Dumbass attitudes towards mental illness
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deepsand ...@aol.comSUCKTHIS (LostBoyinNC)
Today I had the first doctor's appointment since I got discharged from the hospital back in late Feb. I saw my GP doc, another guy I dont like very much.
I asked him if he could do medication prescribing for me from now on, that Ive pretty much had it with psychiatry. Quite frankly, with a few exceptions I cant ****ing stand most psychiatrists. Its not that Im in denial about my mental illness problems or that I dont want to take meds, its that I have a major problem with the subjectiveness of psychiatry and I dont feel its very scientific. I dont like the relationship which oftentimes exists between patient and Pdoc in psychiatry, oftentimes it borders on a "Im the psychiatrist and I know everything and your the mental patient." Anyway, my GP doc started going into this crap about "we dont know much about the brain and mental illness." And that "psychiatrists know the most about mental illness and Eric needs a pro experienced Pdoc." Well **** me and screw all dickhead family doctors. He told me that after I told him how I viewed mental illness, that I viewed it as a medical problem and even as a brain disease. He kind of thought that was a wild statement. He agreed with me totally on the medical treatment aspect, but I could tell he didnt exactly agree on the brain part. He thought that was kinda far out there. Now I gotta ask you, how can depression be a medical issue if its not a brain functioning problem? Does depression just happen for no reason? Does it just exist with absolutely no biological underpinnings or causes?
Then he went onto try to explain to me stuff about PET and SPECT scans of the brain in those with mental illness and he said it was "extremely subjective." Basically what he was telling me was nobody knows anything about mental illness in a science or neurology kind of way.
Thats the kind of attitudes we mentally ill people have to face. Its always been that way too. Dumb*** people, including many medical professionals, dont have a clue about severe mood disorders.
I find it funny that when I go to someplace like Duke Im told that "depression causes changes in the brain" kind of thing but when I deal with my family doc its strictly a "psychological problem." Dumb*** attitudes towards severe mental illness exist in large numbers.
What we really need in this country is a "mental illness Czar." Appointed by the President himself. Kind of a political hit man of sorts to straighten out all the many extreme problems which still exist in the USA regarding severe mental illness. Maybe this mental illness Czar could start pushing hard to get psychiatry formally merged with Neurology and get the show on the road and end all this stigma shit about severe mental illness. If psychiatry was formally merged with Neurology, more people would begin looking at mental illness as a real medical problem and the bad attitudes would begin to change.
Psychiatry needs to be forced to fundamentally change from the outside...like a mental illness Czar appointed by the President could push for possibly.
Formally merge it with Neurology, get rid of psychiatry as it presently exists.
Bring in lots of high tech NASA type research into mental illness diagnosis and treatment. Computers, neuroimaging, cutting edge Neuro science research and ditch this crappy psychology based mental illness research. They need to make mental illness not subjective anymore and more objective...science based like other major medical problems.
As long as mental illness treatment is still heavily connected to psychology like it is in psychiatry (psychologically based diagnoses) the boogeyman attitudes towards those with mental illness will just continue forever and ever. Psychiatry and its roots in psychology is largely responsible for all the stigma and subjectiveness of mental illness. I mean, psychology is extremely subjective and when all the diagnoses in psychiatry are based on psychological models of mental illness...it cant be anything other than subjective and unscientific.
I dont think psychiatry will ever change on its own. I think it needs to be forced to change by outside forces, political pressures, lobbying, that sort of thing. Because psychiatry is still staunchly based upon psychological models of mental illness and this wont change easily. A lot of psychiatrists are intensely resisting the ideas of those like Dr. Amen and Mark George...psychiatrists who firmly believe mental illness is rooted in poor brain functioning.
Its just totally ridiculous. Makes me sick to know that I suffer from a genuine serious medical problem but its viewed as a "psychological problem" by most doctors even today in the year 2001.
Eric Steroids caused my depression...prednisone should be used conservatively http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FactsAndFallaciesOfDepression MIBS (Minimally Invasive Brain Stimulation) http://www.musc.edu/psychiatry/fnrd/tms.htm
stayinastepah ...@aol.com (StayinAStepAhead)
Depression or the thinking one does while depressed does I believe over time effect the physical changes in the brain you speak of. I had a long spell of misfortune. Somewhere during it I began thinking it would never end.
Then it ended, but I couldnt stop thinking it would never end, so remained depressed. The groove for that thought pattern was so well honed, like a groove on a well worn record, right into my physical brain I bet.
In my case my thinking still like a depressed person when all reason for being depressed had ended, and life was good, made it obvious I was stuck in that well worn groove, and had to menatlly with my mind will myself not to think those things but other things. JUMP out of the groove set in my brain after so long, cross over the divider, think myself out of the groove, rut somehw.
Then stay away from those thoughts, and out of that groove and let the brain heal over it, fill in that rut.
Think to once again effect the brain physically, but not to create the groove for a depression, but to pave over it, fill it all in let myself think new things based upon present, not those old thoughts owing to a groove got set during times bad.
In the same way depression can change the phsical brain structure just by the negative thoughts, thinking positve ones can chang it back.
Read power of positive thinking! Believe you can mentally make yourself break throgh the derpession, especially if the meds arent doing it for you.
Linda
deepsand ...@aol.comSUCKTHIS (LostBoyinNC)
No, what he meant was that PET and SPECT scans are not advanced enough or reliable or consistent enough to be used clinically yet. I already knew that and Ive posted that myself on here many times. SPECT/PET functional neuroimaging is still in the research phase.
My GP doc doesnt have a clue about mental illness. He separates it from "physical" illnesses" such as he treats in his family practice. I dont really think you understand either.
You can look at a bunch of brain scans and conclude that a Not entirely true Denise. In those scans the research doctors are finding fairly consistent changes in the brains of those with various forms of depression, manic depression, ADD, anxiety disorders, psychosis, etc. etc. I was told this knowledge of whats being found out about brain function from functional neuroimaging research will eventually lead to newer treatments and improved diagnosis. People like my GP doc and yourself dont have a clue about what Im talking about.
No...the real problem Denise is that most people just dont think about mental illness in the way I do. I look at it like its purely a medical problem and if its a medical problem then its a brain problem. I dont understand whats so ****ing difficult to understand about that. Most people think of mental illness as if its some kind of weird, mysterious psychological or emotional problem that just kind of has no biological underpinnings. I dont agree with that, I think there are medical reasons as to why severe mental illness exists in some people.
Whats so hard to understand about that Denise?
I never heard of him, but if he is in Bush's cabinet or something that wouldnt mean much as I have pretty much been "out of it" for the past seven or eight months. I dont watch the news much anymore.
He didnt want to prescribe psych meds for me and told me I needed to go back to the psychiatry people.
Eric Steroids caused my depression...prednisone should be used conservatively http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FactsAndFallaciesOfDepression MIBS (Minimally Invasive Brain Stimulation) http://www.musc.edu/psychiatry/fnrd/tms.htm
Steven Kaess and Holly Spain stevenho...@home.com
5 months, thats good follow up care.
How much you like someone has no bearing on their skill.
Unless they agree with you, eh?
What word you like better, avoidance?
True, but it's the best we have, eric. You have to gut it out, old boy.
Rather like the way you treat people here, eh? A good critique however.
So you go to see a professional and you do not like what he tells you, so you impugn all members of his profession?
Perhaps he sees how depression can cause physical symptoms, but does not agree with your beloved broken brain theory.
So he told you the truth and you did not like it, huh. It's hard to lose ones precious ideas when one devotes so much time to building a sand castle upon them.
It is nice the way you are now sucking the universe of the mentally ill into your own personal hell, eric. Too bad you are all alone on this one.
Or perhaps they have much more then a clue, but their thoughts on the matter are not your thoughts?
You mean 'dukey' that place *everyone* in North Carolina knows is staffed by know nothing jews and woman from New York and New Jersey, that place with the run down facilities which so insulted you? The University that is far behind UNC in every way according to your previous posts, that place?
Yeah, I bet Bush would appoint the President of Eli Lilly to the job. Prozac with every school lunch, and perhaps some retilin to boot.
So you want to kill people who you disagree with, eric?
This should happen, but an outside force can not do it. The way to accomplish this is fore the Government to start funding neurologists to do very large multi center studies on people with various mental illnesses. Take the bucks from the psychiatrists and let some other folks have a shot.
What stigma shit are you talking about?
How do you foresee this process going?
Wait, lets see, does this last paragraph fall into what might be termed disordered thinking?
In any case, throwing bucks and hoping high tech will solve the problem has not worked in other fields, why do you think it will work here?
True enough, however there has not been a single test yet developed to conclusively demonstrate any mental illness. Perhaps in time, but you can not rely on things that do not exist, eric.
All it will take is for the HMO's to change, eric. The buck speaks rather loudly.
Want to provide the evidence that you used to determine that you have a serious physical illness, lost boy?
Squiggles squig...@sympatico.ca
That's really insightful... i think that's very good; i suppose this is the kind of insight that cognitive therapy works on; but i think that in the depths of clinical depression, this would be either an inaccessible self-revelation to the person, or even if it came to consciousness would not do any good; this type of analysis might be good once the person has somewhat recoverd from grief-type depression, i suppose.
Squiggles
Linda lbrite...@drsend.com
Sounds like, "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" thinking to me.
L On Sat, 14 Jul 2001 11:23:47 -0400, Squiggles <squig...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
stayinastepah ...@aol.com (StayinAStepAhead)
I think those who experience recurrent depressions have a learning curve regards it.
First few times i experienced depression I didnt know it til I was a vegetable and only then recognized, Knew, thought, had the cognition come into my consciousness something was seriously wrong.....
But, after I had depression a few times, though you still depressed, you KNOW your depressed, you are conscious of it, the symptoms, etc.
So its a good question whether while in the pits of major depression I could think myself out that.
I think because I KNOW, about it all so well, from my learning curve, I may be able to. The best thing to do is not allow myself to go into the pit, the really black, black dog days, to begin with! Last year stopping Paxil, the depression returned sure enough, and within three months I was tottering on the brink of major major depression (told you bout mad at meds, pdoc, and coming here and being shit on,) fought hard not to go into the pit, cause fraid once I did, well, that be it in the mental frame of mind I was in at that time, plus feeling brain impaired, too.
I hope I dont have to find out if I can think myself out of major clinical depression!
Hard enough thinking my way out of moderately severe depression!
Linda
Robert Robert...@ntscape.com
Ever stop to think it's not the Paxil but a sign your getting worse mentally? It's so easy to point fingers at others actions, devices.
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n ...@nowhere.us (Elizabeth)
We don't know much, it's true. (I still haven't been able to find anyone who could make heads or tails of my SPECT, BTW. I'm thinking of calling the hospital about it to try and get some answers.) The best of psychiatry is in the research on brain imaging, neuroendocrine correlates, and such that you speak of, but also the "empirical-descriptive" school which attempts to use what technology we have today to come up with categories that are predictive of treatment response (not ideal, but it's what we need right now until we can understand the brain better).
Sadly, this type of dualism didn't die with Descartes. Far from it, it's thriving today.
The Surgeon General ought to take on that role, IMO.
Err...the current President? Are you sure you want him doing *anything*?
-elizabeth
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