Dr. Sake Samurai, Psychiatrist to the SDMB

The BBQ Pit
1

Having just read your comments in the Special Note thread, I would just like to know a few things. You don’t believe that depression is a disease, and that medication will treat it. That’s fine, I’ll accept that, even if I disagree. You also believe that OpalCat’s behavior is purposeful and manipulative. You are of course entitled to that interpretation. What I want to know is this. Can’t you keep your views to yourself? We have a very depressed individual on our hands, one who is not in any position to deal with your vitriolic comments in any constructive way. She already slashed her wrists once, in response to a comment that was obviously intended as a joke. She needs help, dammit, and you’re not helping! Now, you have mood swings, and so do I. You have survived these mood swings without the aid of any medication, and so have I. But do not presume to know that the swings you and I have experienced are in any way comparable to those she has. You accuse her of weakness, simply because if she doesn’t take her medication, she’ll die? That’s an interesting criterion. You think she’s doing all this just to get attention? Is that what you believe? Well, I have to ask, what is your motivation? Why are you spewing your hate all over an undeserving person? Do you want to show us how terrific you are for understanding the true problem? Do you want to show us how mature you are for not falling victim to the emotional maelstrom that has claimed others? All you’re showing us is that you are an insensitive creep who lacks the basic compassion and understanding needed to deal with anyone with a greater range of emotions than your average brick wall.

All I hope for you is that you someday are in her shoes, and know what it’s like. I hope you beg for help, and nobody cares enough to give it. I hope you come to me so that I can laugh in your face. Then you will know.

An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.

2

Neuro, then Q.

Smilies, smilies, in a post
Which one do I hate the most?
Smirks and frowns and evil grins
Rolling eyes that really spin
They stick their tongues out if you please
Who the hell first thought of these?
Smilies, smilies, in a post
Which one do I hate the most? – Neuro-trash grrrl

3

Sake, you are a pus-filled boil on the ass of humanity. Fuck you in the heart with an ice pick.

Sincerely,

Dark Wing Duck

4

Let’s…

Get…

Dangerous!

Smilies, smilies, in a post
Which one do I hate the most?
Smirks and frowns and evil grins
Rolling eyes that really spin
They stick their tongues out if you please
Who the hell first thought of these?
Smilies, smilies, in a post
Which one do I hate the most? – Neuro-trash grrrl

5

Now, I still don’t consider myself too familiar with all the Dopers here, but I think I’ve always rather respected Sake’s posts. Which is why I was astonished by his comments about depression.

I am not going to jump on the bandwagon to trash him outright (though some of his comments were appalling) because I think I have met people like him before. People who were fortunate enough to “tough it out” through a depression, and somehow come out of that thinking that no one else is “entitled” to decide that they need some medical assistance.

Also, some people haven’t really dealt with depression properly, and freak out when confronted with someone who is really “out there” with their symptoms of depression. One of my friends was like that to me when I was all messed up with grief and depression after my dad’s death. She couldn’t have been nastier, told me to “snap out of it”, told me I was just indulging myself and using my dad’s death as an “excuse” to be a basket case. She even went so far as to tell me that my dad was rather a jerk, after all, and why was I grieving over him so much anyway? It took me a while to figure out that this friend was just freaked out because she had NEVER really grieved properly for her own dad, who had died several years earlier. So, she kind of freaked out because I was “out there” with my depression, rather than bottling it all up, like she had. Her behavior had SO much to do with her, and her feelings about depression and grief, and almost nothing to do with me, as it turns out.

I could go on, but that’s enough. I just think this subject has struck a serious nerve with Sake, that’s all. Because I think his reaction and responses to this have been really bizarre and not at all what I’d expect from him ordinarily.

6

NTG, nice try, but it won’t get through to him.

Sake doesn’t care. Other people on the MB don’t exist to him. He can pull his vienna sausage with one hand and play dipshit games in the Pit with the other. In his mind he’s not hurting a person, just bits and bytes.

He’s a sad useless sack of shit, and I’m through being at all polite to him.

(but you’re still my chile-eating heroine)

-andros-
red or green?

7

Hello?

I’m gonna hazard a guess here, and probably get dumped on by 95% of the board for it. But here goes:

  1. As many of us know (and apparently Sake did not), Opal has bipolar syndrome (FKA manic-depressive syndrome, and good riddance to the foul name!). She is on a regimen of meds for it that usually keep her her normal lovable self. Today, as is obvious to most of us, what she took was not effective at stabilizing her. I gather from other posts elsewhere that her doctor has changed her meds. IIRC, bipolar syndrome is a endocrinal/neurological problem with really strong psychoactive effects – which we all witnessed today. And thank God for Canthearya, TubaDiva, and UndeadDude.

  2. Sake appears to be familiar with codependency depression, where the depressed person milks his/her depressed state for attention from others. Again IIRC, this is a psychological/manipulative state. And the worst thing one can do for this is to cooperate and feed their demand for attention; a form of tough love that calls on the person to exercise willpower and bring oneself out of it “by the bootstraps.”

There are yet other forms of psychological depression and other forms of organic depression. I request MajorMD to correct any part of the above and authorize Lynn to edit out any misinformation I’ve given.

IMHO, what Sake was doing was misdiagnosing what Opal was suffering from as the codependency stuff, and telling us to knock it off for her own good. If he had been right, getting hard-nosed with her was the one thing that would have snapped her out of it at that point.

Fortunately, Opal was offline by the time he tried to apply his “cure” – which was precisely the wrong thing to do to a bipolar person. But, while I fault his lay diagnosis, I cannot blame him for trying to do the right thing by his lights.

On the other hand, he may just be the hateful SOB you all are calling him. But that doesn’t match with the guy of the same username I match wits with over in GD. True, he’s got a touch of bitter about something, but he is also rational and fair, given half a chance. Doesn’t compute that he’d try to do in a woman in what is apparently suicidal depression.

Okay, I’ve had my say. Now tell me how wrong I am.

8

Poly, you’re wrong. Sake is a vindictive asshole who hates everything alive. Except recently, like in GD, he’s become reasonable. This is a return to the form he showed a little while ago.

But I think this thread may not be a good thing. Sake claims to have a similar disorder to Opal’s, and he’s not on any treatment for it. He despises Opal for needing her meds. Maybe that’s why he such an asshole , then a decent guy- because he, too, is the victim of a psychological disorder. It isn’t far to excuse Opal of all responsibility for her actions because of her disorders, and not cut others the same slack.

–John

9

Actually, Poly, I think you might have something there.

I think my theories might have a kernel of truth to them too. As I explained in my previous post, I have experienced first hand someone who has serious and probably repressed issues with depression really taking it out (in a nasty way) on someone else they see suffering with it.

I’m not tryin to excuse him, at all. But I think there is a distinction between someone being a complete asshole, and someone who is seriously repressing (and/or redirecting) their own “issues” and instead taking it out on a third party.

10

Poly, you gotta know I think the world of you, but anybody who posts:

to someone has just posted a picture of herself slit with an exacto knife is lower than pond scum and has no redeeming virtues. As the saying goes, he is not worth the powder to blow him to hell.

-Melin

11

Poly, I don’t think you’re entirely wrong. But I also don’t want to discuss anything at all with someone who can spew that much anger and bile after being asked to stop.

Yes, he can be rational and reasonable. But obviously he can also be irrational and unreasonable at times.

I don’t want to risk it. So I’ll avoid him.

And perhaps he thought he was doing the right thing. But calling someone a sissy crybaby and a bad mother is very rarely a viable therapy, even from a shrink. And never from a total stranger online.

I don’t think he was trying to help. I think he was being very frustrated and angry, for whatever reason.

Another reason I don’t want to spend much time around him.

-andros-

12

NTG,

Thanks for starting this thread, I was in the middle of posting to the other one and hit refresh…

Sake,

The thing is, I believe you are much like my father, my brother, my ex-boyfriend in that you haven’t been to the level of depression that makes one do irrational things. (thank God I am strong right now or I would really unload on you.)

I am not bi-polar, but lived with a mother that was. Our life was filled with ups and downs that were extremes. One day my life would be good, from a mother standpoint, to the next where my mother would kick my ass for not putting the sheets on my bed. She was diagnosed as manic-depressive, but this has changed to bi-polar.

I am a clinical depressive, and the meds do work. I was on the verge at one point in my life of suicide, the worst feeling a person can ever feel. You obviously exerience the blues which depressives feel too, but the blues are overcome and depression has been proven to have a serious chemical imbalance effect on the depressive brain.

Brain activity levels are higher in certain areas of the brain and lower in the areas that help curb such thoughts and emotions. If you don’t have the evidence to back up your HMO friend’s findings, then don’t say it. 'Sides, if a HMO says it doesn’t exist it outranks any research done by the govt, AMA and other predominant organizations huh? I mean come on, the purpose of such organizations is to cut back costs, and by denying medications is certainly a way to cut back on costs.

Unfortunately, these organizations are also denying their subscribers a life without pain and suffering which is exactly what happens with depressives and bi-polar patients.

Sake, do your research, talk to some real depressives before you hold your friend’s word as the law of the land.

13

I am trying to stay out of this, but guys…you are so totally wasting your time with these long posts.

They are articulate, etc, but anyone who says stuff like that to people in distress isnt gonna read these ag go " Hey! they are right! I should change!"

Cant we just let this end?

14

You know, there are, as several people have mentioned, types of depressive disorders that people can dig themselves out of without medication. I, for one, was once quite a bit like Opal. Some of my more illustrious adventures included storing up shards of glass from by the dumpsters every time I took out the trash so that I could cut myself with them. Or sitting on the phone with a friend of mine, while absentmindedly scraping all the skin off of my left arm with a wire coathanger. Or putting my arm through a window on my 10th birthday. And many, many more, folks. I’m not like that anymore, and that’s not due to medication. About a year or so ago, I just decided that I couldn’t live like this anymore, and that I was either going to die or get better. So I got better. Simplistic, I know, but I did it.

Opal CAN’T do that. Not everyone can. I completely understand that. I do my best to be there for her, even though she and I have had some bad blood between us back in the past, when I was a real bitch to just about everyone. Hell, I feel somewhat responsible for this, because I was the one to IM her to point out what Lisa said, and to tell her what would have been my comment had I not made a resolution to avoid Lisa and everyone like her. The next thing I know, she sends me a link to the post with the picture.

I can’t possibly begin to understand why Sake said what he said. Sure, he might have gotten out of a depression on his own. Hell, so did I, and it was one that I’d had for as long as I remember. But not everyone can. These things ARE medical conditions, and the drugs are sometimes a crutch, but often necessary for life. The main thing I have a problem with is that Sake MUST have realized that his comments weren’t helping a damn bit, and probably did more harm than good. And if that’s the case, why say it, other than the fact that he wants Opal to be hurting even more than she is right now? I don’t understand that at all. I can’t imagine feeling that way toward another human being, that I would look at a bloody wrist and call them horrible names, and tell them to do it right next time. That’s fucking sick.

As rational as Sake may be anywhere else, these comments prove him to be lacking a compassion that I find necessary in human beings. I would say he’s no better than an animal, but even they help their own most times. I hope Sake understands this some day, and realizes what life is about. I say this because, even though I hate him, I am a human being and do not wish him to come to any harm.

Somehow, though, I don’t have much hope for him.

“Buffalo Bills? Oh, yeah. The guys that always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” --WallyM7

15

I will desist.

I did not realize that she was bipolar. Everything I saw on this MB by her seemed to indicate clinical depression and the manifestations of masochistic violence, exhibition and attention-grabbing seemed to point toward a juvinile existential angst rather than a serious chemical imbalance.

I respect the opinions of many who have posted above and I do apologize to any I have offended, including, and most importantly, OpalCat.

Hell is Other People.

16

I wish everyone would stop trying to diagnose people from what they post. Sake doesn’t have a mental problem, he’s just a jerk. He’s not the first jerk to post here and he won’t be the last.

17

Now doesn’t that simulpost just take the wind out of my sails. You’re a better man than I thought.

18

He will desist. He has apologized.

I take this as a lesson - to be careful what assumptions you come to about someone you’ve never met. And be careful about posting these assumptions on the internet.

19

I read this entire thread before leaving to get my taxes done and was all prepared to roast you, Sake, when I got back. But since you wrote that, I won’t. But damn, man!

20

There’s hope yet…

Sake, it’s good to see the apology. I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve been on this board who left rather than acknowledge a mistake. Good form, though a little long in coming.