I'd say this is a post where the usual "please introduce yourself" rules are suspended pending your own comfort zone. So no worries, there.
I do get your reaction, totally. What I find peculiar about my own is that I also know from various family members being ill in other ways, that the whole "because this is your HEAD therefore drugs are BAD mmkay" crap, when if you look at pretty much any illness, it's going to have the same triangulation of treatment that you need for dealing with any mental illness: behavioral, psychological/emotional, and medicinal/physical.
I mean, someone goes into the hospital for, say, ulcerated stomach: they don't just get drugs and/or surgery, they also have to face behavioral changes like eating less (or eating less of something in particular), getting on a regular sleep pattern, not running five miles in the morning, whatever. There will be some kind of behavioral change, long-term or short-term, from any illness or disability. And those behavioral changes, along with the side-effects of any medication or the after-effects of any surgery, are going to raise emotional issues, even if it's "I need to keep my stress level low, so as to let myself heal properly". What? You're already massively stressed about being sick! And thus, emotional and psychological aspects must be addressed, and moreso if the surgery may radically alter your perception of yourself -- as a person with a fully operational set of kidneys, as a person who can bear/have children, as a person with both breasts, whatever. Even positive surgical results will still have emotional ramifications, and good doctors know this.
So the entire premise -- that medication is bad in situations where we're talking about the brain -- also draws the parallel conclusion that the way you treat mental stuff is somehow different from physical stuff... and the fact is, they're not. Not when you get down to the nuts and bolts... and I think that's the underlying reason I got so pissed. Because it's not just an offense to people with mental disabilities, it's also offensive to people who've struggled with psychological and emotional aspects of simple physiological illnesses.
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Date: 12 Jun 2010 03:23 am (UTC)I do get your reaction, totally. What I find peculiar about my own is that I also know from various family members being ill in other ways, that the whole "because this is your HEAD therefore drugs are BAD mmkay" crap, when if you look at pretty much any illness, it's going to have the same triangulation of treatment that you need for dealing with any mental illness: behavioral, psychological/emotional, and medicinal/physical.
I mean, someone goes into the hospital for, say, ulcerated stomach: they don't just get drugs and/or surgery, they also have to face behavioral changes like eating less (or eating less of something in particular), getting on a regular sleep pattern, not running five miles in the morning, whatever. There will be some kind of behavioral change, long-term or short-term, from any illness or disability. And those behavioral changes, along with the side-effects of any medication or the after-effects of any surgery, are going to raise emotional issues, even if it's "I need to keep my stress level low, so as to let myself heal properly". What? You're already massively stressed about being sick! And thus, emotional and psychological aspects must be addressed, and moreso if the surgery may radically alter your perception of yourself -- as a person with a fully operational set of kidneys, as a person who can bear/have children, as a person with both breasts, whatever. Even positive surgical results will still have emotional ramifications, and good doctors know this.
So the entire premise -- that medication is bad in situations where we're talking about the brain -- also draws the parallel conclusion that the way you treat mental stuff is somehow different from physical stuff... and the fact is, they're not. Not when you get down to the nuts and bolts... and I think that's the underlying reason I got so pissed. Because it's not just an offense to people with mental disabilities, it's also offensive to people who've struggled with psychological and emotional aspects of simple physiological illnesses.