I wrote 2 long and demoralizing posts today that made me loopy. I’m arguing with another commenter at Amanda’s blog and can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on.
I see some folks are here today, I tell you what, I’ll just download the chat function so we can talk in real time when things go topside. Meanwhile, here’s the thread, the WAPO story it links to is riveting, hits all the notes. Now me and another member are in a pissing match over the etiology of PTSD. This is where it goes. I feel like I’m talking to a scientist who believes in a supreme being. “In the beginning God created evolution…” Well, see what you think. I don’t need anything special, just feel I’m neglecting this blog, my head all wrapped up over there.
Writhe Safely 
I don’t know what that commenter’s problem is, but she (?) doesn’t seem worth arguing with. Well actually, I would guess her problem is Stockholm Syndrome, but diagnosing someone I’ve never met would be wrong so I wouldn’t do that…..;).
Gotta love the idea of eliminating stigma through NewSpeak though. I don’t have a psychiatric illness, I have identity issues and a problem with past stressors, that’s the ticket…
Uh, I’m new to this game, new to know what I’ve got and what this talk is, but I do know PTSD is caused by the crap that happens to you, and that includes the surroundings, fierceness ( not to exclude subtle harshness), amount, duration, and repeatability, plus other things. It ain’t about what’s in ya’ first. Screw ‘em that says so. I give ‘em a present of some of my fucking shakes.
Wow, Talk like that frays my axons into ragged dendrites whose terminal buttons go spilling excitatory transmitters into my synapses, creating new action potentials all over my brain that carry one message:
WTF do people get out of denying the etiology of PTSD as being the result of lived experience?
I understand the temptation to want to believe that there are biological factors involved in mental illness that can be controlled with drugs, but what is this denial- or downplay of the need for psychological treatment? What purpose does that serve?
No, no, my experience has nothing to do with it. Sure, war sucks, but I have a brain disorder…..
Stockholm Syndrome? Possibly. There is a great deal of “brain-washing” that goes into preparing soldiers for combat.They’re pretty well set up for these problems even before they go into battle, which makes dealing with the aftermath all that much more psychologically complicated.
I actually meant the Stockholm Syndrome for the person who was commenting and insisting that PTSD has a biological basis, not the soldiers. My theory is that people with psychiatric illness who are so threatened by any critique of drugs, drugs and more drugs as the main form of psychiatric treatment identify with their oppressors by which I mean their psychiatrists and sometimes their families of origin when they join in pushing the drugs on them.
“I actually meant the Stockholm Syndrome for the person who was commenting and insisting that PTSD has a biological basis, not the soldiers.”
I was thinking of the commenter too. He/she describes preferring to take the meds to control the symptoms in order to be able to use CBT. I assumed this was someone who had been in combat.
My mistake. I found that thread very hard to read/follow. Must be my chemical imbalance…..
It was hard to follow. I read every comment top to bottom. It was a lot to absorb. But actually I was wrong. He/she didn’t say that his/her symptoms were from combat. It was just MY chemical imbalance…
How would you make an argument for someone suffering from PTSD (rather than schizophrenia) in an essay?
And, would it be desirable to say he had one, not the other?
If so, why?
What the hell, Scratchy. Would you ask a black person to write an essay explaining why it’s better to be called African American than it is to be called nigger?
Psychiatric labels are determinants. A person diagnosed with PTSD gets to stay human. Someone labeled schizophrenia, not so much.
What the hell ya’ doin’ to me? You’re makin’ me jump in on these dumps. My comment on that site is “awaiting moderation.”
That mean they absorb it lightly?
What the hell is that one, Pander on?
Here, what I put there, might be gone from the pander gone for all I know. Wadda I know.
———
“Experience alone does not explain all of it. And even if it did, the effects of a panic attack, or a flashback are rather shocking in their physicality.”
Tell us about it pal. That doesn’t mean that it ain’t in us all. It is. That there ability to shake rattle & roll. Take your big words and shove ‘em up your wazoo. Good lord, you want chemical change? Try being understood, watch the change come over someone. If they aren’t, and they got memories, who wouldn’t have a chemical switcheroo, huh? Anybody would. Anybody would. Got the phrase? Anybody would. Kinda natural to. Kinda natural too. Can you swear at this dump? I wanna say fu** christ hell jesus and the like. Awww, think I’ll go for a walk and bounce them words around in my head like on a fluffy trampoline under a pink sky. Physicality. Re – duc- tion ism ism ism.
Wonder how my dog will like his walk today… I’d better sand some more furniture…
put “something against the black” as Robert Frost said….
Shouldn’t that be awaiting review by the moderators or awaiting moderator review if you’re going to use awaiting? Moderators moderate, but they don’t do moderation. Come to think of it, I don’t do moderation at times myself. Ahem. Now, I back off on the fact that I am a moderator, damned if I know how I got that job, I’m clueless. Oh, that’s how I got that job – that’s the qualification. But does that mean I’ve given this statement a qualification? A moderation?
You’re so funny these days. I remember when you were sort of mean and intimidating. Well, doing the work opens you right up.
Pandagon is the biggest lefty-feminist blog around, and it’s here in Austin. The lady who runs it was hired by the John Edwards campaign, before the right wing did a smear campaign and cost her the gig.
This is the thing, I hang out at liberal blogs and once in a blue moon they’ll do a post on mental illness. I’ve been having pretty much this same discussion for the last couple years. We can’t get over the hump, the etiology.
Well, young liberals today are all about the Science, it’s necessarily part of the platform, as you know, this administration is anti-science like nothing we’ve seen, so it appears the left is taking a stand. I get that. But if people are gonna go for the science they have to read the critical stuff too, not just the Big Pharma party line, and the science is on my side here. God knows I pore over that shit til my eyes bleed.
I’m gonna go see what happened at Pandagon. Careful there, Grizz — they bite.
“young liberals today are all about the Science”
I didn’t know this. Must be I’m too old now to be a young liberal.Yep, that’s got to be it. Where did I put my Ben-Gay…….. ;)P
young liberals today are all about the (junk) Science
…. and too young to not know propaganda when they see it, and just plain lacking in life experience….
… and discipline, and they don’t have Jesus on their side…
Hey, don’t forget the Christian Left! But they’re not on our side either….You know, how can people who see the problems with all kinds of other propaganda not see the problems with Big Pharma and Psychiatry’s propaganda? Or are they just afraid of being voted off the island if they speak up?
“You know, how can people who see the problems with all kinds of other propaganda not see the problems with Big Pharma and Psychiatry’s propaganda? Or are they just afraid of being voted off the island if they speak up?”
They’re probably too over-medicated to speak up, and afraid of being voted into the nuthouse. Today’s young liberals got labeled with ADHD in elementary school and sent flying on stimulants before being handed “mood-stabilizers” and tranquilizers in high school. It’s part of the popular culture now. If you’re in therapy there’s something wrong with you. A chemical imbalance is a good excuse for bad behavior, and makes the drugs oh so necessary. I know kids who have told their parents they have ADHD and want to get some meds for it. It’s almost a status symbol.They’ve been brain-washed for lack of a better term.
But I can guarantee that Big Pharma isn’t run by Liberal Democrats, and they know who their target is.
Ok, flawed plan. This is what I thought, too. It isn’t really quite as simple as you make out, though, since some people have friends or relatives who are schizophrenic, so they could feel like I was protesting too much.
Anyways, if you have the time, I’d appreciate commentary on this (I know I have to organise it a bit more):
http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com/2007/06/ethics-of-transgression-in-black.html
You’re way over my head, I don’t have the kind of education that would generate an opinion on that piece. As a shot-in-the dark, I reckon it’s (in part) about the meaning of schizophrenia as spiritual crises and transcendence? Of course I believe in that. I read something schooly once that argues Nietzsche as the first successful schizophrenic. I’ll find the link if you’re interested.
Hymes, I think you nailed it. Mickey Z. is one radical I’ve seen challenge the gullible left. I ought to get that piece up here.
HI Flawed plan
Sorry — I didn’t put in enough detail. (By the way, I already read that article on Nietzsche you mentioned).
Anyways, if this writer saw appartitions following him in his youth, when he was under high stress (he lived in a kind of highly politicised ghetto situation, and was dependent upon passing his school leaving exams at a very high level in order to escape this hellish situation he was in), could that be a sign of something other than schizophrenia?
Later in life, he smoked a lot of marijuana and had episodes of paranoia. Could this be something other than schizophrenia?
Actually, one of his main patrons — a German woman called Flora Veit-Wild — thought that he eventually succumbed to schizophenia, because he took up the life of a hobbo, and lived on park benches in Zimbabwe. But does such a choice necessarily imply a mental illness, and even is so, why would it be schizophrenia, in that case?
Actually, all in all, his attitudes and reactions in life were based upon a strong drive to succeed (despite powerful odds against that) and not to give power over to the dominant forces of society, which would make him submit to an agenda not his own.
Would such strong ego strength be compatible with schizophrenia? Does it imply paranoia — or rather, realism?