Pills

[Golden Applesauce]

Re:OP. If you want to discuss a particular definition, clarify your terms when you start a thread. It's that easy.

I got the discussion I wanted.  I just didn't want the whole Spider thing to end up with "anti-psychotics/depressnts are how they control you" as one of its core components - it seemed like there was a risk of that happening.

Every now and then I bump into a person who has some kind of idea that taking psychoactive medications is a cop-out to solve a real problem - or worse, that they are primarily a method of control to reign in deviants.  (Especially amusing are the people who take the control position, but then advocate self-medication with the whole spectrum of illegal drugs.  It's like arguing that abortion is murder, unless the woman was raped.)

The "pills are a form of social control" guys often end up with slogans like "Live free or die" where "free" means "without having to take dem pills."  I know a guy who doesn't take medicines, period.  Luckily he hasn't gotten a serious infection since he started that policy (he's in peak physical condition, that probably helps).  Like taking medications are a sign of weakness, or something.

And then there's this notion that taking pills that affect your mind destroys who you are, at least temporarily.  Anything you do or think or observe or consume changes you - pills are no different than anything else in this regard.  Sometimes this is coupled with a naturalistic notion that the original "you" is the best - so if you can't listen to someone talking for more than 30 seconds at a go without finding something else to do, thats just who you are and any attempt to change that is stifling your personality.  Ditto for falling into a completely irrational descending spiral of panicked thinking at any unexpected event, or being unable to hang out in moderately crowded areas because of all the conversations pressing in on you, or just feeling generally    all the time,    when your gerbil dies,   when you're eating dinner with your family,   whenever you actually accomplish something, which is getting less and less frequent because really what's the point of working hard for a lame ol'   moment?

ETA: Post 1.3k!

[Corvidia]

Every now and then I bump into a person who has some kind of idea that taking psychoactive medications is a cop-out to solve a real problem - or worse, that they are primarily a method of control to reign in deviants.  (Especially amusing are the people who take the control position, but then advocate self-medication with the whole spectrum of illegal drugs.  It's like arguing that abortion is murder, unless the woman was raped.)

When I run into these people, I want to kick them in the face. I'm not on meds for the lulz or because I don't want to deal with underlying issue or for any of those fucking reasons. I'm on them because I HAVE TO BE unless I want my brain chemistry to be irreversibly fucked up before I'm thirty. Also, having the horrible, soul-crushing depressions reduced to simple misery is nice. I want to kill myself much less this way.

[Aliantha]

I used to wonder why people who had depression couldn't just find some way of getting happy.  I didn't judge people so much as just not understand how it feels, and it's a lot more than a case of the sads.  This much I have discovered.

Thanks to 'pills' I'm able to not feel like killing myself and/or my baby anymore.

Hopefully, my need for medication will pass, but if not, so be it.

[Triple Zero]

Like, depression is that sort of thing that you can live with it, because its just a symptom of usually discomfort with your life. Treating just the symptom works against you in the long-term... For example, when you get the flu, you get symptoms... so if you take pills that kill the symptoms and make you feel ok, then you can go out on about your day as normally, but that will make you more sick, because you are not taking care of your disease.

Sorry but I gotta correct this. Either you don't have experience with what you're talking about or you got the wrong idea somehow.

Depression is a real disorder that is different from unhappiness or "usual discomfort". If you pay attention to what psychiatrists ask when diagnosing depression, invariably one of the questions asked will be "tell me about the last thing / event you experienced that you really enjoyed". This is one of the tell-tale signs of depression. You simply cannot feel enjoyment about anything anymore. If you still can, it's not depression but something else.
I'm nto saying that you always need pills in that case, but sometimes they help. They can level the emotional rollercoaster a littlebit, or stimulate enjoyment (about things that normally would be enjoyable, such as an evening with friends, remember these things inhibit the breaking down of serotonine, they don't produce serotonine, if they did they would be addictive--or somewhat like XTC I suppose), and this allows you the headspace to indeed deal with your problems. Always combine these meds with therapy or some kind of personal improvement plan. (well there's people that have a depressive disorder, naturally make less serotonin, but that's a from-birth thing, and they are an exception).

Then theres diseases that you cannot fix thru personal effort, and you have to depend on medicine. But theres a ton of self prescription going on nowadays that isnt really needed.

I don't think you can self-prescribe SSRIs, not even in the US.

[Cain]

If I mentioned behavioralism it was a typo, thats a nonsense word.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioralism

I have no idea, but it does exist.

OK nonsense with respect to psychology, the Poly Sci people took the word instead.

No-one on this side of the fence likes it much, either.  Oh, it had its heyday in the 60s and early 70s, when RAND was all pumped up on game theory and the like, but political philosophy and policy studies undermined it until it could be put back in a box, where it belonged.

[Triple Zero]

In my case, it means just what it says:  Pills.  Pills and pills and pills that sometimes interact with each other, and leave me sitting on the side of the road for 2 hours because my Jeep is full of snakes.  

did you talk to your doctor about these side effects? the first few times you mentioned this I was assuming some metaphor / creative writing. but if you really get hallucinations from these meds, that's not right. especially not while driving. your heart pills shouldnt be making you hallucinate, and there are (probably?) enough slightly different meds out there that may work better for you? on the other hand, I assume you know and you did ask. I just wondered.

[AFK]

"Pills" is simply a generic, casual reference to prescription drugs, whether they be for a mental disorder, cancer, heart disease, acid reflux, whatever. 

There is this thing that some kids do where they will snag random medications from friends, family, etc., dump them all in a bowl and pop them like they are skittles.  Pill Party.  Also called Pharm Parties, or fish bowling.

And speaking as a brother of someone who has depression in a bad way, I can safely say that JohNyx is full of shit!  My brother if finally to the point where he can actually function in public.  He's going back to college.  And it is because of the "pills" AND the therapy that he is able to do so.  But before they had the medication regimen sorted out, no amount of therapy in the world was helping him. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There are no behaviorists of any kind any more.  Its a dead school of thought.  Even Pinker (whose still kicking apparently) admits he was wrong, he wrote in his book that new research techniques allow for a broader field of study than was thought possible, killing one of the core concepts of behaviorism.

They're lying.  It works just fine.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The professor of the attitudes and persuasion class I'm scheduled to take next near will be very disappointed to hear that.

Yeah, might hurt textbook sales.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I used to wonder why people who had depression couldn't just find some way of getting happy.  I didn't judge people so much as just not understand how it feels, and it's a lot more than a case of the sads.  This much I have discovered.

Thanks to 'pills' I'm able to not feel like killing myself and/or my baby anymore.

Hopefully, my need for medication will pass, but if not, so be it.

Pills aren't good or bad, Aliantha.  The means by which they are prescribed can be good or bad.  At least for the "literal" pills.

[Iason Ouabache]

There is this thing that some kids do where they will snag random medications from friends, family, etc., dump them all in a bowl and pop them like they are skittles.  Pill Party.  Also called Pharm Parties, or fish bowling.

Sorry, but my bullshit meter is pegging. It sounds like the big scare over Sex Bracelets a couple years ago. Or, you know, jenkem.

[AFK]

There is this thing that some kids do where they will snag random medications from friends, family, etc., dump them all in a bowl and pop them like they are skittles.  Pill Party.  Also called Pharm Parties, or fish bowling.

Sorry, but my bullshit meter is pegging. It sounds like the big scare over Sex Bracelets a couple years ago. Or, you know, jenkem.

I get this info from first hand accounts from police, parents, and kids themselves.  Are they all making it up? 

[Captain Utopia]

There is this thing that some kids do where they will snag random medications from friends, family, etc., dump them all in a bowl and pop them like they are skittles.  Pill Party.  Also called Pharm Parties, or fish bowling.

Sorry, but my bullshit meter is pegging. It sounds like the big scare over Sex Bracelets a couple years ago. Or, you know, jenkem.

I get this info from first hand accounts from police, parents, and kids themselves.  Are they all making it up? 

Send the info to this guy as he's been able to find no evidence that it's anything more than a hoax. Also fish bowling seems to be a phrase not connected with this.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There is this thing that some kids do where they will snag random medications from friends, family, etc., dump them all in a bowl and pop them like they are skittles.  Pill Party.  Also called Pharm Parties, or fish bowling.

Sorry, but my bullshit meter is pegging. It sounds like the big scare over Sex Bracelets a couple years ago. Or, you know, jenkem.

I get this info from first hand accounts from police, parents, and kids themselves.  Are they all making it up? 

Dunno.  I DO remember the Satanist scares of the 80s and early 90s.  There were loads of first hand accounts, and they were universally bullshit.

This, though, this sounds like something monkeys actually WOULD do.

[LMNO]

Can't be any stupider than huffing Scotch Guard....