Tag: folk psychiatry
Hijacked by the Peanut Crunching Crowd
Posted on March 4, 2016 in Bipolar Disorder Literature Movies Psycho-bunk Suicide
“Suicide attracts speculation and prurience like flies to rotting food.”
The Fallacies of Stigma: A Primer
Posted on September 8, 2015 in Netiots Stigma
The arguments of stigma are often cited as reasonable, but a closer examination shows that they are flawed.
Misleading Vividness
Posted on July 31, 2015 in Hatred Stigma Violence
It happened! It is going to happen again! Therefore forcing treatment and locking up the mentally ill is the answer!
The Woman at My Table
Posted on June 16, 2015 in Stigma
You take the mentally ill as they are, not conceiving of or treating them as children, but as full participants in life.
Playbuzz Petition
Posted on May 21, 2015 in Abuse Netiots Stigma The InterNet
lease sign the petition at the site.
Is “It Does Something” A Reason for Supporting Murphy’s Law?
Posted on May 18, 2015 in Accountability Insurance Medical Ethics Psycho-bunk Stigma
Yes, do something about the mental illness crisis — but not this. Murphy and his principal allies are untrustworthy.
What is Stigma?
Posted on May 6, 2015 in Accountability Bigots Stigma
The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came.
Umberto Eco
Let me start out by stating that I do not believe in “self-stigma”: I believe in guilt, shame, and despair but labeling these as “self-stigma” cheapens the meaning of stigma. There may or may not be a motive behind the invention of this term, but the result is that it implies that the people who are the principal victims of stigma are in a conspiracy — or confederacy if you prefer — against themselves.
To further explain what stigma is and isn’t, let me use a parallel that was laid out to me by a friend who was explaining certain terms used to describe race relations. White people often accuse African Americans of being racist, too. African Americans dispute this. My friend — an African American woman — acknowledged that African Americans often hold deeply seated racial and ethnic prejudices. But this isn’t racism because racism requires another element: power. White Americans are in a position to make their racial prejudices inflict suffering on the lives of African Americans. Witness, for example, the unwritten DWB (“Driving While Black”) policies of certain police departments including “America’s safest city” (for white people) Irvine, California. The policy is enforced when a black person drives through the city of Irvine. Because of their skin color, they are assumed to be up to no good and pulled over for some minor infraction. The result is that they are made to feel unwelcome in this college town. That is a ~comparatively~ “mild” example, but American history is rife with other exemplars up to the present day.
Stigmatizing Synonyms for Mental Illness
Posted on April 25, 2015 in Mental Illness Stigma Vocabulary
If you want a list of stigma terms, this should be a good start.
Can You Talk Someone Out of a Depression?
Posted on April 11, 2015 in Depression Therapy
You are dealing with an irrational disease not a philosophical system.
The Medical Marijuana for Bipolar Disorder Lie
Posted on February 20, 2015 in Addictions Bipolar Disorder Lies Psycho-bunk
UPDATED
Everyone seems to have a friend who has been helped by medical marijuana. When my wife had chemotherapy, we had it as a backup in case the anti-nausea drugs did not work for her. Glaucoma is a disease with medical research backing the effectiveness of medical marijuana. But the medical marijuana industry goes beyond what is proven by science. It welcomes those who use it for many other diagnoses despite the absence of peer review studies. In other words, if you can get a doctor or a nurse practitioner to write you a script, you can get high legally for any disease you can name. And the worst of the lies medical marijuana prescribers and retailers let fly is the lie that marijuana helps the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
Here is my full disclosure: First, I do not oppose legalization of marijuana provided it is regulated at least as well as alcohol. There need to be laws governing its sale to minors, bans against driving under the influence, etc. But other than that, I have no problem with seeing it available as a leisure drug. There’s considerable evidence that the liquor industry does not want this, but alcohol is worse than cannibis in some regards. Second, I have smoked marijuana. Here is where my strong feelings about the subject come from. When I was in college, I was talked into toking by my peers. They did not force it down my throat, they did not blow smoke into my lungs, they did not deceive me in the sense that they told me things that they knew were not true. I started using the drug by my own choice.
How Positive Thinking Poisons Bipolar Disorder
Posted on February 10, 2015 in Compassion Depression Ettiquette Stigma
When you are depressed, society forces you to lie.
