Jane Alexander is the author of the blog Adventures of a rebel Taoist. Today she takes on Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, whose book is widely admired by those who believe in the chemical cure.
Well, I have something to say to you Kay Redfield Jamison author of Unquiet Mind and steadfast promeds advocate. I consider the unasked-for treatment of my bipolar symptoms with psychiatric medication to be medical malpractice. The treatments you espouse so enthusiastically did nothing but poison me. When I first read your opinion in your book I wondered for a few seconds if it wasn’t possible to sue you somehow for influencing my psychiatrist and caregivers to ‘treat’ me with your horrible lithium.
I also find that you wimped out of the full scope of bipolar treatment. You took the lithium but you never took the brain damaging antipsychotics even though you admit you were ‘floridly manic’. You are missing out on the full ‘bipolar treatment experience’, doc. You don’t know what it’s like to be that patient whom you told, “You’ve been given a shot of Haldol. Everything is going to be alright.” It didn’t turn out to be all right did it?
Further in, she has the gall to blame the man’s mania on his lack of lithium. I am not joking. Page 107 “Neither the resident nor I needed to see the results of the lithium blood level that had been drawn during his admission to the emergency room. There would be no lithium in his blood. The result had been mania.”
I mean give me a break, ‘doctor’. How you can be so unscientific as to posit this man’s psychotic episode as the result of a lack of lithium, (and not some other kind of trigger, like, I don’t know, maybe… stress?) This is kind of like how a headache is the result of not having aspirin in your blood, right? Sure. Makes perfect, logical, scientific sense Kay. No. Not really.
The full rebel Taoist's dismantling of KRJ's near sainted status with the biochemical crowd can be found here.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
He could be your son; he could be my son
I was planning not to post about the recent tragedy in Arizona in which a disturbed young man killed and injured a number of people at a political rally.
I decided to say something in support of people like you and me who believe that there is another way. We will be shouted down by people who believe that mental illness is a brain disease in need of lifelong medication and that if only this young man had been on medication (properly "treated") then this all would have been avoided. The biochemical group will be vocal, but not as influential as the gun lobby, which will make a better ($$) case that "guns don't kill people, people kill people."
Anybody who has a son or daughter sliding into mental illness knows what paranoia is. It is scary and unpleasant to witness. People who are exhibiting signs of paranoia are racist, suspicious, and abnormally interested in the current gods of mythology, e.g. political figures, the CIA, the KGB (if you are Russian), the Stasi (if you were East German), movie stars, and religious figures. This preoccupation goes with the territory of paranoia. There is nothing abnormal about the accused in this regard when you compare him to thousands of others of the same age (22) and sex (male) who are also exhibiting signs of paranoia.
Here I'm going to get shouted down by readers when I say that chances are, if this young man's problems had been recognized and treated sooner, had he been on medication, chances are this scene could have been avoided.
I'll start with the "had he been on medication." Sure, had he been on medication, he would have been considerably slowed down, his paranoia may have subsided to a dull grumbling sound, and he would have been home on the couch or in bed, not toting a gun to a rally. But, my concern is for what happens after this. Millions of other young men are being forced, through government policies, insurance companies, lobby groups, pharmaceutical companies and doctors, to sacrifice the rest of their lives to medication for the deeds of one of their own: a young man with the same problems that the health care system won't properly treat.
The mental health care system, such as it exists in most of the Western world, refuses to address a young man's mental health crisis holistically. It has constructed a fortress of terror in the mind of the public that so-called mental illness is a chemically driven urge that can be fixed by dumping more chemicals on top of more chemicals. Despite the fact that there is no genetic marker, no scientifically proven test for "diseased brains," it has convinced a gullible public that mental illness is virtually untreatable without these drugs. Once you are sucked into these drugs, such as our sons have been, the pressure is on to continue to medicate. The health care system in most jurisdictions pays for medication but not lengthy therapy. And yet the National Alliance on Mental Illness is puzzled why 80% of people with a mental health diagnosis are unemployed. It's hard to hold down a job if you haven't really addressed the underlying problems of your life.
This young man's crisis could be sorted out eventually if he has access to a better way -- support, sympathy, understanding, recognition that good mental health is a journey. "Eventually" means it takes time. It takes effort. It takes understanding of what paranoia is. Your son and my son are lucky it never got this far. This young man'sconfused mind can be healed, but the trauma of what he did will never go away. That's punishment enough, in my opinion. Considerably less evolved members of the public will want to sort out his problems through life imprisonment or the death penalty.
So, yes, as a mother, I have a great deal of sympathy for this young man, which is no less than what I feel for the families of the people he killed and maimed.
I decided to say something in support of people like you and me who believe that there is another way. We will be shouted down by people who believe that mental illness is a brain disease in need of lifelong medication and that if only this young man had been on medication (properly "treated") then this all would have been avoided. The biochemical group will be vocal, but not as influential as the gun lobby, which will make a better ($$) case that "guns don't kill people, people kill people."
Anybody who has a son or daughter sliding into mental illness knows what paranoia is. It is scary and unpleasant to witness. People who are exhibiting signs of paranoia are racist, suspicious, and abnormally interested in the current gods of mythology, e.g. political figures, the CIA, the KGB (if you are Russian), the Stasi (if you were East German), movie stars, and religious figures. This preoccupation goes with the territory of paranoia. There is nothing abnormal about the accused in this regard when you compare him to thousands of others of the same age (22) and sex (male) who are also exhibiting signs of paranoia.
Here I'm going to get shouted down by readers when I say that chances are, if this young man's problems had been recognized and treated sooner, had he been on medication, chances are this scene could have been avoided.
I'll start with the "had he been on medication." Sure, had he been on medication, he would have been considerably slowed down, his paranoia may have subsided to a dull grumbling sound, and he would have been home on the couch or in bed, not toting a gun to a rally. But, my concern is for what happens after this. Millions of other young men are being forced, through government policies, insurance companies, lobby groups, pharmaceutical companies and doctors, to sacrifice the rest of their lives to medication for the deeds of one of their own: a young man with the same problems that the health care system won't properly treat.
The mental health care system, such as it exists in most of the Western world, refuses to address a young man's mental health crisis holistically. It has constructed a fortress of terror in the mind of the public that so-called mental illness is a chemically driven urge that can be fixed by dumping more chemicals on top of more chemicals. Despite the fact that there is no genetic marker, no scientifically proven test for "diseased brains," it has convinced a gullible public that mental illness is virtually untreatable without these drugs. Once you are sucked into these drugs, such as our sons have been, the pressure is on to continue to medicate. The health care system in most jurisdictions pays for medication but not lengthy therapy. And yet the National Alliance on Mental Illness is puzzled why 80% of people with a mental health diagnosis are unemployed. It's hard to hold down a job if you haven't really addressed the underlying problems of your life.
This young man's crisis could be sorted out eventually if he has access to a better way -- support, sympathy, understanding, recognition that good mental health is a journey. "Eventually" means it takes time. It takes effort. It takes understanding of what paranoia is. Your son and my son are lucky it never got this far. This young man'sconfused mind can be healed, but the trauma of what he did will never go away. That's punishment enough, in my opinion. Considerably less evolved members of the public will want to sort out his problems through life imprisonment or the death penalty.
So, yes, as a mother, I have a great deal of sympathy for this young man, which is no less than what I feel for the families of the people he killed and maimed.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Hoarding: A brain disorder
I'm sure you all know that Dr. E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center loves to use the term "agnosogosia" to describe people with an inability to recognize that they are mentally ill.
But,
How many of you are aware that our beloved Dr. E. Fuller Torrey suffers from this serious disorder known as “hoarding”? Yes, it’s true! Dr, Torrey has a particularly severe case of hoarding caused by a rare mutation in his hoarding gene, causing him to suffer from a brain hoarding brain illness. He has no insight into his disease, and this common among those with the hoarding illness.
Read more of this hilarious jibe at NamiDearest
But,
How many of you are aware that our beloved Dr. E. Fuller Torrey suffers from this serious disorder known as “hoarding”? Yes, it’s true! Dr, Torrey has a particularly severe case of hoarding caused by a rare mutation in his hoarding gene, causing him to suffer from a brain hoarding brain illness. He has no insight into his disease, and this common among those with the hoarding illness.
Read more of this hilarious jibe at NamiDearest
Friday, January 7, 2011
"Encouraged" from all directions
Oh dear. After fussing over my sample query letter to the agent and twenty pages of manuscript, reading and rereading them for spelling errors and sloppy sentence construction, I discovered, to my horror, after I pushed the send button, that I had failed to notice a big, fat, mistake. I used a completely wrong word! I never use this word, but I inserted it in my last minute revisions. The word means the opposite of what I intended. It's as if I had dropped jam on the spot, or squashed a big housefly between the pages. It's so horribly THERE.
I can't resend the e-mail with the offending word corrected. Agents would assume I would be a pest as a client, forever cluttering their in-box with the latest "updates."
So, the deed is done.
Turning to other matters, it's Chris's 27th birthday today. Last night the choir made bought him a birthday cake. He was really happy about that. He's been invited to sing in a local Gilbert and Sullivan production. He's happy about that. He got the Adyashanti book from his parents and a religous book from Taylor, his youngest brother, about finding his mission in life. I was impressed that Taylor is encouraging his brother.
Chris has a phone "date" with career intuitive Sue Fredericks this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes.
Have a good week-end, everybody.
I can't resend the e-mail with the offending word corrected. Agents would assume I would be a pest as a client, forever cluttering their in-box with the latest "updates."
So, the deed is done.
Turning to other matters, it's Chris's 27th birthday today. Last night the choir made bought him a birthday cake. He was really happy about that. He's been invited to sing in a local Gilbert and Sullivan production. He's happy about that. He got the Adyashanti book from his parents and a religous book from Taylor, his youngest brother, about finding his mission in life. I was impressed that Taylor is encouraging his brother.
Chris has a phone "date" with career intuitive Sue Fredericks this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes.
Have a good week-end, everybody.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The birthday boy
I've been quite busy recently and not able to concentrate on my blog as much as I'd like to. I posted the manuscript for my book on the author's website authonomy which demands continuous work on my part. I just can't leave it there if I want to play the authonomy game. The authonomy game is a slippery slope. Inactivity on my part means I topple off the rankings that activity on my part got me to. If I want people to read and comment on my manuscript, I've got to be equally generous of my time with theirs. I'm also preparing twenty pages of my manuscript for review by an agent in February. I remind myself, before getting too excited about my daydream of becoming an overnight literary sensation, that I paid $50 for this privilege as part of the writers' group I'm involved in.
Chris celebrates his birthday tomorrow. Ian and I are giving him a copy of The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment, by Adyashanti. The book is about what happens after you begin to wake up from the dream state. Chris appears to be momentarily stuck on co-existing meaninglessness and superiority. These sticking points, according to the book's author, are common traps. Ian and I feel that Chris is capable of applying himself to vocational training or further academics or a sense of purpose that fires him up, but right now he doesn't see the "point."
What Ian and I are hoping for Chris is that he soon decides to return to ordinary life, something that inspires him enough to get him out of his bathrobe and slippers and get going. Make no mistake about it, Adya teaches, the ordinary state is where you eventually want to be.
Adyashanti, a Zen master, teaches that enlightenment actually eventually leads you back to the ordinary, but with a newfound appreciation of how marvelous the world really is, and how one must work to add their own unique value to it. Chris is still wobbling on enlightenment's path.
Chris celebrates his birthday tomorrow. Ian and I are giving him a copy of The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment, by Adyashanti. The book is about what happens after you begin to wake up from the dream state. Chris appears to be momentarily stuck on co-existing meaninglessness and superiority. These sticking points, according to the book's author, are common traps. Ian and I feel that Chris is capable of applying himself to vocational training or further academics or a sense of purpose that fires him up, but right now he doesn't see the "point."
What Ian and I are hoping for Chris is that he soon decides to return to ordinary life, something that inspires him enough to get him out of his bathrobe and slippers and get going. Make no mistake about it, Adya teaches, the ordinary state is where you eventually want to be.
Adyashanti, a Zen master, teaches that enlightenment actually eventually leads you back to the ordinary, but with a newfound appreciation of how marvelous the world really is, and how one must work to add their own unique value to it. Chris is still wobbling on enlightenment's path.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Round one for Chris
Chris is finally off Serdolect. Yay!
Round two - Get off the Abilify. There will be a short intermission between round one and round two while Chris gathers his wits together and prepares himself to go the distance.
Round two - Get off the Abilify. There will be a short intermission between round one and round two while Chris gathers his wits together and prepares himself to go the distance.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Child soldiers in Washington State
It is hard for me as an outside reader to really appreciate the complexities of the struggles that other people like Stephany of Soulful Sepulcher and Becky of Involuntary Transformation have been having with the mental health system for their relatives. There is so much specific information that an outside reader can get lost. I don't know if I am just waking up or if it is well know by others that children under 18, especially if they are institutionalized, are trialling drugs that are already on the market for eventual approval for children.
I've been following Becky's blog about her son's experience with the mental health system in Washington State. Washington State has decided that age 13 is the legal of the age to give informed consent when it comes to the mental health treatment. This is not in line with the age of consent in other types of health situations, in Washington State. Patients' rights groups have been agitating to let adults decide whether they want mental health treatment or not, and Washington State extends this privilege to 13 year olds? This is odd, indeed, becautoday's parents, including negligent ones, are lining up to get their young teens treated. Parents would gladly give their permission hoping for a quick fix. So, what on the one hand looks "progressive" in having young people make their own choices, on the other hand is something more sinister.
I don't know how it works in other jurisdictions or whether Washington State is unique, but something seems rotten in the State of Washington. I don't have the time to research the age of consent for mental health treatment in all jurisdictions but age 13 strikes me as surely the youngest. Check out the Community Health Plan of Washington here. Note what the plan says about cases of substance abuse. •Minors 13 or older may get this treatment without consent if DSHS decides minor is a "child in need of services."
When Becky's son turned 13, the doctor's wrested complete control of decisions on the medications away from the mother. That's what age of consent is all about. I have the further impression that her son was then deemed too sick to make his own decisions and fell under the complete control of the State.
Step 1 is taking the medical decision-making away from the parents of under 18s.
Step 2 is the State seizing complete control by deeming the child in need of services.
Step 3 is even more sinister because it appears, in the case of Becky's son (and obviously countless others) that he was then enrolled in drug trials. From the impression I have I from reading Becky's blog, these were not what the public usually thinks of as drug trials, where drugs are trialled before they are FDA approved. Her son appears to have been subjected to a variety of neuroleptics that are currently on the market but not approved for use in people under 18.
Ergo, it would seem that the pharmaceutical lobby has managed to get certain jurisdictions to lower the age of consent in mental health matters and then moves in with conducting experiments on the very young in order to win eventual approval of their products for use in children.
What I would like to find out is how widely known is it that children are trialing drugs? It is widely known that growing numbers of children are being put on antipychotics (off-label) and that the brunt of this falls on poor children but does the public know that lowering the age of consent for children means that pharma moves in and tests these drugs on child users of the mental health system? It is, of course, much easier to test these drugs if the child is institutionalized.
I've been following Becky's blog about her son's experience with the mental health system in Washington State. Washington State has decided that age 13 is the legal of the age to give informed consent when it comes to the mental health treatment. This is not in line with the age of consent in other types of health situations, in Washington State. Patients' rights groups have been agitating to let adults decide whether they want mental health treatment or not, and Washington State extends this privilege to 13 year olds? This is odd, indeed, becautoday's parents, including negligent ones, are lining up to get their young teens treated. Parents would gladly give their permission hoping for a quick fix. So, what on the one hand looks "progressive" in having young people make their own choices, on the other hand is something more sinister.
I don't know how it works in other jurisdictions or whether Washington State is unique, but something seems rotten in the State of Washington. I don't have the time to research the age of consent for mental health treatment in all jurisdictions but age 13 strikes me as surely the youngest. Check out the Community Health Plan of Washington here. Note what the plan says about cases of substance abuse. •Minors 13 or older may get this treatment without consent if DSHS decides minor is a "child in need of services."
When Becky's son turned 13, the doctor's wrested complete control of decisions on the medications away from the mother. That's what age of consent is all about. I have the further impression that her son was then deemed too sick to make his own decisions and fell under the complete control of the State.
Step 1 is taking the medical decision-making away from the parents of under 18s.
Step 2 is the State seizing complete control by deeming the child in need of services.
Step 3 is even more sinister because it appears, in the case of Becky's son (and obviously countless others) that he was then enrolled in drug trials. From the impression I have I from reading Becky's blog, these were not what the public usually thinks of as drug trials, where drugs are trialled before they are FDA approved. Her son appears to have been subjected to a variety of neuroleptics that are currently on the market but not approved for use in people under 18.
Ergo, it would seem that the pharmaceutical lobby has managed to get certain jurisdictions to lower the age of consent in mental health matters and then moves in with conducting experiments on the very young in order to win eventual approval of their products for use in children.
What I would like to find out is how widely known is it that children are trialing drugs? It is widely known that growing numbers of children are being put on antipychotics (off-label) and that the brunt of this falls on poor children but does the public know that lowering the age of consent for children means that pharma moves in and tests these drugs on child users of the mental health system? It is, of course, much easier to test these drugs if the child is institutionalized.
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