05 Feb 2013, 3:27 pm
The big issue in psychiatry used to be whether or not to hospitalize a suffering patient. And mental hospitals were pretty common, and also was coverered by many health insurance policies. But of course prices went up and up, AND what about poor people. So sure enough hospitals for poor people with mental problems sprang up like mushrooms. But the cost of maintaining those hospitals also went through the roof.
Then Big Pharma got involved, and effective tranquillizers, and anti-psychotic medications were develped, and before you knew what was happening most of the mental hospitals were closed. Now beds in our jails and prisons have soared.
Last edited by tall-p on 05 Feb 2013, 4:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
05 Feb 2013, 3:29 pm
There's been a lot of insight on this thread and the above comment is just rude in my opinion
I've noticed that the less open minded a person is, the more likely they will resort to insults to make their point, which
always betrays a weak argument
Make your point by all means but try and do it without putting others down
He is talking about the mental health industry, not medicine
I fear an NT-style slanging match is about to occur - I'm glad to be going out
I did not intend for that to be a sweeping insult, I just pointed out he has insight. Actually, I re-read the thread and whirlingmind and Ann2011 seem the most insightful. Everyone else just acts like as if they are a victim of psychiatry. Yet some of you have multiple diagnosis listed in your signatures like a badge of honor and actively take medication. If you were so strongly opposed to "evil" psychiatry and false labeling then why did you sign up on an autism forum? why are you taking the medication? just wondering...there are some contradictions here.
05 Feb 2013, 3:39 pm
05 Feb 2013, 3:43 pm
05 Feb 2013, 3:46 pm
If it was your own intention and you were not forced to it, that's of course GOOD.
(even Thomas Szasz states that in his theories, just wanted to mention that.
)
05 Feb 2013, 4:04 pm
05 Feb 2013, 4:10 pm
05 Feb 2013, 4:27 pm
Anti-depressants have saved my life so they have been very necessary but as far as therapy goes I think it's been used to make me accept the way society is as if I'm the one with the problem when generally I see it as society that is more dysfunctional than me.
I've been told I'm being paranoid by various therapists, which I strongly resented as it was as if the truth of a situation didn't depend on what I actually told the therapist but more on the extent to which the therapist believed what I said/saw it as likely to have occurred, but this was obviously flawed logic as just because this stuff didn't happen to them there was no reason to reject that it might have been happening to me. Psychiatrists, as most people, use their own experiences with other people as the baseline of 'how the world works' which is ridiculous as people act in all manner of different ways depending on who they are interacting with and especially if the person has an ASD!
The Psychodynamic Therapist I saw for a while eventually decided there was more to my 'problems' than 'just' the Aspergers (based on the premise that she had met other people with Aspergers who didn't have my problems 
) and referred me back to the psychiatric service as she and a colleague thought I possibly had a personality disorder and a Personality Disorder test was done and Lo and Behold I was found to have 3 types of Personality Disorder! - this is ridiculous imo as any one of those Personality Disorder's could be seen as nothing more than a facet of the Aspergers in my opinion. Paranoid, Avoidant and Anxious type Personality Disorder. It's all semantics in my opinion - just different ways of defining the same thing.
To be honest I find it downright insulting that society/life has f-ked me over and sent me so near the edge that I've nearly killed myself a number of times and then the psychs come along and say I've got Personality Disorders! No s**t! I wonder how that happened!?! Perhaps it was out of the necessity of having to desperately cling by my fingernails onto the edge of the cliff of life while society effectively kept stamping on my fingers! I'm sure many people wouldn't still be here to tell the tale!
05 Feb 2013, 4:36 pm
They are having to do with anxiety.
Once they wanted to do a personality disorder test with me, but I totally refused, so they had no other choice than to accept that because they can't force me to fill this test out.
I don't know how I would have scored. I know I'm higher on Schizotypal and Obsessive-compulsive though.
So officially I just once got suspicions of personallity disorders, but actually it was never changened into a real diagnoses, because they weren't able to dx it without their tests and after a while they droped those suspicions again.
I don't think too much about the concept of personality disorders though.
05 Feb 2013, 4:47 pm
They are having to do with anxiety.
Once they wanted to do a personality disorder test with me, but I totally refused, so they had no other choice than to accept that because they can't force me to fill this test out.
I don't know how I would have scored. I know I'm higher on Schizotypal and Obsessive-compulsive though.
So officially I just once got suspicions of personallity disorders, but actually it was never changened into a real diagnoses, because they weren't able to dx it without their tests and after a while they droped those suspicions again.
I don't think too much about the concept of personality disorders though.
I'll readily agree that I don't have a very agreeable personality and can fall out with people very easily but given that I was only diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the age of 34, it's hardly surprising I've had a struggle if everyone had the same expectations of me as for a person without Aspergers and I was trying to fulfil these expectations. That's just unfair as it was never a level playing field in the first place and in my opinion this is bound to have an effect on a person's mental health/sense of self. I see my so-called personality disorders as the defensive strategies I was forced to develop if I was going to assert myself sufficiently to survive. If I'm aggressive it's because I've needed to be if I wasn't to go under! I reckon I'm only alive through sheer bloodymindedness - through developing a mentality of 'F-k you! If anyone's going 'down' it's you not me!'
This is as regards the people who tried/try to mentally oppress me. I think that if you are too mentally vulnerable you are at great risk of suicide if you are too passive.
05 Feb 2013, 6:36 pm
05 Feb 2013, 6:42 pm
05 Feb 2013, 6:42 pm
I strongly suspect that this calming effect has more to do with the fact of you being MtF, because I'm FtM and testosterone has a calming effect on me.
05 Feb 2013, 6:54 pm
Verdandi
Veteran
Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
05 Feb 2013, 7:42 pm
05 Feb 2013, 10:54 pm
