Psych Drugs

[Liz]

Okay, now this is just one of many side effects of psych drugs, and definately less dangerous than many, but this really really bothers me:
<font size=4>Sexual side effects</font>
<b>antipsychotics</b> (Abilify):
<i>Impair lubrication</i>
<i>Impair arousal and orgasm</i>

<b>Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors </b>(Zoloft):
<i>Inhibit arousal</i>
<i>Delay or absence of orgasm</i>

I'm basically on sexual suppressants O.o
Can I tell you guys how much this sucks. It sucks <b>a lot</b>. I was wondering about it and there you go. These drugs.... do crazy things. I don't know what to think. But I think this is very bad. It doesn't sound like much to you all I am sure, but it is a little bit unsettling when you can't even get physically turned on for over a month....

Anyways. Psych drugs. Good or bad? Overprescribed or not?

I think they can be good, in extreme cases. But when the problem is a family issue or an environmental issue and the other people are unwilling to accept responsibility for their effects on the individual and so prescribe psych drugs that alter your personality and natural impulses..... = bad.

It just bothers me a lot that something prescribed for something totally unrelated can alter something as natural and taken-advantage-of as libido.

[~V+]

I hate you, liz.

[Liz]

Good for you.

[Invader Dim]

they are definatly overprescribed. and yeah the side affects suck ass. thats why I dont bother with em. I'll find my own way to sanity thank you. (especially since it would take me an hour just to piss.) stupid prescription drugs.

[Liz]

It took you an hour to piss when you were on psych drugs?
Which were you on?

[Davey Rootbeer]

some of the side effects are pleasant though.


I went off my medicine for a month once and gained about 15-20 pounds, back in my senior year of high school. I 've maintained my weight since then, but i could never get back to my original weight. the pills actually were supressing my appetite, the whole time, and i didn't know. i just assumed i was a light eater.

[Liz]

Me tooo. I love my ADD pills because they make me not eat. And then I feel all thin and free. Was it ADD pills?

[Davey Rootbeer]

ADHD.


The H is silent.

[Liz]

which one, do you remember?

[CSMatt]

<font size=4>Sexual side effects</font>
<b>antipsychotics</b> (Abilify):
<i>Impair lubrication</i>
<i>Impair arousal and orgasm</i>

<b>Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors </b>(Zoloft):
<i>Inhibit arousal</i>
<i>Delay or absence of orgasm</i>

I'm basically on sexual suppressants O.o
Well, the government doesn't really want you to have sex anyway.

What disturbs me is now prescription drug companies have been marketing to the general public in recent years. There's a reason that prescription drugs can only be issued through a doctor, and that's because they are significantly more dangerous than their over-the-counter equivalents. Advertising them through the media is only going to convince people that they know what's best for them in this area, when in reality they could simply be making the problem worse or even not be treating it at all. Plus, although prescription drugs still have to be administered by a doctor, a patient can simply go to different doctors until he or she receives the wanted prescription.

[the Worms]

You know, for whatever reason, csmatt, I never thought of it that way. I just assumed it was to reduce people's fear of trying new drugs.

[~V+]

oh yeah, I was on concerta, I hallucinated like a motherfucker, I made a few topics about it, it also gave me night terrors. also known as the worst medication ever.

[Liz]

Directional interference, here:
Do you think psychiatry dehumanizes humanity by explaining and making a science of emotions, perception and personality development?

[exemplary citizen]

No, I don't think so. I think it cuts down on the superstious bullshit by helping to explain the workings of the mind (and how spectacularly fucked up it can get and why). I don't think that's dehumanizing in the slightest; rather humanizing, by bringing these things to light in a way that is sympathetic to other humans in general through an understanding of the way our brains work commonly as members of the same species.

I don't think making a science of something "takes the romance out of it". It's not like it makes emotion, perception, or development more "mechanical", it just makes it less <i>threatening</i>. It's like, would you rather look at lightning as being the wrath of a vengeful god in the sky who's angry at you for not sacrificing a goat to him last week, or would you rather the scientific explanation which (while still describing it as dangerous) at least takes the overwhelming fear out of the equation? Before psychiatry, mental illness was <I>harshly</i> stigmatized, and anybody with any kind of brain malfunction was simply pushed out of society -- out of sight, out of mind. We can see now that the situation has changed rapidly, even in the last few decades, with regards to how society looks at issues like depression and schizophrenia. Things like this are openly discussed now, which opens the door for more effective management and treatment of what used to be utterly debilitating problems.

[Liz]

I agree that it helps us understand others and enables us to view differences in personality, etc as something that is just... different, different development, instead of being "right" or "wrong".

But it does kind of... I don't know. Understanding emotions to be neurochemical trasmissions (or whatever the term is) kind of takes away their validity to me. Which can be good, because it goes with our understanding differences and not valuing our own way of mental and emotional development over others', yet at the same time it makes personality and emotion very questionable, to me. In a way, the understanding could do the opposite in that it could cause someone to not respect another person's feelings, or their own feelings, by rationalizing them as a bunch of chemicals.

People do that with depression and other mental illnesses. "You're just sad because you're depressed" "You're just mad because you haven't taken your medication", like having a mental illness invalidates your emotions. But it could also develop to where all emotions are treated like that, "I didn't hurt you, your brain is just sending less seratonin". Going back to the statement about depression... people act like it just pops up out of nowhere, whereas I believe it is developed by circumstance and a progressive series of events or situations, or environment, interacting with a particular person's personality. So to me it isn't a brain disease that just occurs, it's as veritable as any other mood because it is caused by something.

Like to quote a study, I don't remember precisely the statistics, and I may have mentioned it before, but there were 4 groups of depressed teenagers studied over the course of two years I believe. One group was left untreated, one was treated with medication, one was treated with therapy, and one was treated with medication and therapy. After two years, the untreated group through the last group, the statistics gradually went up as to how many people were no longer clinically depressed.... from like 18% in the first group to like, 81% in the last group. The group that had just therapy had a higher success rate than the group that just had medication. This makes me think that clinical depression is significantly situational.

[SLUM WIZZARD]

Eh, I see both sides of it. Although the studying and treating of these diseases does help in alot of ways, there are certain things that (like liz said) are circumstantial. I don't have ADD, I just find what most people tell me uninteresting enough to ignore them. Due to this, 3 of my gradeschool teachers suggested I had ADD. Never took medication or any sort of treatment, and I'm perfectly fine. Still a bit short in the attentnion span department, but I deal with it, and I do perfectly well. The grades I get can vouch for me, there.

The main problem I see with medications for psychiatric (sp?, I'm not re-checking that) diseases is that alot of it is, well, I can;t think of the word for it. In-exact in diagnosis? Gah, close enough. What it seems is that for alot of things, people jump to conclusions. Depression and ADD are the two I see it happen with most often. Just because you've had a shitty week or two, doesn't mean you're depressed. Just because your mind wanders a bit, doesn't mean you have attention defecit. Some people are too fast to say "Let's drug him and fix the problem, just like that.". And yeah, I also think that most diseases like that are induced by outside sources. I mean, someone who thinks they are communicating with aliens though the tinfoil on thier head if they didn't know what aliens were, could they? Someone should start up a study on that.

On the other hand, there are the completely obvious ones. Mind crippling disorders. You can't deny something is up with your child's mind when he/she can't even control her body.

I don't think that came across very well at all, but I know I have a decent idea on what I'm talking about. I live with Mr. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder/Clinical Depression and Bi-polarity", Ms. "Stress induced Anorexia" and "Bad Tempered Attention Deficit Learning Disorder Bi-Polar New Medication Every Week" boy.

That's got to count for something. :robot:

[implode]

a lot of what's been said in this thread is what i'd be saying in it... so. let's see what i can do without repeating yourself.

Anyways. Psych drugs. Good or bad? Overprescribed or not? "good or bad" is obviously a silly question for something as situational as mental illness. the most simple way i can put it is that if you, the mental illness-ee, believe that they are helping you, then they're a good thing. i had a very unhealthy attitude about mental illness for a very long time, and admittedly, i probably still do... i cannot accept the idea of chemically altering my personality and calling it "healed." of course, this goes along with the second question, about how understanding how our brain works dehumanizes us... if the chemical you're ingesting is a natural substance that you produce anyway, is it really chemically altering? well... yeah. i think it is.

the chemicals, in whatever balance they happen to choose, dictate who you are. and since there's no accepted definition of what "wellness" is when it pertains to the human mind, mucking around with them and tweaking the levels here and there is really no different than experimenting with illegal drugs. i suppose the goal is to achieve a state where both the body AND the mind could be considered "well" - my example is that if i'm doing coke, i (my mind, what comprises ME) feel GREAT, but my body (esp. my heart) is provided with extra stress and therefore the entire entity of "you" is not clinically "well." so if you can find a prescription psych medication that gives you a feeling of wellness while not providing any strain on the rest of your physical body that was not there before, i suppose you could go ahead and call it a success.

we HAVE to validate ANY example of someone not feeling mentally "well." you are not that person, you don't know what comprises their makeup, so if they aren't feeling right, you have no choice but to believe them. if they're just doing it for attention/drugs, okay, fine, they're a huge asshole, but this is one area where we cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized to hypochondria. if people AROUND the person think they're ill, it's completely different, and almost always not worth even listening to, let alone acting upon. if a teacher thinks a child has ADD, you should ask the CHILD if they feel as though they have trouble paying attention to things they feel they should be paying attention to. too many people feel they can diagnose mental disorder without any background in the field, and that's the real problem with overprescrip-i-tation. that and money grubbing pharmacuetical companies. but i digress. do what it takes to makes you you.

[Liz]

My parents seems to think that since depression and such is often seen running in families, that this is evidence that it is genetic. However, I thionk this is evidence that it is learned, or atleast environmental. I mean, bipolar parents don't exactly make the best parents most likely, so their hild is probably more likely to wind up "mentally ill". Same with antisocial and personality disorders, which are definately not genetic. I mean, if you grow up around a negative worldview and parent/s who use anger to cope, you're probably going to adopt that worldview and traits.