[costello]

Someone posted a link to this blog at schizophreniaforums.com yesterday: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-...b_1652151.html

Today I ran across something to post in response, but szforums is down right now. So, I'll post it here at old reliable psychcentral.

Please consider the following profile of a troubled young adult, based on an actual case history:

• Talked about suicide for weeks at a time.
• Reportedly wrote dark poetry about thrusting a dagger in his heart and "draw[ing] blood in showers!"
• Was described as "indifferent to transpiring events," and having "little to say" for extended periods.
• Was known to "go crazy," requiring the removal of knives and dangerous items from his room.
• Used opiates and cocaine.
• Wandered around with a gun during periods of suicidal ideation.
• Was fascinated by a woman he was too shy to approach.
• Was described as being in a "morbid" state.
• Collapsed while speaking openly of his hopelessness and thoughts of suicide.
• Was eventually diagnosed with "recurrent major depression."

Who was this risk to society?

The answer is Abraham Lincoln. Source: Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (2006).

Lincoln's life-long struggle to turn his mental illness into a source of strength underscores the importance of respecting the rights of individuals with mental disabilities. We should do so not out of sentimentality or excessive individualism, but for the benefit of a society dependent upon the creativity, self-insight, and wisdom of its leaders.

Synthesis : law and policy in higher education, v. 18, no. 3 (winter 2007), p. 1273

[fishsandwich]

I read the whole article. Things like this make me sick . . . So the author's friend may or may not have committed suicide, but because he was an occasionally non-compliant schizoaffective, we should just run rampant over people's human rights and torture them with drugs that are soundly unproven and extremely unpleasant? Yes, that's good logic.

Anyway, I posted a response to the HuffPost article.

[faerie_moon_x]

Article like that is impossible for me to read, way too long.

I don't think people need to forced to meds or anything. But I think it would be nice if they have people who care about them watching out for them. I think if you have people in your life who support you, then that is what helps most. Whether it be a T or a spouse or a parent or a sibling or a best friend... just having one person care I think helps.

I can't read the article like I said, but I wonder if this "overly concerned friend" wanting to force treament on people even once asked this guy, "Hey, how are things going?" Or ever actually listenened if his friend said "I'm feeling suicidal right now." Or if they were just another person who was like, "Yeah whatever, you just want attention," which is the response most people give if you tell them.

[fishsandwich]

The article can actually be summarised pretty quickly:

-Author's friend died in a car crash, which may have been suicide but the author seems to think it wasn't.
-Author's friend also had schizoaffective, and was prone to not take the drugs he was given.
-Author can't relate car crash to schizoaffective diagnosis but blazes on regardless:

-We should force people with mental illness to drug themselves because sometimes people think it's a good thing.
-Forced drugs should be used not only when people are dangerous to self/others, but when they're non-compliant. This is because of anosognosia = when people have a mental illness diagnosis but don't acknowledge it, it is part of their illness.
-Elyn Saks says forced medication is inhumane and probably wouldn't agree with calls to expand its use.
-But forced medication is cheaper than forced hospitalisation.
-And our system can already do it because: Kafka. (I don't get this part.)

[fishsandwich]

The author really doesn't have any argument for what he proposes except that we're already capable of doing it and sometimes people say forced drugging saves their life.

Sorry, my mind is just boggled that anybody could be so ****ing ignorant.

[faerie_moon_x]

Thanks! That is a big help to me the way you wrote that.

I feel this person is just looking for something to blame. I still think it goes with my earlier response that before the friend died, the author could have cared less about the schizoaffective. After death its an easy thing to blame for something only the friend can answer.

[RunningEagleRuns]

interesting..

[CastlesInTheAir]

What I find interesting is that did anyone ever question why he refused the medication? Why didn't they try something else? Obviously the medication was not effective for him or he would not have refused it yet they suggest forcing it upon him, how do they know the same result would not have occurred? Why do people outside the spectrum think that medication works in all cases and why was medication his only route? And why do they suggest that he did not understand his own illness like the ones who aren't experiencing it do?

[AppinIsobel]

Erin survived due to her involuntary treatment

http://www.straight.com/article-7246...-her-own-voice

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by AppinIsobel

Erin survived due to her involuntary treatment

May be so, but her story is not an unmixed recommendation of such treatment:

Although she has faith in the health-care system, she says she experienced discrimination and disrespect within it.

“I really want professionals to read my book, because I’ve come across a lot of nurses and a lot of psychiatrists who just don’t get it [paranoid schizophrenia] and who don’t really care that they don’t get it. They just have their agenda. They would read my diagnosis, then, without even looking at me, give me drugs.

“There’s definitely a lack of compassion,” she adds. “I remember this one time I was fighting off security guards who were tying me down in restraints, and the nurses were getting the needles ready when this med student came in and said, ‘Oh, boy, I’ve never seen one of these before. Can I watch?’ I just thought, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ”

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by AppinIsobel

Erin survived due to her involuntary treatment

What is your experience with mental health treatment? Is it of treatment for yourself, or for someone else?

[fishsandwich]

People who claim they were saved by involuntary treatment miss a crucial logical point: they were not saved by the legal or ethical status of their treatment, they were saved by the treatment itself. The point of people who argue against involuntary treatment is not that nobody should get psych drugged ever, it's that forcing it on people who refuse -- often people who are not dangerous or behaving chaotically -- is a human rights violation and an assault that sound not be tolerated or encouraged.

[Ones44]

Originally Posted by fishsandwich

The article can actually be summarised pretty quickly:
...
-And our system can already do it because: Kafka. (I don't get this part.)

Kafka, meaning the guy who wrote books like "the Trial." Kafka wrote about dystopias where the gov. was screwed up and all powerful... In "The Trial," the main character, "Joseph K," was taken to a mysterious court, in the attic of some buildings, which he struggled against in vain for a few months until he was executed in the streets. He never knew his accusation. You don't learn it in the book... The book was based off Kafka's observations of pre-nazi Germany and it was a prediction of what could happen. Yes, our system can do it if we are also declining into such a regime as that of the nazis... And we all know that in nazi germany, involuntary treatment became involuntary experimentation... so, he is proposing... dang...

[fishsandwich]

No, of course I know who the **** Kafka is, I just have no idea why his work is a justification for how effective and legally and financially efficient forced drugging could be in our society, which is how it appeared to be deployed in the article linked in the OP.

[Ones44]

I'm sorry... I didn't mean what I said to sound like that... I was just trying to offer my best guess to what he meant by Kafka...