Saturday 19 July 2008

The other side of "bipolar disorder"

Wednesday, July 16th 2008, The New York Times ran an interactive feature article on "bipolar disorder", "Patient Voices - Bipolar Disorder", that includes nine audio clips with people who are labelled "bipolar", one of them being Steven Morgan. Steven brings in the refreshing perspective of someone who doesn't identify himself as "mentally ill", as a "disorder", as well as he points out the often denied facts, that recovery, even from " severe mental illness", is very well possible, and that drugs aren't always necessarily required in order to deal with extreme states of mind. He manages to get out the essential truth that there are more than one ways to look at and deal with "mental illness" in under two minutes. Great job, Steven!

There also is a comment section to the article, where Steven in his uniquely serene way deals with one of the attacks, people like him (and me) unfortunately all too often have to deal with (comment # 73, respectively Steven's reply, comment # 75). I wish, I had Steven's serenity.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Marian:

Since we are fated to be on opposite sides of this, I figured at least I should check out your blog. My own blog address is listed below.

I'm still curious how proper treatment can be provided affordably for a "dark night of the soul" -- particularly, since I see you are in Denmark, in the sans-national health care U.S. where I live.

Larry

Marian said...

Well, Larry, have a look at this.

And, indeed, Soteria turned out to be far more affordable than drug-dominated biopsychiatry, that all too often turns its clientele into chronically ill, disabled drug addicts.

Anonymous said...

Marian:

I appreciate your characterization of me as a chronically ill, disabled drug addict.

I will make sure to use such measured, moderate, neutral tones in my future references to the anti-medication movement.

Marian said...

1. I say "all too often" (biopsychiatry's recovery rate: ca. 10% - Soteria: ca. 85%), I don't say that YOU are among the 90%, who don't ever recover, and spend the rest of their days on disability, BECAUSE OF "MEDICATION" SIDE EFFECTS.

2. From your blog, your own words about yourself: "...who happens to have a CHRONIC disease".

Marian said...

...and 3.: all psych drugs are physically addictive. Otherwise they wouldn't cause withdrawal symptoms when discontinued.

Anonymous said...

Marian:

Of course I say I have a "chronic" disease. In a medical model, unlike your model, depression is like diabetes, herpes or HIV -- manageable but incurable under CURRENT science. (Maybe one day.)

Obviously you disagree -- that it is both chronic and that it is a disease.

Sarcasm aside, I'd politely ask you to be more careful in your language from now on. No, you didn't attack me personally, but you attacked anyone who doesn't practice the tenets of the anti-medication movement -- which certainly INCLUDES me.

Marian said...

Yes, I disagree, and very much so.

Whenever I "attack", I choose carefully only to attack lies. Not people. If people feel attacked, it must be because they identify with the lies. That's not my responsibility but theirs.