# bipolar disorder?



## Guest (Dec 27, 2004)

How many of you have been diagnosed with bipolar? because I'm really starting to think I'm bipolar, no for reals.


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2004)

kari whats goin on? I haven't spoken to you in a while, it seems as though you have went M.I.A. from AIM, so im just wondering how you been & what not........

holla


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2004)

I've been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, which to some degree i think i might have it. DPDR is the killer for me though, so a little bipolar doesn't matter much for me.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2004)

Bipolar disorder is a man made illness. Probably created by the medical community so they could make money on drugs like lithium. so you may be a little up and down and perhaps a little moody. Big deal, if thats your personality then you have to work with what you have. Changing your moods is a possibility, but that is completely up to you and it takes alot of work.


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## kenc127 (Aug 10, 2004)

Double post :\


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## kenc127 (Aug 10, 2004)

My sister was diagnosed with it a few years ago. It is just what it says. There are EXTREME mood swings, and I have seen it with my own eyes. For 2 or 3 weeks at a time she will be on the phone with friends in almost a hysterical kind of high, having fun hanging out with friends etc. Sometimes she is so amped up that she can barely connect a sentence. She will go days without sleeping. Then for a few weeks all she will do is
eat and sleep for 12 hours at a time. It goes on like this month after month. It is a very real illness. Meds have helped balance things out quite a bit and have given her her life back.

Ken


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2004)

I hope that after being around me that Kari is afraid to take meds... :lol: :lol:


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## sleepingbeauty (Aug 18, 2004)

i REAAAAAAALLY dont think im bipolar, but its part of my overall diagnosis. ADD, Anxiety, Depression, disociative disorder, ocd, and even skitzofrenia are hidden away in my diagnosis.. but BIPOLAR is on the top of the heap which really pisses me off but my doc wont budge. its the 'in vogue' mental illness these days. doctors just LOOOOVE rubberstamping you with it. i do have moodswings, but i dont think it qulifies me as bipolar. the only reason skitz is in there is cause the first day i took lexapro i felt really drugged up and i had mild halucinations. (saw a big white dog run across the street.. saw a man standing in the road that wasnt there) but that was the extent and im pretty convinced it was completely med induced. but i cant seem to tell my doctor that. she believes what she wants to believe about me and that totally sucks. :evil:


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2004)

Neal, I'm not going to take ANY medication, come on you know that.



> For 2 or 3 weeks at a time she will be on the phone with friends in almost a hysterical kind of high, having fun hanging out with friends etc. Sometimes she is so amped up that she can barely connect a sentence. She will go days without sleeping. Then for a few weeks all she will do is
> eat and sleep for 12 hours at a time.


Ken, sounds exactly like me, no seriously. I get extreme mood swings and sometimes I sleep 12-17 hours, sometimes I can go days without any. Sometimes I get so crazy and hysterical I scare my friends, when the slightest thing goes wrong I turn into a complete basket case, i hate myself, i'm worthless, i cry and cry and wish I wasn't alive, the next day I will be smiling my ass off because I love life so much, so much that I want to scream and jump up and down.


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

yeah I get the distinct impression we know more than a lot of the professionals out there. i definitely know more than my GP. but then he is a 'general practitioner' not a psychiatrist.

sleeping b you are so not schizophrenic from that incident - besides, dont you have to exhibit the symptoms for at least 3 months or something for that diagnosis. whats your doc on about? i took Sonata, a relatively harmless (in comparison to tranqs) sleeping pill and totally felt like i was on acid. i was basically dreaming whilst awake with auditory hallucinations and 'felt' people in the room etc. tripping out. my doc mentioned something about psychotic reaction. i really couldnt care less what he said, im not psychotic, the reaction may have brought on psychotic like symptoms but i was ok when i woke up the next day. everybody who takes acid must have a psychotic episode every time they take it in that case. if the psychotic symptoms leave your body along with the drug then you aint psychotic


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## kenc127 (Aug 10, 2004)

Hey Kari

Well, if it starts to interfere with your life you should definitely talk to someone. If not, then keep on keepin on!

Ken


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2004)

I spent a good yar or so stressing out about bi-polar becuase I had (still do) manic depression...all within the same day. You may have it Kari, but I was only exhibiting the symptoms of it due to other problems. Bipolar isn't a death sentence though and can be cured just like anxiety and depression. Too bad dpdr is a bigger stretch than that.


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## Guest (Dec 29, 2004)

Kari said:


> Neal, I'm not going to take ANY medication, come on you know that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yea i feel you on this one, sometimes i feel totally happy like nothins wrong and i say to myself, y am i happy but i cant stop being happy but then on other days i sit in my room and just feel like my life is over. I think its the brain pattern, I sleep 15 hours a day sometimes and other days i wont sleep for 2 days (unhealthy pattern). I think its our thought processes sometimes we get a head full of deep sad thoughts and the other day we feel as if nothing's wrong and we look toward the future. I dont think im bilpolar because there is a legitimate reason for this. I beleive its a way to cope with our problems, we cant feel totally happy all the time because we aren't like that and we cant sad all the time because we are like that. We level off.


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

Bipolar is a confusing illness. It's often misdiagnosed and given the wrong definition. Bipolar is supposedly the same as Manic Depression. Extreme highs and lows. But that's not the same as Clinical Depression which is just periods of extreme depression without necessarily the highs and lows. Anyway, there is a Bipolar I and II. Bipolar one is the extreme one. Bipolar II is the mild one. I think if either one is bullshit it is Bipolar II. Bipolar I if diagnosed correctly is very serious and very real. People get manic and go buy thousands of dollars worth of clothes and then get down and don't leave their bedroom for days, stuff like that. I'm not a doctor but if you're ineterested go read up on the two types. But, in the psychiatric community, you almost need to be able to diagnose yourself. This doesn't apply to everyone obviously, but still you cannot believe everything doctors tell you. You have to take the responsibility to educate yourself on your own illness because you know yourself better than anyone else. When my panic disorder first started I was told it was just Depression, even though it was textbook Panic Disorder, a very obvious and specific illness, and I argued wth my doctor until he told me maybe I should see another psychiatrist. Just educate yourselves, that's my advice for the week. But the problem with us obsessive types is we tend to diagnose ourselves wuith everything we read about. That's where a doctor can help to get us back into perspective. Anyway, that's all.


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## Living in a fog (Aug 12, 2004)

I was told back in 1989 that I was bi-polar and it was also the first time my DR hit me. No one said anything about my DR even though I kept on complaining that I was seeing thru a mist or a fog. I was treated by several psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers who never took my complaints seriously about my visual problems. I swear I knew i was depressed but when the DR hit me it was like I went thru a trap door and fell 1000 feet. I am one of those bi-polar types that get the really low lows, but my highs aren't that high. I mean I feel good when I am in an upswing but I can not stay up for days. I need only about 3-4 hrs sleep when my mainc phase occurs but during my depressive phase I need about 12 hrs. My current shrink says that the DR really bothers me when I am in a down cycle but when i am in a up cycle i can put up with it. He says when the lows are there my DR is magnified sort of like "the perfect storm" when everything comes together to produce the most serious cosequences. I had an prior girlfriend who got to know me really well and she one time exclaimed that "I have never seen a person go thru such highs and lows like you do". I thought it was normal for me at the time but in looking back on my life I guess she was right.


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## falling_free (Nov 3, 2004)

Well of the two biggies of mental illness Ie scitzophenia and Bi Polar i seem to match a lot of symtons for the bi-polar and few on the scitzophenia so I am not sure I have bi-polar (havent been diagnosed) but its looking like I having some kind of manic disorder of some type, like for example I match all these criteria

mania sympons ( i am going through what I beleive is a manic kind of episode now, I feel like the man, everything feels right, ive been awake for all night since christmas eve and prior to getting back home i was having serious thoughts about killing myself, now i feel on top of the world and full of energy)

Increased physical and mental activity and energy yes, oohh i want to write a book, i want to script a film bla bla bla etc etc
Heightened mood, exaggerated optimism and self-confidence yes
Excessive irritability, aggressive behavior yes (already had an argument with my mum today)
Decreased need for sleep without experiencing fatigue yes - haven't slept all night and I feel fine
Grandiose delusions, inflated sense of self-importance - yep recently been thinking about how im going to change the world and become like the best rock star ever, despite the fat i cant play music for shit)
Racing speech, racing thoughts, flight of ideas - yep sometimes speech seems to flow in a very natrual fashion, and i feel confident about what im saying self assured
Impulsiveness, poor judgment, distractibility - yes ,yes don't think about doing things consuqeunces etc etc,no
Reckless behavior - sometimes yes 
In the most severe cases, delusions and hallucinations - yes for delusions mild panoia , no for hallucantions

Depression

Prolonged sadness or unexplained crying spells - yes for sadness feeling of voidness , no for crying,I can't cry
Significant changes in appetite and sleep patterns - no for appetite , yes for sleep patterns , these are always changing
Irritability, anger, worry, agitation, anxiety - big fat yes, i worry about everything, and also that things are my fault
Pessimism, indifference - yes , often feeligns of whats the point, recureent suicidal thoughts
Loss of energy, persistent lethargy - yes for sure, i felt so letharic a few days ago when my relatives came round to stay i didn't want to see them, satyed in my room and listened to kraftwerk man-machine album
Feelings of guilt, worthlessness - oh yess though ive preety much decided guilt is a stupid worthless emotion, i still feel it
Inability to concentrate, indecisiveness - yes, i cant concentrate on crap when im low
Inability to take pleasure in former interests, social withdrawal - iv'e spent the last 5 days in my room, with no desire to go out, preety much layed in bed all day
Unexplained aches and pains - back pains
Recurring thoughts of death or suicide - yep defeialty, more so than a long long time, like i have been constantly thinking about getting some knives from downstairs and slittign my wrists actually was preety close to doing it today when i was preety drunk, but when drunkenesss wore off i saw sense, still constant thoughts of suicide when low, at the moment i couldn't care less about suicide though , i feel happy!

Sorry if anyone finds this post depressing or whatever, but I seriously think that the bi-ploar may be the source of my dp/dr as well as all the other crap thats going on with me, as I am preety sure I don't have scitzophenia.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2005)

It seems that everyone is walking around claiming to be bipolar these days. How long did it take for your doctor to diagnose you? 10 minutes? People so willing to accept such diagnoses should get their heads checked. You can call me paranoid or schizo or whateva, but I know for a FACT that "illnesses" such as GAD and bipolar were created so that more drugs could be put into our brains. Why else would they create these illnesses? Companies are making billions off of people buying into such garbage. If there was no benefit from such names then they would never have been created. But there is a benefit and it's called profit. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't living in reality. The medical community is anything but compassionate.

I would much rather be "bipolar" or whatever they diagnose you as than to take those meds that make me a creature straight out of "night of the living dead."


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## falling_free (Nov 3, 2004)

> but I know for a FACT that "illnesses" such as GAD and bipolar were created so that more drugs could be put into our brains.


Have you got anything to back that comment up, now I can be quite the cynic sometimes and I can concieve the possibilty that drug companies don't give a fuck about anything apart from sales of drugs, but there isn't really any evidence to support your claims so how can you know for a FACT?



> I would much rather be "bipolar" or whatever they diagnose you as than to take those meds that make me a creature straight out of "night of the living dead."


Meds are probaly going to help some people though IMO, I know when I had my intial breakdown meds helped me a lot, calmed me the fuck down, now im not so sure i need the meds but at some points if an individual is having a mental problem what is wrong with chemicals going into your brain to bring some relief, or sedate the person, they don't even have to take the meds forever as it is an indiivudal choice (in most cases anyway) to take the meds.

for me perosnelly I am going to take a break from meds probably after iv'e had a chat with my doctor as they are making me very very sleepy and I think I am at a more or less more functional level than I was previously, and my meds have helped, regardless of the not so great side effects, but have to take the bad to get th good ie recorvery so I rhink that in the end taking meds for a while is a good option (depending on the individual) and is probably not going to make me a braindead zombie for the rest of my life.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2005)

Its not as if doctors recieve commission from pharmaceuticals everytime they sell some drug. I don't think many of you would be satisfied unless we have an MD and a psych following us around at all times. We have to realize that there aren't many out there, and psych drugs are fairly unevolved.

Docs deal with schizo, and life-threatening illnesses everyday, and it would ask a lot out of them to give you their unyeilding attention.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2005)

In recent years there has been a proliferation of psychiatric disorders. The pharmaceutical industry in cahoots with the psychiatric industry has for a long time been on the trail of inventing new diseases to throw their drugs at and, if a pill stays on the shelf for too long, they find new illnesses to throw it at. Normal human responses and conditions are, according to this money-hungry machine, very serious illnesses and disorders which can only be treated with mountainloads of drugs.

Shy people have Social Anxiety Disorder, nervous people have GAD, kids who are just being kids have ADHD and women with PMT are all of a sudden plagued with the incurable (but according to Eli Lilly eminently treatable with repackaged Prozac as Sarafem) PMDD or Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (See: Old drug for a 'new' female disorder).

And what about Panic Disorder? Is it really a true psychiatric condition? I'm very uneasy about this label since it was a term concocted by Upjohn/Pharmacia (now owned by Pfizer) to promote their drug Xanax. Like many other disease-mongering drugs companies they "bought" psychiatrists to write it up and persuade the FDA to approve it, but the majority of people I have spoken to these last few years suffer from panic as an iatrogenic condition. Anxiety isn't a disease but drugs companies aided and abetted by their legal pushers have turned it in to one. Benzodiazepines (all of them) cause, exacerbate and prolong the symptoms of anxiety and beguile the user into believing that these drugs are of benefit. It's an awful trap to be caught in but millions unwittingly buy into the lie.

"Panic Disorder is an 'illness' specifically invented to market Xanax/alprazolam. This is described by Dr David Healy in his book "The Psychopharmacologists". Also I agree that panic attacks are often iatrogenic or drug-induced. The ones I hear of are often people coming off benzos, starting antidepressants (especially SSRIs) or as a result of cannabis," according to Professor Heather Ashton.

"Healy points out that drug companies "are now not simply confined to finding drugs for diseases. They have the power to all but find diseases to suit the drugs they have". ... One of many examples of this process was the development in the 1970s of alprazolam (Xanax) for panic disorder. According to David Sheehan (Institute for Research and Psychiatry, Tampa, Florida), the marketing of this drug involved a "clear strategy" to take advantage of the medical profession's confusion in the classification of anxiety disorders; "to create a perception that the drug had special and unique properties that would help it capture market share and displace diazepam from the top position... There was in fact nothing unique in this regard about Xanax... benzodiazepines were all good for panic disorder." Xanax was marketed by Upjohn with F.D.A. approval of doses up to 6mg daily (equivalent to 60-120mg diazepam). It is perhaps no coincidence, as Healy observes, that the effective incidence of panic disorders has grown 1000-fold since 1980." - Professor Heather Ashton, DM, FRCP, A View from the Shoulders of Giants, A Review of David Healy's "The Psychopharmacologists III", September, 2001.

What do you make of Explosive Brain Disorder? Note that this relies so heavily on the "chemical imbalance in the brain" hocus-pocus. Do they really expect us to fall for these scams? This merry-go-round seems unstoppable. The drugs companies have whole truckloads of drugs to sell and they're always coming up with new "diseases" to throw them at aided and abetted by the legions of willing doctors. Are these people really concerned about your health and well-being or do they just wish to drug you from the cradle to the grave and carry your cash to the bank? Do governments perhaps have a vested interest in keeping you sick, drugged, dependent and docile?

First, you market the disease... then you push the pills to treat it

First, you market the disease... then you push the pills to treat it

Brendan I Koerner on the ugly truth about doctors, PR firms and drug companies

Tuesday July 30, 2002 
The Guardian

Word of the hidden epidemic began spreading in spring last year. Local news reports around the United States reported that as many as 10 million Americans suffered from an unrecognised disease. Viewers were urged to watch for the symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, nausea, diarrhoea, and sweating, among others. Many of the segments featured soundbites from Sonja Burkett, a patient who had finally received treatment after two years trapped at home by the illness, and from Dr Jack Gorman, an esteemed psychiatrist at Columbia University. 
The disease was generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), a condition that, according to the reports, left sufferers paralysed with irrational fears. Mental-health advocates called it "the forgotten illness". Print periodicals were awash with stories of young women plagued by worries over money and men. "Everything took 10 times more effort for me than it did for anyone else," one woman told the Chicago Tribune. "The thing about Gad is that worry can be a full-time job. So if you add that up with what I was doing, which was being a full-time achiever, I was exhausted, constantly exhausted."

The timing of the media frenzy was no accident. On April 16 2001, the US food and drug administration (FDA) had approved the antidepressant Paxil, made by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, for the treatment of Gad. But it was a little-known ailment; according to a 1989 study, as few as 1.2% of the US population merited the diagnosis in any given year. If GlaxoSmithKline hoped to capitalise on Paxil's newapproval, it would have to raise Gad's profile.

That meant revving up the company's public-relations machinery. The widely featured quotes from Burkett were part of a "video news release" the drug maker had distributed to TV stations around the country; the footage also included the comments of Gorman, who has frequently served as a paid consultant to GlaxoSmithKline. On April 16 - the date of Paxil's approval - a patient group called freedom from fear released a telephone survey which revealed that "people with Gad spend nearly 40 hours per week, or a 'full-time job,' worrying". The survey mentioned neither GlaxoSmithKline nor Paxil, but the press contact listed was an account executive at Cohn & Wolfe, the drugmaker's PR firm.

The modus operandi of GlaxoSmithKline - marketing a disease rather than selling a drug - is typical of the post-Prozac era. "The strategy [companies] use - it's almost mechanised by now," says Dr Loren Mosher, a San Diego psychiatrist and former official at the national institute of mental health. Typically, a corporate-sponsored "disease awareness" campaign focuses on a mild psychiatric condition with a large pool of potential sufferers. Companies fund studies that prove the drug's efficacy in treating the afiction, a necessary step in obtaining FDA approval for a new use, or "indication". Prominent doctors are enlisted to publicly affirm the malady's ubiquity, then public-relations firms launch campaigns to promote the new disease, using dramatic statistics from corporate-sponsored studies. Finally, patient groups are recruited to serve as the "public face" for the condition, supplying quotes and compelling stories for the media; many of the groups are heavily subsidised by drugmakers, and some operate directly out of the offices of drug companies' PR firms.

continues...


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2005)

The strategy has enabled the pharmaceutical industry to squeeze millions in additional revenue from the blockbuster drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a family of pharmaceuticals that includes Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Luvox. Originally approved solely as antidepressants, the SSRIs are now prescribed for a wide array of previously obscure afflictions - Gad, social anxiety disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and so on. The proliferation of diagnoses has contributed to a dramatic rise in anti-depressant sales, which increased eightfold between 1990 and 2000.

For pharmaceutical companies, marketing existing drugs for new uses makes perfect sense: a new indication can be obtained in less than 18 months, compared to the eight years it takes to bring a drug from the lab to the pharmacy. Managed-care companies have also been encouraging the use of medication, rather than more costly psychotherapy, to treat problems such as anxiety and depression.

But while most health experts agree that SSRIs have revolutionised the treatment of mental illness, a growing number of critics are disturbed by the degree to which corporate-sponsored campaigns have come to define what qualifies as a mental disorder and who needs to be medicated.

When Paxil hit the market in 1993, the drug's manufacturer, then known as Smith-Kline Beecham, lagged far behind its competitors. Eli Lilly's Prozac, the first FDA-approved SSRI, had already been around for five years, and Pfizer had beaten Smith-Kline to the punch with Zoloft's debut in 1992. With only a finite number of depression patients to target, Paxil's sales prospects seemed limited. But SmithKline found a way to set its drug apart from the other SSRIs: it positioned Paxil as an anti-anxiety drug - a latter-day Valium - rather than as a depression treatment.

SmithKline was especially interested in a series of minor entries in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM), the psychiatric bible. Published by the American psychiatric association since the 1950s, the DSM is designed to give doctors and scientists a common set of criteria to describe mental conditions. Entries are often inuenced by cultural norms (until 1973, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder) and political compromise: it is written by committees of mental-health professionals who debate, sometimes heatedly, whether to include specific disorders. The entry for GAD, says David Healy, a scholar at the college of medicine at the University of Wales and author of the 1998 book The Antidepressant Era, was created almost by default: "Floundering somewhat, members of the anxiety disorders subcommittee stumbled on the notion of generalised anxiety disorder," he writes, "and consigned the greater part of the rest of the anxiety disorders to this category."

Critics note that the DSM process has no formal safeguards to prevent researchers with drug-company ties from participating in decisions of interest to their sponsors. The committee that recommended the Gad entry in 1980, for example, was headed by Robert L Spitzer of the New York state psychiatric institute, which has been a leading recipient of industry grants to research drug treatments for anxiety disorders.

SmithKline's first forays into the anxiety market involved two fairly well-known illnesses - panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then, in 1998, the company applied for FDA approval to market Paxil for something called social phobia or "social anxiety disorder" (SAD), a debilitating form of shyness the DSM characterised as "extremely rare".

Obtaining such a new approval is a relatively simple affair. The FDA considers a DSM notation sufficient proof that a disease actually exists and, unlike new drugs, existing pharmaceuticals don't require an exhaustive round of clinical studies. To show that a drug works in treating a new disease, the FDA often accepts in-house corporate studies.

With FDA approval for Paxil's new use virtually guaranteed, SmithKline turned to the task of promoting the disease itself. To "position social anxiety disorder as a severe condition", as the trade journal PR News put it, the company retained the New York-based public-relations firm Cohn & Wolfe. (Representatives of GlaxoSmithKline and Cohn & Wolfe did not return my phone calls.)

By early 1999 the firm had created a slogan, "Imagine Being Allergic to People", and wallpapered bus shelters nationwide with pictures of a dejected-looking man vacantly playing with a teacup. "You blush, sweat, shake-even find it hard to breathe," read the copy. "That's what social anxiety disorder feels like." The posters made no reference to Paxil or SmithKline; instead, they bore the insignia of a group called the social anxiety disorder coalition and its three non-profit members, the American psychiatric association, the anxiety disorders association of America, and freedom from fear.

But the coalition was not a grassroots alliance of patients in search of a cure. It had been cobbled together by SmithKline Beecham and Cohn & Wolfe handled all media inquiries on behalf of the group.

The FDA's advertising regulations also helped the Cohn & Wolfe strategy. "If you are carrying out a disease-awareness campaign, legally the company doesn't have to list the product risks, notes Barbara Mintzes, an epidemologist at the University of British Columbia's centre for health services and policy research. Because the "Imagine Being Allergic to People" posters did not name a product, they did not have to mention Paxil's side effects, which can include nausea, decreased appetite, decreased libido, and tremors.

Cohn & Wolfe's strategy did not end with posters. The firm also created a video news release, a radio news release, and gave journalists a press statement stating that SAD "affects up to 13.3% of the population," - one in eight Americans -and is "the third most common psychiatric disorder in the United States, after depression and alcoholism." By contrast, the diagnostic and statistical manual cites studies showing that between 3-13% of people may suffer the disease at some point in their lives, but that only 2% "experience enough impairment or distress to warrant a diagnosis of social phobia".

Cohn & Wolfe also supplied journalists with eloquent patients, helping to "put a face on the disorder", as account executive Holly White told PR News. Among the patients most frequently quoted in stories about social anxiety disorder was a woman named Grace Dailey, who had also appeared in a promotional video produced by Cohn & Wolfe.

Also on that video was Jack Gorman, the Columbia University professor who would later make the rounds on Paxil's behalf during the GAD media campaign, appearing on numerous television shows, including ABC's Good Morning America.

Gorman was not a disinterested party in Paxil's promotion. He has served as a paid consultant to at least 13 pharmaceutical firms, including SmithKline Beecham, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer. Another frequent talking head in the SAD campaign, Dr Murray Stein of the University of California at San Diego, has also served as a Smith-Kline consultant, and the company funded many of his clinical trials on SAD.

Cohn & Wolfe's campaign on SAD paid immediate dividends. In the two years preceding Paxil's approval, fewer than 50 stories on social anxiety disorder had appeared in the popular press. In May 1999, the month when the FDA handed down its decision, hundreds of stories about the illness appeared in US publications and television news programmes, including the New York Times, Vogue, and Good Morning America. A few months later, Smith-Kline launched a series of ads touting Paxil's efficacy in helping SAD sufferers brave dinner parties and public speaking. By the end of last year, Paxil had supplanted Zoloft as the nation's number-two SSRI, and its sales were virtually on par with those of Eli Lilly's Prozac. (Neither Prozac nor Zoloft has anapproval for SAD.)

The success of the Cohn & Wolfe campaign didn't escape notice in the industry: trade journals applauded GlaxoSmithKline for creating "a strong anti-anxiety position" and assuring a bright future for Paxil. Increasing public awareness of SAD and other disorders, the consulting firm Decision Resources predicted last year, would expand the "anxiety market" to at least $3bn by 2009.

* This is an edited excerpt from an article in Mother Jones magazine.

See also: Pharmaceutical companies have come up with a new strategy to market their drugs: First go out and find a new mental illness, then push the pills to cure it.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

All of us are quite informed on the effects of medication and ultimately the choice is ours. I've taken my fair shair of pills but i've also turned down many attempts to put me on an anti-psychotic or an ADHD med.


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

Interesting stuff, will print out and read it. I kind of glanced over it just now - what's iatrogenic?

I agree with you in the sense that 'diagnoses' ie giving a name to something and then prescribing a particular med to treat it may be a way to make money because quite often its never that clear cut. In fact I doubt it ever is. However, my panic attacks weren't caused by any drug (thats why i asked about iatrogenic), i was quite young. And drugs have helped me. But will read your stuff because I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist and love to doubt the government and drug companies... :lol:


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

what is the mother jones magazine?


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

Iatrongenic means that you are creating the illness (or the signs of the syndrome) because you're looking for it.

Common example in the psych literature is the burst of Multiple Personality Disorder cases that sprung up in the 1980's/90's in the Boston area here in US. There were some prominent doctors who had a huge grant to study MPD, and they set up a clinic and inpatient hospital, etc... nearly any Borderline or dissociative patient who ambled in there ended up being seen as a "multiple"

Those patients weren't faking it, but they were sort of "encouraged" to view the different aspects of themselves as "different personalities" - so because the docs were LOOKING for MPD, they ended up creating the disorder in patients who had major problems, but whose problems might not ever have included MPD had they not walked into those doors.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

As far as I know iatrogenic means "doctor induced", that is if a pathological symptom is caused by a doctor, it is iatrogenic.

Is the definition of the word iatrogenic that you, janine, referred to more common in the medical field?


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2005)

No, I think we're talking about the same thing. I just think saying only "doctor induced" sounds like the doctor actually MADE you get an illness. What happens in these situations, is that the Diagnosis is iatrogenic. The patient doens't have anything he wouldn't have had otherwise, but they're calling it X Disorder because they were looking for something so hard they either found it, or brought out clues in patients to lead them to that conclusion.


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## kenc127 (Aug 10, 2004)

This topic is disturbing.


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## dakotajo (Aug 10, 2004)

Meaning of IATROGENIC
Pronunciation: I`atru'jenik

WordNet Dictionary

Definition: [adj] (medicine) induced by a physician's words or therapy (used especially of a complication resulting from treatment)

I here this term used over and over when discussing benzodiazepene addiction.


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

kenc127 said:


> This topic is disturbing.


*Indeed it is to me for personal reasons as my cousin has severe bipolar and schizoaffective disorder which initially had him hospitalized for a month so that he might get the right combo of meds.

When he had his first psychotic break at 20ish, he was preaching the Gospel on a concrete trash can in the freezing cold at 3am or so. No coat. Some 100 miles from home. Forgot who and where he was. Lost his car. Kindly, decent police officers had to calm him down and get him to a hospital. He was laughing and crying simultaneously, etc., etc., etc.*

Bipolar EXISTS. It is a serious illness, and hasn't been invented by anyone. Many doctors, not just psychiatrists, can recognize it -- usually in emergency rooms after the individual has a psychotic break. Bipolar individuals also self-medicate (4 times the average population) with alcohol.

***I will agree, there are often "fads" in diagnosis, no doubt about it. OVERdiagnosis, but I don't know the details of that. I agree with Janine in the overdiagnosis and literal CREATION of false memory syndrome and "multiple personalities" -- that term is out of date now as a result.***

*I believe iatrogenic can be applied to psychiatry but per a number of sources I found the following definition, which seems to apply to MEDICAL treatment more than psychiatric, but psychiatrists can and do make medical errors -- they are medical doctors:*

*"An iatrogenic complication is an unfavorable response to medical treatment that is induced by the therapeutic effort itself. Although some are minor, others are life-threatening. Serious or fatal iatrogenic complications occur in 4 to 9 percent of hospitalized patients. One retrospective series found that 14 percent of cardiac arrests could be traced to an iatrogenic event."

Clinical errors contribute to about half of all iatrogenic events. No matter how you analyze clinical errors the fact remains that they represent a level of medical practice that is below the accepted standard of care. In the law such errors are called medical malpractice or professional negligence.
*

This occurs with misdiagnosis in the elderly frequently, and in hospital settings.

Also, the history of lithium (from about.com) which was commonly the first treatment of choice for bipolar disorder (formerly manic depressive disorder.

*"Lithium, discovered in 1817, was noticed to have mood stabilizing properties in the late 1800s when doctors were using it to treat gout. (At least one doctor, in fact, concluded from this that gout was the cause of mood disorders.) It was Australian psychiatrist John Cade who, in 1949, published the first paper on the use of lithium in the treatment of acute mania. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not approve lithium for use until 1970.
Research has never indicated that that bipolar disorder might be caused by a lithium deficiency. Rather, it happens that this naturally occurring substance has the fortunate effect of acting as a mood stabilizer.

First answers in 1998
For almost 50 years, manic-depressive people were treated with lithium even though medical science did not know why or how it worked. Then in 1998, University of Wisconsin researchers unlocked the mystery. It has to do with nerve cells in the brain, and the receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate.........etc."*

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

Please remember we are not doctors here. Mental illnesses exist, and they are terribly disabling. My cousin is on disability and is terribly unhappy at being ill. He is at great risk for suicide as he feels his life is over.

If you want to really understand bipolar you MUST read medical journals. Self-diagnosis is not possible, or shouldn't be the way one decides whether or not one has a psychiatric disorder. If you don't trust your diagnosis, and are able to afford it, get a second and third and fourth opinion.

I am not saying psychiatrists are saints. They piss me off. My mother was one and she was a vicious person. But psychiatry is a legitimate medical profession... and psychiatrists are imperfect. But psychiatry is changing as we speak, and seems to be moving towards NEUROPSYCHIATRY.... integrating with neurology. It also involves cogitive study as well.

Believe me, bipolar is real, disabling, horrendous. And yes, there are many variations of it on a huge spectrum.

Read the work of Kay Redfield Jamison who is a Professor of Psychiatry who herself has bipolar.

Also go to

http://www.nami.org or the Merck Manual in the LINKS section to find out more about bipolar.

It exists. I have seen it. It is a living Hell for sufferer and caretaker.

Peace,
D


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

Yes, Dakota Joe is correct, as is Janine... I just have no specific recollection and I should.

*Psychiatrists are most notorious for CREATING in patents "multiple personalities" and "false memory syndrome."*

*MISDIAGNOSIS, or OVERDIAGNOSIS is different however, and equally as dangerous.......*

There is a difference -- and hence a slight semantic difference regarding other physical disorders.

I do consider mental illness a MEDICAL/PHYSICAL/NEUROLOGICAL disorder. My POV.

Best,
D


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

Also, whoever said that GAD was created doesn't know me. I have it, but didn't receive that specific diagnosis until about 1997. For the rest of my life I was "Depression, Depersonalization Disorder".... I am 46 years old and have been ill since a child.

*The NAME of a syndrome (a collection of symptoms) evolves over time, as did the diagnosis and naming of AIDS which was originally GRID.*

This doesn't mean defining it is "making it up" -- that would be like saying defining diabetes means someone made it up.

I agree there is tremendous difficulty in trying to communicate about this, but we don't know everything, I DON'T know everything... have to look up the same info 50 times........


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## dakotajo (Aug 10, 2004)

First off Id just like to say that the following is all just my OPINION!! Wether bi-polar really exists or not, the drug companies are going to keep selling pills to treat it cause they are making alot of fucking money. I think the current situation with our mental health "experts" drugging kids(for being kids) with drugs that are chemical cousins to meth or cocaine is a good example of how ridiculous things are getting.

Im with narcotic on this one. As many know here, I think psychiatry is just a bunch of bullshit. Its so far away from a science that its not even funny. When I used to see a shrink, I would sit in his waiting room and think what an illusion the environment was. Everything looked professional. Initially I felt as tho I was in a real doctors office yet I quickly found out how unprofessional these people really are. Im simply amazed that health insurance companies will even cover this crap. They could just as well be covering voodoo therapy. I dont even want to think of how much money was robbed from my insurance just to turn me into a klonopin junkie.

In my opinion its just complete wrecklessness, that these quacks can prescribe powerful, potentially dangerous drugs with no known mechanism to treat "illnesses" that are alot of times conjured up just to make a profit. On top of it, there is nobody held responsible when they make a mess of your physical or mental health. The whole thing stinks.

Joe


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

Just to clarify my own position here (and again, as Joe says, this is only MY opinion on the subject)

I was offering the definition to my buddy g-funk who asked what Iatrogenic MEANT, I was not in any way saying I think Bi-Polar Disorder is an inatrogenically created condition. (the MPD "epidemic" in the Kris Group was my example)

If anyone has ever SEEN a person under the sway of bi-polar episodes (either the mania or the depression) they would know it certainly exists. The real mccoy is like NOTHING anyone else could imagine. It's not "mood swings" or "feeling like running away with oneself" etc. It's potent and it's highly highly frightening to behold.

There is a really good movie (and it is NOT to be taken as anything but a Hollywood flick, but the performances are spot on) called "Mr. Jones" with Richard Gere and Lena Olin. She's a psychiatrist who meets a bi-polar patient (in emergency, he is not her patient), and in time they form a personal relationship (NOT good, lol...but hey, it makes for a sexy little movie). His performance of Bi-Polar is excellent. THAT is mania, and those are the delusions (psychotic delusions) of mania. And his depressive state is so deadened that he looks catatonic. That's the real mccoy.

In my humble opinion, Bi-Polar is often diagnosed when it's not what some of us woudl consider the actual disorder, but only a "slight" variance of it. To me, that's not Bi-Polar, but to some people, it's close enough to warrant the label.

Let me guarantee you, though....MY dp existed. My obsessive anxiety and chronic mental leaps into delusional and obsessive thought was REAL. This was not med induced (happened before I'd ever taken anything but aspirin). And it was not doctor induced. I actually suffered from it for years before even admitting the worst of it to any doctor.

If we've "got" something, we know it. And we don't need anyone to agree.

Janine


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## JasonFar (Aug 13, 2004)

Interesting post Janine..

Your and Dreamer's personal accounts and descriptions of bi-polar sound very real and frightening. I have never seen anybody on a manic high or whatever you'd call it, and I don't want to, for it would very likely be a terrifying and discomforting experience...

On the other hand, watching it through a movie isn't nearly as tough a thing to do... I saw Mr. Jones way back when, must have been 10-11, and I don't remember a thing. But I'd really like to see it again (after your description), and have added it to my Netflix queue.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

IF there is such a thing as a devil, then he is surely present in the field of psychiatry.

Think about it..You know for a fact that so many people get sick from these pills. Patients take the pill only to get symptoms that they have never encountered before. Over time, the number of symptoms keeps rising and the patient becoems more and more debilitated. When the patient goes for help, then they are diagnosed as a nutcase and are thrown more and more drugs which make them MORE sick. It doesn't matter if the patient was prescribed the pills for sleep or muscle spasms and had never experienced anxiety before. The minute you step into a doctors office or accept a pill then you have a label for the rest of your life.

Another thing is that alot of people committ suicide on these drugs. But that doesn't matter. It will always be blamed on the illness and not the drugs. Even if the patient showed NO signs of suicidal behavior before taking the drug. It's ALWAYS the ilness. The scary thing is that 90 percent of the population is brainwashed into believing that psychiatry is harmless and that it WAS the illness. I bet you look at this message and think it's bogus already. Scary scary stuff.

Neal


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2005)

Dreamer wrote:



> This doesn't mean defining it is "making it up"


This is my stance as well, and although I do know that a lot psychiatrists are quick diagnosing anything that is not accurate, the definitions of disorders do describe observable symptoms. That is, I do think that the disorders are based on observable data and they mostly (not in any case) are not only made up without any basement. Although I also know that the data presented to back up the diagnosis is sometimes biased and far fetched.

However, the fact remains that psychiatry and psychology as a whole is so far from being an objective approach and therefore as unscientific as miracle healers that it should be abandoned. Furthermore it is so damaging in too many cases that it should be considered a crime and therefore forbidden.

Although I think that some of the most common disorders do have some validity it is doubtful if diagnosis is a useful tool.

Pathological symptoms persist no matter what terms there are applied to them.

All in all I really do wonder why there are still people that honestly take psychology and psychiatry seriously.
Besides the very obvious flaws that must pop into one's eye only scratching the surface of the subject of psychiatry or psychology, it must dawn on anybody reading a bit more on the matter that the whole psychiatric industry is far too idiotic to be even worth the time reading about it and unfortunately too damaging to discount it as a bad joke.

Psychiatry and psychology are so stupid and damaging that they should be deprived of the right to exist.
It not only damages the ones that have the misfortune of directly receiving psychiatric ?care?, but the influence of psychiatry and psychology tears down the society as a whole.


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2005)

neal quit ruining my post with your stupid pill bashing bullshit

aughhh


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2005)

Only if you stop criticizing people for smoking pot


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2005)

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder about six years ago. I was on lithium for awhile, which seemed to be the only medication to help me. It evened me out; I have not been on lithium for about four years, but my moods still seem a lot even and easier to deal with back then.


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## stickdude (Aug 13, 2004)

i was going to start taking remeron, an anti-depressant, tomorrow. i worry all the time, can't relax, feel sad a lot, just not myself. i guess i'm kind of worried about feeling worser on an anti-depressant. after reading all of this, should i go ahead and start taking it?


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

Do whatever you want to do. Just realize that there is always a chance that you'll end up regretting it. THere are huge risks with these medications.


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## stickdude (Aug 13, 2004)

ah, i just can't win. feel like crap without medicine, then feel bad on it. what do i do now


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

I'm on depakote for bipolar mania and i feel totally fine on it for almost half the day, and the other half i'm suicidal...hmmmm. I think i need an SSRI to balance this crap out.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

I don't know a lot about the clinical details of bi-polar.
I have witnessed it first hand as my sister was married to a man who had it or rather he still does.
He is a triplet( guys) all of them suffer with bi-polar as did thier father.
This illness has just about destroyed the whole family.

When it's bad it's oh so bad.

There is another illness called cyclothimia which I think is considered a milder form of bi-polar.
I think it would be more difficult to diagnose as the highs and lows may not be as dramatic.
As with bi-polar a person may go a long time without an episode,even years.
I have also witnessed this illness firsthand.

Mood swings from what I've seen are typical.
It appears that people with cyclothinia might be sailing along when a particular heavy stress such as a relationship break up causes an episode to begin.
The mania state naturally is individual,some people take a lot of drugs,act impulsively etc.
They might talk about how brilliant,clever,beautifull they are.
They might appear to be overly cocky and egocentric.
Might have a new plan or ingenoius idea every other hour.
Paranioa could be part of their thinking.They might believe that others are jealous of them or want to stand in their way or plot against them. 
Some people might feel intense anger or rage mixed with depression.Thoughts of suicide or harming themselves.
They go from feeling like amazing wonder beings to absolute losers.
From feeling they are very special,inique,multi talented,charismatic individulas to having almost no self worth.
There seems to be a build up over days or weeks.Insomnia,racing thoughts and fast talking would be common.

I'm only describing what I have observed.

Call it what you will,there is a mental illness that causes some people to experience moods of extreme highs and lows.
It's a very very painful condition for the person who has it.

My favourite psychiatrist killed himself several years ago,he had bi-polar.

As for it being over diagnosed or under diagnosed.......what isn't?
A good diagnosticion is worth their weight in gold IMO.

cheers Shell


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## dakotajo (Aug 10, 2004)

Yes, it is true that people do have problems with their own mind, with life and with other people. That is the nature of life and living. Some have it easier than others and some have it real bad. At times it may seem that shocking or drugging a person into an altered state, or oblivion, is better than the suicidal or destructive behavior they were experiencing previously. But make no mistake about it, psychiatric techniques are oppressive, very harmful and often irreversible. These approaches 1) fail to address the actual source of the problems they pretend to "cure" or "handle", and 2) the techniques confuse the mind further making any legitimate future attempts at correcting the problem(s) that much more difficult.

"With drugs and shock treatments, the psychiatrist instead attacks the subjective experience of the person and blunts or destroys the very capacity to be sensitive and aware" 
-Peter Breggin, M.D., psychiatrist

Sensitivity and awareness are necessary for any person to address and deal with their own thoughts, ideas, fears, goals, intentions and imagination. Reducing or destroying these results in one's inability to take responsibility for their own life. This is the result of psychiatric "treatments". Modern psychology and psychiatry ignore the mind of Man and go so far as to consider it not to exist. The word psychology has been redefined over the past 50 years to exclude the concept of the mind.

Mind/Body Relationship

The brain, mind, body, emotions and thought are interrelated. Exactly how is not currently known or understood. The psychiatrist and materialist would have us believe all causes lie in genetics, chemical imbalances, electrochemical phenomena, physiology and environmental factors. But this is very far from the truth. You drink a cup of coffee and "feel up", improve mental clarity and are set to face the day. Obviously, there is a relationship between the physical and the mental and emotional aspects of man. Hallucinogenic drugs greatly alter perception and thought. But similarly, receiving good news can reversely suddenly shake a person out of despondency and give them an entirely new view on life. The successful use of a visualization technique can change a person's view on life, and even has been known to affect physical conditions. Prayer has been documented to alleviate and even cure diseases in some instances. It's a two-way street.

There is an obvious relation between the physical and the mental. Physical situations effect mental and emotional things, and visa versa, mental and emotional can things affect the physical. Meditation techniques and biofeedback have been proven to alter brain functioning. Certain Yogis can slow down their heartbeat rate and even enter physical comatose states by thought alone. Obviously, the picture is much larger than they would have us believe. The large error with psychiatry is assuming the physical (physiology, genetics, biochemistry, and environment) is the complete and sole cause of everything mental and emotional. This is a huge error. They refuse to accept the possibility that it's a two-way street. The mental realm can and does equally effect changes in the physical. Sadly, psychiatric methods act to inhibit and harm the functioning of a mind, thereby reducing its ability to do what it can and should do.

Psychiatry will cite various tests as "proof" that thought is biochemically based. Tests have been done where various sections of the brain are electrostimulated with resulting experiences of joy, sadness, and vivid memory recall. Again, there is an obvious relation. But to assume a direct, one-way only, causal relation is absurd and simply intellectual dull. That's not at all what the tests indicate. The mind and thought involve a unique realm that has its own properties and functions. It is ignored completely by psychiatry with disastrous results.

Psychiatry is one promotional and sales arm of major drug companies. Major drug companies fund all the research. It should surprise no one that their studies consistently explain everything as biochemical in origin requiring drugs as the solution. You are living in the Land of Oz if you think for a second that a major drug company would ever fund, much less publish results, encouraging any approach to solving problems with the "mind" other than their own drugs. There is no money in meditation, visualization, biofeedback or any other alternative approach to dealing with the mind. Worse, using the FDA, the drug companies wage an unrelenting war against any practices that have the slightest chance of competing with them. Don't think the current "scientific" and "psychiatric" views evolved out of total honest and sincere investigation into the cause of man's ailments. They evolved out of millions of dollars of funding by profit-motivated groups and individuals.

But Psychiatry Works! - Does It?

Some will argue "but it works!". "I was going to kill myself and after taking the drugs I stopped feeling this way".

This is true. But the above still applies completely. The true source of the problem was never addressed and the psychiatric "solution" directly acted to further submerge the true source of the problems making them that much more difficult to ever handle at a future time with a more legitimate approach involving personal responsibility for one's own mind, life and experiences. You could just as well tie the suicidal person up in a straight jacket or knock them unconscious with a baseball bat and they would not kill themselves. It would have "worked". Notice the "straight-jacket" is just another of psychiatry's methods. But it also never addresses any actual problem source. The method simply exerts force on the person thereby preventing them from acting out the suicidal thoughts. Drugs very much act in a similar way, as a mental straight jacket, altering awareness, perception, personality and sense of self. Psychiatric drugs are in effect "chemical force" exerted on the brain, emotions and mind, and not a "cure" that addresses some actual "disease" or "illness". Everything said about drugs here is even more true for ECT (electric shock), and in the case of ECT the method employs electrical force.


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

lol people who smoke pot??

i smoke pot................. :shock: hahaha


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

Kari, i really do think you might be bi polar. like 3 months ago, you told me that i would never get better or i would be worse if i smoke pot. when you found out from neal that i smoked pot, you said to me all kinds of crazy things!!! hahahahah you are seriously in need of some help you hipocrate---robbie


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

i cant get over how crazy this really is!!!wow!!! hahahahahah you smoke potnow?!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!?!? hahahahhahaahhahahahah lunatic


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2005)

Actually Joe I do live in the land of "Oz" lol

Shades of grey,Joe,shades of grey.

Very few people would kid themselves that modern day psychiatry has it all figured out.
My psychiatrist keeps telling me that here is no evidence to support the serotonin theory?

What can a person do?Bi-polar is one hard to treat and hard to manage disorder.As I understand it a complete cure is not a possibility.

My father had bi-polar I wish to hell they'd given him some drugs.He might not have been the bastard that he was,terrorising his family.
We would have preferred that he was doped to the eyeballs,at least then we might have felt safe.

In no way do I feel all people with bi-polar are like this.That was just the way it was with my father.
I know how sweet and kind they can be too from personal experience.

Happy New Year Joe,I don't want to argue with you 

cheers Shelly


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## whiterabbit (Aug 16, 2004)

My experience has shown me that my bi-polar depersonalisation disorder is self-induced, not doctor-induced.

Having said that my disorder is something that has also been never really doctor-understood! Twenty nine out of the thirty or so consultant psychiatrists I have seen simply did not understand it all. Their puzzlement and ignorance was deepened by the fact that I have proved, time and again to be very unresponsive to the usual mood stabilisers. (Although prozac I think does play a supplementary role in keeping me away from the exteme edges of the mood switches).

However, I am glad to say, my disorder is now finally becoming self-understood. And this has been due to a lot of intensive therapeutic work and identifying internal and external triggers, reactions and thought/feeling patterns which coalesce into severe depersonalised depressions and then bloom into over-active narrow-minded euphoria.

I think some people, largely in the Bi-Polar I category, definitely benefit from medications and that certain meds may have a critical role in the process of recovery for certain individuals. But even then, as Dakota Joe points out, there is still a lot of scope for practical emotional work to be done to manage their inner experience - past and present - and to minimise relapses.

Over and out! WR x


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

*I'm infuriated by the fact that this debate implies that essentially mental illness, or more correctly brain disorders don't exist.*

It is already known that schizophrenia and bipolar are clearly medical/neurological disorders. I also tend to be of the neurological camp re: most other mental illness.

This isn't to say that one's environemnt/life experiences/unique personality don't play a part.

However, all this does is stigmatize what *we here* suffer from already. And all mental disorders come in varying degrees of severity. So it is impossible for one person to generalize from his/her experience how any one else here is feeling or what choice that individual makes in seeking treatment.

*****I hope this discussion does not deter anyone from seeking treatment, or cause them to hold back information from a doctor.*****

Mental illness has existed as far back as history recorded it. It was treated in many different ways. Barbaric and otherwise. Medicine itself is in its infancy, and the mind is "the final frontier."

Again, if you have a loved one with a mental illness, then you will understand it exists. The strangest thing is, here WE are, with various problems -- and none of them are "weakness of character" which is the stigma perpetuated by the public at large, by the media.

We are afraid to talk about OUR DP/DR, obsessive thinking, all manner of "odd sensations and strange thoughts" as we will be found out to be "crazy." And yet we say, there is no such thing as being crazy? (I HATE that word). It was created, when? Since pharmaceuticals were invented?

OK.

*It is extremely frustrating, as someone who is a mental health advocate, to work on destigmatizing mental illness, to find fellow DPers, and those with other illnesses such as OCD, panic disorder, social anxiety, depression, etc., etc., etc. not acknowledging that these illnesses are as real and as disabling as heart disease, or AIDS, or emphysema.*

I ask any of you to volunteer for a short time at a mental health day care facility, at a NAMI office (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), spend time with a mentally ill relative or friend -- many have one mentally ill relative or more. And don't be "afraid" of someone who is mentally ill. They are as human as any of us here.

I'm just flabbergasted that here we are, on a forum, seeking help for something very much out of the ordinary, that was not created by doctors!!!!!!!, denying that these illnesses exist.

I have no words.

*And again. A psychiatrist cannot CREATE bipolar, OCD, depression, DP/DR. A psychiatrist can MISDIAGNOSE, yes.

This is like saying that a Family Doctor can create diabetes. A Family Doctor could fail to notice the signs and symptoms, or misinterpret lab tests, or lab tests could be bungled, but the patient would ultimately show up in an E.R.*

(Again, the one dicey area of psychiatry as I see it, is the area of MPD, multiple personality disorder. The diagnosis does not exist anymore. Psychiatrists, in trying to help patients that are indeed ill with something that is not fully understood, have made situations worse. The diagnosis is DID now. Dissociative Identity Disorder. And is still one illness, like DP/DR that is not well understood.)

AIDS, some 20? years ago, used to be called Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. GRID. I always pull this out of moth balls as an example of the revolution of understanding that must happen when a constellation of symptoms are identified, and the causes need to be understood.

We have a name for the illness AIDS now. People the world over have been diagnosed with it, or with HIV ... they are infected with a tiny virus we still have no clue how to immunize people against. And some still don't use condoms, still use dirty needles. "That can't ever happen to me."

Medicine is ever evolving.

The understanding of the brain will continue to evolve and we will never understand it completely.

*My final word. A very close friend of mine whom I knew for 25 years, since college committed suicide about 3 weeks ago. I knew she had problems, but she kept them to herself. It was always difficult for her to discuss "problems." She became overwhelmed. She felt she had no one to turn to. And she would have been ashamed to see a psychiatrist -- maybe someone would have thought she was stupid to go to one, or that she was "crazy"...

.... she might be alive today if she had gotten help. I know I couldn't have stopped what happened. But once you have experienced this --the death of someone who felt there was no good reason to go on living -- maybe you'll understand. Maybe you will have compassion.

Maybe you won't.
Your loss.
She was a good person. As are most people on this board. And as are many mentally ill people who have nothing to be ashamed of.

Shame on you who say otherwise, or imply, or infer or whatever the word is.*

To P. and sadly to M. (the story is too horrific)
Rest in Peace
L,
Dreamer

Again, take a visit.... http://www.nami.org
The National Alliance For The Mentally Ill
and *READ.*


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

HAHAH ROBBIE

KNOW WHAT?

I CANT READ ANYTHING YOU WRITE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SPELL TO SAVE YOUR LIFE.

seriously, spell check that shit or go back to 6th grade and learn how to spell like a normal human being. and then maybe i'll read what you have to say.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

I've got bipolar and i smoke pot...and the only problems that i've noticed with the combination:

Strong dependancy leading to daily smoking and leading to harder drugs. Pot in moderation can be a good thing, even to me who got paranoid all the time on it, yet I came crawling back to it all the time.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

^ smoked pot...although i had a relapse this fall where i smoked a few times.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

> My final word. A very close friend of mine whom I knew for 25 years, since college committed suic*** about 3 weeks ago. I knew she had problems, but she kept them to herself. It was always difficult for her to discuss "problems." She became overwhelmed. She felt she had no one to turn to. And she would have been ashamed to see a psychiatrist -- maybe someone would have thought she was stupid to go to one, or that she was "crazy"...


Thats really tragic, Dreamer.  
Im sad for your loss and sad that she couldnt confide in someone.
Take care.
Wendy


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## terri* (Aug 17, 2004)

Totally staying out of the thread except to send hugs to Dreamer. I am so sorry for your loss. Being the ones left behind in these situations and having all the what-ifs stuck in your head can be very hard to deal with. Just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you.

terri


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

Kari, really sad that you try to degrade others to cover your own insecurities...lol. For someone that fell "in love" with someone over the internet! lol. 
You never even met Neal, and you told me that you guys would last forever. I seriously think its time for you to grow the fuck up. And damn you need to answer my question about the pot. Because I spelled the word hypocrite wrong, you weaseld out of your sloppy bi polar way of thinking.. lol....hahahahhahah


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

This girl just makes herself sound even more bipolar like with all of the loathsome remarks she makes. I am not one to criticize usually, but when people are this out of sync emotionally then I feel the need to speak up.

Medication is for extreme cases and this girl is indeed an extreme case...Kari, have you considered lithium to help treat your insecurities?


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## Dreamer (Aug 9, 2004)

Thank you Wendy and terri. Sorry to blow up. You know the two of you are not the objects of my rage here. Thank you for the conern and hugs. Much needed.
L,
D


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

Neal, I concur. Isnt true that low doses of zyprexa can help these really severe cases/situations? Maybe we should lay off of her because of the fact that she has a "real" mental dissorder, and that its not her fault. Hmmm....nah! I want to point out to her how much of a hypocrite she is ....lol...


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## dakotajo (Aug 10, 2004)

Ritalin Is Poison

Why is America suddenly experiencing an explosion of new mental diseases and disorders never heard of thirty years ago? Why are children seemingly out of control, refusing to listen to parents and teachers, even driven to violence?

Here are two possible reasons to consider. First, it is apparent the psychology industry isn?t opposed to simply making up diseases and disorders if there is money to be made. Second, some research is suggesting that many of the growing diseases and disorders could actually be side effects of the drugs psychologists are pouring into children to "cure" their made-up diseases.

Does that sound harsh or far-fetched? Consider these facts. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are complete frauds. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to prove either exists. Yet, today, almost seven million children have been diagnosed as being ADD or ADHD. And most have been placed on a behavior-altering drug called Ritalin, which is supposed to be the miracle answer to a non-existent problem.

THE ROOTS OF ADD/ADHD

For the past several years schools have had a problem. Some children can?t seem to concentrate on their studies, can?t sit still, can?t stay quiet or can?t keep their attention on any specific activity. At home, parents find the same children to be a disruption in the household. Sometimes the children become violent, certainly uncontrollable.

Clearly something is wrong. Children have been taken to doctors for medical exams. Nothing chemical or physical has been found wrong with them. No brain tumors, no epilepsy, no multiple sclerosis nor any of the known neurological disorders have been found in the children. Schools need answers. Parents need answers. Psychologists need to prove their credentials. So, in the dark, blind as bats, action has been taken.

Dr. Fred A. Baughman, a leading expert and critic of the ADD theory, explains the steps the psychiatry establishment took to create an answer, and establish a name, for what they believe inflicts the children. Says Dr. Baughman, "They (a committee of the American Psychiatric Association, APA) made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive ? termed them a ?disease.? Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term ?research,? has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease."

To date, there has never been issued a single peer-reviewed scientific paper officially claiming to prove ADD/ADHD exists. Nor has there ever been a single bit of physical evidence to confirm the disease exists. So-called experts on the subject have refused to answer the simple question, "is ADD/ADHD a real disease?" Medical researchers charge that ADHD does not meet the medical definition of a disease or syndrome or anything organic or biologic.

One piece of speculation ADD "experts" cling to is MRI brain-scan research conducted by Dr. F. Xavier Castellanos of the National Institute of Health. According to his research, suspected ADD/ADHD victims show a consistent but moderate shrinkage in three key parts of the brain, thus causing the erratic behavior and consequently proving the existence of ADD/ADHD. Castellanos? research has been grabbed up by ADD experts in conferences and in written studies for several years. Others have used similar tests with matching results. Desperate to grab hold of any shred of evidence which could back up the official ADD position, psychologists and policy makers used Castellanos? findings to establish medication and therapy treatment for suspected ADD/ADHD patients. Consequently, the "epidemic" of ADD/ADHD has grown from 500,000 cases in 1985 to almost 7,000,000 in 1999. In most cases Ritalin is prescribed to control the disorder.

There is only one problem with the conclusions found in Dr. Castellanos? findings. At least 93% of the children used in his research had been on long-term stimulant therapy, usually Ritalin. Likewise, the other tests also used long-term Ritalin-treated patients. According to Dr. Baughman, what the tests proved again and again was that Ritalin was causing the brains to shrink ? not ADD.

In truth, no one in the medical profession or in government regulatory agencies will stick their necks out and pronounce ADD/ADHD as a real disease. To the contrary, in a series of letters to Dr. Baughman they have said the exact opposite. In 1994, Paul Leber of the Food and Drug Administration said, "As yet no distinctive pathophysiology for the disorder has been delineated." In 1995, Gene R. Haislip of the Drug Enforcement Administration said, "We are also unaware that ADHD has been validated as a biologic/organic syndrome or disease." In 1998, James M. Swanson of the University of California, and leading ADD advocate, said in conference, "I would like to have an objective diagnosis for the disorder (ADHD). Right now psychiatric diagnosis is completely subjective." And even Dr. Castellanos, in spite of his extensive research, said in 1998, "I agree that we have not yet met the burden of demonstrating the specific pathophysiology that we believe underlies this condition."

In spite of the lack of evidence for the existence of ADD/ADHD, its advocates continue to march forward, helter-skelter, issuing prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin with little concern for the long-term consequences it may bring to the patients. Russell Barkley sees Ritalin as the medical triumph of the century. Barkely boldly states, "?once convinced of an ADHD diagnosis, there?s no compelling reason to avoid Ritalin." As Dr. Baughman explains, "Their ?diseases? are theories in perpetuity. As long they believe and as long as the drugs are prescribed, that?s all that matters."

FOLLOW THE MONEY

When things don?t seem to make sense, it?s been advised many times to "follow the money." That would be sage advise in the search for the truth about ADD. There is lots of money worth following.

Since ADD was invented by the APA, psychiatric hospitalizations to private hospitals have tripled. Admissions of children and adolescents to private psychiatric hospitals jumped from 16,735 in 1980 to 42,502 in 1986. Irving Phillips, MD and professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco says, "Patients are hospitalized for periods consistent with their insurance coverage and discharged with diagnoses that question whether hospitalization is appropriate."

Insurance healthcare fraud is a $60 to $80 billion a year business. And the psychology industry has been very creative in finding ways to cash in. But it?s only the tip of the iceberg when seeking to calculate the massive ADD/ADHD-related profits flowing into the coffers of the industry.

The greatest source of new growth for the psychiatric industry is the schools. As education restructuring grew into a full-blown behavior-modification assault designed to change the attitudes, values and beliefs of the children, a key element to the process was to turn healthy children into "patients." By diagnosing a child to have a mental disorder like ADD/ADHD the school could gain federal funds. It?s a growth industry.

In 1965, the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), education changed education forever as the seeds for today?s massive restructuring -away from academics to behavior modification - began. It was psychology?s crowning moment. The ESEA allocated massive federal funds and opened school doors to a flood of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and the psychiatric programs and testing needed to validate them. The number of educational psychologists in the U.S. increased from 455 in 1969 to 16,146 in 1992. As of 1994, child psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and special educators in and around U.S. public schools nearly out-number teachers.

In 1991, eligibility rules for federal education grants were changed to provide schools with $400 in annual grant money for each child diagnosed with ADHD. That same year the Department of Education formally recognized ADHD as a handicap and directed all state education officers to establish procedures to screen and identify ADHD children and provide them with special education and psychological services. As a result, the number of ADD/ADHD cases soared again.

Today more than 7,000,000 children have been labeled, stamped and registered as permanent patients of the school system. 10 to 12 percent of all boys between the ages of 6 and 14 in the United States have been diagnosed as having ADD. One in every 30 Americans between the ages of 5 and 19 years old has a prescription to Ritalin. Psychologists have never had it so good. The federal trough has been very good for their industry.

With more than half of those 7,000,000 children also prescribed Ritalin, the stock-market value of its manufacturer, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, has also soared. Now that company and others are working to introduce a host of new drugs into the classroom, including Prozac and Luvox, which has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for pediatric use. Now the industry is looking to even greater growth as pre-school toddlers are being targeted by the pill brigade. The use of psychotropic drugs, like anti-depressants and stimulants, in 2-to-4-year olds doubled or even tripled between 1991 and 1995. The federal trough has been very good to the pharmaceutical industry, as well.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO DESTROY A CHILD

The federal trough has been good for the education industry, too. Schools are awash with federal funds to build in-school clinics where children will be analyzed, diagnosed and treated for whatever disease they care to make the flavor of the day. It?s in the schools where the system will make sure the children are properly cared for, out of sight and questions of the parents.

Beyond the available funding, there is also a side-bonus for the schools. If a child has a learning disorder, the schools can?t be held responsible for the fact that the student can?t learn. Bad teachers, failed curriculum and federal programs can?t be blamed for the failure of the student to learn. They?ve created an efficient system to protect themselves. It works like this: If a child has trouble with math, he is deemed to have a mental disorder under code number 315.1 - "Mathematics Disorder;" If the child can?t write literature composition she must be suffering from code 315.2 - "Disorder of Written Expression;" If the student can?t read then he is obviously suffering from code 315 - "Reading Disorder." As stated, the whole industry is well protected ? and well paid.

So the schools join in full cooperation with the psychologists to label millions of children with learning disorders. Teachers, with no medical credentials, serve as the unofficial recruiter and perform "pop-psychology" in the classroom to decide what children might have ADD.

Johnny is in the fifth grade, but only reads at a first grade level. Not the school?s fault. Johnny must be "dyslexic" or could have ADD. The teacher now becomes a brain diagnostician who decides who will be tested and who will be referred for special education or who is uneducable without Ritalin. The teacher reports these "findings" to the school administration and the wheels of control begin to turn against the child and the parental control.

Woe be the child or parents who dare resist. The "team" now convenes ? all for the good of the child, of course. The weight of consensus is brought to bear. Woe be the doctor who doesn?t agree with the findings. One who does will be found. Once treatment has been decided, the drugs are issued and the team is increased to include in-home social workers and the in-school clinics. The child is now community property. Now you know the true meaning of the term "it takes a village," and the process to make it so.

POISON IN A CHILD?S SYSTEM

Psychologists will lie to you. They will tell you that Ritalin is not addictive. It is. It affects the mind. It affects the body. It can cause depression. The reaction to Ritalin by the brain is exactly the same as that of cocaine, except cocaine is shorter acting. It changes the child. Research is showing that Ritalin use is a common factor among many of the students who have walked into their schools and opened fire, indicating that Ritalin brings children to violence.

Children are dying from Ritalin use. According to Ritalin critic, Dr. Baughman, of 2,993 adverse reaction reports (AR) concerning Ritalin listed by the FDA from 1990 to 1997, there were 160 deaths and 569 hospitalizations, 36 of them life-threatening. Ritalin is known to cause cardiac arrhythmia, tachycardia and hypertension. Research has proven that Ritalin and other amphetamines can interfere with body phospholipid chemistry (complex fat), causing the accumulation of abnormal membranes visible with an electronic microscope.

Ritalin is early training to introduce children to drug abuse. Today, Ritalin is fast becoming the drug of choice by college students who were brought up on it. Reports from college campuses across the nation indicate that Ritalin use has become as popular as Coca Cola and coffee as a study aid.

A black market for obtaining Ritalin without a prescription has developed on some campuses. "People will pay $5 or $6 for one pill," says a sophomore at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. To increase its potency, some students have started to crush Ritalin and sniff it like cocaine. After the "buzz" wears off, students report side effects of melancholy, lethargy, dry mouth, loss of appetite and inability to sleep.

Some parents report that, in the beginning Ritalin, seems to help children focus and begin to learn. But there is evidence that, over time, the drug builds up in the system causing depression and violent mood swings. In many cases, after being on the drug for several years children actually forget how to live without it. If taken off the drug they have reported feeling lost, frightened, even paranoid. This can lead the child to eventually experimenting with illegal drugs in an attempt to "feel normal" again. Research has shown that children on Ritalin are three times more likely to develop a taste for cocaine. So as the psychologists continue to invade the classrooms in ever increasing numbers, ask yourself why the drug culture is growing by ever-larger numbers through ever- younger children.

WHAT?S WRONG WITH THE CHILDREN?

If ADD/ADHD is not a real disease, then why the sudden epidemic of students unable to learn and unable to control themselves? What?s wrong with the children? A lot of parents don?t really want to know the answers to these questions. A disease or disorder is so much easier to accept.

Dr. Lawrence Diller, Author of "Running on Ritalin" puts the problem in perspective when he says, "Settling for Ritalin says we prefer to locate our children?s problems in their brains rather than in their lives."

Consider how many modern families live. Both parents must work to maintain the lifestyle in the suburbs. That usually means that the whole family is up before dawn, dressed and fed. The children are dropped off at day care or school and the parents may then commute for as many as two hours each way to work. In the afternoon, children may leave school only to head to after-school day care to be picked up after dark by one harried parent. The family may then reassemble at home or meet in a restaurant for dinner. Once home, the tired children may attempt to do some homework. Soon the entire family will fall into bed for an exhausted sleep only to do it all again the next morning.

Where is the "quality time" needed by each child? Where is the opportunity for the child to just curl up in mommy?s comforting lap to find security? Everything must be organized, scheduled, rushed. Children feel the loss, and they take action for attention. They misbehave, they cry, they become defiant, aggressive. The parents seek answers and relief to the family turmoil.

The school, which is also experiencing the child?s defiance and aggression, seeks relief. Enter the school psychologist who provides the convenient answer. The child is ADD. Short term relief can come from a wonder drug called Ritalin. As a result, the real root of the behavior problems are suppressed and hidden as the child enters a drug- induced stupor. He seems to calm down, perhaps his grades even improve for a while and the problem seems to be solved.

There is more feeding the problem. School restructuring has centered around an assault on student values. Students are told in many classrooms that there is no right or wrong. Students, we are told, should not be told what to do. They should be allowed to experiment and "find themselves" on their own.

Hillary Clinton wrote in her book "It Takes a Village," that corrective discipline isn?t encouraged at all, In fact, if a parent has to tell a child no, then the parent has already failed as a parent. According to Hillary, a child?s ability to self-check comes naturally, when not undermined by critical, controlling parents. "If (kids) have supportive and caring adults around them, they pick up the social clues that enable them to develop self-discipline and empathy." In other words, Hillary Clinton is telling parents that children will basically raise themselves, with a little guidance from "the village."

Parents, near desperation, believing what they are told about the "modern" way to raise a child, refuse to interfere with their growth. Spanking is now termed child abuse and parents can even be arrested if someone in the village decides to be a "hero" and turn in their neighbors.

What?s wrong with the children? Basically the children have started to show signs of insanity because the system raising them is nuts.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2005)

robbie you didnt spell one word wrong! i am sooo proud of you.


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2005)

Thanks!!! :wink: Dont tell Neal I winked at you. lol


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## stickdude (Aug 13, 2004)

you think i'll be messed up for good if i start taking remeron?


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2005)

^ Never tried Remeron.

Kari, just use the bipolar scapegoat. Anytime I do something evil, stupid or pointless...i just blame it on mental illness. Instead of people getting angry, they just feel bad for me.

My ideas are sociopathic, but i'm insane so its allowed. 8)


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2005)

lol zig, nice idea...

and robbie, yeah, i don't even talk to neal lol :wink:


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2005)

oh, and robbie, that was so like 2 months ago 

hahahaha


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2005)

Sorry Dreamer to hear about your friend.
It's fine with me that you spoke up.
I kinda thought I was saying the same thing as I mentioned that I've had three family members with bi-polar.
Also mentioned that my favourite psychiatrist killed himself due to bi-polar,it was a very sad and frightening time for me.

It seems that there is a trend to fob off diagnostic labels,possibley due to the hype over drug companies( founded and unfounded) and the idea that many psychiatrists over diagnose.
I'm only guessing here.
I can understand that people often find it can be like a maze when you enter the world of psychiatric diagnoses.
It's possible that you can end up with a melting pot of disorders.

Totally agree that bi-polar is a very real mental illness.Most times it's tragic for the sufferer not to mention for their family and friends.

Cheers Shelly


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2005)

Hi - This has all been extremely interesting for me to read, being a new person to the site, this past week. But I just wanted to know, why are you not allowed to write the whole word "suicide" or "fuck"? Are there U.S. laws about language on websites? Anyway, I will continue reading and when I am brave enough to contribute to the topics, I will be there.
Thanks. Even just reading others' contributions is calming me down and helping me to deal with the DP symptoms I have been experiencing. This is a very cool site.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2005)

Suicide is a touchy word, because a lot of the people in here have considered it including me, and anytime the word is mentioned it can conjure up bad thoughts...although unless one has down's syndrome, i'm pretty sure we all know what word is written underneath.

Its got to be some censorship law crap...but i'd rather see pixilated boobies on television go away first.


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## Guest (Jan 12, 2005)

Thanks, Ziggomatix, for letting me know. I guess I was expecting swear words to be cut, but I guess if other words cut close to home, they can become profanities, too. (And no more pixelated boobies... they must be stopped!)


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