No. Thinking something should be legal and thinking it’s a crock of shit aren’t mutually exclusive. I can think parents should have the right to make medical decisions for their children, and also think that some medical treatments are stupid. And I think much inpatient adolescent psychiatry is painfully stupid: picture a ward full of kids that are invariably from some royally fucked up homes–and admittedly not thriving in those homes–being told the chemical imbalance schtick, medicated, and “treated” while the parents don’t change one fucking bit and lap up the “disease” theories because they mitigate the parent’s responsibility for their kids.
AHunter3, all right then. I read your essay, and one thing that stood out to me was a man whose daughter was out of control to the point that she was constantly trying to harm herself, she was on drugs-okay, only hurting herself? But then she would break things, scream abuse at her family members, smashing up the car, etc.
Your response:
May I ask-why is that so unreasonable? Yes, okay, you say people have a right to their own lives. But don’t I have a right not to live with someone who abuses me, who destroys MY property, and endangers others? (If she’s smashing up the car, she could have harmed someone, and since it was my car, I’d be responsible).
Or the emotional anguish of having to live with that, day in and day out? Yes, they should care about her, but not to the point that they destroy their own lives.
I don’t have any experience with or substantial knowledge of adolescent inpatient psychology. I’m wondering if you do, and if so, what your sources are.
But how can you argue that MH screening in certain populations is a bad idea? That screening can be anything from a simple “How are you doing, mom?” to a full-blown questionnaire. In the case of pregnant and post-partum women, a screening is a damn good idea. Look at Andrea Yates, if you need a cite.
It seems here that you’re relying on a slippery-slope argument that screening always leads to treatment. It doesn’t. I’ve been getting these little “screenings” for years; looking for depression is a major health initiative. The times I’ve had problems, I was offered referrals for further services, which were all voluntary. These were in different states, with different doctors, and with different insurance companies.
It also seems to me that what you suggest here is a catch-22. If you’re denied services for noncompliance, then how do you provide services so the patient can comply? Further, how do you distinguish deliberate “I don’ wanna” noncompliance from misunderstanding, cultural differences, or ignorance? Is there a mechanism for a second or third opinion? As someone else posted, who makes the decisions for treatment and noncompliance? And finally, what if the person is taking the medication, but it’s not making a difference?
I would appreciate a link to this proposed policy, please.
Robin
thanks 
There are already laws governing acceptable/legal behavior. They should apply to us as they apply to anyone else. There should not exist laws that only apply to us. It should not be possible to institutionalize someone saying it’s “for their own good” because they are “sick” and need “help” when the real reason is “you’re driving US nuts and we can’t deal with your shit any more!”
Absolutely, positively, without question!!!
My right to live as an untreated uncured law-abiding schizophrenic does not include a right to live that way in your home and make you miserable. (At least not as an adult. If I’m your kid, you do have some obligations and that does change some things. But even there, there are options and, if necessary, ways out. You’ve probably seen TV ads targeted at parents who are at their wits’ end and are in danger of becoming violent towards their kids. The same types of services would be relevant and appropriate here).
My point in the paper you read was that AMI members and other family members often seize upon ease-of-commitment and the convenience of involuntary psychiatric treatment because of their own needs, which is incompatible with the claims that this is being done compassionately for the poor unfortunate mentally ill person who doesn’t understand that she needs this treatment.
Does that mean that the emotional anguish of family members (and other folks who have to deal with us when we are, umm, not at our best) isn’t important? No.
But identify the problem. The problem is that the family member can’t cope with this anguish. The family member has some rights, including under some circumstances the right to evict; under other circumstances, the right to obtain parenting help or even relinquish custody and parental responsibility altogether; and under both (and other) circumstances, the option of seeking mediation and counseling.
Surprisingly, many of us “nuts” are more easy to live with once a mediator listens to both sides and helps those involved work out some basic rules & compromises
In a world where they can force treatment upon you, mandatory screening is frightening.
I would not think that would require much additional explanation…but suppose I’ve been staying out of trouble, flying below their radar, avoiding psychiatric treatment and not coming to the attention of any psychiatrists. Then they throw out the net and make me, along with everyone else, sit down and get evaluated by a shrink. Maybe at this time it comes out that I have in the past received pyschiatric services and/or been given a psychiatric diagnosis…or maybe the shrink elicits some comments or statements from me that causes him to draw the same conclusions as the shrink who originally declared me “paranoid schizophrenic”.
Now I’ve got a fresh new diagnostic label and a fresh new case file. If I politely turn down recommended treatment the case file may be flagged for lots of follow-up, lots of scrutiny.
Maybe this information will be available in some fashion to the hospital where I go six months later with a broken arm. The psych meds prescribed but politely refused six months previously somehow turn up along with my pain meds on my prescription chart, imagine that!
Or maybe when I apply to graduate school a condition of receiving financial aid is compliance with recommended psychiatric treatment. Or the insurance program at the company I get hired at receives this information and makes compliance a precondition for offering me any coverage.
Or if I’m a pregnant woman, perhaps I’ll get a little visit from the protective services folk to remind me about the possible loss of custody should it appear that I might be doing anything that would put my kid at risk, like maybe not taking the medications that have been prescribed for me subsequent to this mandatory screening.
Or maybe they’ll just file an Involuntary Outpatient Commitment order on me for not voluntarily complying with the treatment recommendations right from the start.
I don’t know which of these things would necessarily happen, but mandatory screening via a centralized initiative certainly makes all of them possible in a way they currently aren’t.
Which one?
SAMHSA, the Federal Inidiative?
The stuff going on in Texas?
Me either, but they locked me up anyway.
I don’t mean to pry, but seeing as you’ve been very open with us thus far, do I understand that you consider yourself to be a schizophrenic, or are you categorizing yourself this way because that’s the way you were diagnosed?
If you do consider yourself schizophrenic, would you share how your illness manifests itself?
Again…just tell me to butt out if I’ve stepped out of line here. I don’t mean to put you on the spot.
In my experience, not one of at least three different psychiatrists at an HMO cared the least bit about the life or mind of my mother. She was in a car accident and ended up on too many medications of all types. The worse she got, the more they put her on. She ended up on large doses of at least four psychiatric drugs in addition to other medical drugs. Everyone around her knew she was on too much, and I left probably a hundred phone messages to that effect as she slowly lost her mind. She ended up in the hospital several times, incoherent and nearly dead, and was diagnosed with dementia due to drug toxicity. Now she’s off most of them and is much better than she was, but far from her old self. She seems to have aged ten or twenty years in the last five. Sometimes I wonder if we should have refused to buy the medicines or something. Unfortunately we don’t seem to have it in us to sue.
Not to mention what this could do to people’s abilities to get jobs and clearances later in life. We are talking about government-appointed doctors to whom citizens would be required to discuss their personal lives. It’s frightening that something like this would be considered in America.