Posted by URCONFUSED on September 21, 2002, at 18:06:46
In reply to Re: confused thinkingsquiggles » URCONFUSED, posted by Squiggles on September 21, 2002, at 17:10:49
> Your first point is a good one. In a sense
> the drugs can bring depression or another
> mental illness, to a state that may as well
> be recovery from depression.Um...thats the whole point of drugs Squiggles. Duh. Recovery. What do you think people take drugs for? Just cause someone told them to take them? For fun? Cause its something to do? You take drugs cause there is something wrong with you.
>
> The question is, can this happen without drugs?
> For example, we used to have something (before
> the onset of pharmacological psychiatry at this
> present scale) called a *nervous breakdown*. When
> a man went through a crisis and had a nervous
> breakdown he would be sent to a sanitorium and
> after a few months of rest and some drugs, he would
> then be released. This is no longer done, and
> hardly ever heard of.
You are flat out wrong. Before drugs, people with serious forms of mental illness were sent to these places you call a sanitorium, where they oftentimes were exposed to nasty conditions. Abuse was rampant, diseases such as TB thrived in such places and many patients died of diseases, abuse, etc. Many were literally "locked up" and chained to walls like in medieval prisons. Most didnt recover and many times they were never sent home. Many spent long periods of time in these sanitoriums, never recovering only becoming worse.Drugs changed all this and allowed those who were "institutionalised" to be able to be released and go home and way from abusive, cruel state mental institutions or "sanitariums" as you call them.
>
> Another point about recovery; the concept of
> prophylactic medicine does not permit the possibility
> of testing recovery. That is, if it presumed from
> the start that a depression or some psychological
> trauma is chronic, and on the basis of that the
> drugs are given for life, it is not possible to
> test for recovery.
Most patients are tested for recovery. Ever heard of the HAMD depression questionairre? It assesses where you currently are. If you relapse, which usually happens in severe depression, you go back on meds.
>
> A third point, even if it is presumed that the
> person may have *recovered* from a mental illness,
> giving drugs on a chronic basis presents another
> logistical problem: the withdrawal from drugs
> presents with such devastating effects, some them
> chronic themselves, that is impossible to distinguish
> lack of recovery from brain changes due to drugs.I dont agree with you here. If you are talking about benzos and your experience with klonopin that you keep telling people about, sure. But you probably have severe panic disorder and are in denial of it to some extent. You probably need lifetime klonopin Squiggles. Ive come off many an antidepressant before and other than some dizziness and bad feelings which went away after a week, didnt have any problems.
>
> About the anti-psychiatry people: there are many
> camps. There are the extremists like Lawrence Stevens J.D.
> who argues that there is no such thing as mental
> illness. The most i can say for him is that he has
> J.D. besides his name and therefore no medical expertise
> to argue with. Then there are the kind who wish
> to protect the rights of the mentally ill such as David
> Oak's group; and there are others such as Scientology
> or religious groups who really have the wrong motives
> at heart. There are also groups who have taken drugs,
> have come off and are better and wish to educate
> and inform the medical community of the effects of
> certain drugs, e.g. the addictive nature of some
> and i say some, benzos.Benzos cant be compared to the nonaddictive drugs used to treat major depression, bipolar and schizophrenia Squiggles. Physical addiction is a separate issue than major mental illness and I believe you confuse the two, due to your inability to think clearly.
>
> As for denial, I think you are being presumptuous
> in this and perhaps a bit Freudian. Some people are
> quite aware of what drugs do to them and are able
> to monitor their feedback according to dose and type
> of drug -- that is why they are able to go the dr.
> and say "i would like to try another drug" and the dr.
> very often agrees.
>
> Finally, i suspect by your smart-ass tone that
> you are a first year punk in medicine or pharmacology,
> and lack both experience and compassion.
>Nope...not a "punk" who is in medicine or pharmacology. Just another clinical depressive patient who read your brain fogged post and decided to post a reply to straighten you out.
URCONFUSED
poster:URCONFUSED
thread:120456
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020914/msgs/120635.html