A lot of the anti-psychotic meds have quite bad side effects which are quite well known, including parkinsonian type effects such as drooling and ataxias. But I imagine the sample size for people with mental health problems not on meds is quite small to compare with those on meds and might be hard to determine whether cognitive degeneration could be linked to the disease or the meds themselves. That said it would not surprise me if it was the meds, but whatever your quoting from seems quite vague.
True. The topic I bring up is large and complicated one. For me, it's hard for me to articulate the subject well enough to make a point. In fact, all the articles in my RSS is overwhelming. I've stopped reading it for a while.
Mental health is a hard area to work in filled with ethical minefields, it's one area where it almost feels like people are presumed guilty before convicted of any crime, when they are sectioned for their own safety or others, but what other way is there to effectively manage those who may be a danger to others? I have never heard a psychiatrist recommend wholly medical treatment by itself and the best effects are often had with combined therapy.
Yeah, it's an ethical question, a "Minority Report"-sort of dilemma. There's evil in the world. Even a rational man could do some sort of unspeakable violent act, and he chooses to do evil. Is every person who commits an unspeakable violence "mentally ill"? Is BTK killer mentally ill or evil? Have you seen MSNBC's raw interview tapes with Timothy McVeigh? He is mentally ill or evil?
In the US, there's at least 2.4 million people receiving SSI or SSDI because they are ill with schizophrenia (or some other psychotic disorder), as I have quoted. Now, how many people in that pool are mentally ill and insane? We have them on file at the SSA. How would you or the government calculate the odds for anticipating the unforeseeable?
There remains much to learn about brain chemistry and the drugs administered, but I do not see this as a reason not to continue with many of the treatments that do effectively work for people. They can be often hit and miss because it is a truth we all have variations in our genes that make us less or more susceptible to certain treatments and this does not just apply to mental health medications.
The brain is a complex organ. The drugs are administered because of desired effect, but scientists don't completely know how it works. They themselves can't explain the "chemical imbalance" theory. And just because everyone accepts the theory, they still can't answer why the number of mental illness has increased since the advent of psychiatric medication. Does that seem odd to you?
I am not sure what your aim was with this thread, it seems a scatter-gun attack on psychiatry or meds at least, with little reasoned analysis. There are plenty of issues and problems in the field psychiatry, but they are all fairly recognised by most that work in it.
Yes, it's a scattershot of arguments. I can't coherently explain it all, that's why I'm posting quotes from sources nobody's here seems to read.
My hopes for this thread is mental healthcare reform that offers freedom of choice. My hope is that mental health services is offered to anyone who needs or wants them, but also they may choose alternative treatments, other than psychiatry and medication. Alternative treatments include Eastern medicine alternatives, the choice to stay in psychotherapy and not in 15 minute sessions with a shrink. Alternative treatment for me means basically living healthy without some medical machinations.
I've been thinking about how most people with disability go about their day-- living. My guess is that the disabled all try to make it through the day, some having it harder than others.
I'm going to go out on the limb of common sense to say that the "mentally ill", particularly those on disability, definitely do just try to get by in life. I'll go out on the limb to say that we're too busy on the Internet than to scheme some grand plan of terror and mayhem. In fact, we're too busy suffering; and we're suffering for having suffering. We're suffering from trauma and adversity that has detoured us from a norm of living. We end up being diagnosed from being depression to everything possible on DSM (probably not exaggerating), and being prescribed from one antidepressant to a cocktail of meds (definitely not exaggerating). We're being denied of our original trauma and actual problems that are most likely not due to chemical imbalance in the first place.
But most I've noticed lately is that people lump the "mentally ill"--the "mentally ill" encompasses the depressed, the bipolar, the anxious, the phobic, the "schizo*"... all lumped into one. As if we're all time bombs ready to go off. As if we should be herded and warded off into some camp, like cattle or subhumans.
But whatever the "Other" (politicians, docs, neighbors) may have in mind to treat us, I don't want the conventional methods of meds, electroshock therapy, and hospitalization for treatment. I don't want treatment; I want healing. Healing from healthy living and relationships. Not medication, diagnosis, and isolation. And it is the prospect of healing and its possibility that government and public policy could preclude it, is what concerns me the most.