Well, I wasted my time. And to steal an oft-overused line, I do not think that law means what you think it means.
From the Wiki site on medical marijuana use: “Conditions typically covered by the law include: arthritis; cachexia; cancer; chronic pain; HIV or AIDS; epilepsy; migraine; and multiple sclerosis.” No mention of depression.
This site does provisionally support the use of THC to treat depression, but says the following:
Bolding mine. It also seems to indicate that the THC treats some of the symptoms, not so much the depression itself, and not all the symptoms. The majority of that article is quoted here,, although they add the following:
Here’s a blog-type post that also seems to support your position, with one major counterpoint:
Here’s an article on the chicken-and-egg question of "Depression–THC use, or THC use— Depression. It goes back and forth a bit, but the opening paragraph includes:
It is a scam though, isn’t it? To get money from the not-so-well adjusted? If there are specific psychiatric skills, would they not be better used being taught in the classroom?
If by “work” you mean I have a routine job, punch in by 8 out by 5, don’t forget to feed the pets & kids and all that – then, no. I have no routine to tie me down or maintain through these portentous times.
OTOH, I’m a writer. Ever since the current economic crisis started, I’ve noticed dramatic changes in the media, the traffic patterns, the way people talk to each other, even the spiritual world (yes, I believe in spirits) began to take notice. That’s when I started taking notes – and let’s just say, without divulging any details, that I don’t know for sure how much of this is really happening (and most of it probably isn’t) but even if it’s all in my head, it’s got the potential for one HELL of a great novel someday. That’s the “work” I’ve been doing since 10/15/08 – writing a novel. So yes, I’ve been working.
Okay, as soon as you said “DSM-IV” I figured you were talking bullshit, and once I reached the underlined part I was 100% sure. The DSM-IV is always changing, but nearly EVERY shrink I’ve met treats it like the Holy Bible. Psychiatry also assumes that “mental illness” is parallel to medical illness, in the sense that there’s a germ, virus, cancerous cell, or something similar behind it…they’re wrong. Every person is unique, and the people who have actually benefitted from psychiatry (esp. medication) is ONLY the result of (1) pure accident, or (2) placebo effect.
Modern antidepressants work only because they make EVERYONE feel a little less depressed. Modern antipsychotics (by that I mean Zyprexa & stuff…Risperdone is actually an old-school AP which can cause tardive dyskenisia, diabetes, kidney failure & other nice stuff) only help you focus because they help EVERYONE focus. Sure, that’s enough to help some people deal with their personal demons…but why go there? Fucking with your body chemistry is DANGEROUS if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’d rather pay for an aura healing, frankly.
(Yes, I know I sound like the prophet Jeremiah screaming portents of doom & gloom from the top of the Holy Mountain…well, we are kinda living in potentially Apocalyptic Times right now, so that’s to be expected, isn’t it??)
In the same sense that cardiology is a scam to get money from those with heart problems. My father was a paranoid schizophrenic who ended up shooting himself in the head when I was teenager–I fail to see how anything short of an intense psychiatric intervention could have saved his life. Those who specialize in this form of medicine have devoted years to study and long, often thankless hours on the job to helping those in need. Paying them for this seems like a small price to pay.
A lot of mental issues are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain and body. Ever take a course or read a scientific book about brain structure and function in relation to psychology?
The brain still mystifies scientists and psychologists alike. But there has been a lot of progress.
You obviously are completely in denial of your own illness and seem to be manifesting your previous unpleasant experiences with medication into hating all psychiatric medication and denying their positive effects.
Ibuprofen and aspirin and similar drugs don’t do much to alleviate my headaches. So if anyone else takes them and it helps their pain, it must be an accident or placebo effect!
See how stupid that sounds???
There are a lot of psychiatric drugs.
Some suck, some don’t.
It depends on the person. Just like some people react different ways to allergy medication, hell every damn medication in the world.
The first drug you are prescribed will not always help you. It may take trying multiple drugs and tweaking doses. Same for other physical illnesses.
Some psychiatrists suck.
Some psychiatrists don’t suck.
You seem to us lay and not-so laypeople in this thread to have some sort of bipolar-like disorder.
Something is up if you are behaving in the way you tell us you are behaving. Like I said before, it’s not “normal” or healthy.
You need to stop denying this until someone who knows (find a good fucking doctor please) deems you to be okay and you no longer have manic and depressive episodes.
Find a competent mental health professional, trust THEM to fuck with your body chemistry, and give them honest feedback. Good chance they won’t kill you.
You fear of drugs is pretty intense. Yeah, EVERY medication has POSSIBLE side effects. Some medications have side effects that are horrid, and some medications cause side effects a lot more often than others. Just because aspirin may cause stomach bleeding, does that mean no one should ever take it?
If you in fact have bipolar, antidepressants are something you SHOULD NOT take in interest of your functioning unless you are also taking a mood stabilizer - it can cause rapid cycling. You ever been on lithium? It’s one of the more common drugs in treating bipolar, and it’s been around quite awhile, and pretty safe as psych drugs go.
At least go to a psychologist and talk or something. Maybe get over your hatred of psychiatry and medicine. Maybe they can refer you to a good psychiatrist you can trust and that can help you.
Not every single mental disorder has been found to have a specific link to something physical. But ones like depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia have. Other things like autism spectrum disorders - the jury is still out. And personality disorders - all are different, lot seem to be somewhat genetic and environmental in nature and are often treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and the like.
But the sort of issues you seem to be experiencing are largely chemical in nature. There should be some sort of talk therapy or something in addition to medication to help learn how to control every thing day to day along with taking meds. But please stop dismissing an entire field of empirical research and study because you are in denial.
You really shouldn’t make such bold, fundamentalist statements as if they’re 100% factual, especially since you don’t know me from Adam. Let me correct you on a few details:
(1) My medical marijuana prescription (I’m reading it right now) says “FOR THE TREATMENT OF Chronic Depression & Anxiety.”
(2) It is signed & sealed by a licensed State of California doctor. (You could call him right now & ask – privacy laws notwithstanding – but since Prop 215 is still technically illegal under federal law, I won’t provide any identifying details.)*
(3) On Day 3 or 4 of this Manic Event (or thereabouts), I stopped smoking cannibis completely, because I’ve been told the same as you – marijuana can cause psychosis. So from Day 3 to Day 9 of the Event, I was completely drug-free (aside from various analgesics & sleeping medications – I don’t drink alcohol, and even my smoking habit went DOWN instead of UP this time. That part was unusual.)
(4) By Day 7 (10/23) things really started to rock’n’roll. From then until Day 9 (10/25) I was pretty much un-grounded (or “Riding The Matrix”, as I call it.) I’m pretty sure my family noticed I was acting weird, but they were thinking, “Oh it’s just [KGS], he gets that way sometimes.”
(9) Ultimately, I got so desperate & delusional (and yes, I was calling my shrink every day – he did NOT return my calls) that I said, “Fuck it, I’m gettin’ high.” IMMEDIATELY after smoking weed, I looked around at the hot lava pouring from my heavy metal CD collection, and all the other stuff, and said, “Ya know, I think this isn’t really happening. According to Occam’s Razor, I’m most likely delusional right now.” And that was it, that’s how the delusion ended and I became grounded in Reality again.
(10) After that, I called my family (at least the ones who would take my calls) and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t even know how I must have come across to you all.” It would have ended there, except before I could sleep, certain events led to a MAJOR fight with both family members, coupled with intense physical activity (you don’t even wanna know) and I called a friend to tell her what was happening. (She was the one who called 911, by the way.)
Does this change your conclusions any, Herr Doktor?
On second thought…never mind. (Rule #415: It’s pointless to argue with someone who thinks, “My Mind Is Made Up, Don’t Confuse Me With The Facts.”)
*This part’s essentially a moot point…I predict that within ten years, cannibis will become 100% decriminalized in the United States of America, or at the very least it will become a State-by-State issue, similar to gambling. (Yes, Randifans, that’s a genuine prediction – write it down and send me $1M once it comes to pass!)
Not a bit of it. Read my words again, especially the part concerning how psychiatry assumes mental illness is akin to a physical, medical condition, whereas in truth it is not.
(Remember, my recent “Intervention” turned out to be a medical issue, NOT a psychological one.)
Psychology != psychiatrity. Psychiatry deals with medical issues. Psychiatrists are medical doctors, seeking out medical causes of mental illness. Psychologists are practitioners of psychology, seeking out psychological causes of mental illness.
Remind me again KGS why the doc who prescribed you anti-psychotics is bad and the one who prescribed you marijuana is good?
This is perhaps the best case of ‘pot meet kettle’ I’ve ever seen on the dope. I’ll post more later when I again have the urge to bash my head against a wall.
KGS you say you don’t like labels, and don’t believe in mental “illness” because we’re all unique snowflakes with our own special ways of interpreting the world.
Yet you want to keep the label of ASD rather than schizoaffective disorder?
You state you have “mania” and “depression” and “psychosis”- you’re quite happy to use those labels and admit that these states exist and are different from your normal baseline function. The labels you actually seem to object to are the ones that suggest you have a chronic relapsing disease requiring lifelong pharmacological therapy.
Your CK probably went through the roof because you didn’t sleep for 9 days and dehydrated yourself to the point where your kidneys packed in and your muscles started to break down. You got a saline drip because you were dehydrated, not because it is a magical feel-good medicine. CK elevation is certainly NOT the “first indication of diabetes”.
BTW- you’re misinformed about how disimilar Olanzepine and Risperidone are. They are both atypical antipsychotics with almost identical side effects. I’ve got a BNF in front of me- the SE list for Olanzepine is actually longer and has more nasty things on it like QT prolongation, neutropaenia, thrombocytopaenia and thromboembolism.
Not to mention that the vast majority of patients will never experience a given severe side effect, so just because a medication may cause a side effect doesn’t mean you should never take it. Everything has side effects; even the classic “sugar pill” placebos can trigger common mild side effects like headache, nausea, dizziness, etc.
I guess I should re-phrase…are you self-sustaining or are you on disability or living with your parents?
The reason I ask is that sometimes untreated bi-polar can make it really hard to maintain any semblance of independence. If you’re too delusional to hold down a job, you’ll be forever at the mercy of your parents and their calls to the police.
No shit, sherlock. (There’s also spiritual forces in play, but since not everyone believes in spirits, I’m willing to ignore that part – it falls under “brain” in any case.)
I’ll answer these statements one by one:
(1) Yes, much of my life & attention has been devoted to it. Indeed, I wish my “team” was as well-studied as I.
(2) Again…no shit, sherlock. Don’t assume that everything we know is ALL there is to know.
(3) Yes, and I’m amazed at how I wrote a “thesis” back in 1987 about how the brain functions with relation to consciousness, awareness, personality, memory, even dreaming. I call it “The Erector Set Theorem”, or T.E.S.T. for short. This was 20 years ago, when the brain was far more mysterious as it is today – and so far, my T.E.S.T. thesis has shown to be a solid roadmap, even though it’s only a theory. Indeed, I am thinking very strongly about resuming my official education and start working towards a Falsifiable Hypothesis which can be studied, peer-reviewed, and tested (heh) in a controlled environment. I’m 100% serious.
(Yawn)…that’s only your opinion. Paragraph ignored.
Hey, I never said that ALL drugs were part of a Grand Conspiracy led my Pfizer, Eli Lilly, etc…oh wait, maybe I did. Well, let me amend my Judgment and say, most psychatric medicines are a sham. For what it’s worth, I’ll trust antidepressants/mood-altering drugs (i.e. Prozac, Xanax, etc.) only because they are less likely to cause truly Fucked Up Complications (tardive dysk., diabetes, kidney & liver failure, etc…seriously, you should always read the fine print!)
As for ibuprofen, warfarin, and other body-affecting drugs…these do not concern psychiatry at all, and can be trusted (side effects aside). Even chemotherapy is far more trustworthy than, say, vitamins & prayer (but there’s no reason to choose one over the other…why not both?)
Yes, you are sounding stupid. (Betcha didn’t see that one coming, didja! I fart in your general direction!)
TLDR.
You keep assuming that my passionate hatred for Risperidone (which is still fucking me up today, thanks to a major blood sugar spike) is equivalent to condemning ALL drugs. Can we please limit our discussion to medications based on psychiatric illnesses (aka “mental” illness) alone? Otherwise, you’re putting up a Straw Man and I’m in no mood to play with that bit if mis-logic…I’m bored, but not THAT bored, catch my drift? :rolleyes:
Rapid Cycling? I remember that, when I was officially diagnosed as Bipolar. (Or schizoaffective, which is basically schizo + bipolar, I think.) But since I started smoking weed on a daily basis (long before it was prescribed) that “rapid cycling” stopped completely. (So did that Deep, Black Abyss of severe depression – seriously, if you’ve never felt what it’s like to be stuck in that Abyss, you have NO authority to speak about Bipolar, Major Depression, or anything else. Especially if you are a professional shrink!)
So say you. I’ll give that for some people – hell, I’ll be generous and say most people – bipolar/depression meds actually do work. (Or, at least, do more good than harm.) But let me tell you MY Lithium story:
(1) Yes, I’ve been on Lithium. My serum level was 0.08%, and since the “normal” range is between 0.09% and .015%, I was prescribed it. (Please forgive me if I misplaced the decimal point, it’s been a long time…)
(2) Lithium seemed to work just fine, until 1992 when I traveled overseas and the sudden environment change made my serum level go completely out of whack. However, nobody noticed that was the problem until I became so out-of-touch and babbling incoherently, I had yet another Unpleasant Intervention (which I do feel was necessary, since it was a Medical Problem…see the pattern?)
(3) Let’s put it this way. The “normal” range is 0.08%-0.15%. The lethal range (or the point where excess lithium starts destroying your organs) is 0.24%. My serum level was 0.29%. The doctor even said, “I’ve never seen a level that high in someone who was still alive.” This is no joke.
(4) Thankfully, my body is extremely hardy when it comes to all types of drugs, which frankly is the only reason I’m still alive. (My recent “Event” is actually quite trivial compared to others!)
This is the only smart thing you’ve said so far, and I’m way ahead of you. I don’t think I mentioned (and if I did, I forgot) that my “shrink” called my Talk Therapist (who’s a great guy, I consider him more of a spiritual advisor, and yes he’s a clinically licensed psychologist but NOT a psychiatrist, don’t conflate the two) and basically cancelled my association with him as a patient. Motherfucker didn’t even have the balls to contact me directly – and I don’t blame him, because I think he knows he fucked up bad this time. Everything’s fine now, but there really was potential (on the order of 0.05%) that I might have killed myself last week, either accidentally or deliberately. So yeah, he fucked up bad.
You’re talking about brain chemistry, I assume. I’m with you on bipolar/depression, but regarding schizophrenia, I’m not convinced. (Or maybe I’m biased because people assumed I was schizophrenic once, when clearly I never was. Let me repeat: I NEVER WAS schizophrenic. Which explains why all antipsychotic medications – from Navane to Haldol to Zyprexa to Risperdone (bleh) – were basically more like torture for me. And yet, not a single shrink listened when I told them I was suffering EXTREMELY BAD side effects (i.e. akathisia) – those fuckers should be force-fed these medications to see how it feels like.
Yeah, well since I’m technically Asperger’s now (and even that’s inaccurate, I think – more like borderline Aspie) I’m learning a lot about the autism spectrum, and yeah, there are far more questions than answers. (And people like Jenny McCarthy and the anti-vaccine brigade don’t help!!)
I don’t think I have a personality disorder, though I’m definitely a little bit schizotypal. (Which means, sometimes I freak people out, but my close friends & family know that I’m just being my nutty self.) However, my former shrink (the one I’ve been talking about) has occasionally threatened to change my diagnosis from [fill in the blank] to sociopathic disorder (which would have cancelled my disability payments) only to make me go along with the program. Nice, huh?
Well, body chemistry does exist, I won’t doubt that. And keep in mind, the “keytones” (sp?) in my bloodstream were the major issue of my recent hospitalization (which I really shouldn’t even call a 5150 Intervention at this point) and I have NO issue at all with body chemistry problems. Which begs the question – why Risperdone? Why the FUCK would some social worker (or psychiatrist, but I’m sure this guy wasn’t one) give me a medication like that and say, “expect to be taking this for the rest of your life”??? They worked on a false assumption that I was schizophrenic, probably only because they pulled my 1996 record. (And this is County Hospital, so even that’s a stretch.) They clearly had NO IDEA that my “official” diagnosis was Asperger’s Syndrome, and I would have told them IF THEY ASKED, which I don’t think they even did!
There already is, as stated above.
I deny nothing. YOU may assume that medication is helpful for SOME people, but…well, my direct experience with psychiatry is totally different than yours, obviously.
I’m with you on "psychology != psychiatry. However, I totally disagree on the “psychiatry = medical issues” part. Yes, all psychiatrists (by definition) have an M.D., that’s why they can prescribe medication. (Social workers can’t…not legally, anyways.) And all M.D.'s have a God Complex – it’s inherent to the profession. Not always a problem, some M.D.'s are true miracle workers. But the disconnect lies in psychiatrists who ASSUME that treating brain chemistry is equally well-understood. It’s not, they should know it’s not, and that’s what gets my dander up.
Because medical marijuana (in my particular case) has proven to be effective against whatever-my-disorder-is. I’ve relied on it for years now, and it’s helped me far more than it’s harmed me. And not just me, either – keep in mind, there’s a lot of anti-marijuana propoganda out there, mostly funded by “People For A Drug-Free America”. Guess who that coalition is? It’s the drug companies – including tobacco, alcohol, and ALL prescription meds. In other words, they’re not in favor of a “Drug-Free America” at all – just the drugs they can directly profit from. (Of course, once marijuana/cannibis becomes legal under FEDERAL LAW, that will change…it’s only a matter of time now.)
How much marijuana do you smoke a day to feel good? Dunno what method you choose to smoke - joint, blunt, bong, glass bowl - but I am familiar with all and will understand if you say you smoke “two joints” or “one bowl” a day. I’ve never bought any amount myself so I won’t understand “I smoke an ounce a ____” a week/month etc.
What do YOU think was the cause of your nine-day meltdown or whatever you wish to call it? Do you think something in particular triggered it? Did you stop smoking? Explain more what those 9 days were like, what happened before. I’m trying to understand.
But your TLDR comment was not necessary - it was a list of short statements that sort of summed up my thoughts in a blunt way - sort of the cliffnotes version.
So now it’s not only acceptable to give medical advice, we’re even going to grill people about their prescribed medications and try to get them to change their dose without consulting their doctor?
(Betcha didn’t see that one coming, didja! I fart in your general direction!)