It's in peer-reviewed print: no mental illness "chemical imbalance"

Great Debates
161

I’ve never made any such claims. All I have said is that there are cases where the benefits far outweigh any possible harms and therefore it still has an important place in treatment of particular severe and refractory cases. And, while you are now claiming to be open-minded about ECT, your original statement that I reacted to was “I also try to respect the treatment decisions of others (to a point… I do think ECT should be outlawed and the doctors who perform it kicked out of the profession)”.

I agree with you that the risks and benefits of ECT should be presented fully to the patient…although I personally find it likely, given “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and such, that there are far fewer people who have an unrealistically positive view of ECT than have an unrealistically negative view.

162

I picked up the October '05 copy of Parents magazine yesterday. There’s a lengthy (for a crap magazine) story on mommies these days using antidepressants - not to treat major depression, but to keep “pepped up”. Could Taking Antidepressants Make You a Better Parent is the name of the article. It’s truly frightening.

The first example they use is a woman who sent neglected (their word) her 2- and 5-yr-old children by sending them off to play by themselves or watch TV “too often” (no idea where that boundary is). So now she’s on Prozac. And she’s a “much better mommy.” More calm, more engaged. Sure.

This is the same magazine with ads on every other page - “Moms can be heroes” (buy some Mederma, no sign of childhood scrapes in your house!). “Is your child’s asthma really under control, or do you just think it is?” Their editorial on Halloween - “OMG! My kids brought home 213 pieces of candy! I wrote down all the brands and did some research! That’s a gazillion calories! Enough to feed Jamaica for an hour!”

Yeah. No pressure to that job, no reason for those women to be anxious and overwhelmed, nuh-uh! Talk therapy? Why bother - pills are cheaper! Plus what (good, self-sacrificing) mommy has time for appointments?

It’s even scarier to me that mothers are evidently supposed to seek a forced calm, a false reality. No freaking out or your kid will be screwed up - keep happy, damn you.

I’m seeing you guys debate “crappy parenting” in this thread, and whether or not it’s a factor in mental illness. I don’t know how you define “crappy” parenting. But I will tell you for a fact that crazy parenting sometimes makes for crazy children.

In my experience, playing around with reality is dangerous. Denying what’s really happening, what people are honestly feeling and thinking - those will make a child crazy. Crazy families put pressure on their children to embody the parents’ fantasies about themselves, the reality they wish existed. That can make a child crazy. Read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.

Not that antidepressants are always bad - they can really help a person change course, lift themselves out of a series of depression-based choices and into a new set of options that were previously unimaginable. And for new moms in particular, PPD can be debilitating. My post-partum anxiety attacks were so strong, I couldn’t breathe. Much less walk.
AHunter3 your OP really resonates with me; I’ve tried to join this thread several times, but just end up sobbing; there’s so much I want to say, this topic is so overwhelming. My Mother is mentally ill. I agree with you that the vast majority of therapists (Ph.D., MD, PsyD, MSW) are lousy; I did meet one profound exception, but only the one. The person who has helped my mother the most was a minister, whom she saw for 10 years. I agree with you that the physical component is (often) a symptom of, not the source of, the problem. Personally I think the problem is (often) spiritual at its core. In my experience, people struggling with mental illnesses are (often) at war with themselves, with their existence. I’ve learned to love my Mother with her illness, with her quirks and disabilities, and with or without her meds! And I agree with you, ECT is barbaric. I wish you peace.

163

Can there be no middle ground?

Can we not picture a world where we look for biological causes, and seek to create the best treatments possible…but where we also accept what people would like to do to their brains and do not rush to prescribe whatever we can as soon as we can? A world where mental illness is both a problem and a part of you? A world where we can take the reasoned knowledge of doctors into consideration without handing over total control of our brain chemistry to them and deriding anyone who does’t follow suit?

Nobody is arguing that phychiatric medicine should be abondon or that there is no physical companent to mental illness. What people are arguing is that the situation is way, way more complicated than it is commonly portrayed- and that sometimes the problem isn’t “you havn’t found the right meds quite yet.” I’ve been mentally ill and gotten better (for now at least) without drugs. It may not be the right solution for everyone, but it was the right solution for me. All I am asking is for the right to make that decision.

164

I thought that most did not deny that crappy parenting could be a contributing factor in some mental illnesses. I’m certain that it was in my own case. So was genetics.

It’s true that none of them have all of the solutions yet, but how can you pass judgement on all therapists?

You are stronger in that regard than I. I was abused physically and emotionally and had to set boundaries that don’t allow for a lot of love – just duty.

I think a minister would have helped my mother as much as anyone for her mental disorder, but it wasn’t depression. And my own problems were no spiritual. They began when I was a religious education major. One of the friends that I met during my first hospitalization – a seminary student – committed suicide.

I’m very sorry that your situation (and this thread) have caused you such pain. Mental illness affects a lot more than just the person who is ill.

And I want the same for me – whether it be counselling, medication or ECT. I don’t think anyone is saying that medication is appropriate for everyone.

165

I don’t know what to say.

This year I’ve become convinced that the reason my mother has been depressed for 20 years is that her endocrine system has been malfunctioning. A real medical problem, which was missed. We now think that her pituitary was damaged 20 years ago. Prozac & progesterone partially treated some of the symptoms, but it seems like some doctors (even internists) didn’t look deeply enough for the cause. Easier to label it as a disease in vogue: PMS, serotonin uptake, whatever.

166

On the other hand, since my mom was apparently nuts, & my biological father was apparently nuts (I’m still unclear on how much was addiction) it was all too easy to believe I was, too.

So I was told that I had to be on Prozac, when going through some mental stuff which derived cognitively from having unhealthy parents, & general teenage confusion. I ended up believing it enough, that I flirted with suicide. This was seen as part of my irrationality & thus a symptom of the disease, rather than a response to the idea that I was mad. Self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve been treated as mentally ill so much, it’s part of my persona now.

167

foolsguinea, that sounds like where I was forty years ago! Since “mad” isn’t a medical diagnosis, I certainly hope you aren’t buying into that BS. If the prozac didn’t work, then obviously it wasn’t the answer for you. But if you are still feeling self-destructive or overwhelmed, I hope that you will try something else or seek out another doctor. This really doesn’t have to become a permanent part of your persona.