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OfflineQuake3
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #7793735 - 12/23/07 08:35 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

YawningAnus said:
I wonder why people dont turn the same laughable/skeptic eye to psychiatric medicine that they would to say any other commercial selling a product that promises happiness?





and I wonder why the people who do, don't turn a laughable/skeptic eye to the insulin diabetics have to inject daily. Those crazy diabetics! They can't handle their problem on their own so they turn to shooting up drugs! They're addicted! :rolleyes:


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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7793758 - 12/23/07 08:41 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Quake3 said:
Quote:

YawningAnus said:
I wonder why people dont turn the same laughable/skeptic eye to psychiatric medicine that they would to say any other commercial selling a product that promises happiness?





and I wonder why the people who do, don't turn a laughable/skeptic eye to the insulin diabetics have to inject daily. Those crazy diabetics! They can't handle their problem on their own so they turn to shooting up drugs! They're addicted! :rolleyes:




The BIOLOGICAL problem of diabetes has been proven.
The biological problem of mental illnesses has yet to be proven (if ever :smirk:)


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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Invisiblebumble
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7793765 - 12/23/07 08:46 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Then HOW do you explain that a BIG part (and I'm inclined to say the most) of the people who stop the medication get back to being depressed? Some of them even more?.

I dont know if any of that is true and if it is just like the recreational drugs I use now some use them just to drift off to happyland while others use it to actively look into themselves to seek out and solve their problems. I think the word ppl use here is introspection. If a doctor just tells a patient to just swallow a pill that might be part of the problem. The doctor doesnt know enough on how to expand from there which of course is reason for concern in itself, why would you take drugs from a doctor who doesnt know enough?, they can still be useful and shouldnt be a reason to shy away but look into it more.

Getting back to the subject, can you please exemplify what would that blend between fact and intuition would be?

:rolleyes: you understood what I said very well


--------------------
progressive trance: Brian Rogers


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7793858 - 12/23/07 09:23 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Quake3 said:
Quote:

YawningAnus said:
I wonder why people dont turn the same laughable/skeptic eye to psychiatric medicine that they would to say any other commercial selling a product that promises happiness?





and I wonder why the people who do, don't turn a laughable/skeptic eye to the insulin diabetics have to inject daily. Those crazy diabetics! They can't handle their problem on their own so they turn to shooting up drugs! They're addicted! :rolleyes:




Im at work right now, So I dont have time to respond to your really long post before, but I will get around to it tomorrow or even late tonight.

But as for this quote, you still want to equate a proven biological malady and compare it to something that is still unproven to have any biological causes... as well as comparing something that is a scientifically proven medication for combating a biological malady to a drug that releases enough dopamine in your system so you feel "fucked up" enough to not have to worry about the problem.

you are trying to compare something that is objective and scientifically proven to something that is subjective and not scientifically proven.


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InvisibleGGreatOne234
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7793917 - 12/23/07 09:44 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Quake3 said:
Quote:

YawningAnus said:
I think it is funny that through your entire post you refer to mental disorders as if they are a biologically caused malady.

You act as if depression or any "emotional disability" is some extrinsic disease that you can catch or be born with.....





I believe that the majority of people who are labeled as "mentally ill" don't need medication and could probably benefit greatly from a life-style change, but that doesn't mean the problem can't be biological.

Your logic is binary; All or nothing; But life isn't that simple. It's true that anybody who reads the symptoms for depression will agree that they have it to some degree, but when the depression is severely impacting your life, it's a problem that needs to be addressed.

I thought I made it clear in the OP that by "addressed" I mean that it should be handled in whatever way works for the patient. If the dude is severely depressed but finds falling in love, trying LSD, meditating, seeing Fight Club or just going out to meet new people have helped him - GREAT! This dude doesn't need medication.

But what if the dude can't fix his problem? He has exhausted every route, or he's just so out of it that he can't even exercise for a week and the only thing everybody tells him is that he's depressed cause his life sucks. Now he is reluctant to take medication, but now what?

To me, you sound like you're saying "those that can fix their life on their own deserve to survive, and those that must resort to medication should be left to die off."

My view on mental illness changed radically when I went to visit my mom at a Mental Ward. Try going to one and telling the patients there that their problem isn't biological. The point is that it doesn't matter whether the problem is biological, or just due to having a shitty job. Everybody deserves a high quality of life.

Obviously, being med-free is better than being on meds, but being med-free, chronically fatigued, unable to concentrate in school or hold down a job, and being unable to socializ is far worse than taking a pill a day, experiencing a headache or diarrhea/constipation once in awhile, but being able to function at your optimal level.

Everyone accepts the fact that humans may be born with physical defects, but if the patient can walk and talk, his brain (WAY more complicated than the body) must be working 100% correctly. How do you make sense of this? I think you fail to see that many of our emotions and what drives our daily actions is actually beyond our control.

We also know of many infections that can greatly alter our cognitive abilities, judgment and thinking. Read up on Phineas Gage.

We know a lot about neurotransmitters and the brain. The more we learn, the more we realize how much stuff is biological - and is it surprising to those of us who aren't religious?

---
Dopamine
Dopamine in the thinking areas of the brain might be considered the neurotransmitter of focus and attending. Low levels impair our ability to focus on our environment or to "lock on" to tasks, activities, or conversations. Low levels of Dopamine make concentration and focus very difficult with low levels also associated with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). On the other end of the Dopamine dipstick, as Dopamine levels in the brain begin to raise, we become excited/energized, then suspicious and paranoid, then finally hyperstimulated by our environment. With low levels of Dopamine, we can't focus while with high levels of Dopamine our focus becomes narrowed and intense to the point of focusing on everything in our environment as though it were directly related to our situation.

Known as an "idea of reference" in psychiatry, we begin thinking unrelated experiences are suddenly directly related to us. People observed talking across the street are now talking about us. As Dopamine increases, it can become so intense that we feel the radio, television, and newspaper contain secret messages directed at us from Hollywood or elsewhere. It's as though we are attempting to incorporate/add everything we witness into our life. Planes flying overhead are snapping pictures of us and motorists talking on cellular phones are calling in a report on us. Our mind speed increases and races in an attempt to add all we see into our life. In an attempt to make sense, we may become extremely religious, paranoid, or feel we are a very important person. Increased Dopamine also increases the perception of our senses, as though turning up the volume in all our senses ¿ hearing, vision, taste, smell, and touch.


Norepinephrine
Low levels of norepinephrine are associated with a loss of alertness, poor memory, and depression. Norepinephrine appears to be the neurotransmitter of "arousal" and for that reason, lower-than-normal levels of this neurotransmitter produce below-average levels of arousal and interest, a symptom found in several psychiatric conditions including depression and ADHD. It is for this reason that medications for depression and ADHD often target both dopamine and norepinephrine in an attempt to restore both to normal level.


Serotonin
When Serotonin is low, we experience problems with concentration and attention. We become scatterbrained and poorly organized. Routine responsibilities now seem overwhelming. It takes longer to do things because of poor planning. We lose our car keys and put odd things in the refrigerator. We call people and forget why we called or go to the grocery and forget what we needed. We tell people the same thing two or three times.

Like all neurotransmitters, we can have too much Serotonin. While elevated levels of Serotonin produce a sense of well-being, bliss, and "oneness with the universe"
---

Quote:


All drugs will do is mask the problem.... and of course that is most peoples biggest argument FOR the use of psychopharmaceuticals... because it can make the symptoms (of not enjoying your own life) go away long enough for you to "fix" these problems.... but why do you need to when you have a pill that makes all your worries go away?
Then the day comes where you are addicted to that pill, mentally, physically and emotionally, and you realize that you need to get off of it.... then how easy will it be to "fix" your problems as you fight withdrawl?





There's no withdrawal if you gradually taper off the meds. But you bring up an interesting point. This now becomes more of an ethical issue:

What's wrong with remaining on meds forever? Some people don't mind. People take drugs forever for their physical problems anyway. Shouldn't this be the person's choice?

Should "healthy" people be allowed to take Ritalin, SSRIs, SNRIs, etc? Nowadays, many people do.

It's important to keep in mind that almost everybody experiences depression once in awhile, and especially during puberty and when getting old. This is absolutely normal and part of growing up/life. This isn't something that should be medicated. My post was aimed at the people who have wasted 5 years looking for "alternative medicine" to their problems AND haven't found anything. And yet remain reluctant to try modern medicine simply due to the negative stigma. These people are suffering.

If you DO have a chemical imbalance, the drugs make you NORMAL. They let you feel emotions and actually live life. Exercise, meditation, food, sex, relationships, other humans, hobbies all become enjoyable again. If you don't have a chemical imbalance, then you will likely feel drugged up and shouldn't take drugs.


Quote:


The closest thing I could acknowledge as "should" without falling from the area of common sense is what's natural.
And from what I know, feeling depressed is as natural as it gets.





Feeling depressed for a reason is natural. You shouldn't take Paxil just because your GF left you, and meds aren't prescribed for those situations anyway, unless the patient isn't getting help from CBT/ERP/other forms of therapy.

There is no "should" or "natural" way to live life. I've visited religious countries and they all drilled it into my head that unless you pray on a regular basis and do a dozen rituals a day, you don't deserve to be happy or content. These people believe that unless you follow their religion, your not living life as you should be and you're wasting your time.

This same attitude exists about mental illness and drugs (as well as illegal drugs). Some people feel that being happy 24/7 is a bad thing. They fail to see that other people wouldn't mind a life like this. Others don't mind living a life that to us seems miserable. I know 30 year olds who stay home all day, have very little friends, have never gotten laid and spend all day at work talking to me about how society is stupid and how they're so much more intelligent than the rest of us. And they're perfectly content. They'd never use any drug and they don't want to change. And that's fine. It's their life and they don't need to conform to anybody's standards.

Quote:


Depression happens because we refuse to face our problems and from a simple momentarily state of denial and delusion, the situation can intensify really fast and we get to have schizophrenic or bipolar or god knows what else manifestations.





Some people experience depression because they are delusional, yes, but not all depression is caused by this. I've done years of research on schizophrenia and anxiety disorders. We don't know what causes schizophrenia at this moment, but we do know that these are beyond the control of the patient. Schizophrenia shouldn't be compared to a drug trip - the episodes don't teach you anything, and it causes physical brain damage over time. Schizophrenia and Bipolar are SERIOUS conditions and should not be undermined.

(the paragraphs on neurotransmitters is from http://www.enotalone.com/article/4115.html )




i dont know man, it looks to me like you have completely over-thought the whole, thing

things like depression and social anxiety and post tramatic stress disorder and much much more, all, can be fixed, the answers excist by having a psychotherapist who knows what the hell they are doing, to simply "remove" that problem, or virus, from the simplest parts of the human brain... subconsciously, without you even, fucking, realizing it

um, it seems, that no one really wants to listen to what i am saying lol

so keep on keepin on with those pills, and maybe one day you will wind up on the right couch, with the right proffessional, and watch, as you are one hundred percent unaware, that the therapist, is walking through your brain, subconsciously, cleaning house, in the safest and cleanest and most effective possible way that is known to man

good luck everybody
gg


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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: GGreatOne234]
    #7793949 - 12/23/07 09:57 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

um, it seems, that no one really wants to listen to what i am saying lol




I pretty much agree with what you said. :shrug:
Not that it would change anything :lol:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7794726 - 12/24/07 03:27 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

This is not meant to be an argument from authority, but I have probably read over a thousand clinical studies and meta-analyses regarding the treatment of depression. Antidepressant medications do help some people, but not a clinically significant amount. Pretty much all long term (more than six months) clinical studies of antidepressant medication show little to no improvement compared to a control group.

Behavioral therapies seem to be the most effect treatment for most forms of depression. Unfortunately, finding a good behavioral therapist is going to cost you more time and money than taking pills.

If you have a mental illness such as schizophrenia, severe panic attacks with agoraphobia, a brief psychotic episode, etc, then you definitely should consider using medication.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7794732 - 12/24/07 03:30 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Oh... and a "chemical imbalance" is just a slogan used to market antidepressants. If anything, antidepressants CREATE an abnormal brain state.


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OfflineQuake3
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #7794895 - 12/24/07 08:04 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Some good points were made.

Quote:

YawningAnus said:
Im at work right now, So I dont have time to respond to your really long post before, but I will get around to it tomorrow or even late tonight.

But as for this quote, you still want to equate a proven biological malady and compare it to something that is still unproven to have any biological causes... as well as comparing something that is a scientifically proven medication for combating a biological malady to a drug that releases enough dopamine in your system so you feel "fucked up" enough to not have to worry about the problem.

you are trying to compare something that is objective and scientifically proven to something that is subjective and not scientifically proven.




I just find that most people who brush off psychiatry don't really know anything about it. It sounds dumb on the surface, making it an easy target, but I find it odd that people can just ignore/throw away decades of research, thinking scientists and doctors haven't given thought to the issues we're bringing up here. Yes, marketing, business and a host of other things do have a MAJOR role, but underneath the bullshit they spew, there's still a repository of valid information.

I just feel that many many people ignore modern science just due to our negative stigma about how the world should be. I agree with everyone here that in an ideal world, people wouldn't need drugs, but I also know that the mentality that "all chemicals are bad - natural is ALWAYS better" is widely accepted today. This is the reason everyone buys into the self-help and "natural medicine" quackery in infomercials.

* Every emotion and sensation has a chemical composition in the brain. Whether it's ego death, sadness, motivation, attention-span, being in love, wanting to die or feeling fatigue (nonphysical kind), the emotion can be measured. Please understand that I am not saying these feelings are artificial or insignificant, I'm just stating facts. Read the next point.

* We know that brain chemistry changes depending on external forces. A 100% healthy person will have low levels of happy chemicals in their brain if they had just experienced something traumatic. Regular meditation can cause profound changes in brain chemistry, and so can one LSD trip, simply by changing our outlook on life. Learning something new can also vastly change our brain chemistry.

* There are also things that alter brain chemistry physically. Syphilis and other infections, a head injury, viruses, bad genetics and so forth, for example, can cause feelings of depression or mania, being horny, motor problems, memory loss, etc, depending on what gets damaged in your brain.

* No human is born perfect. Every single human has at least some defects. Most of the time, these are very minor; I.e., asymmetrical hands, a genetic predisposition to ingrown nails. Some things are considered "defects" depending on society.

We can put these facts together to conclude two things:
1) Some mental illness is caused by external factors. I believe that the majority of it is caused by this.

2) Other mental illness cases are not due to the person's life sucking, but simply to something gone wrong in the brain. A "normal" person who gets hit in the head might no longer be compassionate, or have patience for example (Phineas Gage).


There are also a few more important facts:

* Medicine is big business. (and we know the nature of business).

* We know a lot about the brain, but there are still many things we don't know. We don't know exactly WHY reduced serotonin receptor sites improve mood for instance, nor are we sure why sleep is needed or how memory works exactly. We're getting there.

* Every treatment option, natural or not, has pros and cons. Sometimes, the pros heavily outweigh the cons, other times it doesn't.

Being that pharmaceuticals are a business, it's obvious they will push to sell anything. I do believe that this needs to change. There are certain conditions that I feel should be more critically analyzed. Particularly ADD, OCD, OCPD, depression and fibromyalgia.

I'm not saying these don't exist; Just that they can be tackled with CBT or ERP (therapy) without the need for medication in some-most people. The Internet and technology cause ADD for example. This has been described as "ADD trait" or "NADD - Nerd ADD." OCD and OCPD respond well to ERP treatment, and many forms of depression respond well to CBT, changes in lifestyle, etc.

It becomes a problem when people take the fact that medicine is business and that we are still pondering about how the brain works, and turn those into justification for not wanting to take medication. People like that are easily manipulated into falling for another big business: Alternative medicine.

It's easy to believe myths like raw veganism being healthy, or "natural" being better than synthetics, even though these are rarely based on sound evidence or facts. It makes me think of people I know who fear vaccination and think they're awesome because they don't take ibuprofen or Advil for a headache. It's almost a trend.

Every treatment has cons. These need to be taken into account. For example, taking shrooms once a month fixed most of my problems, but this isn't a viable solution to me and most people.

Exercise helps, but are almost impossible for somebody with anxiety, ADD or severe depression to make a daily habit.

Mindfulness meditation has helped me tremendously, but has not reduced my problems so much as to not interfere with what I want to do in life. A major side effect of this therapy would be taking 2-3 years off for a retreat.

The nature of the treatment needs to be taken into account. Meditation, for example, is great, but is not a viable alternative to medication in most cases unless one goes on 2-3 year retreat. Most people won't or can't do that.

Quote:


This is not meant to be an argument from authority, but I have probably read over a thousand clinical studies and meta-analyses regarding the treatment of depression. Antidepressant medications do help some people, but not a clinically significant amount. Pretty much all long term (more than six months) clinical studies of antidepressant medication show little to no improvement compared to a control group.

Behavioral therapies seem to be the most effect treatment for most forms of depression. Unfortunately, finding a good behavioral therapist is going to cost you more time and money than taking pills.

...

Oh... and a "chemical imbalance" is just a slogan used to market antidepressants. If anything, antidepressants CREATE an abnormal brain state.





Good points. The reason the medication only works for a small number of people is because the majority of people who are depressed don't have a chemical imbalance. Actually, the OP was targetted at those people. The people who've spent years trying alternative routes with no success, but continue to refuse medication due to its negative stigma. I was hoping to provide motivation to get them to seek professional help.

You're right in that the meds may create an imbalance themselves, but this would only happen if you're healthy already (chemically). Using the brain as a car analogy, the meds would be like putting gas into a full tank. The overflow would be the imbalance created by the meds. Therefore, again, medicine should be considered AFTER therapy, to rule out the possibility that the depression is not due to a chemical imbalance.

Just from my own observations, I believe that most severe cases of depression are caused by an underlying anxiety. Anxiety is hard to notice, especially because over time, the patient develops rituals or rationalizations for his fears. For example, many depressed people are anti-social. This can be attributed to anxiety, but most of these people will justify it as telling themselves that they are better or more intelligent than most of society. Most people with severe depression also seem to be overly shy, socially inept and rarely in the present moment, thinking about what-ifs and what-could-ofs. Everyone experiences these to some degree, but it tends to greatly interfere with life in somebody with anxiety.

When I say "anti-social," I don't mean the trend that it's "cool" to oppose norms and corporations. These people aren't anti-social because they do socialize, albeit amongst themselves or in their own little community, they just have a (IMO) distorted view of reality.

What I mean by the term are the people who really cannot socialize. The ones that sit in class quietly and are too nervous to raise their hand even though they know the answer. The ones that nod or shake their head because they're too shy to speak up. The ones that can barely make eye-contact and refuse to do school presentations or work in a place where socializing is necessary (customer service, etc). These people are the ones that need medication if they've tried everything else with no luck, and while they may be diagnosed with depression, I believe that their depression is a symptom of an anxiety disorder.

One very important thing I forgot to mention. Many people believe that the psychiatric drugs make you happy. They refuse to get medicated because they would rather feel depressed than to not have emotions (indifferent, numb), or they believe that the meds make you happy 24/7 in any situation. Both these views make the drugs unappealing, but fortunately, they are based on the older psychiatric medications (like Thorazine) that we used to give mental illness patients 30 years ago.

Assuming you DO have a chemical imbalance. The drugs don't make you happy at all. They make you normal - the baseline of a healthy person. Things you've previously enjoyed become enjoyable again, but negative situations still make you depressed. I feel that many people view the meds as making you happy in seemingly miserable situations. A sedated guy staring at the wall with a huge smile on his face, even though he's sitting in a knee-high pile of shit and his wife and kids abandoned him. This isn't true.

The effects of the drugs is surprisingly subtle, they're almost a placebo compared to weed and are far less "numbing" than a few beers. If your life sucks, you will still be depressed, but the meds will help you better yourself by going to work, getting back into relationships and keeping yourself busy. They stop you from getting irritable and aggressive over minor issues, and give you your energy and motivation back. They remind you why your old hobbies were fun, and you can read a book without having to reread the paragraph 10 times to understand it.

I'm sensitive to weed and shrooms, requiring far less to feel effects. The effects themselves don't seem to be altered, but the experience is more enjoyable in a way, sort of like when I first began smoking. It is probably due to a removal of a layer of anxiety underlying most of my previous trips.

When I play the piano, I'm a lot more fluent and smooth. I have my libido back. Sex, even just kissing, are no longer a waste of time to me. I'm less irritable and I actually get my work done. I've had a folder with business ideas that I've been meaning to get to for 3 years now. I'm finally going through each one of my projects.

Side effects are occasional headaches and changes in appetite. Initially I had bowel problems, but that cleared itself up.

It's not really like meth or ecstasy. There's no rush or "speedy" feeling. I can't stress how natural and subtle the effects feel. Mental illness (schizophrenia) runs in my family, so it's likely I do have a chemical imbalance. One thing that disappoints me is how some of my relatives and friends kept scaring me away from pharmaceuticals when I was younger. I feel like so much time was wasted. I wrote the OP in an effort to get people in the situation I was in to consider seeking professional help.

The way I'm talking about these drugs now, sounds much like the way we talk to people about illegal drugs. We give them lectures on the pros and cons of weed and LSD, but they're viewpoint is fixed that these cause a plethora of side effects and ethical/social problems.

Please keep the debate going. My intention is not to cause an uproar, but simply to get people to share their viewpoints and think. I will eventually put the significant points in the OP so that new readers don't need to go through the entire thread.


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Offlinejumpingjunmbojet
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: MushroomTrip]
    #7794988 - 12/24/07 09:05 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

MushroomTrip said:
Quote:

um, it seems, that no one really wants to listen to what i am saying lol




I pretty much agree with what you said. :shrug:
Not that it would change anything :lol:




same dude. I dont think bumble is full of shit either. Im a computer scientist and by no means an expert on psychosis- but isnt some chronic depression sometimes caused because the brain simply stops producing some chemicals, and isnt that proven? I had friends who were shocked but ended up with psychiatrist even though nothing traumatic happened.

Not saying it works for everyone, but how can anyone who hasnt even tried it themselves give a verdict? Even if you have there is no garuntee that its the same for others as well.

cool thread guys


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7796041 - 12/24/07 04:07 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

I'm not going to argue whether or not antidepressant medications are effective, because that issue is still hotly debated within psychology and psychiatry. Enough research could support either opinion.

This chemical imbalance talk is all nonsense, though.

Neuroscientists are probably about fifty years away from discovering what a "healthy" brain looks like at the chemical level. Currently, we don't even know how to define "health" in neurological terms, much less chemical terms. Scientists in German recently discovered that a single neuron had enough computational power to make an organism feel pain. The brain is extremely hard to reverse engineer.

The serotonin hypothesis of depression has not been proven. Taking GABA supplements lowers levels of serotonin, but it does not make you depressed. (It will make you relaxed, though.) The only reason the serotinin hypothesis exists is because pharmaceutical companies are willing to reason backwards. Their logic is: because certain neurotransmitter reuptake inhibitors create a better mood then a low amount of these neurotransmitters must cause a bad mood. This is the same as saying low levels of aspirin in the brain cause headaches.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7796271 - 12/24/07 05:33 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Quote:

Quake3 said:
Some good points were made.

Quote:

YawningAnus said:
Im at work right now, So I dont have time to respond to your really long post before, but I will get around to it tomorrow or even late tonight.

But as for this quote, you still want to equate a proven biological malady and compare it to something that is still unproven to have any biological causes... as well as comparing something that is a scientifically proven medication for combating a biological malady to a drug that releases enough dopamine in your system so you feel "fucked up" enough to not have to worry about the problem.

you are trying to compare something that is objective and scientifically proven to something that is subjective and not scientifically proven.




I just find that most people who brush off psychiatry don't really know anything about it.



http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/5918747#5918747
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/6155096#6155096
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/5924271/page/0/fpart/1/vc/1



Quote:

It sounds dumb on the surface, making it an easy target, but I find it odd that people can just ignore/throw away decades of research, thinking scientists and doctors haven't given thought to the issues we're bringing up here. Yes, marketing, business and a host of other things do have a MAJOR role, but underneath the bullshit they spew, there's still a repository of valid information.



throw away decades of research? you mean like the rigorous testing done before the entire field of Psychiatry labeled homosexuality as a mental disease? or how about before they started shoving ice picks in peoples heads? or maybe how they havent stopped shocking the shit out of people?
or maybe you can name me one disorder or disease that psychiatry has cured or even effectively combated? how would you explain the steady rise of mental disorders?
psychiatry has produced nothing but theories and inflicted unnecessary pain.


Quote:

I just feel that many many people ignore modern science just due to our negative stigma about how the world should be. I agree with everyone here that in an ideal world, people wouldn't need drugs,



people dont NEED drugs

Quote:

but I also know that the mentality that "all chemicals are bad - natural is ALWAYS better" is widely accepted today. This is the reason everyone buys into the self-help and "natural medicine" quackery in infomercials.



Im not defending homeopathy or alternative medicines really. I think they both promote a fundamentally flawed view of what "mental illness" is and try to fix it extrinsically with whatever new bauble or serum is marketed.... while they both move people further down the wrong path, atleast "alternative medicines" dont abuse the trust that society places in science.
See, Psychiatry is not a science... it is a theory. The mind, and emotions, and thoughts, and behavior are all entirely subjective... and you cannot base a science upon something that is subjective.
Psychiatry has gone with a theory that supports cephalic destiny and thus trying to make an abstract problem a tangible treatable thing... all based around the correlations of neurotransmitters and mood.
but one thing that they have never proven is CAUSE. in medical science, it is ethical to take lab rats and try to mimic a physical complication in order to reverse engineer the disease and find a root cause.... only then can they actually make progress towards a cure.
that is how science works... it isnt when the ends justify the means, or "hey lets keep throwing random amalgamations of amphetamines at people and seeing if that makes them forget about their problems".

Quote:

* Every emotion and sensation has a chemical composition in the brain. Whether it's ego death, sadness, motivation, attention-span, being in love, wanting to die or feeling fatigue (nonphysical kind), the emotion can be measured. Please understand that I am not saying these feelings are artificial or insignificant, I'm just stating facts. Read the next point.



emotion cannot be measured..... if so, please explain how. these are not facts. when you give a puppy to a 7 year old for christmas, how exactly does that make them happy? in the psychiatry world, it would be explained as his hopes and desires coming true somehow clicked something in his brain and released tons of dopamine and seratonin which in turn made him happy... but in a logical world we would see that the puppy made him happy which in turn released dopamine and seratonin in his brain.



Quote:

* We know that brain chemistry changes depending on external forces. A 100% healthy person will have low levels of happy chemicals in their brain if they had just experienced something traumatic. Regular meditation can cause profound changes in brain chemistry, and so can one LSD trip, simply by changing our outlook on life. Learning something new can also vastly change our brain chemistry.



taking deep breathes changes your brain composition... it is constantly in flux... everything changes your brain composition... drugs moreso because that is what they are designed for.
drugs work, they make you feel good... that isnt scientific, that is trial and error.


Quote:

* No human is born perfect. Every single human has at least some defects. Most of the time, these are very minor; I.e., asymmetrical hands, a genetic predisposition to ingrown nails. Some things are considered "defects" depending on society.



ah you hit it on the head! depending on society.
here is a quote of mine from another thread...
s it plausible that psychiatry is fundamentally incorrect in its assertion that there is a biophysiological cause for mood disorders? Is it plausible that the real discrepency comes from what is real, raw human behaviour, and how our society acts and forces us to be?

take ADHD for example. Here, psychiatrists are telling us that it is abnormal for young children to be hyperactive, as well as having a short "attention span" (wherever that is located). Is it plausible that the laziness of parents, or the diet of children, or hell, the overall general nature of children is the cause for hyperactivity? Is it plausible that the problem of "maintaining focus" stems from the forced, rigid guidelines of what our society considers "normal attention"... things like having an equal affinity or interest in all subjects, ranging from economics to archery?
I think we can both agree that there is a base level of innate, primal interests that humans have. Boys like fire trucks, the woods, hunting, wrestling etc. If we lived in a society where children didnt have to learn about the Magna Carta and thermodynamics, but rather existed in a primal society... do you think there would be a problem of focusing on a task?
Give me any boy whose is considered afflicted with having little to no attention span, and I will show him a playboy magazine for 30 seconds and bet you that he could recall almost every detail... 3 years later.
Just as our societal standards for information retention and subject affinity are not the same as a primal society, our standards for happiness are not on par with a primal society.

so, my hypothesis for the cause of mood disorders is not an organic one, but rather a problem of society defining unreal parameters that do not fit into the reality of human behaviour.
Oddly enough, it has been psychiatrists for the last 80 years who have dictated what is "normal" and what is "sane", and our society has placed trust in their "scientific assesment" and gone along with it.
But, I dont blame psychiatry entirely for that, it is also the sensational, overblown, unreal depiction of life in our media.


Quote:

We can put these facts together to conclude two things:
1) Some mental illness is caused by external factors. I believe that the majority of it is caused by this.

2) Other mental illness cases are not due to the person's life sucking, but simply to something gone wrong in the brain. A "normal" person who gets hit in the head might no longer be compassionate, or have patience for example (Phineas Gage).



what facts? and how can we draw these conclusions from these "facts"?

I just dont see how someone can be genetically predisposed to enjoying life less than someone else. Can you explain that to me? explain to me how having less dopamine in your brain keeps you from enjoying a painting, a walk in the park, a beautiful woman less than me.
also, do you believe in cephalic destiny? meaning that everything that we do is predetermined by the chemicals in our brain... that our entire personality, character, and decisions are all done by fluids and firing synapses.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #7798978 - 12/25/07 06:31 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

bump


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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #7799067 - 12/25/07 07:06 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

YawningAnus said:
maybe you can name me one disorder or disease that psychiatry has cured or even effectively combated?





Wow.

shows how much you know.


--------------------
"Shmokin' weed, Shmokin' wizz, doin' coke, drinkin' beers.  Drinkin' beers beers beers, rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts.  Who smokes tha blunts?  We smoke the blunts" - Jay and Silent Bob strike Back


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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: LiquidSmoke]
    #7799096 - 12/25/07 07:17 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Perhaps you would like to elaborate


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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #7799126 - 12/25/07 07:33 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

YawningAnus said:it would be explained as his hopes and desires coming true somehow clicked something in his brain and released tons of dopamine and seratonin which in turn made him happy... but in a logical world we would see that the puppy made him happy which in turn released dopamine and seratonin in his brain.






Dopamine and seratonin release in syncrasy?

wow that's pretty uhhh....amazing :lol:


--------------------
"Shmokin' weed, Shmokin' wizz, doin' coke, drinkin' beers.  Drinkin' beers beers beers, rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts.  Who smokes tha blunts?  We smoke the blunts" - Jay and Silent Bob strike Back


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OfflineLiquidSmoke
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #7799129 - 12/25/07 07:37 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

YawningAnus said:


take ADHD for example.




i like how you only ever talk about is ADHD as your primary tool to discredit an entire field which you hardly know anything about.

In fact, in almost every single mental illness debate you've ever involved yourself in, you've always had to revert to "ADHD as an example" instead of "ADHD as the best example i can think of".


--------------------
"Shmokin' weed, Shmokin' wizz, doin' coke, drinkin' beers.  Drinkin' beers beers beers, rollin' fatties, smokin' blunts.  Who smokes tha blunts?  We smoke the blunts" - Jay and Silent Bob strike Back


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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: LiquidSmoke]
    #7799328 - 12/25/07 08:55 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

In fact, in almost every single mental illness debate you've ever involved yourself in, you've always had to revert to "ADHD as an example" instead of "ADHD as the best example i can think of".




I'm sure that's what's keeping you from making a proper argumentation :smirk:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
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Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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OfflineQuake3
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #7799477 - 12/25/07 09:57 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Neuroscientists are probably about fifty years away from discovering what a "healthy" brain looks like at the chemical level. Currently, we don't even know how to define "health" in neurological terms, much less chemical terms. Scientists in German recently discovered that a single neuron had enough computational power to make an organism feel pain. The brain is extremely hard to reverse engineer.

The serotonin hypothesis of depression has not been proven. Taking GABA supplements lowers levels of serotonin, but it does not make you depressed. (It will make you relaxed, though.) The only reason the serotinin hypothesis exists is because pharmaceutical companies are willing to reason backwards. Their logic is: because certain neurotransmitter reuptake inhibitors create a better mood then a low amount of these neurotransmitters must cause a bad mood. This is the same as saying low levels of aspirin in the brain cause headaches.




I agree that we still don't have a perfect view of the brain (not even close), and yes, the serotonin hypothesis hasn't been proven (neither have many many things, but we can deduct theories, this is the nature of science - we still don't even know if saturated fat is bad for you, nor why we sleep). Blocking the reuptake of serotonin eventually causes your brain to create less serotonin receptors, and this increases mood. Why? We don't know. We also don't really understand how/why other neurotransmitters play a major role in overall "mood" (ambiguous) too.

But this is irreverent to my point. Whether or not serotonin is proven to do anything doesn't make much of a difference to most people who ARE suffering from a depression that isn't responding to any other form of treatment. For example, schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, and one of the most effective treatments is blocking the high levels of dopamine commonly seen in patients. The high levels of dopamine can be a symptom of the schizophrenia, caused by something else, but so what? What are we supposed to do until we advance further into the brain to determine the root cause of the problem (which can very well be external, the illness being caused by a virus is still a very prominent theory)?

Under your logic, we wouldn't give patients atypical antipsychotics because we're not sure of the true cause of schizophrenia. Using the 'fat' example I mentioned above, our only theory that saturated fat and high levels of cholesterol cause heart disease is because most people with heart problems have high levels of cholesterol. This is working backwards (most science is), and seems logical and simple, except that some things don't make sense. Why is heart disease non-existent in places where people only eat high fat diets? One theory is that cholesterol is released by the body to repair damage done to arteries by free radicals. The debate is big and ongoing, but until we figure it out, people are dying, so our best effort right now would be to get people to reduce their cholesterol intake, because this seems to help. It's not an "all or nothing" scenario: This either works 100% or you shouldn't take it. We have compromises (low doses of meds + therapy for instance).

You both present your viewpoints, but neither of you have a solution to the problem. I've been very critically keeping up with psychiatry for close to a decade now, and months ago, I would have been in this thread typing out exactly what you guys are replying. My viewpoint changed after I stopped being stubborn (not saying any of you are, but I was), dropped my assumptions about science and psychiatry, and began to really research genetics and neuroscience. I read journals, took classes and I read arguments pro/anti medication. I was in awe at how far we've come in the last 10 years, and how wrong I was to make assumptions that mental illness patients were idiotic and should just get over their problems using exercise and an acid trip. I actually visited hospitals and saw these people first hand.

Many of the anti-drug arguments are good and are still valid today, but most people don't realize that the (numerous) cons of the drugs doesn't outweigh the cons people experience from their problem. Medication is a huge blessing to these people. Do you guys remember 'farm colonies'? Research 'Pilgrim State' - This is how we used to treat mental illness patients before medication became a viable solution.

My intention wasn't to start an argument for/pro psychiatry. My original post was targeted at a very specific group of people. Those that are facing serious problems and a piss-poor quality of life due to a mental illness that they refuse to seek professional treatment for simply due to a negative stigma about meds. I am assuming that these people have exhausted every other means of treatment (feasible to them) without much success. For those that got over their problems using drug-free methods, awesome! Share your experience (in another thread!) and help people go your route. People suffering do seek such threads for motivation and insights.

The reason drugs are so popular and widely used today is not just due to the fact that they bring in lots of money, but because there is currently no practical solution to the problem (again - doesn't apply to everyone, see paragraph above). They might not be perfect, and I believe that in the coming decades, their use will decline as we uncover more about the brain, but until then, millions of people deserve a standard quality of life.

Mental illness occurs in every society in every part of the world. There's no doubting that many cases are caused by at least some physical problem, but I don't necessarily believe that the physical problem of mental illness is simply tied to crappy regulation of neurotransmitters. I believe that severe cases of mental illness that don't resolve on their own and don't respond to drug-free treatment might be caused by a physical problem, which in turn causes the messed up levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. The physical problem might just be a defect or chronic condition that is hard to detect, or due to something external such as a virus or an infection.

For instance, sleep apnea is sometimes hard to detect, especially when the person doesn't snore and doesn't wake up repeatedly in the middle of the night (those are the most common symptoms). The subject may simply not be getting the amount of REM required for the benefits of sleep. This can result in waking up feeling exhausted, chronic fatigue, inability to concentrate, and so forth; Very common symptoms of depression. This itself makes the subject depressed and that shows up on scans as a chemical imbalance. What would happen in this case? The subject would be given antidepressants, and might or might not respond well to it, being that the medication isn't targeting the root of the problem. Sleep apnea is just one of countless "real" physical problems that can result in a chemical imbalance. Or maybe a temporary physical problem results in depression which feeds on itself, causing more physical problems (i.e., patient gets a virus that causes brain damage/depression. Body fights it off, but during the depression, patient gained 50lb, now patient has sleep apnea and that keeps the depression going).

That's my take on it. Most mental illness can be taken care of in CBT and other forms of therapy (ERP is gaining ground too), some others require self-exploration and development of good habits, or simply adopting a better view of reality, but the minority of people who aren't responding well to the first two should seek medicine - but only IF their problem is having a major impact on their life: If it's ruining their marriage, making them lose their job, etc, then it's a waste of time not to take meds IMO. This is after you have tried the drug-free treatments and have gotten yourself physically checked up for common things that can cause your mental illness (paying close attention to every symptom helps).

It's my hope that people will use the meds only as support to help them through other forms of treatment. For example, combining low doses of benzos with meditation to ease anxiety - as in the first link I posted in the OP. I see current psychiatric meds as being cure-alls the same way opiates and amphetamine were once prescribed for everything. Maybe tomorrow, we'll have a breakthrough discovery that instantly renders the pills obsolete and out of the clinic - we're getting there, Neuroplasticity is picking up ground - but as of right now, they remain a solution for those that need help.

Anyway - (1 minute belated) MERRY CHRISTMAS! <3 <3 <3 :heart:


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mental illness? Go get medicated! [Re: Quake3]
    #7799939 - 12/26/07 01:20 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Under your logic, we wouldn't give patients atypical antipsychotics because we're not sure of the true cause of schizophrenia.




Umm, no. I began my last post by stating that I would not debate the effectiveness of reuptake inhibitors as a treatment for depression.

Under my logic, we would not say that schizophrenia is caused by a "chemical imbalance" because second generation antipsychotics modulate dopamine receptors. Whether or not using atypical antipsychotics are an effective treatment is a totally different issue. Etiology and treatment are two distinct things.

Quote:

our only theory that saturated fat and high levels of cholesterol cause heart disease is because most people with heart problems have high levels of cholesterol.




So? That is not reasoning backwards. Saturated fat and cholesterol form plaques.

Quote:

This is working backwards (most science is)




Reasoning backwards is a logical fallacy that has no place in science.

Quote:

You both present your viewpoints, but neither of you have a solution to the problem.




I presented an empirically based solution to the problem in my first post.


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