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My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

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Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#51

Post by lysol »

erichocean wrote: post #44
tokenadult wrote: post #23

This is a tough story of a state legislator who became an adoptive father finding out that policies that he thought were humane reforms didn't end up helping people in this generation like his adoptive son. Some of my perspective on these issues comes from knowing Irving Gottesman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the book A…

We do know that young people whose family history suggests genetic risk for major mental illness (which might not be known for a particular adopted child) are playing with fire if they take schedule I drugs without medical supervision. That marijuana is classified as a "schedule I drug" is, itself, obscene and a result of politics, not science. Therefore, the rest of your suggestion regarding them "playing with fire"…

It's still a major mood and behavior alterer. A trained professional should be directing the patient's use.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#52

Post by tisme »

dgavey wrote: post #27

What a timely article. Just today received a call from the school that my grade 3 son had thrown a girl to the ground threatening her. This was the second incident in a week. A team of councilors and mental health workers were called in as an emergency response team. The similarities between the child in the article and my son are startling and scary. Although we are still at the beginning of our story, I do believe…

I'd go easy on that counselling and do my best to figure out first what actually happened.

It would not be the first time that the visible aggressor was in fact the victim of a long drawn out teasing campaign by a group of bullies, and girls can be bullies just as easy as boys.

One of the best bits of fun seems to be to goad someone until they snap and then let them take the blame for it all.

Been there, done that, have the t-shirt.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#53

Post by jlgreco »

lysol wrote: post #51
erichocean wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do know that young people whose family history suggests genetic risk for major mental illness (which might not be known for a particular adopted child) are playing with fire if they take schedule I drugs without medical supervision. That marijuana is classified as a "schedule I drug" is, itself, obscene and a result of politics, not science. Therefore, the rest of your suggestion regarding them "playing with fire"…

It's still a major mood and behavior alterer. A trained professional should be directing the patient's use.

Certainly it, and any other drug or medication, should be taken with care in this particular situation. "Schedule I" has nothing to do with it though.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#54

Post by fusiongyro »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #36
fusiongyro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fatalistic attitude isn't wrong, but it is manifestly unhelpful and surprisingly expensive. Being homeless is not a zero-cost alternative to real treatment; in many cases, the cost of lavish treatment is far lower than the cost of ER visits and criminal proceedings that would otherwise be incurred. I believe Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about chronic homelessness a few years ago, about Denver rolling out a…

> when it makes both ethical and financial sense. It saves money on a small scale because no one's trying to defraud it yet.

The article I'm remembering actually addressed that. The program was limited to a very small number of people--tens, or fewer. They actually had one that wrecked his apartment every week, and still it was cheaper to fix it back up than to let this guy back on the street, where he would incur about $1M a year in ER bills. One of the big objections to this program came from the fact that the scale was so limited.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#56

Post by potatolicious »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #36
fusiongyro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fatalistic attitude isn't wrong, but it is manifestly unhelpful and surprisingly expensive. Being homeless is not a zero-cost alternative to real treatment; in many cases, the cost of lavish treatment is far lower than the cost of ER visits and criminal proceedings that would otherwise be incurred. I believe Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about chronic homelessness a few years ago, about Denver rolling out a…

> when it makes both ethical and financial sense. It saves money on a small scale because no one's trying to defraud it yet.

This argument irks me. Have you been on the inside of a homeless shelter?

The constant bed bug invasions, bunking right next to a paranoid schizophrenic, living in constant fear of rape (yes, even for men)? Treated like a social pariah on a good day, non-existent the next? This isn't even the tip of the iceberg, I assure you.

Life inside the system is not nearly as rosy as you might think.

Often I feel like people should be made to work directly with the homeless before letting them spout off on this particular topic.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#57

Post by littlegiantcap »

xk_id wrote: post #38
omarchowdhury wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What underlying issues do you see with someone who takes psychedelics (shrooms, LSD, DMT, etc)?

Hmmm let me try… Psychedelics -> Social rejection MDMA -> Problems with parents Weed -> Infantilism Alcohol -> low IQ NOTE: they are not absolute (e.g IQ below average), but relative to what would make that particular individual comfortable given the life challenges he deals with at the time.

Alcohol abuse has actually been correlated with High IQ and is most commonly abused by this group because of the despair they see in the world due to their high IQ's. Essentially, because they tend to be more educated, and aware of global problems that makes them depressed.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#58

Post by idm »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #36
fusiongyro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fatalistic attitude isn't wrong, but it is manifestly unhelpful and surprisingly expensive. Being homeless is not a zero-cost alternative to real treatment; in many cases, the cost of lavish treatment is far lower than the cost of ER visits and criminal proceedings that would otherwise be incurred. I believe Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about chronic homelessness a few years ago, about Denver rolling out a…

> when it makes both ethical and financial sense. It saves money on a small scale because no one's trying to defraud it yet.

Banks combat fraud by investing in fraud prevention. They make it work because the margins are greater than the expense of the fraud prevention.

Without calculating the expense spread between the criminal justice system and the mental health system, I'd wager that the savings will be great enough that we can afford fraud prevention too.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#59

Post by rayiner »

debacle wrote: post #10

You can blame the schools for misdiagnosing ADHD, and you can blame them for a poor IEP, but you can't blame them for a child not having a normal life due to one of the most tragic diseases known to man. Schizophrenia is not the kind of disease you can treat with an IEP, and it sounds like the author's son fell out of the system from a very young age. Trying to blame anything but genetics and development for his son'…

I think you've missed the point of the article. The author isn't saying that Tim would be normal but for the policy changes. He's saying Tim wouldn't be out on the street. Which is true--there has been a huge scaling back of mental health services in this country, not just in the down economy but over the past 30 years.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#60

Post by droithomme »

jlgreco wrote: post #45
tokenadult wrote: post #23

This is a tough story of a state legislator who became an adoptive father finding out that policies that he thought were humane reforms didn't end up helping people in this generation like his adoptive son. Some of my perspective on these issues comes from knowing Irving Gottesman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the book A…

"We do know that young people whose family history suggests genetic risk for major mental illness (which might not be known for a particular adopted child) are playing with fire if they take schedule I drugs without medical supervision." Considering that "Schedule I" is nothing more than a legal classification, I would like to see how that works. Does it just so happen that drugs in that legal classification coincide…

His Schedule I mention was likely overreaching.

Marijuana is relatively harmless and should be legalized. It is also known to be useful in the treatment of a number of ailments.

However, we do know of one certain negative reaction, with a fair degree of certainty: genetically schizophrenic predispositioned people who smoke marijuana as teenagers are more likely to develop schizophrenia.

Because of this, although it should be legalized, it should not be available to teens.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/teens-who-smoke-pot-at-ri...

http://www.livescience.com/10700-marijuana-worsens-schizophr...

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