Depression

[Dildo Argentino]

I will say depression has led me to places I'd have never gone had I been content with life more often. In a way I think I've liked more intensely. For ever low there was an equal high, that sort of thing...

and then there's medication and the horrid state of american psychiatry....

This all sparked in my a healthy distrust for alot of things...at times full on hallucinatory and paranoid, but now after some time distilling it all I've come to a very self created freedom. I learned that standard medication is weird, ineffective and just way more harmful than any authority will tell you...

I learned about nutrients and herbs and alechemical medicine...all because of my initial disatisfaction with life...

I think it was plato who wrote about the splinter in his mind...the feeling that something wasn't righjt that kept him ever searching...

- -I'm mild high horsing having two weeks off psyche meds and a year off dope, but whatever it is that makes me the way I am...I've gotten better at it...Like a bird that learned to fly...

*the more you know*~~*shooting stars*~~* unicorns ~~* pixie dust

you are trolling, aren't you?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

and then there's medication and the horrid state of american psychiatry....

Oh, hai!  Do you understand the history of psychiatry?  Because I don't.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

and then there's medication and the horrid state of american psychiatry....

Oh, hai!  Do you understand the history of psychiatry?  Because I don't.

I'm getting there, and it's very 

Basically, psychiatry has roots in the medical treatment of the mentally ill and retarded. Then you had a guy about 150 years ago suggest that you could study the human mind as a science, and things got reallllly fucking weird. Medical doctors wanted a piece of the pie so they invented a medical subspecialty that heavily utilizes psychological research and theory for treatment of psychiatric illnesses. With the advent of neuroscience shit really started getting heavy and psychology finally started to converge with laboratory science.

Shit's gonna get really real in the next decade or so, dawgs. Psychology to neuroscience is already starting to look like alchemy to modern chemistry... sure, they were on the right track, but BAM, NOW IT'S SCIENCE FOR REAL, BITCHES.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

NIGEL WANT YOUR BRAINS, BITCHES.

I'll tell YOU why you're that guy that sucks, plus you got depression.

[P3nT4gR4m]

and then there's medication and the horrid state of american psychiatry....

Oh, hai!  Do you understand the history of psychiatry?  Because I don't.

I'm getting there, and it's very 

Basically, psychiatry has roots in the medical treatment of the mentally ill and retarded. Then you had a guy about 150 years ago suggest that you could study the human mind as a science, and things got reallllly fucking weird. Medical doctors wanted a piece of the pie so they invented a medical subspecialty that heavily utilizes psychological research and theory for treatment of psychiatric illnesses. With the advent of neuroscience shit really started getting heavy and psychology finally started to converge with laboratory science.

Shit's gonna get really real in the next decade or so, dawgs. Psychology to neuroscience is already starting to look like alchemy to modern chemistry... sure, they were on the right track, but BAM, NOW IT'S SCIENCE FOR REAL, BITCHES.

Here's what I was never clear on - Psychiatrists v's Psychologists. I only ever had a psychiatrist. The approach was - "whazzup dawg?" ... "Hmm, well I don't believe you - eat these pills or we'll lock you back up" ... "What's that? The pills are fucking you up completely? Okay, how 'bout you take twice as many and report back" - wash. rinse. repeat. escape...

OTO I've spoken to people who got a psychologist instead and I got the impression they had helped in some way. WTF? 

[Juana]

Talk therapy can be useful, sometimes.

Also, that psychiatrist sounds like an asshole. I would have thought s/he/they would've tried something else if it didn't work.

[LMNO]

From what I remember of his back story, P3nt was a "guest of the State" at the time, and so the doctor probably didn't give a shit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Here's what I was never clear on - Psychiatrists v's Psychologists.

The former are doctors and can prescribe drugs.  The latter are not and can't, and are thus forced to look for root causes of behavior and possible solutions.

Note that both approaches are perfectly valid, depending on what the problem actually IS.

If you're schitzophrenic, a psychologist isn't going to help you at all. 

[Juana]

From what I remember of his back story, P3nt was a "guest of the State" at the time, and so the doctor probably didn't give a shit.

Ah, yes, then I imagine so.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Talk therapy can be useful, sometimes.

Also, that psychiatrist sounds like an asshole. I would have thought s/he/they would've tried something else if it didn't work.

I'm pretty sure what happened was the drug reps assured him it would work, I just had to take a fuckload more. Which led me to wonder whether the shrink was actually qualified to do his job, which led me to investigate some of the stuff shrinks are taught, which led me to   

[P3nT4gR4m]

Here's what I was never clear on - Psychiatrists v's Psychologists.

The former are doctors and can prescribe drugs.  The latter are not and can't, and are thus forced to look for root causes of behavior and possible solutions.

Note that both approaches are perfectly valid, depending on what the problem actually IS.

If you're schitzophrenic, a psychologist isn't going to help you at all.

Ha! Yes - this makes perfect sense. Just like "normal" doctors, occasionally you get one that does fuck all but writes endless scripts for antibiotics, I guess I got the shrink who just chucks Haliperidol at the problem until it goes away.

Well fuck you shrink, I has new superpsychosis what has developed immunity to the effects of antipsychotics 

[Juana]

Talk therapy can be useful, sometimes.

Also, that psychiatrist sounds like an asshole. I would have thought s/he/they would've tried something else if it didn't work.

I'm pretty sure what happened was the drug reps assured him it would work, I just had to take a fuckload more. Which led me to wonder whether the shrink was actually qualified to do his job, which led me to investigate some of the stuff shrinks are taught, which led me to   

Oh gross. Care to share? do you know if it's the same way there that it was then?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Talk therapy can be useful, sometimes.

Also, that psychiatrist sounds like an asshole. I would have thought s/he/they would've tried something else if it didn't work.

I'm pretty sure what happened was the drug reps assured him it would work, I just had to take a fuckload more. Which led me to wonder whether the shrink was actually qualified to do his job, which led me to investigate some of the stuff shrinks are taught, which led me to   

Oh gross. Care to share? do you know if it's the same way there that it was then?

First time I was in (late 80's) they put me on a program which apparently was common as fuck at the time and seemed to be modelled on the game spin the bottle - basically they pump you full of one thing after another and, if you stop acting like a nutter they keep you on whatever they gave you last. Kinda like diagnosis without actually, y'know, the diagnostic part. For the purposes of the exercise reducing the patient to a semi comatose cabbage is seen as a successful cure, since inability to chew food means inability to act out in whatever symptomatic fashion had got us into this predicament in the first place. I got a lucky escape from that program by successfully bullshitting the medical professional who was tasked with assessing my mental state.

Second time I got Haliperidol which was supposed to calm me down. The effect was actually more akin to that of a massive hit of cocaine which left me unable to sleep, concentrate or even sit down long enough to stop pacing around, with a side order of muscle spasms that felt like someone was tying my spine in a knot. After a week of this I get an interview with the medical professional and explained that the Haliperidol wasn't working. She looked at the staff reports which backed up my assertion and decide that the best course of action was to up the dosage.

Higher dose had the utterly unexpected effect of making it worse. I say unexpected, I mean by the medical professional, everyone else just kinda nodded dumbly and said "well duh!" Except me. I said "Well duh!" but I was having a bit of trouble nodding on account of the back of my head felt like it was permanently attached to my fucking shoulders at this point. Another weekly meeting with the shrink didn't go as well as the previous week on account of I couldn't actually bring myself to sit down at all. I'd lost about 2 stone by this point.

This was where the medical professional decided that what was required was to up the dosage. Coincidentally, this is the point where I came to the conclusion that medical professionals were no more use to me than sanitation engineers, hairdressers or double glazing salesmen, given that my problem was psychological in nature and therefore beyond the expertise of someone who's profession was only capable of saying "more pills" in spite of all available evidence to the contrary. Kinda like how much use a professional firefighter would be to me in a situation where my house was on fire and he'd had this great idea to try and fix it by pouring petrol on it.

"The petrol has made it worse!"

"Yes I can see that. Lets try more petrol."

"nope that's made it even worse"

"I think I see the problem. We're not putting enough petrol on there"

Again I managed to extricate myself by gaming the reviews, puking up the pills and getting enough of a grip to get the section lifted. They gave me a CPN - community psychiatric nurse who's job it was to come round and make sure I was okay. After the first visit almost led to me being re-sectioned I made a point of being very fucking stoned and lying through my teeth every time she came around. It took a year and change but I managed to fix my head, once I managed to get the medical professionals out of the loop.

I don't know what the fuck the situation is like now and I do know people who got treated at that time who swear it helped so this is my story and my story only but it'll hopefully go some way to explaining why my view of psychiatrists is that they are no fucking use to me.

[Juana]

Yowezer, Pent! D: Yeah, that sounds like a really fucking appalling system and I'm glad you were able to game it.

[P3nT4gR4m]

LOL, yeah. Was an interesting experience. Conning someone when you're batshit crazy is kinda like trying to juggle when you're blind drunk. Takes a bit of practice