My boyfriend has all the legal stuff necessary to have me committed involuntarily if it comes to that. It hasn't so far, but you never know when the drugs might stop working.

I had a paranoid schizophrenic gf for while in the 90's. This brings it all back. God, what a nightmare. She was drop dead gorgeous though.

"Why are the pretty ones always insane?" Police Chief Wiggum

Maybe nobody cares about the ugly ones, and they wind up on the streets, without children or partners to monitor, chivvy and cajole them through the medical maze.

+1 Sadsightful

"The doctor disagreed. She sent us to El Camino Hospital Mountain View, an hour’s drive south from our house. "


oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit that's like mookie turf.

edit: also whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

"Laing’s book helped spawn the Mad Pride movement, which modeled itself on gay pride, reclaiming the word mad as a positive identifier instead of a slur. Mad Pride came out of the psychiatric survivor movement, with its goal of taking mental health treatment decisions out of the hands of doctors and well-intentioned caregivers and putting those decisions into the hands of patients. I admired all of those rights movements—every person deserves acceptance and self-determination, as far as I’m concerned—but Laing’s words hurt. I’d made loving Giulia the center of my life. I put her recovery above all else for almost a year. I wasn’t ashamed of Giulia. Just the opposite: I was proud of her and how she fought her illness. If there was a green or orange psychosis-supporter ribbon, I would have worn it."

You didn't know that was what madpride was named after?

I just assumed that, like pretty much everything else on the earth today, he was named after sanepride. Years after.

Noooooooooope.

He/she explained it once, with lots of links and pics. I think there was a Mad Pride parade in London at the time.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Pride, Mad Pride supposed to be about educating the wider public about mental health issues. Mad Pride activists seek to re-educate the general public on such subjects as the causes of mental disorders, the experiences of those using the mental health system, and the global suicide pandemic.[citation needed]

Which is different to claiming that psychosis is just another way of looking at things, and should be embraced instead of repressed.

MP was def more embracing and less repressing. Here's a Newsweek article from a few years back that shows that point of view.

I always find it so interesting how the criteria of behavior that make up mental "conditions" so often resemble normal behavior taken to extremes or even just different context. People obsessed with collecting badges or achievements in a digital context could just as easily be hoarding if they brought their collections into the real world. Blacking out and being unable to access memories unless you're in the right state of mind is championed by young drinkers but frowned upon by society as whole. Hearing voices is bad... unless it's "your" voice, even though the content of that voice is easily manipulated by just about anything; Situational context, drugs, your physical body's stature, or even the entertainment you consume. We are all just some crazy motherfuckers :)

I was always a big fan of the Chmmr.

http://www.star-control.com/hosted/scwc/species/chmmr.htm

Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. Am I Crazy? is the new chant, and the answer is yes, you are. Whether or not you need treatment depends on how badly it's interfering with your life and the lives of others around you. If you're a hoarder but you don't have a major infestation of pests, are able to keep yourself housed and clothed and fed and are not troubling others, do you really have a problem? If you have a compulsion to lock and unlock your door in a certain pattern and touch the floor in a certain pattern before you get out of bed and so on, but can hold down a job and have a relationship, do you need treatment? What did people do before there were so many treatment options? They just soldiered on and dealt with it.

I'm a manic depressive. I take meds for it because I was getting on the edge of suicidal at times and was having trouble staying in relationships. I take them to improve my quality of life, but even the doc said that it was only a mild case. Others would have sworn there was nothing wrong with me, looking from the outside. Am I truly crazy? Not really, just on the outer edges of the norm. And that's the point- yes, we are all crazy, but within a certain range of crazy. It's when the behaviors get really out of control that people need help.

I have not read the article because it will strike far too close to home, having had to have a woman I loved put into the ward by her family and remembering all too well the pain that went with it. She really did need the help, so I'm glad it was done, but I don't like remembering any part of that.

While I agree with you that mental illness exists across a spectrum, a large part of that spectrum needs help all of the time just to maintain stability. And, thankfully, on medication, no one would ever guess that there was an organic disease process at work in these individuals. Take them off their medication and it's "Katy bar the door" time.

People did not soldier on and deal with it before there were treatment options. People were ostracized, they were committed for long periods of time to state run institutions or private if they could afford them. People remained isolated. They died young. Mental illness still has a higher morbidity and mortality than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, catatonia in there severe forms all kill people and they have for thousands of years.

As to the the untreated functionally mentally ill, in the United States, that is their choice unless they are a danger to themselves or others. But that doesn't abnegate the damage of the underlying disorder. There is actually something wrong in the brain of people with most DSM diagnosed mental illnesses. It's science.

Don't forget eating disorders in that list. Highest mortality rate of any mental disorder and there is no proven treatment--therapy, drug, or otherwise.

yup. anorexia is what almost got me comitted. at the time, i didnt see my parents point of view, i just thought they were assholes that needed to let me starve myself to death and fuck off. I still have flare ups, yet now they are very few and far between, and its usually in conjunction with my more intense bouts of depression [seasonal affective disorder, so in the winter i become a total crazy mean bitch] ive seen lots of people relapse over and over, its always gonna be with you, no matter what.
heart failure, organ failure, osteoporosis, [lots of anorexics end up with a broken hip] hair loss, tooth loss, growth of a fine layer of hair over your body [its called langugo or something]

its a total bitch.

A great read, mcclint. Thanks for bringing it here.

I'm in the same boat as the author, having had to commit my wife to a pysch ward three times. All three times it was hard, and even worse is finding the balance between thinking you know what is right and listening to your wife because it's her medical care under discussion. This brought out so many painful memories. My wife's still taking depression meds, and she'll never be free of it, but I think we have a balance where she can try to lead a semi "normal" life.

Points in the article I immediately identified with:

* That first niggling suspicion, triggered by odd but not over-the-top behaviour, that the psychosis might just be about to come back. And not being able to broach the subject.

* Even when they're talking about nice stuff, like heaven and angels, it's not in any way comforting.

Awesome and scary read.

The love of my life was bi-polar. That relationship changed the way I viewed people on meds and changed my perceptions overall in regard to mental health... In a positive way. Then again, it was that relationship that drove me to therapy. Bi-Polar people, they wear you down to their level and then beat you at their own game.

My wife on the other hand has a "general anxiety disorder". It took me years to figure out that something was amiss and more years to finally get her to be officially diagnosed and go to a therapist. She refuses to take medicine and I think is somewhat in denial as to how her anxiety affects her, but also me and our family overall. Is she that bad? No... And thankfully not as bad as what some of you have experienced or the wife from this article. Still, I wonder which one of these times that she is super stressed out is the time she'll snap and take things to a whole new level.