[Maven]

I know most will jump in and say no, but think about it. If you're dumber or less intelligent, you might be happier. I've certainly learned lots of things that made me less happy in life. And I'm not saying the pill would make you outright stupid...depends on the dosage.

Less intelligent people are more likely to believe what others say, without questioning whether it's based on good research and education. But they might be happier when they're hearing what they like.

Now, me, my answer is, No! I would not take a pill to make me less intelligent. I wish I knew more, even though many things I know now make me sadder and more bitter. Still, if I didn't know the abuses of humans and animals, for instance, then I couldn't do anything about it. It's still almost impossible to stop, but we can do whatever we can if we know. We can at least help a small few. Maybe one day we'll be able to stop it, but I admit I don't hold a lot of hope for that. Just like stopping recreational drugs, alcohol, gun use, etc. Banning anything has never worked to actually stop something altogether. But what do you say?

One note I'm adding (see "Reason for Editing" below): In a way, most people dumb themselves down everyday, by ignoring things that upset them. And that's not a totally bad thing, because we must protect ourselves from some of the horrors of the world in order to survive and really live. But when people turn away from helping others (including animals), especially if it's because of a graphic image someone posted to try to get people to listen (which can have the opposite effect and make people turn away faster, but I think it's sometimes necessary to get the message across), we're pretending there is no suffering, so we don't have to change our lives or do anything about it.

[Anika.]

The more I learn the happier I am. It's true for me anyways. The more I can grow and try to understand or learn new ways to think, the more at peace I am. I don't believe ignorance is bliss at all. If that were true then what is going on with some of the wisest most peacful beings? But I think you spoke about this above, in a different way.

The more knowledge you have the more you might realize that you have options and choices, especially about how you "see" things and how you experience or perceive them.

[krisakira]

Aren't there already pills to make you dumber, like drugs? lol

[-jimi-]

I would not swap intelligence for happiness.

Which is stupid.

So maybe I'm quite stupid after all.. ???

probably not.

i don't really see why anyone would want to do that.. and especially me, i don't really need it.

lol

Originally Posted by krisakira

Aren't there already pills to make you dumber, like drugs? lol

hehe lol.

True

[ECHOES]

Too Late!

I think someone has already switched out my daily thyroid med with one of these pills

Is this a trick question?

No I would not.

[Odee]

I know a lot of people already complain about ADs having mind fogging or memory squashing side effects.

[edward6]

Perhaps, we could extend this idea further, and ask people, if they had two choices in life: they could be rich, successful, smart and beautiful, but stressed and unhappy...or they could be poor, unsuccessful, dumb and ugly, but they would be peaceful, happy and appreciate every moment of their wonderful existence, which would they choose? Maybe, I should throw in an extra 10yrs of life for the latter coz few of us could possibly imagine being fulfilled with what little we've got or that the assets of the former could bring anything but happiness and fulfillment.

[Maven]

Edward6, that's a really good question to pose. Obviously, I'd rather have the choice of being rich, successful, smart, beautiful, and peaceful, happy and appreciate every moment of my existence. But you didn't offer it, so...I'm already stressed and unhappy, without the benefit of being rich, so I'm going to say I'd go for not having the looks and smarts, but having the happiness.

Someone mentioned it would be a bad idea to swap intelligence for happiness. Why? I mean, I can think of some reasons, but I can also think of reasons why one would prefer happiness (because you'd be happy!). Intelligence, on the other hand, can protect us, teach us, and help us progress. Happiness may keep you in the moment. On the one hand, you'd not care if you didn't do anything with your life, if you're happy. What if you "wasted" your whole life, but felt happy the whole time? Why would that be so bad? Why is it better to have bad times, sad times and misery and evolve as a human being?

I'm getting in too deep here. I didn't really expect my question to get enough answers to go to a second page, LOL!

[Emotionally Dead]

I have a fear of medications/drugs to begin with. I have adverse reactions to medications, and at times medications have stronger effects on me than they have on others. It's something I am very cautious about. A benadryll can not only make me sleepy, but cause me to sleep for hours and not wake up for anything including my alarm. That's one pill. I have a lot of reactions to medications and therefore I am very cautious about taking any pills and I certainly wouldn't take a medicine that would affect my brain, which the pill you are describing would have to.

If I didn't have the fear of meds, I honestly might consider it. At this point I would consider almost anything to find happiness lol.

[yellowted]

I would love a pill to make me dumber if it went as far as making me totally unaware of my expectations of myself, that way i would not get frustrated at what i now am unable to do, exhaust myself trying to carry on as 'normal' or be embarrassed when i miss my mouth in a restraunt or when my incontinence diaper leaks or worse smells! also i would love it to totally errase my memory of everything, so i would be in my own little world and not affected by this one or the people on it.

[venusss]

Originally Posted by edward6

Perhaps, we could extend this idea further, and ask people, if they had two choices in life: they could be rich, successful, smart and beautiful, but stressed and unhappy...or they could be poor, unsuccessful, dumb and ugly, but they would be peaceful, happy and appreciate every moment of their wonderful existence, which would they choose? Maybe, I should throw in an extra 10yrs of life for the latter coz few of us could possibly imagine being fulfilled with what little we've got or that the assets of the former could bring anything but happiness and fulfillment.

dumb and poor but peaceful? My friend worked in TESCO and knew such guy. A homeless dude who begged for change to buy box of cheapest wine and chocolate bar... it was a lifestyle of his choice...

see, i cannot see myself "unsuccessful and happy". Not mattering and happy. But if I were dumb, I guess...

But no, I prefer "uhappy" and keep my wit. Cynicism will get me through. I can grab my piece of intensity still.

Sure, right after I took the pill that made me crazier.

-Fleeing Bellocq

How about pill with a remote switch, activate when needed

[Open Eyes]

Actually, I did take a pill to "dull" and "calm" for a while. I didn't want to take it though as I am not one to look for a high or answer in drugs.

Unfortunately with me, I developed PTSD in my brain and I was so overwhelmed with sudden flashbacks and extreme anxiety that I could not function. As most who struggle with it know, it is so scary and confusing when we can't seem to control our brain all of a sudden and don't understand "why". And it is even worse when people around you are so damn ignorant that they make a lot of "hurtful" remarks like "I have had bad things happen to me too, ya just gotta stop dwelling and deal better".

I think the best thing, more than a pill perhaps is to find a way to get rid of the "igorance" in people that don't respect the challenge of someone who is genuinely struggling with their brain somehow.

I am grateful that at least I live in a time where we are learning so much about the brain and can actually "see" the pathology present in many who struggle with what we deem "mental illness".

One of the things that I have learned is that it isn't just that we may have survived a trama or years of abuse, it is that all that stress and emotional challenge often "does some damage to the health of the human brain". If anything, perhaps a medication that can truely help to repair the cells that have been damaged leaving the brain more "sensitive" and "less able to regulate and balance the ebb and flow of our emotional reactions to life's challenges".

I don't think "ignorance is bliss" really all we have to do is observe all the unrest around us and throughout our history of man to know, ignorance leads to waste.

Open Eyes

[Open Eyes]

Rather than a pill, I think about how it might have been different for me "if" when I was growing up there was the knowledge we have today available to my parents to actually "help" my older brother instead of "punishing him" for his "disabilites".

Because of the knowlege we now have about Autism, Asbergers, ADHD, dislexia, to name a few, we have developed ways to help these children work around these challenges, rather than "punish them" because they are different and struggle.

I can still remember, as if it was yesterday, being so little and sitting in a "psychiatrists" office hoping that man behind that door would be able to "fix" my older brother. I was terrified of my older brother because he took out his "frustrations" on me. The answer that came from this psychiatrist was for my mother "not" to coddle him, bath him, and that he had to be diciplined much more. Well, that made him worse and my whole environment was "anger, yelling, stress, and screams coming from the shed my brother was taken to for "dicipline".

All my life, I always felt like something was missing somehow. I can remember being in school and just feeling like I didn't have that first part that I needed to understand what I was being asked to learn.

My teachers would tell my parents, all through school, that I was smart but that I didn't "pay attention". What wasn't said was, "This little girl is smart, but you cannot expect her to be able to pay attention in school when her home environment is so stressful to her that she struggles to sleep. That waking up to screaming and yelling and then climbing on a school bus only to witness her older brother being picked on and bullied all the way to school is tiring her out. How can you expect your child to have the ability to pay attention and learn when she is totally stressed out and exhausted by the time classes begin? How can she be expected to retain what we are teaching her when she has another challenging bus ride home and knows her brother has been so punished and abused by other children and teachers all day that she has to "run and hide" because he takes it all out on her? That he is either CSA, or chasing her threatening to hurt her badly.

Ignorance is when this little girl presents with PTSD as a woman in her 50's and is suddenly "reliving" these childhood challenges as if they are happening in the now and her husband yells at her to "stop acting like a child". A middle aged woman sitting in her bed crying like a child, trapped in that state of mind, can't escape it, or understand it, being yelled at, by IGNORANCE. And then some "ignorant" person happens to say, "I had bad life experiences too, you just gotta move on and get over it".

Yes, for a while I did have to take a pill until I got to a point where I could understand "why" I was going through this challenge. The only way I could get rest at night was this "pill" because otherwise at anytime I could wake up "trapped in the worst kind of nightmare I could have ever imagined". And how do you tell other people who are "ignorant" that when you finally do wake up you feel like someone dragged you outside and beat you up so badly your whole body aches everywhere. And at the same time you mind is also "exhausted" and disoriented.

I suppose if there truely was some kind of pill that could just fix that challenge, I would be glad to take it tbh. Unfortunately, there is no pill for that right now. The only thing we have right now is "therapy" and a long path of working through everything that comes forward in the brain. And the everything is a sudden surprise and the only way to gain on it is after the "surprise" happens.

The hardest part is when all the people around you are "ignorant" and come up with these ongoing "just" comments. All the while every minute of every day, that is what you really want, is to "just" again too. And then somewhere in the background some person, know it all says, "Oh, I don't think there really is a PTSD, I think people who say they have it are just looking for "sympathy" or "some excuse" ".

Open Eyes

[venusss]

Because of the knowlege we now have about Autism, Asbergers, ADHD, dislexia, to name a few, we have developed ways to help these children work around these challenges, rather than "punish them" because they are different and struggle.

do we? Or do we dope them on same substances militaries use for their pilots so they don't sleep and tell them it's perfectly okay not to bother with spelling? (which makes reading hard for dyslectic who try to write with respect to their language).

I don't see much change in school system, but I see lots of "your kid don't like the way I teach? Tell doc to give him pills for that".

different is not punished? How labelling people sick, broken brain and then telling us we are even more sick when we reject labels and "treatment" is not punishing?

take foster care? Kids who are to depressed and anxious in their horrible situation are considered "healthy". Those who react are considered ill and disordered.


don't even get me started on "depression is lying to you" as response to "sad we live in society where football players, models and reality show starlets make more then scientists".


speaking of PTSD... there's a lot of talk about pills to erase traumas. Yes, a lot of comes from Pentagon... and doubt their motives are pure and to help people, eh. Rather attempt to have those fighting as moralless as their leaders.

[venusss]

And yes, I sometimes feel like water sources of many countries have been spiked with stupid pills.

[Miswimmy1]

i dont know why anyone would want to be dumber. for me, that is a total no way. i do see what you mean by being happier... ignorance is bliss, right? lol

but i think that would be a shame. we are the most intelligent animals on the planet. think of all humans have accomplished: think of the leaps in technology. we wouldn't be able to be on PC cuz no one would hav invented internet. we wouldn't hav been able to put a man on the moon. and on and on.

i think that the ability to learn is what defines us as human beings. it sets us apart. my philosophy on life is that its all a learning experience; a journey to finding yourself. how are you going to do that if you live always in the moment and take everything without questioning it? what would the purpose of life be then? imo, life would be very boring. lol

[onionknight]

I can still remember, as if it was yesterday, being so little and sitting in a "psychiatrists" office hoping that man behind that door would be able to "fix" my older brother. I was terrified of my older brother because he took out his "frustrations" on me. The answer that came from this psychiatrist was for my mother "not" to coddle him, bath him, and that he had to be diciplined much more. Well, that made him worse and my whole environment was "anger, yelling, stress, and screams coming from the shed my brother was taken to for "dicipline".

Open Eyes: I just wanted to point out that this passage really resonates with me. I have an older brother as well who had behavorial and developmental challenges; first they were diagnosised as ADHD and only recently did it get properly (if I can say so myself) diagnosised as Aspbergers. Some of the doctors he saw as a child (before my conscious memory actually but my mother has told me) advised my mother to lock him in a room (or hold him down) and not let him out no matter what when he was acting up, to take away all his toys, same concept of voiding their lives of love and attention, which is exactly what everyone needs, especially those of us who face extra struggles. This was happening in the early-mid 90s too, so old habits in psychology die hard, it seems. You still hear stories of teachers abusing asd children. I can't think of anything that makes me blood boil so much.

But to get back to the topic at hand, I would chose intelligence and depression, over not questioning anything and being superficially happy. For me, one of the modes of happiness is understanding the world and feeling deeply. There would be no true joy in my life without it. I feel like I've lost some of my intelligence to mental illness, which is devasting. I don't want to get rid of the illness, nearly as much as I want to be able to think the way I once did.

[Open Eyes]

Um, Venus, I did say we are "still" ignorant. I live it everyday, so I am very aware of "what we still need to recognize". However, even though our understanding of the human brain is still considered in it's infancy, we are making efforts to address the challenges we are identifying and beginning to understand.

I don't take "any" medication right now myself. I am working on my challenges through therapy and slowly working on each different "flare up" of the PTSD. However, when it first presented, I was not in a position to be able to understand what I was dealing with. I was too diblitated by it in the first stage of it. It was much like having a very bad and painful wound that is addressed by painkillers until there is enough healing to be able to take the next step of "rehabilitation".

I do understand your concern about our widespread drug treatment plans though. When I went into a psychward it was clear to me that we "over drug" when I talked to other patients that were on 3,4,5 different medications and still were confused if any of these drugs were helping them.

I don't think water sources are being spiked with pills/drugs, but I am concerned about how we process and preserve the food we eat.

As far as the drug treatment being tried on the veterans that present with severe PTSD, the effort is to try to slow down the dibilitating symptoms so that the suicide rate is reduced. The problem with PTSD Venus is that when the brain "can't " deal with the flashbacks and cortizol that floods the brain, more damage occurs to the brain. The build up of "cortizol" in the brain can further damage the hypocampus and amygdala so if we can find ways to help reduce the cortizol buildup, we can hopefully slow down the damage that takes place in the brain with PTSD. If we don't find ways to reduce the flood of chemicals, we end up dealing with psychosis and even schitzophrenia.

When someone experiences a "flashback" they can't talk, they are not in the now, they are re-experiencing everything including the extreme fear and urgency of the situation. It is so real Venus, it is not just a simple memory. And on top of that whatever "conscious" of the now that is there is also "terrified" of why this is suddenly happening. It is a horrible experience and then after it happens the brain is in a daze and stuck between the now and the tramatic experience and that can last for a few days. And, unfortunately, this can come on suddenly without any warning.
It is very "scarey" and "confusing".

There are varying degrees of PTSD as well. It all depends on what kind of history the person has that presents with PTSD. It is discribed as "an anxiety disorder" and yes, it does flood the brain and body with cortizol that produces "anxiety", but it isn't easy to just "think it away". And as I mentioned, if there is no medication to help with this, it can "damage" brain cells, we do know this.

I do however feel that we can learn how to slowly deal with many psychological challenges with therapy and developing coping methods and may not need some kind of pill. From what I have seen, many pills can bring on a lot of troubling side effects and may do more harm than good.

Open Eyes

[Open Eyes]

Originally Posted by onionknight

Open Eyes: I just wanted to point out that this passage really resonates with me. I have an older brother as well who had behavorial and developmental challenges; first they were diagnosised as ADHD and only recently did it get properly (if I can say so myself) diagnosised as Aspbergers. Some of the doctors he saw as a child (before my conscious memory actually but my mother has told me) advised my mother to lock him in a room (or hold him down) and not let him out no matter what when he was acting up, to take away all his toys, same concept of voiding their lives of love and attention, which is exactly what everyone needs, especially those of us who face extra struggles. This was happening in the early-mid 90s too, so old habits in psychology die hard, it seems. You still hear stories of teachers abusing asd children. I can't think of anything that makes me blood boil so much.

But to get back to the topic at hand, I would chose intelligence and depression, over not questioning anything and being superficially happy. For me, one of the modes of happiness is understanding the world and feeling deeply. There would be no true joy in my life without it. I feel like I've lost some of my intelligence to mental illness, which is devasting. I don't want to get rid of the illness, nearly as much as I want to be able to think the way I once did.

Yes, you are right, there is still ignorance going on about children who struggle with Asbergers and other disabilities. My neice's son has Asbergers and has also recently been diagnosed with Bipolar as well.
She has had to fight for the school to give him the special help he needs. Here there are now laws that demand schools have special needs programs to help these challenged children. Often schools don't want to provide it and try to "expell" these children.

" I want to be able to think the way I once did"

Me too, I want to be able to bounce back and regroup the way I used to be able to. I miss that so much.

Open Eyes