Mental Health and how it's looked at in this country

[flacaltenn]

First off thanks for all of the responses and well wishes I didn't think that this topic would get so many replies to it. And, as for this question by Amelia

What would your answer to that question be?

I would try to put more information out there for people to learn about mental health and try lessen the stigma of Mental Health. Also, I would try to have some system private charity or otherwise help those who don't have a great support structure like I do but that's just me

You made me think about a TV story I saw about a Camp for Aspergers Teens. Honestly -- my 1st reaction was --- ""THIS is gonna be great TV""

... And it WAS !!!

It touched me. And you could SEE how important and emotional it was for those kids to interact and learn from each other.

That support structure you talk about doesn't HAVE to be clinical. I'm not qualified to judge here -- but there's a LOT to be gained by support groups like that Teen Camp -- when there are NO Clear answers from the "medical" community...

 

[BrutalTruth]

You don't think or act like me. You've got to be mental.

You don't think and act like the majority of "me's", you must be very mental.

The majority of "me's" have nothing figured out, the norm is screwed and under scrutiny every day as a result, and the tax payers are restless.... Inconvenient for you, because you must be mental for not following suit.

Mental, it's in the the hands of those taking your money. Pay up.

 

[Soulless65]

Since the Republican National Convention is over I want to ask the boards Republicans about this issue I hope that this isn't against the rules here

 

[sealadaigh]

I am not in your country, I am in England. But I have still been affected by American thinking on the mentally ill. England has imported behavioral science and personality profiling from the USA.

I know because I have been a victim of psychological abuse by the police, who labeled me a psychopath in 1988. They then proceeded to try to destroy me based on that mistaken diagnosis.

Since then I have studied them, and I read Mind hunter, by John Douglas, an FBI agent. I then read Criminal shadows by Professor David Canter, an English professor who studied the FBI techniques.
And I have latterly read The jigsaw man, by Paul Britton.

Professor Canter has said on TV that the British police are lumping everyone together under the one label of psychopath. Paul Britton wrongly tried to entrap Colin Stagg for murder based on his personality profile. Britton had previously said in his book that he had to be right about his diagnosis or he may destroy someone. Then he went right on and did exactly that.

My true diagnosis is a paranoid schizophrenic, and I have the symptoms of hallucinations and shit but I have found that the drug abilify stops those symptoms and lets me cope without stress. I recommend abilify to anyone with schizophrenia, but there are side effects, and if you can manage without it you are better off.

ok...let me get this straight, ol' buddy. you eat parakeets and yet, you take the drug abilify because it stops the symptom of taking a nice, healthy shite.

 

[flacaltenn]

Since the Republican National Convention is over I want to ask the boards Republicans about this issue I hope that this isn't against the rules here

Other than the fact that the patient might qualify for the Amer. Disabilities Act protection or end up on the list of folks not able to purchase a firearm -- I don't see a Federal issue here.

This is a medical/social issue -- unless the patient is a threat to themselves or others. I can't for the life of me see a partisian position here.

I would LIKE TO SEE "a patient bill of rights" extended to this group of patients. Including public awareness about designating Health Advocacy, and disclosure of treatment effectiveness. But NONE of that requires Federal involvement.

 

[Dajjal]

It might be in our best interests Katz. I'd prefer not to live amongst mental patients who are not being treated.

But with that said, people are being over diagnosed and over medicated. That's the real problem IMHO.

That's a problem but so are mentally ill people who refuse to be medicated and have their rights respected.

Medication is far better now than in my youth, when the drugs just deadened your brain.
When I was first ill in 1969 the drugs were nothing more than knock out drops. Nobody wanted to take them including me. I was on three different drugs, a total of thirteen tablets as day, and I was like a zombie.
But the new drugs target the brain chemicals like dopamine and I take abilify to good effect. I only have to take one 15 milligram tablet a day and I am stable.

 

[Katzndogz]

I had a roommate that was schizophrenic. When he was taking his meds he was fine. One of the kindest and most intelligent people I have ever known. Like many people who have mental disabilities, the longer he was taking his medication the more normal he felt and acted. Then he felt himself cured, perfectly normal and stopped taking his meds. That usually ended up with me having him taken into custody and put back in the hospital. It did not take very long for me to figure out I was better off without a roommate at all.

Here is the problem that I had. As my roommate began descending into a serious episode, there is no one to go to. Doctors say he's an adult and has the freedom to decide whether or not he wants to take medication. It can't be forced upon him, until he gets so bad that it can be forced upon him. The mentally ill have rights to be mentally ill if they so choose. Someone dealing with another's problems has to wait and watch as they get worse and worse until the police are called. This is California so I had to go to work wondering if I'd find him alive, the neighbors alive and the house not burned down when I got home. Then when the results were indisputable, I could call the police, have my sick roommate put in handcuffs and dragged out under Health and Safety Code 5150. He would be kept by law for 72 hours and I would sit around hoping that the evaluation panel would judge him worth keeping longer.

Jim Holmes couldn't even get himself taken seriously when he knew that he was spiraling out of control. We have a world of equality and someone who has murderous impulses or is severely schizophrenic is the same as someone depressed because their cat died.

Today, when I meet someone mentally ill, I back away very slowly, then turn and run as fast as I can. I can't keep them off the streets, but I can keep them away from me.

 

[Dajjal]

I had a roommate that was schizophrenic. When he was taking his meds he was fine. One of the kindest and most intelligent people I have ever known. Like many people who have mental disabilities, the longer he was taking his medication the more normal he felt and acted. Then he felt himself cured, perfectly normal and stopped taking his meds. That usually ended up with me having him taken into custody and put back in the hospital. It did not take very long for me to figure out I was better off without a roommate at all.

Here is the problem that I had. As my roommate began descending into a serious episode, there is no one to go to. Doctors say he's an adult and has the freedom to decide whether or not he wants to take medication. It can't be forced upon him, until he gets so bad that it can be forced upon him. The mentally ill have rights to be mentally ill if they so choose. Someone dealing with another's problems has to wait and watch as they get worse and worse until the police are called. This is California so I had to go to work wondering if I'd find him alive, the neighbors alive and the house not burned down when I got home. Then when the results were indisputable, I could call the police, have my sick roommate put in handcuffs and dragged out under Health and Safety Code 5150. He would be kept by law for 72 hours and I would sit around hoping that the evaluation panel would judge him worth keeping longer.

Jim Holmes couldn't even get himself taken seriously when he knew that he was spiraling out of control. We have a world of equality and someone who has murderous impulses or is severely schizophrenic is the same as someone depressed because their cat died.

Today, when I meet someone mentally ill, I back away very slowly, then turn and run as fast as I can. I can't keep them off the streets, but I can keep them away from me.

I sympathise with you, but you realize it is very hard for mentally ill people to survive in a community that does not want them in it, and tries to get them evicted, and stuff like that.
The world is not a friendly place for social undesirables.

I have decided I have to take the medication because if I do not I drink too much to alleviate the stress of paranoid hallucinations, then I start having a tantrum that upsets the neighbours, and that puts me at risk of eviction from my flat.
It is very hard for schizophrenics to find accomodation, and harder still to keep it.

In England all the big mental hospitals were closed and patients were expected to be cared for in the community, but the fact is the community does not care, and does not understand how to deal with mentally ill people. I am one of the lucky ones, but I still live in fear of eviction and homelessness.

 

[Katzndogz]

What is it about mental illness that imposes a burden on someone else to take care of them? Are your neighbors supposed to put up with your tantrums because you are somehow deserving of their sympathy? If you take your medication does everyone somehow just know of your problems by a kind of telepathy? They find out that you are mentally ill by your behavior that can range from annoying to dangerous.

Of course the community doesn't care, they don't give you understanding because they don't want to. They don't have to and that's just fine the way it is. They don't have to learn how to deal with the mentally ill. Your illness is not their burden. No one tries to get you evicted because you are mentally ill. They get you evicted when your behavior makes you intolerable.

We too, in some miguided application of freedom have closed our mental hospitals. It's a shame because the mentally ill should have someplace to be sequestered and a place where they can be cared for. A place where they will not impose their illness on others.

 

[HUGGY]

Mental Health and how it's looked at in this country

 

[Dajjal]

We too, in some miguided application of freedom have closed our mental hospitals. It's a shame because the mentally ill should have someplace to be sequestered and a place where they can be cared for. A place where they will not impose their illness on others.

I agree, nobody should have to put up with tantrums, which are largely cause by paranoid fear of sane people trying to get rid of you. But there is no place for the mentally ill to go now except the community, either in England, or as you say, in America.

The only answer I have to my own problem is to keep taking the drugs, but I already have dizzy spells and high blood pressure, which are both known side effects. In fact there is still diabetes and sudden death as possible side effects I may yet face. So you can see why once in a while I tried to stop the drugs.

But as I say, the new drugs are a pleasure compared with the drugs of 40 years ago.
I recommend schizophrenics to stay on the drugs.

 

[ItsjustmeIthink]

Depression, I don't think its real. IMO, its a lack of willpower.

And for the medication part...ever hear of the placebo effect?

 

[Dajjal]

Depression, I don't think its real. IMO, its a lack of willpower.

And for the medication part...ever hear of the placebo effect?

You are completely wrong, the brain works on chemicals, and I have tried to stop the drugs many times only to find myself in a bad way after a few weeks. The drugs that treat schizophrenia target brain chemicals like dopamine and replace deficiency's. As for depression there are two main classifications, and one is clinical, that means its due to a brain problem not an emotional one.

 

[Soulless65]

To me its amazing that even now people still don't think the depression is a real condition. Trust me its real I don't fake being sad or wanting to kill myself when I was really down 4-5 years ago

 

[geauxtohell]

Last night I saw a patient who was a pranoid schizophrenic off their meds. Their thought process and content was completely disorganized, they were actively thought blocking, they were being tormented by paranoid delusions and hallucinations, they were far from their home, and they were very scared.

It's a sad disease. Maybe the most sad disease. How awful would it be to not only lose your mind, but to lose control of your mind in that it was actively creating hallucinations that wanted to torment you.

That's the sad thing about the disease. None of these people have pleasant auditory hallucinations. Or if they do, they are in a running battle with mean or evil hallucinations.

Very, very sad.

 

[Politico]

Most people who are diagnosed as mentally ill aren't. All medicine in this country is treated as a business now. Nothing more. And as a whole our medical profession is incompetent.

 

[geauxtohell]

Most people who are diagnosedas mentally ill aren't. All medicine in this country is treated as a business now. Nothing more. And as a whole our medical profession is incompetent.

Nothing like blanket statements from the woefully ignorant.

 

[flacaltenn]

Most people who are diagnosedas mentally ill aren't. All medicine in this country is treated as a business now. Nothing more. And as a whole our medical profession is incompetent.

Well -- you got that partly right. The medical profession as a whole is still a science based practice. Psychology however hasn't improved it's toolset or fact based diagnostic abilities much beyond chemical lobotomies and ink blot tests.

Once any of these mental issues have a known biological basis and standardized testing and appraisal, then they are ripped from the hands of the Psych docs and turned over to the REAL doctors..

"Doctors" who visit with patients for 10 minutes and prescribe a different drug without the benefit of images or numbers or any metrics CAN'T be accurate in their diagnosis.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Depression, I don't think its real. IMO, its a lack of willpower.

And for the medication part...ever hear of the placebo effect?

You are exactly why we have problems dealing with people with REAL mental problems.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Most people who are diagnosedas mentally ill aren't. All medicine in this country is treated as a business now. Nothing more. And as a whole our medical profession is incompetent.

Well -- you got that partly right. The medical profession as a whole is still a science based practice. Psychology however hasn't improved it's toolset or fact based diagnostic abilities much beyond chemical lobotomies and ink blot tests.

Once any of these mental issues have a known biological basis and standardized testing and appraisal, then they are ripped from the hands of the Psych docs and turned over to the REAL doctors..

"Doctors" who visit with patients for 10 minutes and prescribe a different drug without the benefit of images or numbers or any metrics CAN'T be accurate in their diagnosis.

You are no better then the deniers.