the part that bugs me about this is that who would think it would be hilarious? maybe if i was suicidal, swerving over to the wrong side of the road might cross my mind. but in no way is it hilarious. i think having mood swings is a regular phenomenon and it's not something to be treated with medicine. having extreme mood swings, i wouldn't know anything about that because i wouldn't know the extreme feelings associated with it.
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uY6k50qB4Ys&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uY6k50qB4Ys&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> That Noonday Demon book is actually pretty good, if you're looking for a read on the subject. On sale for $12.something at Amazon. And a lot of people start taking pills so that they can approximate humanity, as best as they can. No one's arguing for 24/7 Oxycontin fun times all around. I've lost years to depression, isolated from the world and people around me, years that I will never get back. It doesn't make me a stronger person for having refused medication during that time; it makes me a putz. As someone else wrote above a few months back, find a doctor you can trust. A lot of them are ---holes, and a lot of them are doing it just so they can make tee times three times a week. But just as many are good. It'll probably take a few months, but if you find one that listens to you, you'll find a drug combination that works for you: that won't leave you a zombie, that won't take your personality away from you, that will work for you.
correct me if i'm wrong, but don't doctors take an oath NOT to do things you listed? aren't doctors morally and ethically obligated to be able to be trusted?
I have a very good friend who's in his 50's that's been dealing with this for decades. It ain't fun. He managed to divorce his wife after having 3 great daughters with her and several years of marriage. He's had a difficult time working for anyone and works best on his own, which is what he does. He takes meds and quits taking them sometimes, having convinced himself that he's "OK," only to go back on them, eventually. I can always tell when he quits. He goes from being at least a bit even tempered to going through terrific mood swings. Becoming manic, bouncing around, "gotta do something... let's go to a men's club!!" Spends a bunch of money, buys some sex, one way or another, drinks a lot of scotch and does other stuff, and goes in the other direction. Can descend into a black depression. Back and forth. On his meds, he does very well. Oh, he can drive you crazy, but so can I, and I don't have his particular problem. Taking the meds regularly is a big deal. My friend has discovered that impotence can be a side effect, which plays a big role in him going off them from time to time. He takes Viagra a lot, which helps. Anyone with this, take the meds. Different combinations apparently work on different people. A good doctor will figure that out with your feedback. I wish I could be more upbeat, but it is... depressing. I've been watching my friend deal with this for many years. Before he seriously got treatment and (more or less) stayed on it, he was going through some very suicidal moods, and I spent many hours talking him through it. Don't turn away from your friends and loved ones. Find a good doctor. Take the freakin' medications and good luck out there.
Police officers take a similar oath, but Abner Louima didn't find himself exactly protected and served. What I'm suggesting, from my limited experience with the psychiatric community: some doctors are out of touch, probably a very few (as you are correct to point out) are indifferent to drugging out their patients into zombieland (the one without Bill Murray, alas) and chalking that up as a win on the scoreboard, and some(/probably most) are great at what they do. The important thing is to have the patience/self-assurance to find the ones who are responsive to patient needs, and will adjust therapy/medications to suit. To your larger points, I don't doubt that Americans as a whole are overmedicated/ want easy fixes to take the edge off life's everyday troubles. But actual mental illness, actual disease of any sort, isn't one of life's everyday troubles. Self-medication is no kind of longterm solution.
Because I met a writer who wrote about a serious medical condition, at an artists colony, you ask if I also have that condition? You're an idiot.
And a lot of people take them to stay alive. I've lost three very close friends to suicide which was caused by depression or some other mental health disorder - two diagnosed, one not. And another who drank himself to death because he was self-medicating for depression. The position expressed in your post is an easy one to take if you don't suffer from mental illness. But it's a pretty ****ing stupid thing to say to someone who has been diagnosed with it.
OP: If you're still reading, I echo the recommendation to find a good doctor and find the treatment that works for you. It may take several tries and there may be a lot of difficult side effects as you find what works for you -- if your doctor recommends medication (and I expect he would for bi-polar disorder). It won't be easy but it will improve your quality of life immensely and it may even save it. And suspending treatment will only extend your suffering unnecessarily.
To the ones who said that bi-polar or depression are either normal, human emotions or "mood swings," or that it's a "hip" or "cool" disease, you do an incredible disservice to the people in this thread that suffer from these disorders by suggesting that an already stigmatized condition should be further repressed or denied medical attention. I understand why you guys would do it, not having the experience of suffering from these diseases (or knowing someone who has), but I'm telling you something you need to know here. Your words are not only careless but are also potentially dangerous. It is a function of these diseases that they cause the sufferer to resist treatment already. If taken to heart, your thoughtless comments will, more likely than not, make a bad situation worse.
While I recognize that there are those who legitimately require medication in order to function normally I also believe those people make up a very small percentage of the people who take medication for mental problems. But go ahead and continue being holier-than-thou.
I am holier than "thou," at the very least because I'm not giving ****ty and dangerous advice, but am rather recommending treatment for often debilitating diseases. You, on the other hand, are blowing off serious mental illnesses - ones which ruin lives and often end them - and making light of medicating them. Regardless of what you think of me, it's a dick move.
...and mental illness runs in my family. The point I'm making here is that I am intimately familiar with mental illness - and there are a lot of people who take medication who don't need medication. You're rather sanctimonious (I had to look up a synonym for "holier-than-thou" since I just used it).
That's a leap, but I suppose you've reached the point now where winning the argument is more important than actually saying something with substance. Anyway, I have to go mow my carpet.
I'm sure that's true. But that's not really an excuse for characterizing the ones who need medication as trying to avoid being human. That's just a crappy thing to say no matter how you look at it.
Yes, it's a leap. That's why I said maybe. Mental illness also runs in my family and it has been responsible for a lot of suffering in my family, among the ones who had it and the ones who didn't but still had to deal with it. An unusually high percentage of my friends also suffer from various forms of mental illness, and as I said some have died from it and I still grieve for them, so maybe I'm over-sensitive about it. I'm overly sensitive about lots of things, so one more should come as no surprise. But I don't care about being right in this case. I was just trying to give what I regard to be good advice, based on experience, and trying to correct for what I regard to be extremely bad advice (or implications). I am sanctimonious though. Good catch I guess, though my personal failing there is pretty obvious to anyone who's read more than two of my posts on any given topic. You're pretty sanctimonious too, for the record. Your posts pretty much exclusively fall into two categories: more often than not they are jokes (mostly about how you have sex with everyone - always kind of funny to me since I dated one of your exes) but occasionally they are sincere and, when they are, they always come in the voice of someone who clearly considers himself to be superior to every one of his readers. So I guess we have that in common too.
All that said, I'm sorry my post offended you, thadeus. It was a little harsh, I admit. I look forward to your posts (both the jokey ones and the sanctimonious ones) and generally regard you to be a good guy.
No, I ask because of your posting history. Your apparent mental condition is why I have been going easy on you.
