# DSM V controversy



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/psychiatry-allen-frances-saving-normal-dsm-5-controversy


----------



## Guest (May 16, 2013)

Wise, there is a lot of truth to this article, however I have to stress yet AGAIN, the DSM has NEVER been used as a "teaching tool" -- it was created in 1954 by the U.S. military to record the STATISTICS of mental issues. It was later used for inurance purposes when insurance purposes.

The 1954 version looks like something out of the Middle Ages. Each progressive DSM HAS reflected important discoveries in mental health, but that is REFLECTED.

Any doctor learns about being a doctor by interacting with patients.

Also noted, the entire medical profession over diagnoses, over medicates, not just psychiatry.

As I understand it the DSM 5 will be the last DSM. There is already the ICD -- International Classification of Medical Disorders -- and most mental disorders are already in there, and there are discrepancies/conflicts with specific wording. There is a need for a GLOBAL coding system ...

if you do not follow the statistics of illnesses, then you understand them less and cannot control or treat them. Malaria for instance, or tuberculosisi, or certain genetic disorders that appear due to toxins in the environment.

The DSM is like a dictionary. A surgeon does not learn surgery out of a book, s/he PERFORMS surgery until s/he understands how to do it, or fails at it. A psychiatrist spends time interactin with inpatients and outpatients.

Never said the medical profession was full of genius' however. No profession is.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

I figured out the best thing for my mental health and general well-being was to get far away from psychiatry.

The labels were never accurate or helpful, and the drugs were dangerous (I nearly lost my life twice taking my medication as prescribed. Over 100,000 people a year actually do.) and ineffective. I'm sure there's a minority of people who are GREATLY helped, but my god, the lack of good evidence about mental disorders (constant misdiagnosis) and overprescribing is ridiculous, and it can ruin or severely impact someone's quality of life.

I only wish more people would not allow themselves to be harmed by the incompetence of psychiatry because of desperation. A diagnosis and a drug is not the only route for getting better when you're having issues, most especially emotional and mental ones and not real illness, and it's not always the most effective one. I wish someone told me that when I was younger.

Thank god for Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic for smacking me upside the head and laying it all out in front of me. This paradigm of care needs change.


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

This is why my psychology teacher constantly said to see a psychologist before ever considering a psychiatrist, and I'm very grateful I listened to that advice.


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

I hope they take the 'disorder' out of the label of dissociative disorders. And maybe include in the DSM a little bit of useful knowledge about what dissociation is and how it works, maybe then the medical world will see it for what it is, and what it is NOT, instead of the knee jerk reaction they have of, "ohh you've got a disorder".. and reaching for their prescription pads.

Labelling dissociative disorders as a mental disorder was the worst thing 'they' could have done IMO. For instance, it gives the authorities powers over us... It gives the courts powers to take our children from us in some countries. Scary but true!

We need acceptance from all parts of society just as any other person deserves. I often tell people, being dissociative (I have d.i.d.) is a perfectly natural and organic way of being. It's true.. and it empowers me as well, and instantly starts them to question they're beliefs about DD's.

Sorry I kind of went way off track there.... but I suppose I'm interested to see what the medical worlds reaction would be to take out the 'disorder' of the current label we have? How would they treat us differently?


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Have you read a DSM, any of them? As I said, the DSM is NOT A TEXTBOOK. It is not how a doctor learns about mental illness. It is a manual for statistical and insurance purposes.

Also the terms disorder, syndrome, disease, etc. crossover in various ways.

Included in the DSM is dementia (many forms), Alzheimer's, Tourette's Syndrome, Austism, Schizophrenia, etc.

If they didn't keep statistics on disorders, diseases, illneesses, whatever you want to call them ... oh, I can't explain the purpose of statistics here.

Anyone who becomes a doctor of medicine goes to undergrad for four years of Pre-Med. They then have four years of Medical School. They must do an internship and residency. During all this time they rotate through all specialties. They then pursue a fellowship and become board certified.

You don't sit down and read the DSM and learn medicine. It is one tool, as I said, like a dictionary. Its importance is blown out of proportion.

By the time you are practicing medicine you are pushing 30.


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Dreamer* said:


> You don't sit down and read the DSM and learn medicine. It is one tool, as I said, like a dictionary. Its importance is blown out of proportion.


I agree. But ask any psychiatrist/psychologist where they form their diagnosis' from, and it'll most likely be the current DSM.

I'll gladly talk about the diagnosis of d.i.d. (even tho this is a forum for dp/dr) if you'd like my thoughts on how they worded that in DSM4... An incomprehensible joke!

P

Yes I have read the DSM in regards to DXing DD's


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Dreamer* said:


> You don't sit down and read the DSM and learn medicine. It is one tool, as I said, like a dictionary. Its importance is blown out of proportion.


However, it is, their diagnosis 'bible'.


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Dreamer* said:


> Anyone who becomes a doctor of medicine goes to undergrad for four years of Pre-Med. They then have four years of Medical School. They must do an internship and residency. During all this time they rotate through all specialties. They then pursue a fellowship and become board certified.
> 
> By the time you are practicing medicine you are pushing 30.


Sorry... but what's that got to do with 'the price of fish?' Are you implying... these people.. b/c they've spent 8, 10 years learning medicine, they have a good grasp on dissociative disorders?


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Sorry my friend.. Im not trying to 'make a scene'..... I just don't understand what you're trying to say?

P


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Dreamer* said:


> Also the terms disorder, syndrome, disease, etc. crossover in various ways.
> 
> Included in the DSM is dementia (many forms), Alzheimer's, Tourette's Syndrome, Austism, Schizophrenia, etc.


Again.. sorry.... but I just don't understand where you're coming from?


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Philo said:


> Sorry... but what's that got to do with 'the price of fish?' Are you implying... these people.. b/c they've spent 8, 10 years learning medicine, they have a good grasp on dissociative disorders?


Of course not. But as I have said, if you go to medical school to study to become a psychiatrist (my mother was a psychiatrist, M.D. in the 60s, 70s, 80s) and my psychiatrist -- a psychiatric RESIDENT (I see her infrequently for meds I see an LCSW for therapy) did not learn about mental illness by sitting down and reading the DSM.

That is like saying I learned about heart disease by reading a dictionary.

No psychiatrist I have EVER seen has looked at a book to diagnose me. The doctor, just like my family physician, oncologist, gynecolotist, etc. is well versed from HANDS ON TRAINING to listen to a patient, observe a patient and make some primary guesses as to diagnosis -- ER doctors must do this all the time from heart attack vs. stomach disorder, broken foot vs. sprained foot, psychotic break or LSD overdose, etc.

The DSM is used to mark down on a piece of paper the diagnosis. I have had breast cancer. I have no clue what that falls under, but for statistical purposes, it shows up on my records as Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and has a code, say 700.54. That information is to clarify diagnosis, treatment procedures, insurance billing and STATISTICS for the CDC.

If a doctor works long enough in a specialty, they don't have to look anything up in terms of coding, or a secretary will code it. There are individuals with jobs as medical coders. They see what the M.D. wrote, and enter it into a database. That's what it's for.

And no, depending on one's focus, psychiatrists don't agree on all diagnoses, niether do medical doctors. It depends on the complexity of the case.

The old school was influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis -- DP was recognized immediately in me in 1975. Why? My 40 year old psychiatrist was trained in medicine and psychoanalysis. Psychiatrists saw you for 50 minutes. Gave meds AND therapy. Freud said that he believed one day someone would discover the MEDICAL/NEUROLOGICAL underpinnings of these disorders. Science has allowed that to start happening.

When my mother saw someone psychotic in the ER at 3am and no one could figure what was wrong with the person, she started seeing drug overdoses causing the SAME SYMPTOMS as schizoprhenia, etc. She began to realize that the medical model was as important as the talk therapy approach.

Mothers used to be blamed for "being cold" and causing schizophrenia and autism. We now know that is not the case.

Also, a psychiatrist must study neurology. There is overlap in psychiatric and neurological disorders. A severe head injury later in someone's life (I know such a person) can bring on bipolar traits due strictly to the trauma to the brain (a severe near death auto collision).

If you poke the brain of someone with a tumor with an electrode, you can create DP/DR, out of body sensations, etc.

I have no clue why you have a problem calling something a disorder/syndrome or whatever.

No doctor is perfect. They misdiagnose, they lack knowledge for various reasons, they make mistakes, their POV is oriented to one treatment vs. another. The medical profession isn't perfect. But it's what we have. I am 54. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. Well, in 2004 they started using a genetic test to determine the agressiveness of my tumor. They analyzed the damned thing. Thank God it was not agressive. I did not need chemotherpy -- which can kill you. Before 2004 I would have been blasted with chemo and been in horrible shape. That is very recent for treating cancer.

End of lecture, lol.


----------



## Guest (May 17, 2013)

Was just thinking, in simplest terms:

1. Have you ever gone to any doctor and witnessed the doctor checking a book to see what your diagnosis is?

2. Have you ever had a plumber come to your house referring to a manual to fix the sink?

3. Have you ever had a teacher in school who did not read a book he/she is teaching, or have to refer to a textbook to teach algebra?

I have been to so many doctors, and seen so many psychiatrists in my life. As noted, I was diagnosed in 1975 in about 2 sessions. The doctor didn't look at anything. He listened to me. He said, "You are very depressed. You are very anxious. And that 'weird feeling' you are talking about is DP." In those days, psychiatrists would often not have secretaries. If they billed insurance (usually it was up to you to send in for a reimbursement) they would use a code for the insurance company. Again, since they see the same things over and over, they know the code.

In more complex times, modern technology, scientific advances, any doctor relies on ever changing databases, coding systems etc. LCSWs and Clinical psychologists have taken over therapy. Psychiatrists obsesrve your medication Rxs, etc. Now a doctor has no time -- insurance companies hold them to 10-15 minutes a patient. Physician's Assistants are now a major part of a team. You see them and nurses more than the doctor.

I was just at the eye doctor. His assistant is so well trained, she does 75% of my examination, and I have shitty eyes. The doctor comes in at the end of all of her work, he then looks at my retinas (I have detachments and macular problems). He speaks aloud to the assistant. "Tear at 11 o'clock. Macular pucker near optic nerve." She writes this down. She then sends it to another person in the office who CODES these things for billing purposes.

That individual is so well trained he/she doesn't look at the ICD or a coding reference unless something is uncommon or they forget.

Best jobs to have these days:

1. Physician's Assistant

2. Licenced Vocational Nurse or higher

3. Medical Database tech

4. Any kind of tech who runs machines

5. Medical CODER

My father, who graduated medical school in 1933, yes Thirty-Three, experienced a completely different world with NO health insurance. He made HOUSE CALLS. He dictated his cases. He was a thoracic surgeon. He studied journals and did continuing education, but he certainly wasn't looking at a textbook when he removed a cancerous lung from someone. And in those days it was barbaric -- cracking ribs open. He couldn't believe how medicine changed in his lifetieme.


----------



## Guest (May 18, 2013)

wise said:


> http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/psychiatry-allen-frances-saving-normal-dsm-5-controversy


Great article wise.... thank you

P


----------



## Guest (May 19, 2013)

Dreamer,

The reason why I object to the term 'disorder', when it's added on the end of diagnosed depersonalisation (or in fact any diagnosed dissociative condition) is :-

According to my online dictionary,

Disorder,

• Medicine a disruption of normal physical or mental functions; a disease or abnormal condition : eating disorders | an improved understanding of mental disorder.

Let's take a look at that,

A disruption of normal mental functions? Nope. Dissociation IS a normal mental function! It's a protective function of our minds.

A disease? Nope.

An abnormal condition? Nope. Nothing abnormal about being in a dissociative state, even an extremely dissociated state.

Then why in the hell do they label all diagnosed dissociative people as having a disorder? While I agree some people are in a state of disorder with dissociation, many are not, and can lead relatively 'normal' well functioning lives. Therefore my problem with a generic label such as 'disorder' is how the medical profession sees us, and the community at large, and even how we perceive ourselves. Take a look at how Hollywood has portrayed dissociative people... criminals, murderers, crazy, etc etc and why not? After all we have a mental disorder, our minds are diseased! OMG...

Thought I'd look up 'dissociation' in the dictionary too...

Dissociation,

• Psychiatry separation of normally related mental processes, resulting in one group functioning independently from the rest, leading in extreme cases to disorders such as multiple personality.

Yes it can get extreme.... There are plenty of multiples in this world who are not in a disordered state, same as there are plenty of people who experience daily dp/dr who are not in a disordered state. They'd have to be considered extreme states yeah?

Do you understand my frustration?

Idk maybe I'm standing way out on a limb here.. I'd be interested to see other peoples views on this.

Wise... sorry I hope I haven't taken your thread to a place you don't see as valid. I apologise if I have.

P


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

I find it so ironic that in high school I had planned on becoming a doctor (psychiatrist) and then dp got in the way and prevented me from feeling capable of fulfilling that dream, but now more and more I see modern medicine as a profit driven machine, doctors don't care about their own health nor their patients' and the emphasis is on drugs and not preventative medicine.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

GroupHug said:


> I figured out the best thing for my mental health and general well-being was to get far away from psychiatry.
> 
> The labels were never accurate or helpful, and the drugs were dangerous (I nearly lost my life twice taking my medication as prescribed. Over 100,000 people a year actually do.) and ineffective. I'm sure there's a minority of people who are GREATLY helped, but my god, the lack of good evidence about mental disorders (constant misdiagnosis) and overprescribing is ridiculous, and it can ruin or severely impact someone's quality of life.
> 
> ...


I just read the about the book section and it says

"There are now more than four million people in the United States who receive a government disability check because of a mental illness, and the number continues to soar. Every day, 850 adults and 250 children with a mental illness are added to the government disability rolls. What is going on?"

I am curious to know if anyone here has actually received a disability check for dp?


----------



## Guest (May 19, 2013)

wise said:


> I just read the about the book section and it says
> 
> "There are now more than four million people in the United States who receive a government disability check because of a mental illness, and the number continues to soar. Every day, 850 adults and 250 children with a mental illness are added to the government disability rolls. What is going on?"
> 
> I am curious to know if anyone here has actually received a disability check for dp?


Lots to respond to in this. Wish we could all just sit down over coffee and discuss.

I don't know how correct these statistics are,where did you get them Wise? but I do know the following:

*It is a fact that one in four US citizens will have a mental illness AT SOME POINT IN THEIR LIFETIME. And this would include everything from "the big disorders" -- schizophrenia, bipolar DISORDER, clinical depression, schizoaffective DISORDER, Alzheimer's Disease (progressive and ultimately leads to death).*

I think I said before, that mental illnesses affect FULL SOCIAL AND OCCUPATIONAL FUNCTIONING. There are many people who work/survive day to day, have families, etc. Others cannot do this.

Examples of "at some point in your lifetime"

1. A mother has 3 children, after her third child she sufferes one year of post-partum depression enough to keep her from caring for her children

2. A young student in high school or college experiences serious depression and commits suicide.

3. Re: suicide, 38,000 Americans commit suicide each year. 1,100 university students are in that number. 90% of those who commit suicide have a mental illness.

4. Many individuals self-medicate anxiety with alcohol. When they can no longer tolerate alcohol or drugs and must stop -- anxiety, depression come to the forefront. If anything self-medication hides mental disorders. "Dual diagosis." I know many mentally people who are alcoholics and there are more mentally ill individuals who smoke. A person with bipolar is four times more likely to abuse alcohol than the average population.

5. Some who grieve he death of a spouse or child, fall from normal grieving into actual clinical depression and need treatment

6. As you get older, your chances for some form of dementia keep increasing. We live longer, especiallly women. This was not a problem if a man died at 65. He might not even show signs of Alzheimer's. The statistics are that one spouse in a marriage will get dementia as they become elderly. Terrifies me as Alzheimer's runs in my family.

This goes on and one and on and on, and if anyone would consider the complexity of this I've made my point. There are MANY factors here that you're talking about. Different issues.

Something like a disorder I think would be considered long term -- coming and going -- varying in intensity. We are splitting hairs here. You can say, Down's Syndrome (that is also in the DSM), Tourette's Syndrome, Autism Spectrum DISORDER, etc. Personality disorders (Borderline Personality Disorder which could be on the bipolar spectrum -- a mood disorder.)

Then you have anxiety disorders, OCD, hoarder/clutterer, etc. And in that mix comes Depersonalization and Derealization which like other mental illnesses can be severe or not as severe, which can come and go, or be chronic. I have lived with DP/DR my entire life, with some breaks, some horrific periods. I have clinical depression and GAD/panic and a variety of other things.

Someone with schizoprhenia can have panic, anxiety, depression, etc.

What has changed over time is"

1. The population has grown

2. Diagnostic capabllities are better.

3. The genome project and advanced brain imaging reveals problems in the brain

4. Brain autopsies of health and mentally ill individuals have yielded a ton of info

I won't carry on. Also, there are MORE people seeking treatment as stigma is less (though not by much). Many people suffered in silence even 50 years ago. Many individuals were cared for by family, or were institutionalized. Families don't remain as close. There are no more mental institutions -- save jails, prisons, the streets.

If individuals end up in the hospital with a mental illness -- well, suffice it to say, that isn't easy. You have to be very sick. And there are lot of very sick people out there. Also, may big hospials and small ones have no psych beds anymore. They turn people away. The mentally ill are in serious trouble worldwide.

I always ask. If every other organ in the body can fail in one way or the other, how is the brain exempt?


----------



## Guest (May 19, 2013)

I am eligible for disability. My diagnosis since 1975 has been Depersonalization Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I have always been fortunate enough to have enough money to be ineligble financially. There are many people I know, and individuals on this board who are on disability. It may not be exclusively for DP, but for severe OCD w/DP, etc. I am in a depression group. Out of 8 of us 3 are on disability (all of those individuals have bipolar and have been repeatedly hospitalized.)

My cousin who is schizoaffective is on disablity. My boyfriend from college has schizophrenia and is on disability.


----------



## Guest (May 19, 2013)

Philo said:


> Dreamer,
> 
> The reason why I object to the term 'disorder', when it's added on the end of diagnosed depersonalisation (or in fact any diagnosed dissociative condition) is :-
> 
> ...


There's a lot to respond to here are well, and I'm sort of all over the place, but I learn each time I examine these things. I am sesriously considering going back to school and getting a degree in psych. I have a BA and MA. I might get a BA, or I would like a degree in Public Health. That's a lot of work and I have such difficulty concentrating now, and get so anxious ... I think I will just take one class at Community College here and there to see how I do.



> A disruption of normal mental functions? Nope. Dissociation IS a normal mental function! It's a protective function of our minds.
> 
> A disease? Nope.
> 
> An abnormal condition? Nope. Nothing abnormal about being in a dissociative state, even an extremely dissociated state.


You just contradicted yourself. That statement is what you are saying.

Dissociation is normal, and can potentially occur in ALL humans. However there are MANY people who never dissociate. They don't know what the hell it even means. I also know people who can't figure what my anxiety is all about. They don't get anxious. My therapist and I discuss this ... she has no clue re: the level of my anxiety. But she has seen so many patients over 30 years, she understands that way, and helps in ways she knows best.

*A disruption of a normal function. Yes, CHRONC, DEBILITATING DP/DR is a disruption of a NORMAL FUNCTION. It is called a disorder vs. a disease, as a disease is progressive. Parkinson's Disease (also in the DSM) is a progressive degenerative disorder which also results in emotional problems and dementia aside from movement disorders, and ultimately "freezing up" of the body. Alzheimer's is a disease as it is progressive and leads to death.*

*Also anxiety serves a purpose -- survival. But when it becomes debilitating it is a disruption of NORMAL FUNCTION. We can see clinical depression as grief gone bad. (I don't know if that is a good example though as that is a debate.)*

A disorder would be more appropriate in that DP/DR DO NOT LEAD TO DEATH. They are not progressive like heart disease, diabetes, etc. They are not leading to death as is metastatic cancer.

One keeps forgetting that ALL illnesses, I don't care what they are, have more positive outcomes and more negative outcomes. Some people with heart diseaes and who have had 5 heart attacks and bypass surgery can live to be 80. Others drop dead at 40.

One can have cancer and it will never return. Others have cancer caught too late that cannot be treated at all. Others have recurrence ten years later.

Time for bed.

My sense is most peole who look at my posts will say tl:dr or they won't believe me.

I tried, lol.



D


----------



## Guest (May 19, 2013)

Psychiatry and neurology overlap. Why? Because emotion and behavior can both be affected by brain disorders. A stroke is a brain disorder and change someone's personality. A TBI (traumatic brain injury can change a person's personality and cause a multitude of neurological and psychiatric problems). PTSD -- something veterans of wars throughout history have had. Going back to Ancient Times. But not ALL indiviuals who fight in wars get PTSD. There are various predispositions.

Re: MPD. There is a great divide over whether or not this disease is even real. I hate to say that I have read about "Sybil" -- Shriley Mason -- and am pretty convinced from recent in depth reserach that she was never a multiple. The ISSMPD changed the wording of MPG to DID and it is very vague.

In the 1800s I believe there were extremely rare cases of MPD. I don't think Freud even discusses them. They became something of a fad in the US after "The Three Faces of Eve" and "Sybil" -- then we found false satanic ritual abuse rampant, and false memory syndrome.

Like the concept of the "schizophrenogenic mother" causing schizophrenia -- believed in the 1960s and early 1970s. That fell by the wayside when it was found schizoprhenia was a MEDICAL/NEUROLOGICAL disorder.

The fate of MPD is yet to be determined. Diagnosis or overdiagnosis of ADHD is yet to be determined.

In the pipeline, there is research into blood tests that reflect depression. There are also tests (genetic and otherwise) tha will be able to predict and hopefully PREVENT schizophrenia. I could write all day about this, but it serves no purpose.

I will say again. When I was in college in the early 1980s, there was an epidemic called GRID -- Gay Related Immune Disorder. It was believed to be exclusive only to gays who used "poppers." Well, surprise, research was underfunded due to the stigma that gays got this. Straight people were thought to be immune, until they were infected by tainted blood transfusions and plasma. AIDS was the new name and it affected children, women, men, drug users, etc. NOT JUST GAY MEN. The disease is believed to have been transferred from simeons to humans back in the early 1900s.

Well, you know the story. There is NO CURE for AIDS today. But there is prolonged lifespan with many drugs that cost a fortune. In the 1970s and 1980s AIDS was a death sentence. It is not now, save in Africa and other countries that don't deal with it.

We go back to the DSM, and the ICD. You need statistics to follow patterns of illness, so that vaccinations can be given -- say for the flu, shingles, etc. You need to know where to focus attention on specific disorders. I have a young friend who has been in the Peace Corps in Africa for 3 years. He has been helping with sex education and rape of women by men who refuse to wear condoms but carry the AIDS virus.

And we know more these days -- why? -- we here good information and misinformation from the internet. Something I did not grow up with. I had no cell phone, I had no computer in college. The medical advances I have seen in my life are astounding. So are the technological.

This is far more complicated than saying chronic DP/DR that interfere with work, social interactions, and even make individuals suicidal (I have been suicidal 3 times in my life -- the plan I had for age 30 was pretty much set in stone.)

Hope this all makes sense.

And yes, OP, we've gone off in different directions, but it is a good discussion. I can also say, that I have had uni courses in psychology, visitied one of the last mental institutions in my state, have been a NAMI member since the 1980s, have been an advocate for that long. Have come in contact with many mentally ill people. Experience does matter. I have learned most from first hand interaction with mentally ill people, and that is how therapists and doctors learn.

Also, medical costs are another discussion. Any medical procedure these days is grossly overpriced. It has to do with insurance companies, and with very expensive new tests. There is no real price control.

SO MANY DIFFERENT FACTORS.

Another night I can't sleep, so I write.

Cheers,

A good discussion.

D


----------



## Guest (May 20, 2013)

Dreamer* said:


> Dissociation is normal, and can potentially occur in ALL humans. However there are MANY people who never dissociate. They don't know what the hell it even means. I also know people who can't figure what my anxiety is all about. They don't get anxious. My therapist and I discuss this ... she has no clue re: the level of my anxiety. But she has seen so many patients over 30 years, she understands that way, and helps in ways she knows best.


Dreamer.... almost everyone in this world dissociates to some degree. If not everyone. People dissociate when they read books, drive cars, watch a film, drink alcohol, smoke pot, daydream, go for a walk, surf a wave, listen to music etc etc etc etc.. Children dissociate too! Regularly...

You're right tho... 'they don't even know what it means'... cos it's an everyday ordinary occurrence and we don't seem to talk about it generally. But I think if you used the everyday examples, people will recognise instantly what it is.

BTW.. I think it's rude of you to have little 'digs' at me by capitalising DISORDER just about every time you mention it. I'm not stupid. I can see what you're doing. Ok?

Just in case you haven't noticed.. the only 'disorder' I've talked about is dissociative 'disorders'. Why are you bringing up every other disorder known to mankind? If you want discuss further... First read what I'm actually talking about.

Just to reiterate what I'm trying to say (in fact, ALL I'm trying to say)... I believe, calling a natural, organic capability of the human mind (to protect itself, and the body) a DISORDER is incorrect. And I believe there are negative consequences/impacts in real life that go along with that label. ie.. the way society views us, the way the medical profession view us, the courts etc.

Why don't they call it a 'condition' or 'event' or something like that?

I'm only putting this out there cos that's the way I think. If you don't agree, fine. Throw everything at me. I'm happy to learn.

You said I contradicted myself.. Can you explain the contradiction please? Maybe I have, I'm not sure, but if you don't explain your reasons I'll never know.

Ohh and your views on MPD? 'The fate of MPD is yet to be determined'... Ohh come on! You are kidding right? MPD is real my friend whether you want to believe or not. Honestly my psychiatrist would laugh all the way home if you presented those flimsy arguments to her, just the way I did. To say you've read a critique on 'Sybil' and have formed the opinion she was never a multiple, is like me saying "well I read a book by someone well known that proved that GAD didn't exist!" Therefore.. I don't believe in it!.. Ohh come on! You can do better than to make comments based on hearsay and self opinions.

No more mumbo jumbo about things which have NO relevance PLEASE.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

wise said:


> I am curious to know if anyone here has actually received a disability check for dp?


I *really* doubt that. DP in itself does not incapacitate.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

GroupHug said:


> I *really* doubt that. DP in itself does not incapacitate.


Just ask the people on this board that aren't able to hold down a job or get through school.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

wise said:


> Just ask the people on this board that aren't able to hold down a job or get through school.


I don't doubt people here are either unable or unwilling to work or go to school. I just don't know how depersonalization, in itself, stops someone from doing either of those things.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

If it's chronic, it's debilitating. How easy is it to go about your day when you have feelings of not being grounded in your body and not having agency. It's a real bitch.


----------



## Guest (May 21, 2013)

Philo said:


> Dreamer.... almost everyone in this world dissociates to some degree. If not everyone. People dissociate when they read books, drive cars, watch a film, drink alcohol, smoke pot, daydream, go for a walk, surf a wave, listen to music etc etc etc etc.. Children dissociate too! Regularly...
> 
> You're right tho... 'they don't even know what it means'... cos it's an everyday ordinary occurrence and we don't seem to talk about it generally. But I think if you used the everyday examples, people will recognise instantly what it is.
> 
> ...


Well, I don't mean to be condescending, I like to emphasize things. That the term depersonaliztion disorder -- well I didn't coin the term, and things are named in various ways for various reasons. In a sense that isn't chosen on a whim. Someone else in another post, maybe this one, made an assumption about MY experience. I don't make an assumptioin about anyone else here, save some may be self-diagnosed or misdiagnosed.



> Dreamer.... almost everyone in this world dissociates to some degree. If not everyone. People dissociate when they read books, drive cars, watch a film, drink alcohol, smoke pot, daydream, go for a walk, surf a wave, listen to music etc etc etc etc.. Children dissociate too! Regularly...


Yes, of course, but there are 3 types of dissociation:

1. Dissociating when driving a car -- driving for 10 miles past your exit then realizing -- I wasn't really there, I was "somewhere else" -- oh Hell. Very common, and yes, experienced by most people in the world. Of course. These are not symptoms of depersonalization or derealization. They are the mind yammering away or distracted on auto-pilot. They are not interfering with life in the least. These are not "perceptual distortions" -- this is not a DISORDER. It is not in any DSM.

2. Then there is DP/DR that is clearly "secondary" to something like a panic attack, lack of sleep, change in circadian rhythm, stress in a job over a period of time. These are indeed perceptual distortions like deja vu. Many have fleeting moments of DP/DR under such circumstances (or also terrifying events such as the WTC, war, etc.). But these things pass -- they are not chronic. They last a shorter time -- are not interfering with quality of life. This is not a DISORDER. It is considered secondary to a primary problem from depression, to an anxiety disorder, to stroke, to TLE, etc.

I have a therapist who has never felt deja vu, not to mention DP/DR. She tries her hardest to understand. My psychiatrist has experienced DP/DR -- a more common version of it. He said, during a 72 hour in the ER, under stress, as an intern when he had to make snap decisions without sleep, he felt DP/DR. He was so exhausted and stressed. But he said to me, "I got some sleep, some relaxation afterwards and it went away. I can't even imagine how awful it would be if it hung around. I would not be able to function." I have friends who have no idea what I talk about re: DP/DR. Some have panic, OCD and HAVE described it. But again it is fleeting.

3. Then there are those of us here. Where it interferes with our lives in a significant way. THIS IS THE DISORDER in the DSM. Why woudl we be here for support if we weren't bothered by it -- less severe to VERY severe. There are obvious degrees of disability from it. Some "live with it." It has interfered with everything in my life. And I stil force myself to accomplish things. I have a BA and an MA -- but I had to drop out of my BA for a year. I have had a million different jobs, worked in TV at Fox studies. I have sung and acted publically, etc., etc. I can't do those things now. My DP/DR get TERRIBLE under any stress. I cannot function, I cannot understand what people are saying to me. This happens in social situations as well. But I also have DP/DR that interferes with my life 24/7, 365 days a year, and in my dreams, always. Some days are better, some worse. It never goes away.

I would call that a disorder.

Contradicting yourself was "everyone has dissociation" -- not breaking this down into three categories and not noting that chronic perceptual distortions are the same as common day dissociation:

Well, if you don't understand or agree with what I'm saying, it is not fruitful to debate it. You said, we have something that is a distortion of a normal occurrence in the brain. That is what I'm saying. A normal fight/flight response is "stuck on." That isn't normal.

And to determine if anything is "disabling" it has only 2 criteria that make perfect sense to me -- interference with social and occupational functioning. Even though many here work, they don't feel the way "healthy people do." Some cannot feel connection to a mate, their family. They feel "dead of emotions." That is not normal.

I see no problem with the label disorder. You do. Not sure why. I emphasized everything that limits functioning is called disorder, syndrome, disease. And for some things it is clear why progressive illnesses that lead to death are usually called diseases vs. disorder, and syndrome is another word. This is something we can't agree on. It was first described by a French philosopher in the late 1800s. The feelings he experienced he called "depersonalization" -- before the diagnosis existed. HE called it that. He felt though he was successful in writing and well known in France, he never was successful in his work or social life because of it. Henri Amiel -- in his "Diary" -- Journal Intime.

Later a psychologist of sorts used his term "depersonalization" -- some years after his death -- to describe the first cases of DP. What others described, but had no words for.

RE: MPD now DID -- there was a reason they changed that name entirely.  I can't go into the details of it, but I was seen in the '80s by a founding member of the ISSMPD. 2 of them actually -- Loewenstein and Marmer -- psychoanalysis. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a surge of reports of MPD -- but only in North America and by caucasian women. Before that time it was considered very rare. 1 case here and there -- VERY rare. Then the media grabbed onto two stories, "The Three Faces of Eve" and "Sybil" ... which were both recanted by the individuals who helped make MPD famous and "trendy" and something well-intentioned therapists wanted to help -- by pulling repressed memories from anyone with some emotional problem.

It was also found that many alters could be created in individuals -- they were "iatrogenic" -- seen by the therapist, encouraged by the therapist -- even Freud would do this -- insisting that female patients and been sexually abused in their childhoods when they knew they hadn't. Also children could be coached in famous Satanic Ritual cases. Then later said, "I said those things to make the therapist stop bugging me. Or to please the therapist." No spaceship came and took the accused molester and the victim up in a spaceship to be molested. Those cases fell apart. Police investigated claims of ritual killing of animals and tore up an entire playground and the area surrounding one school. Not one bone of an animal -- supposedly hundreds of rabbits were killed to frighten the children.

The ISSMPD changed its name when members were sued for this. DID is the new definition. One of my psychiatrists was sued. Scare the shit out of me. Heard this some years later and these doctors apologized.

Similar to this is homosexuality was believed to be a sexual disorder (not fatal obviously). It was removed from the DSM-III. It was found that individuals were born gay. Studies have shown differences in anecdotal and medical studies.

I was abused (not sexually but verbally) -- these two MD psychoanalysts never suggested MPD to me, nor did they assume I was sexually abused, though my mother implied my father "did things" and she had some psychotic episodes -- I never believed a word she said.

They diagnosed me as having chronic DP/DR. One was the first to give me Klonopin -- which kept me from killing myself -- reduced the DP/DR enough for me to function again -- but not fully. I am about 60% "here" and fall downwards under many circumstances, especially when I am tired. He still is a leading doctor at Sheppard-Pratt hospital. He changed his tune to a degree. He stil works with TRAUMA patients. The ISSMPD is now called the ISSD-T or the other way around -- ISST-D. Multiple alters are seen very rarely, and the diagnosis plummeted after all of the scandals. This involves loss of memory for entire events. My therapist says she has ONE patient (in thirty years) with this disorder.

Just because something changes in definition over time, doesn't mean there isn't something wrong going on which also disrupts the patient's life. This has happened in medicine. No one understood cancer 150 years ago and prior to that. People just died. We know so much more with modern medicine, that has 100+ years to advance.

I guess I get frustrated as I have said this so many times.

I suggest reading an excellent book "Sybil Exposed" which explains why Multiple alters ( a disorder) have been reduced to two or three altered states with memory loss for the other states. It is believed to be part of Borderline Personality or another category altogether. I'm only telling you what I have researched over years.

If you call my research, my membership in NAMI and many other mental health organizations, my personal experience, my college studies, my interaction with other mentally ill people of all types -- both strangers, new friends, members of my family etc. Mumbo Jumbo then I talk Mumbo Jumbo. You don't have to agree. I am just sharing my knowledge.

We will have to agree to disagree that is all. And my research did not come about to "cure myself" it came about re: understanding myself, my parents, other mentally ill people.

This is from Nature and Nurture -- that much I know. And no doctor or therapist has ever said to me how much of which. They don't know. NOT knowing WHY does not mean it doesn't exist.

I'm sorry if you find me rude. I felt you weren't listening. And I am endlessly accused of writing too much.

Read my book (which is very difficult to write and if it is ever published). You can say it is crap or not. You're prerogative. See my website which you can feel the same about.

I am simply frustrated.

I am also 54. I know individuals of all ages -- up into their sixties who have DP/DR -- chronic.  That experience should count for something. I guess it doesn't.


----------



## Guest (May 21, 2013)

And how can I respond on the internet in one sentence to what you asked?

Yes I am always told my posts are too long to read. I try to emphasize certain points actually to help get to the meat of my point. Then people type, TLR. Well, if you read a book on any topic, in depth, in is usually 200 pages long. You can't not read a novel -- literature -- that is 250 pages long -- if you have no patience to read it. So you get nothing from it.

You can't read a graphic novel if you don't go through the entire thing -- to get the point. For that matter, if you don't read an entire comic strip, you won't get the joke. And reading the DSM as I said is like reading the dictionary. Or reading the ICD generated by the WHO. All doctors learn from hands on experience. You can't perform surgery looking at a textbook. You LEARN how to do it. You learn how to diagnose -- some things in psychiatry are very clear, but not fully understood. The same can be said for cancer, and I have had cancer -- now in remission. One is never considered "cured" of cancer.


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

Dreamer.... if u wanna spend ur time believing u have a 'disorder', ie... you are 'defective' and/or 'diseased''... ok.. your choice

Personally, I'd rather believe I have a condition which is a natural and organic response of the human mind to overwhelming stress... Maybe that's why I don't pump myself full of medication?? B/c I have a great admiration and appreciation and trust of our natural abilities and our minds to deal with life... WHATEVER it may deal to you.!

You know what? It's OK to question the 'experts'.. Experts? haha. And their mumbo jumbo about topics they're OBVIOUSLY NOT very experienced OR learned about! After all.. WE are the experts on our selves! Maybe one of these days these 'experts' will actually 'listen' to what we say?

I DON'T BELIEVE I'M SICK or DISEASED or I have A 'DISORDER' or I'M DEFECTIVE.. that's 'their' words b/c 'they' don't know any better!

Ohh.. and btw.. the reason I explained how everyone in this world dissociates is b/c you said... and I "quote"..

"Dissociation is normal, and can potentially occur in ALL humans. However there are MANY people who never dissociate"..

Wow... and next thing you know, I'm/we're getting a lecture on the 3 different types of dissociation... ohhh dear.. lol


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

Philo said:


> Dreamer.... if u wanna spend ur time believing u have a 'disorder', ie... you are 'defective' and/or 'diseased''... ok.. your choice
> 
> Personally, I'd rather believe I have a condition which is a natural and organic response of the human mind to overwhelming stress... Maybe that's why I don't pump myself full of medication?? B/c I have a great admiration and appreciation and trust of our natural abilities and our minds to deal with life... WHATEVER it may deal to you.!
> 
> ...


Well, you are attacking me now. That is unfortunate as this is not a civil debate, and we are both on the defensive. Ignore what I have to say. I don't care. I can live my life as I choose. So can you.

I know I have depersonalization disorder, severe anxiety and clinical depression. I have also had cancer. I do not define myself by any of these.  I seek to find answers to both, to find treatment, cures, etc. I am not "a cancer patient" -- I am merely someone who has cancer in remission. I am doing much better thank you due to a bilateral mastectomy and oral medication. I had the same tests as Angelina Jolie. I do not have the BCRA1 or 2 faulty genes and my tumor was genetically analyzed . I was spared seirous illness or death from chemotherapy. My oral medication has taken much away from me -- libido, and I have other side-effects, but they preserve my life -- they lower the statistics of recurrence, which are still unsettling to me. This is my choice of treatment. Risk/benefit.

As Andrew Solomon says (google him):

Say re: autism which is called "Autism Spectrum Disorder" (and I read this last night by coincidence) -- note Solomon has clinical depression and is gay and doesn't define himself as either.

Andrew Solomon
Far From The Tree -- this book took ten years of research.
Page 221 - Chapter titled Autism

"[Autistm] is a syndrome rather than an illness because it is a collection of behaviors rather than a known biological entity. The syndrome encompasses a highly variable group of symptoms and behaviors, and we have little knowledge of where it is located in the brain, why it occurs, or what triggers it. We have no way to measure it but by its external manifestations. The Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel said, "If we can understand autism, we can understand the brain." That is a generous way of saying that we will understand autism only when we understand the brain."

----------------------------

I didnt' make that up. Solomon is a lecturer in Psychiatry at Cornell University, and an expert in LGBT at Yale. I saw him personally in give a brilliant seminar at University of Michigan and purchased his book a month ago. You can argue with him -- but this is the truth. And one day, I do believe we will find the [EDIT] neurological underpinnings of mental illness. He is also consultant at the U. of M. Depression Center. I have been in studies there, helping seek the biological/neurological/genetic/even molecular underpinnings of depression. Nature AND Nurture, and a holistic approach.

My three versions of Dissociation are based on fact not my own ideas. And psychiatrists are honest about "not knowing the biological underpinnings" -- but these illnesses still exist. I also have no "cure" for my cancer. I am in remission -- why? Cancer is not fully undertood.

The brain is the most complex organ in the body. It can malfunction, "get sick" -- the problems with the brain are recognized by the World Health Organization, and statistically recorded -- they are included with all medical illnesses, disorders, and syndromes. These are facts.

I do not worship the medical profession. My parents were both abusive doctors. I had no parents as far as I can see. I never agreed with my mother -- a psychiatrist.

I am not my illnesses, I am Sandy and I have these problems. Some interfere with my life more than others. To be honest, having cancer was a walk in the park compared to DP/DR and it stole 2 years of my life. DP/DR stole my entire life. Anxiety and depression as well.

We agree to disagree.

View this awesome video -- yet again about "Far From The Tree" -- there is a woman who has schizoprhenia who does not define herself as a schizoprhenic. There are other individuals whose difficulties and causes are not understood -- but they represent the diversity of our world, what each can contribute, and how the strenght of good parents can help. As I said, I had no parents -- they were also much older when they had me. My father 53 at my birth (my age now is 54), my mother 43. They both cared about their work more than they gave a shit about me. I'm working on those things with my therapist.

So shoot me, lol.


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

Take five minutes to watch this book trailer for "Far From the Tree" -- many of these individuals have disorders that are not yet fully understood. Being gay is NOT a disorder. It is part of one's given personality. But Solomon examines many of these "different" children, and how they are not defined by their illnesses and how their parents still find love to help them.

Down Syndrome and an individual with so many problems -- mental retardation, self harm, autism -- no one can figure how he got that way, but his father still loves him for who he is. He has many disorders and cannot function on his own. All the problems in his brain are expressed by behaviors hence he is both a neurological and psychiatric patient.

Diagnosis is a concern worldwide -- Google "The World Health Organization."


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

Philo said:


> I agree. But ask any psychiatrist/psychologist where they form their diagnosis' from, and it'll most likely be the current DSM.
> 
> I'll gladly talk about the diagnosis of d.i.d. (even tho this is a forum for dp/dr) if you'd like my thoughts on how they worded that in DSM4... An incomprehensible joke!
> 
> ...


This is not true. Every therapist and psychiatric resident I have encountered -- and that includes my mother -- I observed her studying psychiatry (she went back to school after I was born -- was already in Internal Medicine) -- read everything from the entire 20+ books of Freud, studied medical journals, studied endless textbooks, and most importantly had one on one contact from with psychiatric patients from day one. This was in the 1960s. The DSM ONE at the time was merely a reference book as it is today -- and it was first written in 1954. A coding system for the miliatary. My mother did not "study" the DSM.

It is again, like a dictionary, and used by medical coders for statistcs and insurance purposes. I forgot when health insurance was instigated, but when my parents both practiced from the 1930s on, there was no health insurance, and no "Big Pharma" -- there was only illness they tried to treat as best they could with what was available at the time.

My mother was also required to study neurology. There was a fake brain on the kitchen table she had to memorize in its entirety. All of the areas inside and out. She would study to 3 am when I was a kid.


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

The arguments over the DSM are the same as arguments over whether Republicans or Democrats have the correct way of dealing with billions of dollars in debt. They have come to no agreement at all, lol.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

We've all been conditioned to believe that experts have the answers when they basically know nothing. We're told that if you've gotten to the point where you're dissociative, that you've been damaged somehow, irreparably and need to be on meds forever, which is further traumatizing. I think disregarding the DSM is one way to take our power back and take back control which is what dped people need most and not put all our faith in pharmaceuticals. 
Philo, I hope this isn't weird of me to ask, but if I may, what are your alters like? And how do they all coexist?


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

I will say, undergraduate may be given the DSM if they take a coure in "Abnormal Psychology" as they can more easily summarize complex information in a succinct way.

1. What is autism? X, Y, Z

2. What is DPD? A, B, C

3. What are the characteristics of Alzheimer's vs. dementia

It is then used as a STUDY GUIDE, like "Cliff Notes" or Wikipedia, etc.


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

wise said:


> We've all been conditioned to believe that experts have the answers when they basically know nothing. We're told that if you've gotten to the point where you're dissociative, that you've been damaged somehow, irreparably and need to be on meds forever, which is further traumatizing. I think disregarding the DSM is one way to take our power back and take back control which is what dped people need most and not put all our faith in pharmaceuticals.
> Philo, I hope this isn't weird of me to ask, but if I may, what are your alters like? And how do they all coexist?


Wise, I don't know if you read anything I posted. One can reject medicine entirely if they wish.

When you get to my age and experience medical problems and have to make choices about medications for your heart, your arthritis, etc., well by that time there will be better treatments.

Why even go to a dentist. A doctor of dentistry. WTH do they know? Why go to an ER, why trust a doctor to reset a complex fracture of your leg? Why have a hip replacement when you can't walk. Why go to a neurologist if you have epilepsy?

Why go to a gynecologist when you are pregnant? I guess that serves no purpose? Are all doctors useless?

I give up.

It is your choice, your body. I am merely expressing my opinion.

Anyone here can do whatever they want.


----------



## Guest (May 22, 2013)

I have not been conditioned. I rejected my parents medical models for a long time. I have fired many doctors I felt were incompetent, in the same way as I have fired plumbers, auto mechanics, etc.


----------



## Guest (May 23, 2013)

wise said:


> We've all been conditioned to believe that experts have the answers when they basically know nothing. We're told that if you've gotten to the point where you're dissociative, that you've been damaged somehow, irreparably and need to be on meds forever, which is further traumatizing. I think disregarding the DSM is one way to take our power back and take back control which is what dped people need most and not put all our faith in pharmaceuticals.
> Philo, I hope this isn't weird of me to ask, but if I may, what are your alters like? And how do they all coexist?


Hi wise,

I like what you wrote here.. especially the bit about disregarding the DSM. Maybe if they ripped out the section on dissociative disorders and threw that crap in the bin for a start.... lol I've gotta admit I know very little about other mental health issues and disorders. I just want to stick with what concerns me most. And yeah I've been told I need to take meds for years (even by pdocs who'd only met me for an hour or so). I'll admit I tried ssri's a couple of times and it was a disaster. And b/c I stopped taking the meds, the local hospital mental health team put a big fat stamp on my file which states "NON COMPLIANT WITH MEDICATION". Now they won't have ANYTHING to do with me! No ongoing support whatsoever.. Doesn't seem fair does it?  I never did anything wrong. I just tried to do what was best for me, but, looks like I get punished for that too!

I'm happy enough to talk about DID and my internal family. There's a lot of us (30 +). Our body is male and the spread of parts/alters/others is about 60% male and 40% female, so that in itself can be very confusing! Internal families operate as a 'system'. A highly regulated system. The primary mission for a DID system, is survival and protection of our body. Alters usually have a specific purpose, ie some work, some socialise, others build up a knowledge bank of our condition (so we can understand and cope), others will protect us from memories which are difficult to cope with, others fix things, someone looks after the children (internal), others communicate knowledge to police, therapists etc, some cook, some have the specific role of looking after our body, there's one who 'scrambles our mind so we can't communicate (he was made by the bad, bad people to protect them) and of course there's 'me' (who's the usual 'front runner') Pheww.. and that's only some. It's a team effort tho, cos usually there's 5 or 6 alters that are 'out the front' and they usually work pretty well together... or at least they try to. 

People with DID usually have 2 worlds/realities (some have more). One is the external world (which of course everyone in this world all shares) and we also have an internal world, a subjective reality, where everyone inside lives. I'll emphasise 'reality' b/c it IS our reality and it affects how we operate. A good therapist will not even question the existence of this internal world b/c sooner or later they can see it's how important a role this internal world plays. It just IS. I've got a great therapist. Sometimes I think it must be amazing for her to sit there and wonder who's going to walk in the door and start talking. It amazes me too. Generally I'm co-present with most alters, so I can 'see', hear and feel them but sometimes I have NO control over what they do or say. It's like sitting in the back seat you know? They just go for it.!. blah blah blah blah lol.. Ohh poor therapist..! They don't ALL like her you know! And they let their their feelings and thoughts out in that regard. Lost track of how many times I've had to apologise for things that have been said, even tho 'I' didn't say those things. On that.. I take full responsibility for EVERYTHING which is said and done! Most important!

This is really HARD work tho. I'm soo tired all the time. There are plenty days when I feel I just can't do it anymore. It's too confusing and chaotic and I get so triggered and dissociative that I'm/we're completely and utterly useless and dysfunctional. Most days of this year have been like that. Tell the truth for the last couple of years, I can barely walk out my front door! Even my psychiatrist has admitted.. there is NO medication which can help me here. Medication actually makes me more dissociative. And there's nothing crueller than drugging child alters, or for that matter getting them drunk! Just gotta hang in there.. just gotta keep doing therapy and looking after our body and working on finding peace and harmony in our lives! We have NO choice but to live together in this body. It's mostly about developing good internal communication... making agreements and working together, and that's where a good therapist helps a lot. She helps me manage everyone, cos I just can't do it by myself atm. It's too hard, and I need someone with an objective view you know?

Even the most simple daily jobs ie, what to eat for breakfast? Takes time to process.. cos they're are many who want to have their say. Sometimes I/we will cook 2 meals simultaneously b/c we can't decide on one thing.. gotta admit.. makes me smile when that happens. Sometimes getting dressed? OMG it's hilarious. We just end up wearing everything! lol Layer upon layer.... everybody's happy then 

But you know the most weird thing here? This is normal for us to be like this. It's our normal. It may not be societies normal, but it's ours and that's what's important here. The minute I start comparing my 'normal' with the normal expectations of our society I run into BIG problems. My existence is different, not wrong or defective you know.? I think I said somewhere else how utterly weird a singleton (mono mind) appears to us! I have NO clue as to what it feels like to have one mind. I hope one day, people in this world will NOT see us (ppl with DID) as weird, threatening, crazy etc, just DIFFERENT. One thing.. Hollywood has destroyed our reputation and given the masses a load of b/s crap! As a general rule.. ppl with DID are the most quiet, passive, caring people you could imagine. That's not how we're really portrayed is it? Of course, there's always a bad apple in the box tho lol.

I read somewhere recently that DID is basically 'many people living in one body'... In a way, it's as simple as that!

Wow.. look at how much I've written.! Hope I haven't bored you too much..


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

Dreamer* said:


> Wise, I don't know if you read anything I posted. One can reject medicine entirely if they wish.
> 
> When you get to my age and experience medical problems and have to make choices about medications for your heart, your arthritis, etc., well by that time there will be better treatments.
> 
> ...


It's not really a doctor's job to promote preventative medicine and a healthy lifestyle. Their job is to just fix what's broken. With that said, I think psychiatrists have the least amount of success with regard to that. Their field is qualitative, not quantitative in any way.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

Philo, thanks for sharing. Is all of this happening internally or do you communicate with the alters in the open?


----------



## Guest (May 23, 2013)

wise said:


> Philo, thanks for sharing. Is all of this happening internally or do you communicate with the alters in the open?


Hey good question wise.. I like ur questions 

Not exactly sure what you mean, but I'll talk about what I think you mean..

In between the outside world and the inside world is 'the front'. The front usually consists of 5 or 6 alters with 1 main one communicating with the outside. That's me.. :hi That's the 'norm'.... Sometimes tho.. the front is mostly taken over by another alter and I'm pushed right out of the way into the back seat so to speak. And then there are other times, I'm amnesic (pushed inside) by 'whoever' it is and I 'loose time'. ie I'm not aware of what's been going on. That's very odd believe me.. cos I 'wake up' and all these things have happened that I have no recollection of. Or even sometimes I'll be in the middle of a sentence and switch and have NO idea where I am or WHF I've been talking about. I'm used to that tho and have ways of getting back on track reasonably quickly. This has been happening virtually all my life and I accept it as the 'norm'. As long as nothing is broken and our body hasn't been damaged.. it's ok. Sometimes I don't agree with what happened or what was said, but I really do just have to accept things like this.

Whoops... strayed a bit.. lol

Back to the question.. see. my insiders have been communicating with the outside world since they were made. A DID system is incredibly adept at hiding from the outside world and prefers to remain anonymous.. but still operates as a'system'. I think that's b/c... that's the safest way to survive (safety is paramount). It's easy to hide this way b/c not many people know anything about DID and even tho we might seem a little odd, people just can't put their finger on it you know?.. Not even 'me' for a long time! How's THAT for the ability of a system to hide??! But there comes a time.. when it's just soo god dammed obvious and ya just can't hide anymore!

I think I strayed again....... I just thought of another way to answer this question...

I communicate with the front alters all day. It's just quiet chit chat, we talk about anything and EVERYTHING, mostly through loud thoughts but sometimes there's a loud voice, but not often.... At the same time, it's generally only 'me' who communicates with the outside world. Or if 'I' really want or need to, 'I' can go inside and have a look around and see what's going on in there. Sometimes I escape from outside things by going inside (I absolutely love it inside! It's so safe, and I get a real kick out of what's happening.).. Then I just come back out again when I want/need to.

I hope this makes sense..... And I've answered your question.

Does it make sense? I'm curious....?

Take care mate,

P

BTW.. ALL systems are different. It's up to the imagination of the individual child how to construct such a thing.. What I wrote is only about my system and how it works..


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

I'm amazed. Despite all of this, I have a feeling that you function in society extremely well because you come across as very well-adjusted.


----------



## Guest (May 23, 2013)

wise said:


> I'm amazed. Despite all of this, I have a feeling that you function in society extremely well because you come across as very well-adjusted.


Yep.. very true. 'It's amazing huh?

I was married for 20 years and even my wife didn't really know what/who she was married to. True.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

Philo, have you done anything to have this network arrested? Your story had honestly made me lose faith in humanity and I just want to know that things are being done to stop this. I can't even tell you how sick to my stomach it made me back in high school hearing about our physics teacher and what he was a part of.


----------



## Guest (May 23, 2013)

wise said:


> It's not really a doctor's job to promote preventative medicine and a healthy lifestyle. Their job is to just fix what's broken. With that said, I think psychiatrists have the least amount of success with regard to that. Their field is qualitative, not quantitative in any way.


I really don't know what you're saying. As someone who is older again, checkups and diagnostic tests from my GP help promote PREVENTION.

In terms of psychiatry or any other doctor -- no one is forcing anyone to GO to a psychiatrist. Many don't.

But quality of life for many mentally ill people is a helluva lot better than it was even 50 years ago.

No, there are no cures, but again, that is true of MANY medical illnesses.
One can literally chooes to avoid medical care completely. Since that is the case, why is this a problem that I have sought medical care.

I am going for a follow up exam for my cancer next week. If the oncologist notices something he can take action --but he can't cure me. I was also at a cancer meeting last night. Out of 16 people, I can tell you half of them will not be around next year. But the other half will, because of the treatments available.

Again, if you have cancer you can elect to have no treatment. Many do that as it is unbearable and makes you sicker.

One can seek alternative medicine as well.

Who is forcing you to go to ANY doctor? It is a CHOICE. Not clear on that one.


----------



## Guest (May 23, 2013)

Note, in China and so many other countries, there is either NO mental health care, or the stigma is so high, famiiy members are still held in the basement. As usual, you have not met someone who is seriously ill. You have not met someone with a major mental illness who is VERY FUNCTIONAL due to psychiatric intervention. They are not homeless, dead or in jail.

No use debating. I wish you would watch the video. 5 minutes of your time.

One of my cousins with schizoaffective is missing. He was hospitalized I don't now how many times. Serious mental illness with violence, psychosis, depression, paranoia. He had poor health coverage. He is literally missing. We assume he is homeless or dead. Only two choices. We hope he is homeless or in jail!

ON his meds he could work as a mechanic. He would only get 6 months of medication on Medicaid. THAT is insane. Off of his meds, he would crash. And he has now disappeared. Gone.


----------



## Guest (May 23, 2013)

Dreamer* said:


> I am going for a follow up exam for my cancer next week. If the oncologist notices something he can take action --but he can't cure me. I was also at a cancer meeting last night. Out of 16 people, I can tell you half of them will not be around next year. But the other half will, because of the treatments available.
> 
> Again, if you have cancer you can elect to have no treatment. Many do that as it is unbearable and makes you sicker.


Dreamer,

Good luck with your follow up exam next week. Hope it turns out all good!

If I had cancer I'd make the exact same choices as yourself.

Anyway, all the best with it.

P


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

wise said:


> Philo, have you done anything to have this network arrested? Your story had honestly made me lose faith in humanity and I just want to know that things are being done to stop this. I can't even tell you how sick to my stomach it made me back in high school hearing about our physics teacher and what he was a part of.


Wise,

B/c these crimes committed against me happened so long ago there's virtually no chance to take anyone to court. Both my parents are dead, so they got off. The other men (and some women) often hid their faces with hoods. I'll never know who they were. And b/c it happened so long ago and the people involved were generally middle aged, and if they're not dead now, they will be soon... Hope they enjoy hell!

The people in these organisations are masters at building dissociative walls (and alters) through extreme trauma of their young victims. This is how they escape their crimes.. B/c it takes decades for the walls to even begin to crumble and by the time they do, some multiples have suicided, some have gone 'crazy' (and live the rest of their lives very heavily medicated), and some like me actually heal.

At this point in my life I have little or no faith in humanity. There's only ONE person I trust in this world, and that's my therapist. Even that relationship is up and down. Imagine going through life, if someone even tries to touch you, you jump out of your skin in fear! That's how it is..


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

Dreamer* said:


> I really don't know what you're saying. As someone who is older again, checkups and diagnostic tests from my GP help promote PREVENTION.
> 
> In terms of psychiatry or any other doctor -- no one is forcing anyone to GO to a psychiatrist. Many don't.
> But quality of life for many mentally ill people is a helluva lot better than it was even 50 years ago.
> ...


Dreamer, all I was trying to say is that psychiatrists are medical doctors but they don't do anything medical. I don't have a problem with other specialties and I'm not trying to poo poo medicine I'm just saying that it's a for profit industry, in the US at least and that's why screenings are encouraged so much. Real prevention is learning about what's in your genes and regulating your lifestyle and diet. Again, I hate to sound like some kind of Scientologist but I just think psychiatrists are the least qualified medical professionals and I fear for people who go to them. It's the least difficult residency to get. And to be honest, the mentally ill person in China in their family 's basement is no worse than someone in a western country who is walking around drugged up on meds.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

Philo said:


> Wise,
> 
> B/c these crimes committed against me happened so long ago there's virtually no chance to take anyone to court. Both my parents are dead, so they got off. The other men (and some women) often hid their faces with hoods. I'll never know who they were. And b/c it happened so long ago and the people involved were generally middle aged, and if they're not dead now, they will be soon... Hope they enjoy hell!
> 
> ...


I know this was long ago, and I want to say couldn't you turn to someone when you were in school? But I'm sure you were too scared to tell anyone and these perverts exist everywhere even schools (as I saw for myself).


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

wise said:


> I know this was long ago, and I want to say couldn't you turn to someone when you were in school? But I'm sure you were too scared to tell anyone and these perverts exist everywhere even schools (as I saw for myself).


Another interesting question.. thanx wise

When I was with these bad bad people, I was in a highly dissociated state and different alters took all the punishment AND memory of the events, ie I was able to switch (to an alter who's job it was to take the abuse) the moment I realised abuse was imminent. After it was finished I'd switch back to 'normal everyday alter' and have no access to the memory of what happened at all. There was an amnesic dissociative wall around the abused alters. I had no idea. So it's quite possible I never told anyone, b/c there was nothing to tell, I couldn't remember anything anyway. As far as I knew everything was fine. I just 'lost' that chunk of time., but you don't really realise there was gap. Could have been an hour, could've been days or weeks lost.... I lost a month about 2 years ago. That got found out by a therapist cos she was wondering why I'd missed all these appointments and phone calls? And I couldn't remember anything.

Here's one reason why people like this leave few marks on their victims... so there's nothing to raise any alarms that somethings not right.! No real injuries? No memory?.. everything's just fine!

Hope that all makes some sense.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

Dreamer* said:


> In terms of psychiatry or any other doctor -- no one is forcing anyone to GO to a psychiatrist.


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


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

GroupHug said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment


GroupHug,

Involuntary treatment applies to thoes who are a "danger to self and others." This would be generally individuals have psychotic epsiodes -- schizophrenia, schizoaffective. Or depresion so severe they have already attempted suicide. Some individuals understand on some level that they need help and willingly go into the hospital -- individuals seriously depressed with bipolar, or seriously manic.

It is very difficult to get help for someone nowadays, even if they are in serious trouble. First of all, a minor can be involunarily hospitalized, but again, the psych unit would have to be convinced that child is a danger to self or others or the child wouldn't be hospitalized.

Mental institutions were closed in the late 1960s/1970s. The end result is the largest mental health institution in the US -- the LA County Jail -- where few individuals receive treatment, end up the victims of violence, death, etc. The rest are on the street/homeless.

I have family members, *one who is missing*, and parents/friends and siblings are struggling to get their loved ones treatment. Any adult (over 18) can refuse treatment. And there is a 72 hour hold only. In a hopsital. I had my mother involuntarily committed when she had Alzheimer's. She could not even care for herseslf. Did not know her own name and forgot to eat, drive, etc. (This was in 1992, she was fortunate to have enough of her own money -- $500,000 that is GONE -- to stay in a locked ward nursing home. She died in 2001.

Example of needed to get a child into the hospital --- my young cousin at 15 with schizophrenia -- started hallucinating, terrified, paranoid, threatening suicide, feeling "one with the television set." His father took every belt/knife/weapon and hid them. He threatened and attempted suicide repeatedly. He could not concentrate in shool and disrupted and frightened the students. He was expelled from a public school for inability to function. Would not bathe, brush his teeth, dress properly. He has been hospitalized numerous times. He also attacked one sibling -- a reason to phone the police -- and usually the one way you can get someone into a hospital.

YOU CAN REFUSE TREATMENT after age 18, even if you are indeed a threat to yourself or others. Many of the famous incidents of "rampage killings" -- the Colorado movie theatre incident, Sandy Hook shootings, the attack on Gabby Giffords were commited by seriously mentally ill individuals who fell through the cracks. Parents could not help them or GET HELP.

Most outpatient facilities cost a fortune. Insurance covers very little. Many hospitals don't even have psych beds anymore, or a psych ward. One large psychiatric ward was at Cedar-Sinai in Los Angeles. THey closed the psych ward. There is no coverage for these patients. Institutions that exist are HORRIBLE. Worse than jail. Staff/doctors overworked.

There are so many books and articles on this it is ridiculous.

If you honestly believe that someone is going to forcibly hospitalize you unless you are so sick you cannot function, and again are dangerous to self or others, you are sorely mistaken.

I don't think many if any of you have ever had a seriously ill family member or friend. You have not interacted with such people. And if you had a family member who needed help -- good luck getting it. It isn't there. That's why I am an advocate, trying to reduce stigma, and make sure seriously mentally ill people get basic health care.


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/home-page/71-featured-articles/2245-fifty-years-of-failing-americas-mentally-ill

FIFTY YEARS OF FAILING AMERICA'S MENTALLY ILL

*By* *E. Fuller Torrey*, *MD, for the Wall Street Journal*

On Feb. 5, 1963, 50 years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress on "Mental Illness and Mental Retardation." He proposed a new program under which the federal government would fund community mental-health centers, or CMHCs, to take the place of state mental hospitals. As Kennedy envisioned it, "reliance on the cold mercy of custodial isolations will be supplanted by the open warmth of community concern and capability."








President Kennedy's proposal was historic because the public care of mentally ill individuals had been exclusively a state responsibility for more than a century. The federal initiative encouraged the closing of state hospitals and aborted the development of state-funded outpatient clinics in process at that time.

Over the following 17 years, the feds funded 789 CMHCs with a total of $2.7 billion ($20.3 billion in today's dollars). During those same years, the number of patients in state mental hospitals fell by three quarters""to 132,164 from 504,604""and those beds were closed down.

From the beginning, it was clear that CMHCs were not interested in taking care of the patients being discharged from the state hospitals. Instead, they focused on individuals with less severe problems sometimes called "the worried well." Federal studies reported individuals discharged from state hospitals initially made up between 4% and 7% of the CMHCs patient load, and the longer the CMHC was in existence the lower this percentage became.

It has now become politically correct to claim that this federal program failed because not enough centers were funded and not enough money was spent. In fact, it failed because it did not provide care for the sickest patients released from the state hospitals. When President Ronald Reagan finally block-granted federal CMHC funds to the states in 1981, he was not killing the program. He was disposing of the corpse.

Fifty years later, we can see the results of "the open warmth of community concern and capability." Approximately half of the mentally ill individuals discharged from state mental hospitals, many of whom had family support, sought outpatient treatment and have done well. The other half, many of whom lack family support and suffer from the most severe illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, have done poorly.

Read the full article by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, founder of Treatment Advocacy Center, in the Wall Street Journal.


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/mental-health-crisis-mac-mcclelland-cousin-murder

Wikipedia is only a source for general info, and it is unlikely you read the entire piece. You must know someone who is so sick you can't help them, and you ask for help and can't get it.

It is a crying shame if you don't read this. This story repeats itself the world over in industrialized countries, or individuals disappear, must be turned away by their families -- some are violent, some will commit suicide, some will remain homeless. Try getting someone into a hosiptal. You can't unless you FIGHT to get the person in. Here at U. of M. there aren't enough beds for those who need or want them, and this is one of the largest University Hospitals with an excellent psych unit.

Developing countries offer little if any health care. But the country with the highest suicide rate is India.

Meantime the suicide rate in the US is 38,000 individuals. 1,100 of those are university students.

*Schizophrenic. Killer. My Cousin.*

*It's insanity to kill your father with a kitchen knife. It's also insanity to close hospitals, fire therapists, and leave families to face mental illness on their own.*

-By Mac McClelland

| May/June 2013 Issue

237

 
 








Mark with Houston at Houston's high school graduation in 2009 Courtesy of the family

THE THING THAT STRUCK ME when I first met my cousin Houston was his size. He wasn't much taller than me, if at all, and was slight of frame. On the other side of the visitors' glass, he looked surprisingly small, young for his 22 years. The much more remarkable thing about him turned out to be his vocabulary, vast and lovely, lyrical almost-until it came to an agitated or distracted halt. In any case, all things considered, he seemed altogether extremely unlike a person who had recently murdered someone.









AUDIO: Click on the button below to hear Mac McClelland read this story-or, download our free podcast here.

The symptoms displayed by Houston (in my family, a cousin of any degree is simply "a cousin"; technically, Houston is my third) in the year preceding this swift and horrific tragedy have since been classified as "a classic onset of schizophrenia." At the time, it was just an alarming mystery. Houston had been attending Santa Rosa Junior College, living with his mom, playing guitar with his dad, when he became withdrawn and depressed. He slept all day; his band had broken up, and suddenly he had no friends. His dad, Mark, who had once struggled with depression and substance abuse but was now a pillar of the recovery community, and his mom, Marilyn, tried to help, took him to a psychiatrist. Houston didn't have a drinking problem, but he mostly stopped drinking anyway. He didn't smoke pot anymore, or even cigarettes. His psychiatrist indicated possible schizoaffective disorder in his notes, but put Houston on a changing regimen of antidepressants over the next eight months. It didn't make any difference. Houston had started stealing his mom's Adderall. He said it helped him feel better. He got fired from multiple jobs. Marilyn kicked him out, and he moved in with Mark.

Read more about America's mental health care crisis:


TIMELINE: Deinstitutionalization And Its Consequences 
MAP: Which States Have Cut Treatment For the Mentally Ill the Most?
WATCH: Haunting Photographs From Inside Abandoned Asylums

"This was not my nephew," my Aunt Annette, Mark's sister, says of Houston's behavior then. "He was always solicitous and loving and talkative with me. Now, he was anxious, quiet, said very strange things. He would say things that seemed not to come from him. I asked him how his therapy was going, and he said, 'Terrible.'"

Toward the end of Houston's devolution, he started having violent outbursts, breaking furniture; he tossed his mom across a room. Desperate now, Mark and Marilyn called the psychiatrist repeatedly and asked what to do. He told them to call the police.

"You can call the police," the deputy director of Sonoma County's National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), David France, said when I asked him what options are available to a parent whose adult child appears to be having a mental breakdown. "The police can activate resources," like an emergency psych bed in a regular hospital, or transport and admission to a psychiatric hospital in a county that, unlike Sonoma, has one. But only if the police decide your child is a danger to himself or others can they arrest him with the right to hold him for three days-what in California is called a 5150, after the relevant section of state law. Otherwise you can be turned away for lack of space even if your loved one is willing to be admitted, or be left no good options if they're not. Ninety-two percent of the patients in California's state psych hospitals got there via the criminal-justice system.








The photographs that accompany this story are part of photographer Jeremy Harris' ongoing project "American Asylums: Moral Architecture of the 19th Century." See a video interview with Jeremy here.

But Mark didn't want to call the police. For one, he didn't think Houston was dangerous, just upset, despairing. Also, Mark read the news. The Santa Rosa cops had killed two mentally ill men they'd been called to intervene with in the last six years, one case resulting in a federal civil rights suit. This is not a problem unique to Santa Rosa-or to greater Sonoma County, which in 2009 paid a $1.75 million settlement to the family of a mentally ill 16-year-old whom sheriff's deputies shot eight times. There's no comprehensive data yet, but mental illness appears to be a factor in so many arrest-related deaths that the Justice Department has considered adding mental-health status to its national database of such deaths. Just last year, for example, the DOJ found the Portland, Oregon, police department had a "pattern or practice of using excessive force&#8230;against people with mental illness," including eight shootings in 18 months and the beating to death of an unarmed man in 2006.

Anyway, Mark didn't think three days of lockdown in a mental facility would make his son less unstable. He was looking for a meaningful treatment plan, not to rustle Houston through emergency services. "All those kids get shot by the police," he told Marilyn. "Just let me handle it."

So Mark didn't call the police, and Houston didn't get any additional help. Ten days before all the really bad things happened, Annette came out to visit from Ohio. "Honey," she said to her nephew, "something's going on with you, babe. Either something's happened to you, or you're not sharing something. I'm really, really worried that something's going on." She says he turned his head and looked at her eerily and said, "Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime." She says, "It didn't even sound like him."

He did tell her about it, later. He told her he'd been having delusions, something about telepathic communications and aliens and wireless circuits. Something about his mom and dad-who'd been divorced for a long time-and teenage sister, Savannah, being in an incestuous sex ring. Something about an invisible friend, Devon, and also that he'd been cutting himself to exorcise the evil, and that Mark was poisoning him with lead and was the source of the evil. He did tell Annette, but only after it was too late, after he came home from the gym late one November night in 2011 and stabbed his father 60 times, with four different knives. When Savannah came downstairs and called 911, it appeared he was trying to behead him.

"What the FUCK?" my Aunt Annette exclaimed around the one-year anniversary of her brother's death. "HOUSTON, what the FUCK?" But, she told me, the fact that what Houston did was "so heinous" didn't mean he wasn't a victim, too. "There was no facility, no support. There was nowhere to take him; there was nothing to do but call the police."

"There's been no place to put my anger," she said about losing Mark. "Because I love this child. I know how sick he is. I was there at his birth." And then she asked me to do the talking for a while, because she couldn't talk anymore because she was sobbing.








*Houston in preschool *Courtesy of the family

Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey calls a crime like Houston's "a predictable tragedy." That's what he has also called the Gabrielle Giffords shooting; he says the same thing about the Virginia Tech massacre, the Aurora movie theater shooting, the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, and dozens of other recent homicides, some of them famous mass killings or subway platform shovings, but many of them less publicized. Ten percent of US homicides, he estimates based on an analysis of the relevant studies, are committed by the untreated severely mentally ill-like my schizophrenic cousin. And, he says: "I'm thinking that's a conservative estimate."

Saying that the severely mentally ill are disproportionately responsible for homicides has made Torrey, author of The Insanity Offense and the forthcoming American Psychosis, unpopular in some circles. "[My critics'] argument is you can't talk about these things because it causes stigma," he says. In the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, some mental-illness advocates insisted that even if Adam Lanza had Asperger's or any mental-health issues, it would be totally inappropriate to cite that as a factor in his actions. But other administrators and caretakers think it's vital to bring up. "We have to think about mental-health care in a public health framework," says Dee Roth, who is on the National Advisory Council of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). "Public health measures solved rickets, cholera, people dying when they're 30." But when it comes to mental illness, she says, "we're not treating the sick people." And while the details of Lanza's diagnosis or any attempts to treat it remain unconfirmed, what is known, as Torrey pointed out in a piece he coauthored in the Wall Street Journal, is that Connecticut is "among the worst states to seek such treatment. It has among the weakest involuntary treatment laws and is one of only six states that doesn't have a law permitting court-ordered 'assisted outpatient treatment,'" which, Torrey notes, "has been shown to decrease re-hospitalizations, incarcerations and, most importantly, episodes of violence among severely mentally ill individuals." Although even Torrey, who founded the Treatment Advocacy Center, an organization that pushes for fewer restrictions on involuntary commitment, admits that such measures would hardly plug all the holes in our mental-health-care system.








*Also see our state-by-state interactive map of cuts to services for the mentally ill. *

Obviously, lots of violence is perpetrated by the "sane." And most violence committed by the severely mentally ill is committed against themselves. Even in the range of schizophrenia narratives, which commonly include suicide or dying on the street, Houston's took an extraordinarily unhappy turn. But happy endings are getting harder for even the nonviolent mentally ill to come by. And as states and counties pare back what few mental-health services remain, we're learning that whether people who need help can get it affects us all.

*Next Page:* When I was younger, I was afraid of her.
Page 1 of 4Next

237

Print
Email


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

I know. Too long, didn't read. Worthless attempt on my part. A few people may be interested, but they already know these facts. I've lived too long and seen too much despair.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

I was just clarifying. I understand your perspective.

For your consideration, and since you appear to like to read, here's something from a different perspective - http://www.ect.org/news/forced.shtml

Also, if you're interested - http://www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-forced-drugging-northampton-ma-jim-gottstein-lee-lepoutre . I really enjoy this radio show's take on the conventional attitude towards mental health. You might like it.


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

GroupHug said:


> I was just clarifying. I understand your perspective.
> 
> For your consideration, and since you appear to like to read, here's something from a different perspective - http://www.ect.org/news/forced.shtml
> 
> Also, if you're interested - http://www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-forced-drugging-northampton-ma-jim-gottstein-lee-lepoutre . I really enjoy this radio show's take on the conventional attitude towards mental health. You might like it.


GroupHug,

Thank you. This has become an area of expertise for me. I have actually begun looking into a degree in Public Health -- starting Fall of 2014.

Firstly, the ECT link doesn't work. My only response to ECT is, you cannot be forced to have that either. Also, many ELECT to have it, and for severely depressed individuals who have tried every other option, it can save lives. But it is ELECTIVE.

I personally thought of ECT in the early 1990s. My psychiatrist was very worried about it. He thought it "might" help my depression, but felt that it would make the DP/DR worse. He said he would not be involved. He referred me to a doctor who specialized in ECT. It was not recommended. The elderly, who get seriously depressed and can't handle medication, are sometimes given ECT.

Again, it is elective.

Then, re: the Massachusettes case. That is from an anti-psychiatry website, but what is left out is that that indiidual had a guardian. It varies from State to State, but if your child is very sick, you can set up a Guardianship and Health Care Power. I did this for my mother. She was incapable of caring for herself, so I made her healthcare decisions. That was in the State of Michigan. I had to go to court to obtain this right. She had to be examined. She was appointed a "friend of the court." It was not easy, and she had Alzheimer's and was close to setting the house on fire with her cigarettes and burning teapots on the stove! It also cost a lot in court fees.

In MASS:

http://www.massguardianshipassociation.org/information/guardianship-of-an-adult-2/rogers-guardianship/

"In a guardianship hearing, the court determines whether an adult is incapacitated and requires a guardian to make ordinary medical and personal decisions on the adult's behalf. If the incapacitated person requires medical treatments or care that the court considers extraordinary, a guardian must obtain the court's permission. In a Rogers guardianship hearing, the court is being asked to authorize extraordinary treatment or care, such as administering antipsychotic medications, admitting an adult to a nursing home facility, and other medical care. In this article, Joanne Moses, Esq., focuses on how the court decides whether to authorize treatment for antipsychotic medications and how to obtain a Rogers guardianship."

-----------------

Bottom line, again, there is horrible misunderstanding about how to take care of seriously mentally ill individuals -- mainly schizoprhenic, bipolar, schizoaffective, and those with varous other forms of psychosis and dementia. If some treatment weren't forced on the individual, again they could hurt themselves or others. The situation has to be very severe.

That doesn't mean that a sick individual can't fight back. This is what my cousin did. He left. We don't know where he is. His father was his guardian for a while, then he threatened his father's life. His father had to keep him out of the house. What do you do? You let go, or you try and try and try.

Some individuals cannot be helped. This would be like being a guardian for a seriously mentaly retarded person. You are given the right (a parent or sibling) to make financial and medical decisions for the individual as they cannot. The key to psychotic disorders is anosognosia -- the inability to realize one is sick. Again, the option is letting go of the person, letting them die, letting them hurt themselves, letting them spend all of their money, let them commit crimes, hurt others, be homeless .... many times, this is what happens.

---------------

Thanks for hearing my POV. I understand those who dislike the psychiatric profesion. No one on this website with "neurosis" vs. "psychosis" particularly could be forced into treatment. And if anything, most people can't afford psychiatric treatment to begin with. If you end up on disability, well, not much help there either.

Also, I like to learn ... it isn't just reading. As I said, in my advocacy I interact with mentally ill individuals all the time. I hope to do some work at the local VA hospital here. There are war veterans with PTSD who need calm, stable interaction. I hope to start that in the Fall.

Also, I can't speak really, for any other country outside of the US. And also, each State in the US has its own laws. So I can only speak for what happens in Michigan, USA. And I do not know all of the laws of this state. I am not an attorney.

Take Care,

D


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2013)

Bottom line. What was difficult for me is that my mother was abusive. She was never my mother. But BECAUSE she was my mother I couldn't abandon her. When I finally came out to get help for her, her car was dead in the garage, she hadn't eaten, there was cleaning fluid in the refridgerator, etc.

I honestly wanted to walk away. I lived in CA and she was in MI. (3,000 miles away). I prayed that she had enough money for 24 hour care -- the hospital determined after a 2 week stay that was her only option.

I couldn't walk away. She was a human being. And with no love between us, she was still my mother. Thank God she was a doctor and had the money for a good place. The option was to let her die in her house, fall down the stairs, freeze in the snow -- in the locked hopsital ward she would walk around naked ... not knowing what she was doing. In her home, she could have walked out of the house without clothing. I'm shocked she didn't kill someone when she WAS driving.

My father had died. He left no money. I had no help. None of this was easy. Probably the worst 4 years of my life. But she was in a nice place for neraly 10 years. MOST people cannot have that luxury. I could have put her somewhere where she was strapped to a bed all day.

You do what you can do to help a family member. And sometimes you MUST walk away.

I had honetsly thought of getting a gun, killing her, and killing myself.

I didn't. I'm glad I didn't, but I could not care for her alone.


----------



## wise (Mar 29, 2012)

Dreamer, what you went through must have been hell. I am going through a similar thing with my father at the moment. He was verbally abuse most of my life and now he has dementia. It isn't full on Alzheimers yet, but we are trying to prepare for the worst. I live in the same house as my parents and I am responsible for alot of his caretaking (thankless job it is). I have a sibling who has gone off and gotten married, has a family, is younger, and I'm the one stuck at home because I'm the first born so it's out of an ingrained sense of familial duty that has been drilled into me. I bear all of the burden. I can't just walk away even though I am sacrificing my income and relationships.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

wise said:


> Dreamer, what you went through must have been hell. I am going through a similar thing with my father at the moment. He was verbally abuse most of my life and now he has dementia. It isn't full on Alzheimers yet, but we are trying to prepare for the worst. I live in the same house as my parents and I am responsible for alot of his caretaking (thankless job it is). I have a sibling who has gone off and gotten married, has a family, is younger, and I'm the one stuck at home because I'm the first born so it's out of an ingrained sense of familial duty that has been drilled into me. I bear all of the burden. I can't just walk away even though I am sacrificing my income and relationships.


Thank you wise. I am so sorry you're in a similar situation. This is what I mean about direct experience changing one's attitude. Time has had a great influence on the way I look at things.

And Alzheimer's, dementia -- these illnesses leave one in a position of "do you force treatment" -- "do you institutionalize. There is a book, don't know if you've read it, but I highly recommend you get it -- "The 36 Hour Day" by Mace and Rabins sp? about how to deal with an individual with dementia. (My mother's original diagnosis in 1992 was Organic Brain Syndrome) but it did progress to Alzheimer's. The last few years she was bed-ridden.

What also scared the Hell out of me is I got her into this fancy nursing home and she was paranoid as Hell. She was placed on an anti-psychotic for a few months. She was combative -- this seems to be a problem initially with dementia - and a poor relationship with the individual makes it especially difficult to care for the person.

The director of the Nursing Home told me that if my mother remained paranoid and combative she would not be able to stay at the facililty. Fortunately the medication helped, then she was weaned off of it and observed, and she ultimately became complacent, though she would still think I or others were plotting against her -- had stolen her money, her car, were stealing her food, etc. There became "good people" and "bad people" -- though I was generally a "good people" she would get suspicious of me at times and I'd be "a bad people." LOL.

This is how one deals wth someone with schizophrenia, schioaffective, mania with psychosis, etc. You end up at a loss re: what to do. There is no coverage for dementia. As I said my mother's money paid IN CASH for her nursing care. How many people can afford that. And most private hospitals for the severely mentally ill only have a one year plan. And they are SO expensive and usually full. No insurance coverage.

I can only tell you -- you must care for yourself as a caretaker. If you can afford help of any kind -- even a young nursing student to come in one day a week that could take some burden off of you. But if you destroy yourself taking care of your father, you will be no good to anyone.

I really recommend that book. I will find the link. It was my "Bible" for years. It is also in it's .... 10th edition .... very much updated.

Best of luck.

My heart goes out to you.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

Dreamer, I have had a dismissive attitude in the past towards you but have found a new respect and admiration.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

http://www.amazon.com/36-Hour-Day-Alzheimer-Disease-Dementias/dp/1455521159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369506115&sr=1-1&keywords=the+36+hour+day

This latest edition is dated September, 2012. I had a copy from 1990 or something -- it literally fell apart -- I read it over and over.

There are descriptions of activities for demntia patients.

Tips on care.

Tips on safety.

Tips on caring for yourself.

Ane things re: understanding Alzheimer's and dementia.

Also, my mother loved music (music from HER generation -- if you can find old classics your father listened to it could occupy him), she loved when children from a local school did art projects at the Nursing Home, music therapy. Also, pets visited -- dogs -- and really comforted the patients. She played BIngo until she forgot how to.
Most of the time she had no clue what was going on, couldn't find her room!

Have you put a rescue tag on your father if he wanders? My mother was on a locked facility, and she learned not to go near the emergency exists as the sound terrified her. Some facilities only had ankle bracelents with alarms and would wander.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

GroupHug said:


> Dreamer, I have had a dismissive attitude in the past towards you but have found a new respect and admiration.


Thank you GroupHug. That means a lot to me. Really. Thank you.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

I think it's time we bring it all in for a hug.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

Fearless said:


> They can't afford to not "discover" new illnesses and disorders, they need to sell that book. It goes for $128 on Amazon.


Selling a book isn't enough of a reason to fabricate mental illnesses and disorders, but increasing profits from medication sales is. I wouldn't be so weary of psychiatry if it wasn't so entwined with mega corps, but once big business gets involved in anything, the interest in actually helping people goes down the tubes. Psychiatry dose have it's place, and I know the medicines have certainly helped, but I feel it's way WAY over stepping it's boundaries in recent years so pharmaceutical companies can make a profit.

People are as much to blame as the corporations as they create the demand. Given the choice some people would rather medicate their emotional issues than take the time to work them out and improve themselves. People crave instant gratification.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

Antimony said:


> Selling a book isn't enough of a reason to fabricate mental illnesses and disorders, but increasing profits from medication sales is. I wouldn't be so weary of psychiatry if it wasn't so entwined with mega corps, but once big business gets involved in anything, the interest in actually helping people goes down the tubes. Psychiatry dose have it's place, and I know the medicines have certainly helped, but I feel it's way WAY over stepping it's boundaries in recent years so pharmaceutical companies can make a profit.
> 
> People are as much to blame as the corporations as they create the demand. Given the choice some people would rather medicate their emotional issues than take the time to work them out and improve themselves. People crave instant gratification.


*Antimony, exactly.*

1. We might as well bitch at Stephen King for being millionaire for all of his fiction books and film rights.

2. It took a massive number of people to work on this book, including Daphne Simeon and others. So you don't pay any of them for there time and input even if they disagree? Oh, and I forgot -- you have to print the damend thing. Should they print it for free? who edits it, copyedits it? It's a JOB.

3. The average person does not buy this!!!!!!! I bought Mauricio Sierra's TEXTBOOK for $70.00 -- I showed it to every person at the U. of M. hospital that I could force it on, lol. These books are bought by M.D.s, medical students, other mental health professionals. AGAIN as HELP in diagnosis and CODING. The last DSM came out in 1994. A tad old save for a revised text edition that had few changes.

Advances in technology have not changed anything?

4. *Consider that EVERY mental health professional and other physicians -- neurologists -- in this country and in other countries buys this book.* They also purchase The Physician's Desk Reference of drugs. You can't remember drug interactions, etc. IT IS A REFERENCE BOOK.

5. The book isn't published to make money ... OMG.

What other books make a ton of money -- Dictionaries. Everyone has a freakin' dictionary.

What is the best selling book (in the US, if not worldwide) -- the Bible! (Old Testament and New Testament in a bazillion different versions)

6. Do you know the cost of ANY set of textbooks in college? It is a fortune, even if you buy second hand, and second hand is frequently out of date. I have a degree in Liberal Arts and Film/TV production. I had to work I don't know how many jobs, sell my football tickets (students got 2, lol), and was ultimately a graduate teaching assistant. Where did my money go? TEXTBOOKS.

7. Again, going back to the original topic -- the DSM is only one tool -- used by NEUROLOGISTS and other doctors as well. Parkinson's, Azheimer's, Epilepsy, etc. are ALSO IN THE DSM. An ER doctor might consult it. A GP might consult it. BUT IN TRAINING.

Seeing the medical/neurological model taking over -- yes, there is a push from the pharmaceutical companies. But the cost of medical care overall is outrageous. Again, going back to my cancer experience, it costs $3,000 for ONE infusion of chemotherapy. You may need 20 or more infusions. That is an outrageous price. Insurance has screwed up the cost of care. In one place you can get a chest X-Ray for $30.00, at another, $700.00!!!!!!!!

I hate to say this, but in the hospital for my surgery, I was charged $25.00 for a sanitary pad. And I couldn't bring my own. Then the insurance fights over it.

Antimony, it seems you have gotten it right. Healthcare overall is a mess. Overpriced across the board.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

All of these illnesses existed before "Big Phamra" ... it isn't a conspiracy, it is the result of medical advancements/cost control/and corruption in the system. I don't care if you have socialized medicine or personal insurance. Also, the International Classification of Medical Disorders, ICD is used as a refernce. Mental disorders are in there as well. Distributed by the World Health Organization.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

GroupHug said:


> I think it's time we bring it all in for a hug.


AMEN! LOL.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

For the last time, the ICD (I forgot it is Diseases) -- is in the hands of doctors and reseachers all over the world. Look at its purpose! It also includes mental disorders -- there is an attempt in the new DSM to coordinate CODING and descriptions with the ICD. It is pretty certain this is the last DSM, and the ICD will take over as the main coding book.

http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/

*International Classification of Diseases (ICD)*
The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is the standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes. This includes the analysis of the general health situation of population groups. It is used to monitor the incidence and prevalence of diseases and other health problems.

It is used to classify diseases and other health problems recorded on many types of health and vital records including death certificates and health records. In addition to enabling the storage and retrieval of diagnostic information for clinical, epidemiological and quality purposes, these records also provide the basis for the compilation of national mortality and morbidity statistics by WHO Member States. It is used for reimbursement and resource allocation decision-making by countries.

ICD-10 was endorsed by the Forty-third World Health Assembly in May 1990 and came into use in WHO Member States as from 1994. The 11th revision of the classification has already started and will continue until 2015.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

AGAIN, the first DSM was commission by the US military in 1954, yes before big pharma, to classify problems in veterans.

You can also get a DSM in the library, or get a used one. Just like any other freakin' book.


----------



## Guest (May 25, 2013)

Antimony said:


> Selling a book isn't enough of a reason to fabricate mental illnesses and disorders, but increasing profits from medication sales is. I wouldn't be so weary of psychiatry if it wasn't so entwined with mega corps, but once big business gets involved in anything, the interest in actually helping people goes down the tubes. Psychiatry dose have it's place, and I know the medicines have certainly helped, but I feel it's way WAY over stepping it's boundaries in recent years so pharmaceutical companies can make a profit.
> 
> People are as much to blame as the corporations as they create the demand. Given the choice some people would rather medicate their emotional issues than take the time to work them out and improve themselves. People crave instant gratification.


Antinomy.. Well said!


----------

