therapist says because, ultimately, it’s your life. You’re the one who has to take the medication. You’re the one who has to live with the illness. And you’re the one who determines what your life means to you.
My 2p, for what it’s worth.
Basically, everything in existence is ‘natural’. Even something like power plants or oil spills as, on a broad level, nature made us to make them. That’s not a very practical response to your question, but it’s the general approach i take when the issue of nature pops up.
Personally though, when I’ve been on antidepressants, it hasn’t felt natural (but then I don’t think I ever do anyway). It was closer to an intangible force preventing me from feeling too sad. It’s oddly stymieing, like someone stopping you from sneezing by going “BUH!!”. In retrospect, there were plenty of benefits to feeling like that (I may even go back on them if i keep feeling like I do now). I didn’t doubt myself as much and I think I was more productive, but all the while it never felt like they were as effective as they’re supposed to be.
I think a mental illness is inescapably a part of you. There simply isn’t a way to separate it like a tumour or a nubbin. It’s your mind, your personality….it’s pretty much you. That doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t be treated, perhaps even cured. This is probably immensely presumptuous of me, but treating it as an aspect of your own personality that requires ‘fixing’, either through drugs, therapy or general self-improvement, seems a generally healthier approach than seeing it as this interloping disease that infected you at some point.
Oh, and like everyone else, I’m sure, I’m glad to hear your housing benefits have been sorted!
This is a super conversation. That’s all.
I am so happy for you that your benefits have finally been sorted. What a nightmare you just didn’t need.
Now, you ask a really great question that doesn’t have one sole answer. I believe (as much as I fought it at the time) that I needed to be on meds. They allowed me to function and join the real world. I found that before I was on them that I barely wanted to get out of bed let alone right anything. I felt alone and scared that nothing would ever be okay and that I was going to ruin my life.
After I was on them for an extended period of time, I discovered myself again. The cloud had dissipated and I felt creative.
I felt like me.
About 5 years after I first started taking them, I (with the support of my hubby) decided to wean myself off of all meds (against my shrink’s advice). It was hard and I was living on pins and needles just waiting for the blackness to come back, but it didn’t. At least not to that degree.
I have found that my symptoms have become much milder as I have gotten older. I’m 34 now.
As for mental illness being a natural part of me, well, I used to buy into the whole: “Mental illness makes me special and more real and more creative and smarter than everyone else and I can see and be a part of the world that “normal’ people never know.” I think that’s such BS now. Mentall illness didn’t make me MORE of anything good. More scared. More sad. More detached. But certainly not more fabulous.
I see mentall illness as something I have; not something I am.
I always say that I battled it, so for me, no, it wasn’t a natural part of me. If it were, I would have claimed it, embraced it, rather than fought it.
But that’s just me
We wouldn’t have ‘illness’ if people/institutions didn’t define it that way.
[...] This is my answer to the question asked here. The question in essence being is manic depression natural or illness, well it is more in depth than that. Go read it I’ll wait. [...]
I have rapid cycling bipolar 2. I was diagnosed post natally. I have been in hospital three times always with severe depression. I am very drug resistant and take very high doses of carbamazipine, venlafaxine, mirtazipine, quetiapine and the odd benzodiazipine. I titrate my medication according to my mood (mainly the quetiapine anything from 25mg to 300 mg). I have cracked this and have been well for 3 years. I run a successful business, I employ people and life is good. I refuse to be a ‘victim’ of this illness and I never will be. I would never have been able to do this without medication.
My view is that manic depression and schizophrenia are a kind of natural mystical state gone wrong. Some geezer said something along the lines of ‘the schizophrenic, unprepared, unguided falls into the water and drowns. Whereas the trained mystic jumps in and finds he can swim.
What’s helped me in the last few weeks is setting up a bit of a shrine/sacred space in my flat, joss stick, my little jade buddha and a celtic candle holder on my window sill and practicing various buddhist meditations (loving kindness is my fave). For me I think the key is bringing spiritual practice/experience into daily life to change my world view with the hope of preventing a big build up and then the dam breaking and me going completely nuts.
I’m still taking a fairly hefty dose of risperidone and will keep taking it for some time, my problem with psychiatries stance is that it reduces sometimes powerful and profound personal experiences into faulty brain chemistry, how fucking soulless is that!? honestly you shrinks, what the fuck?
I am more me without meds, indeed.
I’m currently off the medication because I needed to FEEL, so i kicked the shit out and dropped them. I miss being able to focus sometimes but otherwise I’m fine.
When I’m on meds I feel like I’m stuck and numb. It’s wrong to stop like that to indulge myself but fuck it, really. I needed some time off.
I kinda view all my medication as changing *me* sometimes for the beter, sometimes for the worse. and i dont really like the way they just throw pills at you when possibly somethign other than pills would be a better solution…
I’d love to be able to answer this question but I just don’t know what I think. I do believe mental illness is natural. I also think medication is unnatural, but I still think it is necessary. I do think it is important to realise that natural doesn’t always mean good. There are many naturally occurring substances in the world – alcohol for example, that are not necessarily good for us!
My view, as it’s always been, is that my non-medicated state is the real me, and this for me forms the basis of the continuing should I/shouldn’t I dilema. By taking meds I’m suppressing my true self as my behaviour is inappropriate given my responsibilities and fitting in with the social norm. My consultant said as much in my last appointment. Irrespective my cavalier views on my own personal safety, the fact remains I have family, children, for which I’m responsible for, and by his reasoning for that medication is obligatory.
I do plan to go med-free eventually, when my own circumstances change, and just ride the roller coaster of moods. This is far and away my preference, but I am sympathetic to the view that my life situation currently demands I stay reasonably sane!
I don’t view it as an illness, just who I am. The ’system’ has invented Bipolar, it’s merely a categorisation.
Brilliant question.
My “normal” is depressive so medication always seemed to be one of the scariest things that could happen — who would I be if I wasn’t me (depressed)? Even through suicidal ideation, self harm, countless days of hypomania, I still thought pills would be worse.
It’s obvious even as I swallow my daily wellbutrin that I’d be more “me” without the drugs. I haven’t written anything in months upon months, what I’ve written since the new year has been atrocious, and I find myself looking for things to fill my time (tv, word finds, movies, packing) rather than doing something creative. Right now I’m waiting for Belmont to come on.
The problem is if I weren’t taking my meds now (and I’ve had a very hard time being compliant recently) I would be in a very bad state. I’m still depressed as all hell as it is, but nothing whatsoever would be getting done rather than my small bit of work and I wouldn’t have had a single shower in the past week and a half (though I’ve only managed two in that time frame).
I suppose my overall point is that I go back and forth on it, just like I think everyone who is on psychological medication does. Who wouldn’t question if they’d be better, more themselves, without the medication they put in their bodies every day?
That’s a really good question about the medication issue.
I have depression and anxiety; I take antidepressants.
I actually view both the depressed state and the medicated state as ‘unnatural’ in that neither is a totally healthy, functioning human being.
For me, medication is a safety net, perhaps stopping the illness I have from totally ruining me, while still allowing it (the depression) a decent amount of access to my brain.
There is no easy choice – the meds I take are partly taken out of fear of the fully-fledged depressive illness gaining a stronger foothold than it has, yet I’m sure my personality is/has been affected (it would seem odd to think that meds wouldn’t affect us that way). I’m still me, but I’m not the same me I would have been off meds. Not sure if that makes sense,
Louise x
It’s a pay-off. Medications induce a state with unnatural side-effects. It’s not natural to sleep all day, or lose hair or have a constantly dry mouth or whatever else. Medications are unnatural, bipolar is something that occurs naturally in humans but is not desirable at all so we accept these unnatural medications. I’m strange I think, in that I have always been very compliant with all my meds even when they do knock me out or make me gain weight. Alot of people struggle with that, but I rarely have.
Even though you’re a stranger you have been in my thoughts lately, I’m really glad to hear about the housing benefit.
I believe my bipolar is both part of me and outside me. Taking medication is helping that part of me to heal. Taking meds gives you the chance to see outside your condition for a change. When you’re not on meds, you’re not thinking rationally (at least I’m not), so meds give back rationality, which gives you back your psyche. I think it can be awkward to think of things that are a part of you as coming from “out there,” but with bipolar (and even with inspiration), it may be useful to think of them in those terms — coming from someplace else. I do both.
Someone linked to this post on another blog. I responded there, but I guess I can regurgitate myself here too.
I see psychiatry/psychotherapy as de facto social control, regardless of whether you seek treatment or decide to live without it. I don’t feel that there are many people who would instinctually seek out treatment if they (or someone around them) didn’t feel the affected person was deviating from established norms. It’s a capitalist, people-controlling venture that relies on sustaining and creating myths about mental illness, what mental illness is, and what mental illness does to sell its product…whether the product be pills or the idea that you are somehow deficient and abnormal if tiny box A can’t contain you.
I do believe that both psychiatry and psychotherapy can be used for good, but only if they (and we, the patients) remember the humanity and dignity of the people to be treated. There is no singular face to mental illness and no purely systemic way of treating it…to be honest, I feel treatment only works for a person if they can come to terms with the unlikelihood of having all their problems fixed here, and are willing to be active participants in their own recovery process.
It’s not you or the medication, but the way we’ve all been programmed to respond to this. Hopefully, this can be changed even if it’s only bit by bit.
Hi me dear, a tentative answer from me: http://abysmalmusings.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-manic-depression-natural.html take care, Dx
[...] And thanks for your responses in this post and the interesting discussions! [...]
I quit taking my meds because I didn’t like the whole “is it me or medication?” debate that was CONSTANTLY going off in my head. Well, that, and my neurologist told me to.
So far, so good… but it’s kind of like waiting for “the big one” (I’m from California- meaning earthquake)… I’m aware that could make me go crazy again, but it also may never happen. Just not worth it to me.