Okay, mods, circle around Tom

The BBQ Pit
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kaylasdad99, I’m would distinguish between humor in general and the kind of comments that are used as put downs. I don’t think that most of us here would refer to children with developmental problems as “retards.” I know we’ve been told not to do that in other forums. I don’t know about the Pit. Some of us don’t use it out of sensitivity and common courtesy.

I think the same courtesy should be used when addressing the problems of those who may be medicated for mental illness or any illness for that matter. No more questions like “Have you injected your insulin today” :smiley:

You are right, the subject was not mental illness. But I don’t think that I inferred the wrong thing from what Tom posted about the meds. And I address this issues where I find them.

No one makes more jokes about mental illness than the patients themselves if they are not totally out of it. Humor is very healing. Nothing in my life has been funnier than a group of about nine mostly middle-aged mental patients sitting at a table during visiting hours trying to disguise the fact (from the staff) that we were playing Truth or Dare.

I honestly can’t say with certainty whether there was a ruling from TPTB about asking about meds. I think there may have been, but I have a lot of short term memory problems so I just can’t say with certainty. It’s not a question that should be asked with a grinning emoticon. That is ignorant.
These posts are in memory of JoAnne. May you have endless cups of goddamn coffee and Dorals for the duration.

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Checks his registration card

At least 15,971.

Enjoy,
Steven

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I generally have a great deal of respect for Tom and was … bemused … by both the premature closure of a popular and active thread just as its subject was finally coming to its conclusion, and by his one-sided treatment of the Shayna/DrDeth interaction. As to the latter, sure she was Jr. modding, but usually he’d balance out a comment with a note that DrDeth’s cross-posting the same comment in multiple threads was not strictly against the rules (in Tom’s view anyway) but it was at least something that is annoying and usually frowned upon.

The combination of both odd actions in the same subject area in a short time does make one’s eyebrow (yes, just the one, Nimoy-like) rise some.

And to allude that someone is upset over your odd actions because they actually do have a mental illness, and to think that a smiley makes that okay, well that is not my sense of his usual baseline.

Maybe just a bad week … nothing to lose respect over, anyway. :slight_smile:

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That’s not the way I read it. I read it as a simple comment about how crazy* Lib’s response to the whole thing sounds. Which it does.

*Humblest apologies to nutjobs who object to the word ‘crazy.’

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I think you have a point about the word “retard” and I really don’t know any polite way to use this word in general conversation. And I’ve said as much here.

That said, though, you come off as a humorless scold on a billion different topics, and it becomes hard sometimes to listen when you go off again. Were you talking, we’d just think about pitching rotations or something. Since this is a message board, we just scroll down the page.

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I like to think of myself as one of those who doesn’t, for the above reasons, and because, with a membership that is closing in on nine years, I’ve come to view it as hackneyed and trite.

As the husband of an insulin-dependent woman with Type II diabetes, I feel I must vigorously protest the insensitivity displayed by the above.

Oh, no, wait a minute, it’s the other thing. Actually, I’m kind of “meh” about that, from the standpoint of sticking up for my loved ones. The reason is that the subject of diabetes has about zero potential for comedy (even inappropriate comedy). I recognize that this being the case, I’ve never found myself in a position to wonder if a protest about sensitivity might be in order. I wonder if your own experience might influence you toward being a bit quicker on the draw than others.

Oh, I disagree about the correctness of your inference from tom~'s post. He’s never struck me as being one who is deficient in compassion or sensitivity toward the afflicted. In fact, to me, the very fact that he used a big grin smiley there is evidence that he does not believe that Liberal uses psychotropic medications, and makes a spectacle of himself when his therapeutic levels are not consistently maintained. On the contrary, I took it as an observation that Liberal was simply making a spectacle of himself, full stop. That he did so with a trite and hackneyed joke (IMHO) makes tom~ guilty of nothing more than using a trite and hackneyed joke.

I can see the potential for wacky hijinks in such a situation. :slight_smile: Still, one might be forgiven inferring that this might lead to a need to display our credentials as fellow-sufferers of (insert affliction here), before we can join in any laughter around or about them. I hope we never reach this point.

Oh dear. Now how am I going to inquire whether you’re taking anything for that, without coming across as a boorish oaf? :smack:

No, publicly asking the question seriously, in a forum such as this one, is what I see as ignorant, and inappropriate. The grinning emoticon is what establishes that it’s not serious. Still overdone, though, IMHO.

And may I wish you endless pleasant memories of your friend.

Still, Dorals? Those things’ll kill you! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I hope that you are kidding and got the point that I was making. People with diabetes don’t exactly have to put up with ridicule and discrimination the way that people with mental illnesses do.

It is also a common insult used to put people with mental illnesses down. Tom chose to use it in a thread in which he was being pitted. That wasn’t good timing for a joke.

You inference was not correct. 1) Humor with well-meaning friends and family – people that you know have got your back is very healing. 2) Questions about being off your meds are not humorous. It is a huge problem for some families.

In my own family taking medications versus not taking medications has caused a two year rift and threats of suicide by the person not taking medications. There is no end to it in sight.

For what?

Okay. I’m kidding. It’s for the short-term memory problems, right? There are advantages to it. I can order things from a catalog and get the most wonderful surprises in the mail! I keep a list of movies that I like and can watch them several times before I start to remember them. My closet is always full of new clothes that I like.

One movie that I do remember somewhat is Finding Nemo. I’ve never identified more with a character than that blue fish that had Ellen Degeneres’s voice.

I have short term memory problems because when I was about 19 or 20 I had many, many electric shock treatments. They put me to sleep and I didn’t even know I was having them. My parents had given permission for them. It happened again a second time and I just didn’t know what was going on. It not only wiped out my memory of most of what happened, but of quite a bit of my early twenties. It stopped the depression at that time, but there was some permanent damage.

And with all of the medications that I take at my age (almost 65), I don’t have much choice but to live in the moment. It’s not a bad way of dealing with senior years. The gals at the club laugh with me and I can still be of service to others.

Good news yesterday: My brain anurysm is not getting any bigger. I won’t have to have it checked again for a couple of years.

Thanks for asking questions and for expressing your disagreement in a civilized way. That helps me to be more patient.

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And thank you for your candor and patience. Oh, and congratulations about the brain aneurysm thing.

P.S. could you share your take on the movie 50 First Dates?

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That is interesting. I live with three people whose abilities to make good decisions are very much dependant on taking the correct doses of meds at particular times. I have never heard anyone mock any of them for having to take medicine. I have heard them explain/excuse/rationalize their own behavior based on their not having taken the correct meds at the correct times and I confess to having used the phrase when talking to them after a particularly egregious error in judgment (but never to mock them for needing the meds, only to point out that they can avoid further problems by sticking to their regimen).

I’m trying to think of an occasion when I have heard any victim of mental or emotional trauma being mocked by being asked if they are off their meds and I cannot ever recall having heard it. (You apparently run with a nastier crowd than I do.)

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As a teacher, I suppose I did. (The administrators could be hell.)

The phrase itself refers to the mentally ill who have to take medication to be clear-minded. Asking the question of someone is a way of suggesting that she or he might be mentally ill. The real insult is in the suggestion that being mentally ill is shameful.

If I buy the fact that you knew for certain that Liberal doesn’t take or need any kind of medication, I am now being asked to believe that you were unaware that the question “Are you off your meds?” is used as a mocking insult!

It is used in blogs, news programs, literature, movies, televisions programs and among the general population everywhere. Kaylasdad just mentioned that it is trite and cliched. It’s used in discussing everything from politics to wedding planning.

If you don’t believe me, do this: Google “Are you off your meds?” You will find several pages of it used to insult. It’s just another way of saying that someone is a nutcake.

There are people who once they become aware that you have a mental illness will use that information against you with questions like that. Some of them show up on message boards too. It wouldn’t surprise me if that question has been asked at SDMB by a few people besides you.

There are times when the question is appropriate – as with your household. Don’t try to suggest that I’m criticizing that use. If you are with them all day every day, I doubt that anyone is going to tease them. If you are not, I hope that your assumptions are correct. But in a mainstream world, there can be all sorts of verbal cruelty. And there will be the clowns with their hands over their ears saying, “You are not really offended. This is not really a problem for you people.” (plus additional insult)

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I have never seen Fifty First Dates. Is that the one with Drew Barrymore? Any good? Does she have short term memory problems? I think I knew that from previews.

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I can’t remember.

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He probably called me fundie too, below his breath. Tom, you’re a … a dirty bird. God bless you. And God bless Canada.

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You are not being asked to believe anything. You are welcome to enjoy your recreational outrage. However, in the midst of your multiple posts on the topic, you made a single observation that I found odd: that it was a “common insult used to put people with mental illnesses down.” I have simply noted that, while I have certainly heard the phrase used as a rather mild insult by associating a person with a specific condition, I have never heard the phrase used to taunt anyone who actually suffered from the condition. Whether you choose to believe my observation is up to you. I have provided my (differing) experience and you are now free to react with just as much or as little outrage as you find necessary to that experience.

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Lib, you have actually no traits that I associate with fundies. (I do not even associate your beliefs with Fundamentalist Christianity and I certainly do not associate your approch to life with the “fundy” approach embraced by Wildmon, Falwell, or Der Trihs.) God bless entrepeneurs and El Salvador while we’re at it.

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God bless the Aztecs. Okay, maybe too late for that one, but still.

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Too bad that’s not a prime. You’d be in.

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You give yourself away with the language you choose, Tom. I don’t need your permission for anything that I think or feel.

But I am wondering why you have chosen to label my attempts to fight your admitted ignorance about the use of this particular phrase as “recreational outrage.” This is the pit. I could have cursed and called you names, but I didn’t. I didn’t make any comments about the company that you keep. I tried to stay focused on the issue and inform you.

Furthermore, using the phrase with anyone – unless you are in a position of authority over a person taking medication – is almost always used as an insult. (See the Googling that I suggested above.) It perpetuates the stigma associated with the mentally ill. I assume that is what you wanted to do. Sometimes, Tom, you seem cold to the bone.

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No shit, Sherlock. He never claimed it wasn’t an insult. He fully intended it to be one. It’s basically equivalent to “are you crazy?” Its target is not assumed to be someone who actually needs meds or is actually mentally ill.

Or are you saying that just implying that someone is crazy should be frowned upon because it stigmatizes the mentally ill? Because that’s a whole other level of shrill oversensitivity.

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Some of y’all have actually, like, read satire before, right?