Posted by Bob on October 27, 1999, at 15:36:51
In reply to Re: I second the emotion, posted by weary three on October 27, 1999, at 11:25:59
I've only been here a couple of months. I can say anything about its history before August. But there are a few things that I have noticed:
There are still a lot, perhaps a majority, of threads on medications and more technical stuff. It's great to have the information. But what I find valuable in it is not the PDR Party Line, or information that I could get from a place like www.mentalhealth.com's medications list, but the real world experiences of people on meds for their disorders (as opposed to random subjects of some clinical trial) and the things they have had to struggle with. One prime example that comes to mind is the klonopin/clonazepam issue--how in some people's experiences, generic klonopin was weaker than brand-name klonopin (and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing). I asked my current pharmacist and all I got was the party line: generics must go through rigorous testing the demonstrate their bioequivalence to the brand-name meds. If what I wanted was text-book lectures, I would have gone to med school. If all I ever got out of babble was the PL from the PTB, I'd still be thinking I was even MORE abnormal than I was prior to meds, given how hard I've been hit by sexual side effects from Zoloft. Inspite of Pfizer's old ad, I certainly do not have "that Zoloft Smile!" My point? Again, there's a lot of discussion about meds. I don't think that doctors chiming in all the time giving the "appropriate answers" would do much to keep an open and free flow of information.
To put it another way, the discussion about meds here is a lot like playing frisbee -- the disc gets tossed to whoever calls for it. If degreed experts were lining up to answer our questions for us, its more like having one of those paddleballs, with the ball attached to the paddle by an elastic chord. The experts would have the control, they'd be holding the paddle. Besides, you think there's a bevy of doctors out there with the free time to offer free advice to patients they do not know about medications and situations that could turn lethal? For a doctor to stick his or her neck out to answer questions from strangers on a regular basis about medicating depression is begging for a lawsuit in our lawsuit-happy society.
As for personal stories and such...just as much as the info about meds, I am here for people's stories. I have been living a life where I feel so alone, so isolated, because the only people who seem as f*ck*d up as me are my family, and I really don't want to talk to any of them. When I read someone's story, it's like a palimpsest. Each new story writes over the same space in which the others were told, and you can see them all, including your own, one on top of the other, sharing similar paths, dealing with similar issues, asking questions you've been afraid to face for you, not daring to walk where you have been and seeing yourself as a guide. I have met two people on this board face to face--Anita and Dr. B--but that does not lessen my sense that I am more a part of this community than any other geographically or socially-defined community that may also claim me. That feeling of community and belonging does not come from any sense of similarities in neurochemistry, but rather in the way we live our lives by force and by choice. We know from the times we try to explain what depression is about to people who haven't been there--their voices say, "I understand" but their faces say "I'm clueless"-- *I* know I can say on this board that sometimes the most courageous act a person could ever possibly manage is to simply get out of bed in the morning, and I *know* there are people out there reading my words who have been there, who have done that, and who truly understand what I mean.
It's the reason why I'm so sad Janey Girl has left. Some people here, and some new arrivials in the next few whatevers, can cover for the debt in pharmeceutical knowledge left when she quit this board. But no one can cover the debt left by the withdrawal of her life experiences. We may have parallel experiences. We may deeply understand what she had shared. We may feel sympathetic vibrations from her words down to the marrow of our bones. But we will not have her experiences to learn from, to cry with, to return strength to her.
I'd prefer that didn't happen to the rest of us.
Dr. Bob does a good job of archiving material. Rarely does it get over 120k in size, in my short experience. That's 30 seconds to a minute download time on my 28.8 modem, depending on traffic. I've lived through greater discomforts than that -- particularly while surfing the web. With broadband just around the corner for most if not all of us, I'd hate to set a precedent that will become meaningless once you've got a cable modem or DSL being pumped into your home. There is little to gain and a great deal to lose.
My two cents,
Bob
poster:Bob
thread:13988
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991108/msgs/14019.html