Sent: Thursday, September 8, 2011 5:48 PM
Subject: Re: [The Power Of Prayer] I had a most worthwhile discussion yesterday with...
Dear Mark,
I know it's been many years,
My memory suck but I actually remember you when we were young. Don't worry about
the Bi- Polar thing-- I know too many friends with the same affliction- Afuckchion including
my brother, nephew, father--- What ever--- Just please take the medication &be good!!!!! I
pray you follow this simple rule> Sure hope to see you at the reunion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No Really
Blairmo!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, as any of you who have followed my writing on this topic would know, I cannot let an opportunity to respond to such a suggestion left unremarked, and thus, I replied via e-mail:
But, what if, as is my contention, bi-polar is NOT a disease in the sense of those things about which Galen wrote, but rather an artificial construct (much like phrenology) which was conceived by a bunch of people who were smart with words, so smart, in fact, that they could fool themselves by inventing BIGGUNS (big words) and convincing themselves they had in fact made a discovery, when in fact, it was all Tower of Babel, making about as much sense as "Manifest Destiny" and causing perhaps even more destruction to life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness.
I submit that bi-polar is a construct, and that the DSM's (all four of them, or five if the fifth one has now been published) are mostly a crock of excrement, which serve the interests of
(1) Pharmaceutical companies (that have so little regards for the phsychiatrist - ahem - er - "Pain Management Specialist" that they freely advertise their wares on TV in order that the TV viewer might tell his shrink what meds to prescribe).
(2) Psychiatric "medicine" practitioners
(3) Psychiatric Hospitals (and the attendant ancillary functions - ambulances, social workers, etc, etc)
(4) Lawyers (not guilty by reason of insanity - bull shit - guilty and probably feeling very much afraid of the potential legal consequences, because if you can afford an attorney who will wield THIS defense, you have committed one very heinous crime and will need to pay very big bucks to walk away without doing real prison time).
"All very strongly worded, Mark," your are likely thinking to yourself, "but also so very self-serving!"
Perhaps, but consider this. In a REAL disease (and depression, Alzheimers, Schizoprenia, dementia, acute drug and alcohol poisoning ARE in fact real diseases - they have an etiology - a predictable path that the disease will run and follow) there is an ETIOLOGY - a predictability of outcomes in the event that no treatment is given.
In the made up "mental illnesses" (historically, the following have been included in the various and sundry Diagnostic and Statistical Manual(s) of Psychiatric and Personality Disorders:
1. Excessive masturbation (by whose standards? and if there is an excessive amount, then surely there must be an optimal amount - please let me know what the optimal amount of time spent whacking is, tyvm).
2. Homosexuality (which has been obersved in over 1,500 different animal types)
3. Chain smoking (how much does it take to become a chainer?)
there will be, under each diagnosed "mental illness" a laundry list of about 9-12 BEHAVIORS, of which, if the client (victim of slanderous and libelous labeling) of the psychiatric label is said to exhibit three (or more), then THIS is the disease the "victim" has, and, based on psuedo-scientific research, here are the meds (poisons) that are typically prescribed TO MASK THE SYMPTOMS; not to cure the disease, but to mask the symptoms.
Consider this: With what other disease does the patient no longer needing to take medication to mask the symptoms (because the disease has been cured) receive the learned medical advice that YOU MUST CONTINUE TO TAKE YOUR MEDS -
Do you see the irony: When you have a so-called "mental illness" you have it forever! You can never be cured of it. WHY then, if you can never be cured of it, does anybody ever bother to see a doctor in the first place?
And WHO pray tell, is competent to judge whether or not I:
(a) drink too much (the capacity for holding one's liquor varies extremely from one individual to the next)
(b) mistakenly believe I talk with God and am protected by Him (church people take such a claim as their own, and for granted)
(c) sleep too little (according to whose standards? Audobon slept two hours a night his entire adult life, and that was all)
(d) talk exessively and "inappropriately"
(e) dress "inappropriately" (compared to who, what, where, how, when)
(f) flits from one topic to another haphazardly (what if in my world the transition is seamless, because, as Chief Seattle once said, "All things are connected?")
(g) engages in reckless behavior (well, not everybody wears seat belts
(h) engages in "unusual sexual practices" (unusual by whose standards?)
So, rather than an etiology, what we have is a list of behaviors that are of varying degrees of concern to SOME PEOPLE. But, once you've been labeled, they can now "BLAME" your "illness" and never have to look closely in the mirror to see if perhaps SOME of what is driving you "nuts" is their lack of respect for you, or their failure to appreciate that you have outgrown them.
Sure, first thing that happens when you go off your anti-depressants is that you start to "go nuts." But what an anti-depressant does is to DEPRESS the depressed feelings, and leave you with a certain uncomfortable numbness and an immensely limited range of emotional responses. Of this, I know of what I speak. After three years of being on anti-depressants, I gained 95 pounds, showered twice a week, changed into clothes twice a week, spent 12 hours a day in bed and another 10 hours at the computer, or vice-versa, stopped attending church, stopped going to the used vinyl record store, stopped going to the library, stopped riding the suburban commuter trains on the real cheap weekend pass, AND Ma and Pa were convinced that I was getting better; that the meds were working.
Whatever.
If any of this sounds at all familiar (oh, yes, the drugged "mentally ill" person ALWAYS wants to stop taking the meds - because the absence of feeling is a WORSE state, by far, than the presence of unremitting psychic pain - and when you go from the absence of feeling to once again being able to embrace all facets of LIVE and LIVING and LOVING, you become over-joyed, over-whelmed, in very short order, which will INVARIABLY signal to your loved ones who really do care, but SO much prefer that you be depressed, or live with the absence of feelings, that, "There (s)he goes again. Another manic episode."
Here's how to get well. YES, with severe depression, one needs to take anti-depressants to get to a place where one can at least function in the absence of feelins (most especially the absence of pain), but graudally, one should be weaned OFF the anti-depressant and GET COMPETENT TALK THERAPY - RAP SESSIONS with those who suffer from the same ill-begotten labeling, to share the experiences (here we enter the realm of the 12-step programs - which work well for a number of their practitioners, but not for everybody - the problem with 12-steppers is that they posit a "disease" where a set of behaviors exists; behaviors can be modified w/o the use of drugs, yes, when they have become habitual, it becomes considerably more difficult to change them, but, if one accepts the premise that "I am an alcoholic (and will always be an alcoholic)" one has acquiesced to surrendering one's autonomy and accepting a label in its place; a label which says, "You have one of those diseases from which you can never recover - in other words, FOR WHICH THERE IS NO CURE" and thus, why the fuck even bother with AA, NA, GA, etc, etc, etc.
And Blair, while I greatly appreciate your concern for me, I hope you will give what I have said here some very serious consideration.
Ultimately, the only way to be "cured" of the label is to move away from those who get upset about your behavior. In other words, you must become BORN AGAIN - into the same self you had evolved into - but, in a new place where you are accepted for who you are, and what you bring to the table, rather than what they misremember you to have been, and hope that you might once again become.
With Love to you, and ALL YOU LOVE,
Mark Raymond Ganzer
