ianzin, I find your lack of faith in psychopharmacology... disturbing.

The BBQ Pit
1

All comments from this thread: people are weird in ways you can’t even imagine.

I’ll admit that I dont like cherry-picking quotes in situations like this, so here’s the post in question.

I’ll admit right off the bat that there is a kernel of truth buried underneath all your ignorance. Medicines that affect the mind should not be taken as an excuse, or as a cowardly way of running from the slings and arrows of life’s outrageous fortune. I don’t think that’s what you’re saying though. If I grok your post correctly, you’re saying that ALL psychopharmaceuticals are hype, cowardly, and detract from the real person. Put the cherry of your hatred for drug companies on top, and you have one ignorance sundae.

First of all, it’s impossible to lump in all mental disorders and their related drug treatment together. For depression, SSRIs may not just remove the symptoms. If the problem is truly a lowered amount of serotonin in the brain, then that removes the problem. For other drugs such as anti-psychotics, maybe the symptoms alone are removed. Honestly I don’t know, and I’m not going to claim I do.

Still, nobody in that thread was suggesting taking medicine to avoid life’s problems. Every psychologist/psychiatrist worth his salt is going to recommend drugs and therapy together. I don’t have a cite but the data’s there: they are more effective together than apart.

Third, what’s with your rant on the ‘real’ self? I don’t know what angle you’re coming from, either some hopped-up notion of bodily purity or a neoPlatonic-idealistic bent, just because somebody is on drugs does not take away from their reality. Yes, people are different on antidepressants, anti-anxiety, what-have-yous, but who is to say that their self without the drugs is their optimal self? Instead of thinking about in oversimplifistic notions of purity or essence, think of it as potential. For people with mental problems, drugs can open the door to achieving one’s full potential. To say these people are cowards, or, even more angering, un-real, is the height of arrogance.

If you think people taking substances aren’t real, then what about caffeine? What about anything? If you take your argument to an extreme, then I think it falls apart.

Look, I’m not really mad at you ianzin, but your ideas.

On a personal note, I take 40 mg of celaxa. I am real on and off it. I notice no huge changes, but it does keep me from slipping into the brink of serious depression and its ugly step-sister anxiety. Screw you by extension for insinuating what I thought you did. OK maybe I am a little mad at you.

If I misinterpreted your post, then you have my apologies. Good day.

2

I don’t know precisely what ianzin was getting at, but personally I’m tired of diabetics presenting a false front by taking insulin.

They’re just masking their body chemistry in order to deceive others. They shouldn’t run and hide from their disease via Big Pharma, but should present themselves as they are. Even if that involves being in a diabetic coma.

That’s genuine.

3

My brain works differently when I’m hungry than when I’m full. Which is the real me?

And even if we could pin down what my “true self” is, suppose I don’t like my true self? If medication can change me from the person I am to a person I would prefer to be, shouldn’t I take advantage of that?

4

I don’t really feel a need to say anything beyond what I said in the original thread. But thank you Autolycus

5

Ditto those asthmatics hiding behind their rescue inhalers.

If the real you is struggling for your next breath, that is the face (blue) you should show the world.

6

This is why I don’t trust people who exercise. I’m not meeting the “real” them, I’m meeting someone who’s all hopped up on adrenaline and endorphins. Same with people who eat sweets. Is that the real you talking, or the sugar? In fact, the only way to really know someone is if they spend all their time sitting on the couch, eating nothing but dry bread and water. Anything else is deceptive and unfair.

Seriously, what does ianzin think his personality is in the first place? It’s all just a chemical interaction to begin with. Why not try altering the formula, if it leads to a better result?

7

You know who you can’t trust? Migraine sufferers who use migraine meds. I’d rather see the REAL people, squinting and groaning in agony.

8

Well, that’s diabetes, asthma, and migraines so far, plus hunger, in addition to eating sugar and exercising, as well as the OP itself (and its example of ingestion of caffeine, plus, implicitly, all other human activity). All fine analogies, some with slightly different points than others, but I think we can stop making them now.

(But, yes, I agree with the OP wholeheartedly)

9

I dunno, maybe ianzin is a Scientologist.

In which case, this being the Pit and all, it could get quite entertaining.

10

Hell. I was just about to threaten to stop taking Lactaid. Even the dog won’t stay in the room with me after a big helping of un-neutralized dairy.

11

In the case of diabetes, we have a highly specific & detailed understanding of what the ailment consists of (islets of Langerhans in the pancreas ceasing to produce insulin), the medication specifically replaces what the body is failing to make for itself (insulin), and the results can be observed & monitored with blood tests for insulin and glucose levels.

In the case of mental & emotional conditions that lead to folks having psychiatric medications prescribed for them, the non-charlatans admit we are still poking around trying to get a handle on what the ailments consist of — we do not have a clear sense of it yet, nor even a solid sense of what distinct ailments really exist; the medications we have available were selected for their efficacy at symptom relief, and the non-charlatans will admit that here, too, our tools are broad clumsy things that make broad systemic modifications in how the nervous system behaves.

The social and historical context of psychiatric medication must also be allowed to be taken into account. For all that sincere and intensive research has taken place trying to enhance the lives of suffering people, there has also been quite a bit of research more cynically geared towards finding medications that will control a ward full of people so that they are more easily managed, or returning a steady stream of formerly disturbing and disruptive people to their communities and families in a condition that is less disturbing and disruptive, or turn a frightened angry and violent person into a person incapable of sustaining anger or fear or engaging in any appreciable degree of violence even if they do. And there is no wall between the types of medications developed and embraced with the latter priorities in mind and those designed with the former concerns driving the process — there is not one medication in the latter category that is in use for ‘control’ and ‘management’ functions that is not described in the literature as an appropriate medicinal intervention for the alleviation of symptoms of the mental illnesses that they purport to address.

12

What AHunter3 said. Anxiety disorders are NOT the same as diabetes, and doctors are not serving their patients as best they can by continuing to equate them. There is research that says that positive thoughts stimulate the same parts of the brain as SSRI’s, and that the placebo effect can be significant in anxiety/depression disorder treatment tests - no research is ever going to say that positive thoughts generate insulin from dead Beta cells or that placebo is going to work in diabetics - the thought is just silly.

13

I don’t trust people who use soap- they don’t really smell that good.

14

Well, how would any of that make taking medication for mental disorders “dishonesty”, “grossly deceptive and unfair”, preventing others from “being allowed to ‘see the real person’”, “knowingly masking [one’s] real self”, etc.?

The question as to the efficacy of particular such medication is largely orthogonal to the complaints apparently raised by ianzin, which rather apparently address on “honesty” grounds the ethics of taking any medication of such a kind.

15

And what is with those filthy unethical motherfuckers who hide their bodies under Clothing! How dare they! It’s grossly deceptive, dishonest, unfair and you’re not seeing the real person under all that shit!

16

I’m inclined to agree with you (and the OP) there. Whether the drug in question is a prescription mood-altering medication or an illegal recreational substance, if the person taking it is doing so of their own volition, the ‘Them-In-Toto’ has chosen whatever modifications the medication provides. To speak of a different ‘them’, a real ‘them’ that is being disguised or lied about by the effects of the medication, makes no sense to me.

17

It makes me scared that I share the roads with some people…

18

No, but positive outlook has been shown to allieve some physical problems:

I look at it this way. Type II diabetes is a condition that often arises due to a combination of environmental circumstances and genetics. Pick a person with a certain physiological makeup, give them a lifetime’s worth of a crappy diet and poor exercise habits, and chances are you’ll have a diabetic. Likewise, pick a person with a certain physiological makeup, give them a lifetime’s worth of stressful situations and unresolved psychological trauma, and chances are you’ll wind up with a depressive, anxious person.

It would be stupid for a physician to prescribe insulin to a type-II diabetic without also putting them on a nutritional plan and encouraging exercise. Often times, it ends up that a diabetic doesn’t really need extra insulin if they follow a better diet and get more exercise. That this is true doesn’t negate the fact that medication can usually fix the proximate cause of their illness, and that when used conservatively and wisely, it is a useful tool. No one advocates taking insulin pills from all those over-nutritioned people we see waddling around. No one ever tells them to “work through the issues” without a medical regiment. We shouldn’t hold a different view towards mental illness.

Some people who are depressed, anxious, psychotic, or whatever don’t have any other issue than the chemistry in their head, just like some people are diabetic simply because their pancreas suddenly gives out. Personally, my nervous tics are not manifestations of low self-esteem, childhood abuse, rape trauma, or psychosis. I did not wake up one day and say, “Hey, you know what would be fun? Looking like a crazy person out in public!” No, my tics are the result of neurochemical weirdness. I’m absolutely sure of this. So a person telling me that the tics are my “true” self, that I can just wish them away if I wanted to, that I’m stupid and weak for wanting drugs to make them go away, makes me very angry.

I’m not a conformist. I’m perfectly fine being a lonely little weirdo for the rest of my life. But I also like getting to choose which parts of this “true” personality of mine I’d like to get rid of. Like the wanting-to-kill-myself part. That one sucks. If a drug can take that little “quirk” away, then I don’t care who gets rich off of me.

19

People who refuse to believe that at least some psychiatric issues are chemically based are just plain ignorant.

In November, with absolutely no new problems or major stressors other than normal life, I suddenly went into a major depression and couldn’t work or handle anything but the most minor of tasks.

In February, after four weeks of slowly ratcheting up the medication (the last increase being two days before), I woke up normal again. Until that switch was thrown in my brain, I had no idea how incapable of thinking clearly I had actually been. It was like a fog I never knew was there had suddenly disappeared.

One week later, my program released me. They had seen that the switch had gotten thrown before I even said anything.

20

Is my real self sitting on a bed, trying, but failing, to will myself to stand, or is it the guy who usually can accomplish standing, walking, and earning a living? I don’t know for sure, but I, and the IRS, prefer my being the latter, phony as that guy may be.