Tiny survey/research question if anyone feels like helping
POSTED BY: PhoenixRose
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 01:37
VIEWED: 5670
PAGE 5 of 8
Aw, Happy, we haven't seen you in a while. I feel like we should have been here for you, sounds like you've been through a rough time.
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Email link send via PM, Happy - the reason I didn't wanna initially discuss the matter with you discretely was due to concern about causing the exact situation you seem to have found yourself in.
Anyhow, if you'd like to talk about it, there it is.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Oh Happy, I'm sorry things didn't work out with that, it sounds like you chose based on your principles though and I think that you'll find something else soon. Sounds like you've run into the over diagnosis problem too.
Hey Frem, could you send me an email about what's up with Jeni? You said you knew the person who was helping look after her a while back, I want to know if she's at a good establishment, if she's loved and looked after well etc. I wish I'd known you when I was going through my feral child phase. I know that isn't really relevent to this thread, but the last time I asked you didn't answer me.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Geezer, just to say, "mental illness" isn't the same as "mental retardation", which is what you seem to be describing.
Rationally, I know that. Emotionally, when I hear "Mental Illness" that's the first thing that pops into my mind.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Happy, except for the timing, i.e., the current economy, I'd say "blessing in disguise". May you find another job soon, and one you feel good about.
When you say "misdiagnosis", I think of all the kids misdiagnosed (as has been mentioned), and us bipolars. It was so common for bipolars to be misdiagnosed depressive that they gave it its own category! If we're misdiagnosed depressive and put ONLY on anti-depressants, they can cause us to go manic...it happened to many, many people (still does no doubt) back when I was diagnosed (and it happened to me). It's caused hospitalizations and suicides, and is damned unpleasant, lemme tell 'ya! Luckily I'm bipolar II, so can only go "hypo"manic (less than); I hate to think where I'd be if I were Bipolar I!!
Misdiagnosis is a serious problems in so MANY ways; the above, "fraud" as you mentioned (tho' yes, I'm on the fence whether that's the kind of "fraud" that's bad or not), kids being misdiagnosed and put on wrong or too many meds, things like the study I mentioned above; it's truly still an "art" rather than a "science", unfortunately. And as a society, we are way too heavily invested in "take a pill", labels, and finding "mental illness" where some good therapy would fix the problem.
I doubt I'll live long enough to see it dealt with better, but hopefully in the generations to come after me...
Riona, you have my sympathy AND my empathy, "luh suh" is damned right! Hope you feel better soonest!
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
finding "mental illness" where some good therapy would fix the problem
Therapy can absolutely fix many problems, but that doesn't mean (to me) that they aren't mental illness. I compare some things to the psychological equivalent of a head cold; unpleasant and at times lasting longer than you would like, but nothing to be too worried about. Other things might be more like a chest cold, much more unpleasant and with the possibility of becoming something more severe if not seen to, but not a major threat if you can get some rest and some mild treatment. The comparisons could go on and on, but my main thesis for this paper is that we recognize various degrees of physical malady and offer various treatments that are nearly all covered by insurance, so why is mental illness different? Well, because it's been separated from the other practices of medicine, is why. I don't think it should be. I think that the standards for diagnosis, careful consideration of treatment, and insurance coverage that applies to everything else in medicine should apply to mental health care as well. I think the science is closer than you might think, but it's not going to be used if they can skate by without it.
Not that a paper for English class is going to change anything, but something along these lines is going to be my platform pretty much all through school. Eventually, I might make some waves.
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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Hey Geezer and Niki. What a lot of people don't realize, unless they're exposed to it, is that there is a certain amount of overlap between mental health differences and developmental differences. So Geezer's cousin very well may have had both. Also it is possible that Geezer's cousin has schizophrenia in the variety that presents some symptomatology that appears as developmental difference, I've heard of a few situations that the touchedness looks like that when it isn't. Anyways Geezer, how is your cousin (I guess she'd be your second cousin?) I hope she is safe and happy and fullfilled in life.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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"... why is mental illness different? Well, because it's been separated from the other practices of medicine, is why."
I think because as little as we know of what really goes on in the body (why do people get heart failure?) we know even less of what goes on the the brain - or the mind.
Sometimes talk therapy helps. But then sometimes people do talk therapy on and on and on for years ... and it doesn't work. They still purge and starve. You think maybe it's biological. Then somebody provides an interaction, and all of the sudden it clicks like it was so easy. Of course purging and starving is a silly thing to do. So it wasn't biological, it was mere thoughts. It was a problem of the mind.
Or then you have someone suffering from depression. Been through everything, talk therapy, medications, electro-convulsive therapy. Nothing helps. No matter how they address their thoughts, those thoughts are still there. Then someone notices their calcium is high, they get a hot parathyroid nodule removed (note - not thyroid, the thyroid is a different gland), their calcium comes down and - they're perfectly fine. Calm, focused, motivated. It's clear it was a physical problem. All those mental difficulties were mere side effects of a brain glitching under high calcium.
People who hallucinate - perhaps they're 'crazy'. Nobody else sees or hears those things that aren't there. Or --- maybe they're taking a dopamine agonist, or suffer from sleep disorders and dream with their eyes open, or have temporal/ occipital lobe epilepsy, or any number of unrelated-to-'crazy' issues. But let's say you could draw a hard and fast rule - people who hallucinate are crazy.
What about people who have crazy ideas? Who think that the world is run by giant bugs ... not that they claim to have ever seen or heard or felt or smelled or tasted those bugs, but they ***KNOW*** those bugs are there. Running the world behind the scenes. And nothing will shake that belief. Are they crazy?
What about if it's a socially acceptable 'crazy'? God is watching everything I do and reading my thoughts every instant of every day. Or, everything Rush Limbaugh says is true, no matter how self-contradictory or at odds with the real world. Are they 'crazy'?
I have my own personal definition of crazy, but it may not be yours.
What is 'crazy'? Where does it come from? Should we fix it ? How do we fix it? It seems still very much up in the air.
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither....
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
it was mere thoughts.
I have a problem with this. There's no such thing as "mere" thoughts. What someone thinks and does can impact their nervous system or their glands, and thoughts can self-perpetuate. Chemistry getting skewed can impact thoughts and the way someone feels. The body effects the mind, and the mind effects the body, they are not separate. There have been many studies on this, but thoughts are still seen as separate from the body, a problem with no "real" treatment because the problem isn't "real" beyond someone just thinking about it.
The same thoughts don't do the same thing to every system, just as the same medications don't do the same thing to every system. The human body is awash in complex chemistry all the time. You are correct that we don't understand it fully, but more is understood than I think a lot of people realize. My ultimate goal is to research more neurochemistry, because only a few neurotransmitters have really been studied in-depth, and I'm sure "lesser" ones make a difference for the "major" ones most people are familiar with.
My definition of crazy is that it's kind of an empty and meaningless word. It's been used to mean too many things to have any real meaning. Generally, though, it's used to refer to something intense or extreme. That's not necessarily what I'm talking about, here. There are too many disorders and illnesses for even most of them to be put under the heading of "crazy."
What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.
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