Is manic-depression a disease to be cured?

Great Debates
101

You play a fairly good game, AHunter3, but although you take considerable care to try to disguise your dogmatic Randian, ultra-libertarian let-the-dangerously-and-willfully-insane-do-whatever-the-hell-they-want ideology with polite-sounding rhetorical ploys, you’re certainly not fooling me (although it’s obvious you’re fooling a lot of other posters).

I am myself on psychotherapeutic medications and – quite unlike you and your foolishly libertarian, politically correct, ill-thinking fans – I would demand that I be put into medical confinement if there were plausible indications that I might pose a physical danger to others, even without actually committing a crime first! And because – also quite unlike you and your fans – I have an intelligent respect for the rights and liberties of your potential victims, the same reasoning should be applied to others who present such a risk. It is utterly deplorable that you and your unthinking fellow travelers would clearly refuse to do the same.

Your rights do NOT – or at least certainly SHOULD not – come before the rights of others to be protected from people who are reasonably potential sources of violence because of their refusal to take medically reasonable psychotherapeutic medications.

You and sven are echoing the precise same sentiments and arguments as my friend’s brother who chopped up my friend’s mother into tiny pieces for no other reason than he refused to take his medications. In fact, even now – after this vicious murder – he is still making the exact same arguments that you’re spouting!

Calling me insane for purely rhetorical purposes as you’ve quite insultingly done is by no means equivalent to a rational argument, no matter what your politically correct ultra-libertarian fan club thinks.

102

Well, I suppose it’s a case of “your right to swing your fist ends at my nose” sort of thing.

103

What Guin said.

“Danger to self and others” isn’t just physical violence. Someone can be a danger to self if they are unable to take care of themselves. Someone with paranoid delusions might refuse to bathe because they believe the water supply is poisoned, making life difficult for the people around them. Animal hoarders (there was a recent thread about this; I’m not going to tax the hamsters to find it) might live with so many animals, and the resulting waste, that their house might become a breeding ground for disease.

As for nonviolent danger to others, well, that’s not hard to demonstrate, either. Mental illness causes people to do strange things. Verbal abuse, extreme financial irresponsibility, sudden disappearing acts (auntie em’s co-worker comes to mind), poor-quality work all strain relationships, often to a breaking point. I once turned in a paper in college that was written in a rather, ah, manic phase. It was so incoherent that I flunked the course and had to retake it when I was a little more stable. Yeah, it was “only” a college paper, but what if it had been an important assignment at work? Does my right not to be medicated take precedence over my obligation to my employer? Does my right not to be medicated take precedence over my dependents’ right to live comfortably and safely, free from financial insecurity and abuse?

Robin

104

MsRobyn:

Sure. But your employer’s right to have assignments completely coherently and in a timely manner sure as hell trumps your right to remain employed. So if you require medication in order to be able to function at work, you get to decide between meds and lack of employment. But it is your choice.

Does my right not to be medicated take precedence over my dependents’ right to live comfortably and safely, free from financial insecurity and abuse?

Again, definitely. But your family’s, and the state’s, right to see to it that your dependents receive adequate care trumps your right to retain custody or remain married, etc. If you prefer being unmedicated to retaining custody of your kids or to having your spouse stick with you, you should have that choice. Oh, and to take away your kids they should have to prove actual neglect or maltreatment or parental incompetence, they should not be allowed to treat your choice of declining pysch meds as ipso facto indication that you are unfit to be a parent, and certainly not your status as a person with a psychiatric diagnosis.

105

Forcing someone to take mind-altering medications against their will is an incredibly cruel and invasive act, an assault on one’s personhood that exceeds most physical assaults and in some cases exceeds outright killing.

I’d rather be beaten up than be psychdrugged with short-term medication, if the beating is something I could limp away from.

I’d rather be anally raped, knifed, and beaten up badly enough to require hospitalization than be psychdrugged with long-acting medication (“depo” shots, etc), if I could recover with no permanent disability or bodily dysfunction as a consequence.

I would suffer permanent disability including loss of limb, sight, or hearing in order to escape an ongoing administration of psychmeds with no end in sight, or electroshock, either one.

If my only choices were being permanently drugged up with psych drugs or an electroshock series or behavior-mod psychosurgery, on the one hand, or just being executed, I’d choose death.

Now…all I’m asking for is a straightforward extension of identical nondiscriminatory due process in cases where y’all think we are dangerous to others – i.e., the same laws that apply to violence and assault that are applicable to so-called “normal” people; and a straightforward extension of identical nondiscriminatory due process in cases where y’all think we are a danger to ourselves – i.e., the same laws that apply to senility and other mental incapacity when they strike so-called “normal” people.

And outside of those parameters, we have choices and choices have consequences and we live with the consequences of the choices we make.

This is Great Debates. Explain why the fuck it’s OK to treat us according to different standards and subject us to different rules. Defend that. And as you do so, refresh your memory of my post on how easy it is for anyone to acquire one of these diagnostic labels, and keep in mind that when you defend this double standard you’re effectively saying "It’s OK to suspend normative due process as long as you first call someone ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘bipolar’ or ‘depressed’ ". And if you don’t agree with that summary, explain and defend your dissent from it.

106

and this is different from the present state of affairs how?

as I have previously stated, if the detention is proved to be frivolous there should be consequences for the parties involved.

I think if anyone has that ability, it’s police officers. Psychiatrists are too self-serving to do that. Because by committing all the crazy people out there they can look out and say “look at all the crazy people we need to be protected from!” Officers on the other hand, not being part of the psychaitric establishment dont have the incentive to find as many crazies. On the other hand they have experience in determining the dangerousness of a situation. There will of course be mistakes made, there always are.

It should be almost as difficult to force detention on psychiatric grounds as it is to arrest them for threats or the like. Which is what “they might do something dangerous” boils down to anyway. A threat from a supposedly sane person should be looked at the same as from a putative non-sane one.

I’ll try to look up a cite for this later, but in a psychological book itself I read that 3 groups of professionals were asked their opinion of their ability to spot lies: psychiatrists, detectives, and, i think, teachers. All rated their personal ability above average, but besides, the detectives, all were merely average.

107

I’ll buy that, or a lot of that. Problem is, some of us would like some protection against misuse of power by police officers, who in some jurisdictions and under some circumstances have been known to be less than clinically detached from every conceivable political or social issue.

I’d much rather see in writing what behaviors are officially “indicative of dangerousness”, such that if you don’t engage in them you can’t be arrested or detained for being potentially violent. Citizens need to know where we stand and what our rights are, don’t you think?

108

AHunter3, what the hell? You’d rather be dead than have to take medication?

You know, I take medication. I have to. And I’m not “all drugged up.”

109

So, the father of a friend of mine lands in the hospital with heart failure and advanced emphysema. He starts saying people are trying to kill him, and pulls out his IVs and catheter, etc. and they start dosing him with anti-psychotics.

In your opinion, is this justifiable?

Julie

110

jsgoddess – Short-term (emergency), based on physicians’ assessment that his actions directly and immediately endanger his health, yeah, they can do that, and they can tie his hands. I already said that the laws of our land support intervention to keep people from doing things that represent and immediate and direct threat to themselves. If you draw a knife and make like you’re going to slit your throat, expect people to try to stop you. That would include me. That’s very very different from saying “In my opinion you’ve shown evidence of self-destructive decompensated behaviors that indicate that you are likely to do self-destructive things, and that therefore you need to be put on Prolixin whether you agree to it or not”.

Guinastasia: Yeah. No one gets to play with my brain or its chemistry without my permission.

111

I mostly agree with AHunter3.

I can remember when things like alcoholism, depression, anxiety, and other such things were considered behaviour problems even by the Doctors. That was before genes were being blamed for everything. I read that a gene has been found for dumbness.

Well, I am not sure what the causes are, and don’t think it matters. I do know that some people I know got cured of these things by going to support groups, doing affirmations, reading self-help books and generally working with their beliefs and thoughts. I have never heard of anyone being cured of these things by medicine.

Just my observations and opinions.

Love
Leroy

112

Some people are helped by these things. However, in my 16-plus years of OA and AA membership, and exposure to NA, I have seen so much BS slung around as gospel fact. I’m talking unproven treatments completely based on anecdotal evidence, untested, and accepted on blind faith because the guy trying to sell it has initials after his name. I’ve seen articles by “counselors” who have numerous sets of initials, but no actual college degree and no supervised clinical training.

This is not to say that it’s all crap. There are some good self-help materials out there. The problem is that a book isn’t going to do for me what one-on-one counseling or meds are going to do. I don’t care how good the book is.

If the state is interested in my parenting ability, chances are I’m too unstable to be able to make the choice of whether I want to be medicated or not. If the state is investigating, there have already been signs of abuse or neglect. That’s just the reality.

And, yes, there is such a thing as due process. I can’t be considered a risk merely because I have a psych diagnosis. My doctor (who knows and treats Aaron) knows I have a psych diagnosis. It’s in my medical record. So far, no one has even indicated a desire to call CPS. No one called CPS even when I wasn’t taking meds. Why? Because there was no problem. Aaron was being well taken care of. He eats well, is always in clean clothes, and does not have signs of physical or emotional abuse.

Furthermore, any CPS caseworker who would consider removal on the sole basis that a parent has a psych diagnosis or isn’t on medication, with no other indication that there is a problem should be on the receiving end of a court challenge, and they deserve to have their ass handed to them. Period.

Robin

113

One-on-one counseling is good if it helps. Reading books provides more input. There must be hundreds of self-help books out there. The more read, the better the understanding. I pay little attention as to whether an author has letters after their name and what those letters are. I read a book for its contents, by what it can say to me.

I really think the best way is support groups. Not the kind where you have one counselor and five patients. I like the kind where the group is composed of people who don’t have problems with one that does. The understanding comes much faster.

I have participated in many spiritual groups, they are great for people having problems with life. When I worked at a hospital we had a support group mostly of health care workers. It was a great group and help many people to cure their own problems.

AA has a better record of success than any other alcohol program because it is run by the alcoholics themselves and they know what it takes.

The programs that work the best are spiritual programs, because spiritual concepts can change the way people think. I am talking here of spiritual not religious principles. If you have an aversion to spiritual things you can still use their principles to help with problems. The greatest principles being: forgiving yourself and others, holding a non-judgemental attitude toward others, and loving yourself and others for what they are, not as you think they should be.

http://ndeweb.com/info01.htm

The above is an article about coping with death, that might be helpful.

Mark Twain said:

There are people who believe they can
and
There are people who believe they can’t
both are correct.
Love
Leroy

114

My question is, do you agree with such laws. You said you’d rather be dead than drugged, so then I’d assume you don’t agree with my coworker’s father being drugged?

Julie

115

AHunter3, quoting the Scientology front group The Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights doesn’t much help your argument.

116

Can’t find any reference to Scientology on the web site.
Perhaps you could show us the info on this site being a part of scientology.

117

“Articles by L. Ron Hubbard” on the menu to the left? If that’s not good enough for you, there’s mention of them in this article.

118

argument ad hominem, Chief Crunch. The fact that they have an ulterior motive doesn’t make them wrong.

Umm, where did I quote the Hubbies? Is one of the cites I provided on one of their sites? (I hadn’t noticed, but I might have included one of theirs when I was pulling together some references)

Or are you intending to imply that one or more of my own posts consists of materials taken from their writings? (not so, I write my own)

119

On page two, you throw up several citations. One of them links to www.cchr.org It certainly doesn’t make it right, either, friend. Given Scientology’s history, they don’t quite have a record of honesty or integrity. Would anyone on this board dare quote Fred Phelps’ site in an argument regarding homosexuality?

120

jsgoddess:

If your coworker’s father had a health care proxy or an advance directive or a living will or something of that sort that stated that he (now) does not want pysch drugs administered to him (in the future) in the event that he becomes incapable of making that decision, they should honor that if they have other means of preventing him from yanking out his IVs &etc., such as tying his arms down, and if there are not substantial overriding reasons why those alternatives are not realistic options (e.g., in order to prevent him from yanking out the IVs they find they have to tie him down so tightly that his circulation is impaired).

Mostly I support the law – although I think it is abused a lot in psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes (where “emergency” too often consists of “is refusing to take the meds voluntarily” or “is telling the nurse to go away and leave her alone after the 14th time that the nurse tried to get her to take the meds voluntarily”), I’m under the impression that this is pretty rare in a regular medical-surgical floor or private medical office type of setting.

What I said was that I would rather be dead than drugged on a neverending permanent basis. I would not say that I prefer death to being drugged on an emergency basis, as I would live to see another undrugged day after the situation had been sorted out.