Mood: 3
Meds: 12:30 pm
Sleep: 9 or so hours, I think. Not entirely sure what time I fell asleep last night, but it was kinda early, at least for me.
Other: Fangbunny's got her music blog up and running now. Yay! I'm going to help her by making faux Twitter accounts and retweeting her for the rest of the afternoon while working. Work seems to be picking up a little, which is good. Thank God for people and their income tax refunds. Still nothing from The Mute One. Starving and craving fries, which is unusual for me, given my indifference to all things potato (except for Baked Lays <3). I think when Fangbunny gets out of the shower, we're going to do something we shouldn't do and go get something salty, greasy, and utterly satisfying.
Ok, today's blog is a rant. This isn't strictly something that concerns me, but it is something that concerns the mental health community as a whole and all the crazies in the world. "Crazies of the world" definitely includes me, so up it goes.
On one of the message boards I post on (not a mental health board or anything), a girl posted a thread, asking for some advice. In the past, she's struggled with depression, and if her descriptions of what she went through are any indication, she had/has a pretty severe case. Her antidepressant is helping her with her depression--she's not depressed anymore. But she's having a side effect that she doesn't like: inability to orgasm. She's on an SSRI, and inorgasmia is a common side effect.
Now, keep in mind, SHE SAYS HER MEDS ARE WORKING. This is important, so remember it for later.
I slipped in and said that I was glad her meds are working, but if the sexual side effects are more than she wants to deal with, she might want to go back to her doctor and see if she can get a new prescription. I pointed out that SSRIs are notorious for sexual side effects (as are pretty much anything that does more than lightly brush serotonin receptors), but that there are quite a few other options out there. I listed my <3<3<3<3 Wellbutrin <3<3<3<3 as an option, as it doesn't hit serotonin at all, but told her that there were plenty of other things her doctor might prescribe for her to try. Sensible advice, yes? If you can't live with the side effects, see if you can find something else.
OMFG, I might as well have said that the poor girl needs to become a serial rapist. I don't think I've ever seen as many "you don't need medication, fuck Big Pharma, blah, blah, fucking blah" rants from so many dumbfucks in one place in my entire life. *Facepalm*
Motherfucker, if somebody's medication is working, then it stands to reason that that person NEEDS THAT FUCKING MEDICATION. Therapy, your questionable "homeopathic" remedies (research shows that most of the time they hurt more than they help, but we conveniently forget that), diet, exercise, and any damn thing else that pop psychology tells you to try is NOT a goddamn substitute for medication. And how DARE you presume to think you know more than a.) the doctors, b.) other people with education in the psych field, and c.) the goddamn crazy person herself simply because you've watched Dr. Phil a few times? If those medications improve quality of life (at the least) or are the only thing standing between that person and suicide (at the worst), then why the fuck would you tell that person to stop taking them? Go fuck yourself.
Now, this post isn't actually about this girl's plight, as sucky as it is for her. It's just my jumping-off point for a rant about something that has pissed me off for years. I spent four years in a heavily behavioral psych department, getting my degree. NOT clinical psych. NOT cognitive psych. NOT psychoanalysis (though I doubt there are any psychoanalytic departments anymore). NOT social psych. BEHAVIORISM. And if there are any armchair psychologists out there, those things are NOT the same.
Now, the behaviorists oughta be the first ones to tell you that therapy, or, more accurately, "behavior modification," as behaviorists call it, should work. But they don't. They tell you that in an ideal world, behavior mod works. Unfortunately, most people have more going on with their mental illness than just maladaptive behavior. So while behavior mod will help you change your behavior, it's NOT going to correct any underlying biological problems. And that's why behaviorists say that if someone has a GENUINE mental illness, they need to be stabilized before therapy begins, or it's not going to do anything. And if it takes medication to stabilize that person, then so fucking be it.
You see, behavior mod--therapy of any kind, actually--helps you learn to deal with what's going on in your life. It's most helpful for people who *don't* have mental illness, believe it or not. (Or for people with personality disorders, but that's neither here nor there. We're talking Axis I here, folks.) Assuming you've got a competent therapist, it will help people cope with "stress." It will teach you better interpersonal skills. It will teach you to resolve problems, both internal and external. It will help you improve your self-esteem or whatever other issues you may have that contribute to your underlying illness--if you have any. Not everyone does.
What it will NOT do is help you treat your mental illness if it's rooted in something other than "Mommy was mean to me, and Daddy was never there." That is not a genuine mental illness, people. That is what we call an asshole who makes excuses for being an asshole.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying therapy is bad. It helps millions of people. Many people with Axis I disorders need therapy to help them deal with life stressors that may be making their illness worse. They may need to learn better self-esteem. They may need to learn to deal with people better. They may need better problem-solving skills. On the other hand, THEY MAY NOT.
Assuming that "therapy" is the be-all and end-all answer to mental illness is both simplistic and insulting to the crazy person. It might be the answer for Dr. Phil, but it's NOT necessarily the answer for the crazies. Until you walk in that person's shoes, you don't know shit, even if therapy "worked for you."
Moderate to severe mental illness will NOT respond to therapy alone (or to therapy in conjunction with other shit that's not medication). Mental illness that is that bad NEEDS medication. Period, the end. If someone spends the rest of his/her life on medication to improve his/her quality of life, then what the fuck is it to you? Would you tell a diabetic that with a combination of behavior modification and St. John's Wort, he, too, can no longer have to take insulin anymore? Ok, then, shut the fuck up telling the crazies that. You DON'T KNOW what you're talking about, and you DON'T KNOW what that person goes through every day.
Also, to take the therapy analogy a little farther, if you tell a mentally ill person that they just need to change the way they think and/or behave through the use of therapy, you are, in essence repeating every shitty thing that person's ever been told in reference to his/her illness, only with the added twist of "going to talk to someone."
Ultimately, saying "therapy will fix all your problems, so throw out your meds" is pretty much telling the crazy person that it's her maladaptive behavior that's causing the problem. It's the same old rehashed "you are your own worst enemy" bullshit we've all heard before. Maybe we've tried to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Maybe we've tried to change our behavior. I would imagine most of us have spent YEARS doing these things, but we just can't do it. Telling us that if we change, you are putting the blame for our conditions on OUR shoulders, thereby making us feel even worse about ourselves, thereby worsening our conditions. We're sick; we're not assholes, and fuck you if you think so.
I've had to deal with those attitudes my whole life. Yes, I've only been formally diagnosed for a couple of months, but a.) I've been crazy for much longer, and b.) I have a degree in psychology. In the hierarchy of social acceptability model of Axis I mental illness, the ONLY well-known disorder that has more stigma attached to it than bipolar is schizophrenia. Depression is at the bottom of the pyramid. Everybody thinks now that because they were sad once, they've been depressed, so it's more socially acceptable, even though the prevalence of actual clinical depression isn't really *that* high. Anxiety is on the next level. It's still got a little more stigma attached than depression. ("Can't you just chill out?") But it's still fairly low on the list. Then, you've got bipolar and schizophrenia. How many times have you heard people talk about staying away from bipolars and schizophrenics because we're full of drama or dangerous, even though we're ten times more likely to be victims of violent assaults than to be the assaulters?
I have heard pretty much every version of "you're not sick, you're just an asshole" that you can imagine. I've spent 27 years trying to change myself and the way I act because I was CONVINCED that the problem was ME, not a mental illness. That perception is enhanced by family, friends, people I've been in relationships with, and society at large. If people can't fathom the mood swings, the irrational and self-destructive behavior, the inability to retain control, then it's easier to BLAME the crazy person than it is to realize that the crazy person can't help it.
If someone, anyone, had shut the fuck up with the "you need to stop acting like a bitch" spiel for 2.5 seconds and actually listened to anything I had to say about the way I was feeling, then maybe I wouldn't have waited so long for treatment. Maybe it would've been caught 10 years ago. Maybe my illness wouldn't have done irreparable damage to my brain while I tried over and over and over to "stop acting like an asshole." (And, yes, I can tell I don't have the cognitive faculties I did 10 years ago. The illness is the only answer because I'm not old enough for it to be an age-related decline.) Maybe I wouldn't have felt worse about myself because of my inability to control it, thus spinning myself into even more rapid cycling, thus destroying more brain cells through self-hatred brought on by OTHER PEOPLE'S STUPIDITY. Yes, I am somewhat to blame for not recognizing the signs, especially given my education, but society as a whole is also to blame for the way the mentally ill are treated.
I'm going to bring my rant to a close by saying, yes, therapy does help. Crazy people also have a responsibility to themselves and others to get treatment in whatever form necessary. But if you are a crazy, you know more about what you need than the non-crazies around you. And if you're close to a crazy, then just shut the hell up if you can't say or do something helpful.
And if you're one of those people who spouts pop psychology as if it's something profound, please go douse yourself in kerosene and strike a match. If you commit suicide rather than potentially driving a crazy to suicide, then you've done the world a favor. Crazy people have enough to contend with without your bullshit.
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