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Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

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Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#41

Post by EMRo »

trvd1707 wrote: post #20

I'm sorry for your loss. I lost my son to suicide in 2009. He was brilliant, very sociable, very mature and he too struggled with mental illness. Today I know a lot more about the subject and I'm trying to help preventing more suicides from happening and mental health from being poorly diagnosed and treated. Right now I'm working on a project to develop apps for smart devices that can help people at risk of suicide.…

I'm doing the same thing. Going to be writing a social SOS app for iphone/android using Ionic Framework. Coding helps ease the pain. Shoot me an email. evanmrose at gmail dot com

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#42

Post by md224 »

xenophanes wrote: post #31
md224 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment was merely questioning the validity of your weird assertion that "People are labelled mentally ill IFF they do things that have a stigma attached". Perhaps you meant "people who do not self-identify as mentally ill but have that designation imposed on them." Maybe you'd have a case there. But the fact remains that many people suffer from mental illness, and it isn't always just a case of society re…

You're informing me of a "fact" without a citation. You have not succeeded at persuading me. If you wish to change my mind, tell me where Szasz was mistaken. If you are not familiar with Szasz, perhaps you should try reading both sides of the issue before passing judgment.

Well I can think of at least one counterexample: myself. I suffer from a moderate case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I have paced back and forth, obsessively checking that the sink in my bathroom is truly off, feeling my anxiety continuing to rise despite obvious visual confirmation. I once ripped the door handle off the front door of my parents' house because I had been strenuously pulling on it, neurotically ruminating on the idea that maybe, just maybe, the door wasn't completely closed.

I suffer from mental illness, and it isn't because my behaviors have a "stigma." It's because my behaviors are illogical and cause me a non-trivial amount of distress. So if you're going to rant on this forum about how mental illness is some socially-constructed tool of oppression, how about you go fuck yourself?

Thanks.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#43

Post by xenophanes »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
xenophanes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it affect basic human rights, exactly? Some examples: People labelled mentally ill can be imprisoned without a trial. People labelled mentally ill can avoid prison when another person who did the same actions would go to jail. People labelled mentally ill can be drugged by force. This is bad for basic human rights, isn't it?

> People labelled mentally ill can be imprisoned without a trial. So can people not labelled mentally ill, and involuntary confinement happens well within the confines of our legal and justice systems. > People labelled mentally ill can avoid prison when another person who did the same actions would go to jail. People found not guilty by reason of insanity are typically kept in a forensic unit with similar levels of…

So there's other bad things in the world, too. What's your point?

Sometimes people who escape criminal justice via psychiatry get similar levels of freedom. Sometimes significantly less freedom! It can be a way to imprison people for an indeterminate sentence which may last longer than the maximum prison term for their offense. And, sometimes it's quite a lot like they are turned loose. All of these happen.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#44

Post by ceejayoz »

xenophanes wrote: post #39
ceejayoz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Szasz thinks mental illness has no biological basis, which flies in the face of the empirical fact that twin/adoption studies have shown a clear hereditary basis for a variety of conditions like bipolar, schizophrenia, etc. Arguing that someone dying despite psychiatry invalidates psychiatry is like arguing cancer treatment is useless because some people die of cancer.

Do you want to discuss this seriously? If so, cite an actual study and say specifically what conclusion it reaches and specifically how that contradicts Szasz. You seem to be implying that Szasz and I hold our positions due to scientific ignorance, which is demonstrably false, and insulting. But maybe you didn't mean it that way.

http://www.szasz.com/manifesto.html

> Mental illness is a metaphor (metaphorical disease). The word "disease" denotes a demonstrable biological process that affects the bodies of living organisms (plants, animals, and humans). The term "mental illness" refers to the undesirable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of persons. Classifying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying the whale as a fish. As the whale is not a fish, mental illness is not a disease. Individuals with brain diseases (bad brains) or kidney diseases (bad kidneys) are literally sick. Individuals with mental diseases (bad behaviors), like societies with economic diseases (bad fiscal policies), are metaphorically sick. The classification of (mis)behavior as illness provides an ideological justification for state-sponsored social control as medical treatment.

Again, this is refuted by twin/adoption studies, which allow for control of environmental causes. One example: http://www.massgeneral.org/psychiatry/assets/Smoller2003_Fam...

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#45

Post by Mz »

xenophanes wrote: post #29
Mz wrote: post #24

I get the impression that this is a long, polite way of saying Steve committed suicide. The last time I was on HN and the topic of suicide came up, I wrote kind of a ranty piece that I am not up to editing it (to remove the rantiness) and reposting. The short version: If you know someone who is suicidal and you care about them, spend time with them. In person. Suicide is almost always committed when one is alone. My…

So your credentials consist of personal anecdotes? Maybe it's time to start taking the issue more seriously. I think it's a serious issue deserving a more serious approach. For example, you might try reading literature with multiple different perspectives on the issue. Then try to figure out which ideas are right and why. (If you've already done this, forgive me, and please please inform me why Szasz is mistaken, I w…

FYI: I have done lots of reading. I spent time in therapy. Etc. And, for a time, I essentially had an unpaid "consultancy" where parents who had super difficult kids who had been failed by all the experts would get given my email address and talk with me a bit and a year or so later I would hear back that their "impossible" kid was getting their act together. So I strongly suspect that I know what I am talking about, better than most so-called experts.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#46

Post by EMRo »

EMRo wrote: post #30
xenophanes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could he possibly have been, "in a highly-respected treatment program", or labelled mentally ill, if he acted completely normal and suffered in silence?

He was what doctors call 'high functioning.' He was able to operate in society and shroud his pain though it was incredibly painful to do so for him. He wasn't 'completely normal'. He was in a very well respected program in Boston and working through his issues to have the life he wanted.

This was a response to another post which appears to be deleted.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#47

Post by xenophanes »

md224 wrote: post #42
xenophanes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're informing me of a "fact" without a citation. You have not succeeded at persuading me. If you wish to change my mind, tell me where Szasz was mistaken. If you are not familiar with Szasz, perhaps you should try reading both sides of the issue before passing judgment.

Well I can think of at least one counterexample: myself. I suffer from a moderate case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I have paced back and forth, obsessively checking that the sink in my bathroom is truly off, feeling my anxiety continuing to rise despite obvious visual confirmation. I once ripped the door handle off the front door of my parents' house because I had been strenuously pulling on it, neurotically ru…

Illogical behavior is stigmatized (a lot of it, not all).

> how about you go fuck yourself?

Who is the one ranting?

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#50

Post by gruseom »

xenophanes wrote: post #29
Mz wrote: post #24

I get the impression that this is a long, polite way of saying Steve committed suicide. The last time I was on HN and the topic of suicide came up, I wrote kind of a ranty piece that I am not up to editing it (to remove the rantiness) and reposting. The short version: If you know someone who is suicidal and you care about them, spend time with them. In person. Suicide is almost always committed when one is alone. My…

So your credentials consist of personal anecdotes? Maybe it's time to start taking the issue more seriously. I think it's a serious issue deserving a more serious approach. For example, you might try reading literature with multiple different perspectives on the issue. Then try to figure out which ideas are right and why. (If you've already done this, forgive me, and please please inform me why Szasz is mistaken, I w…

I like Szasz too, as well as his hippie counterpart R.D. Laing (whom you might check out if you're interested), but please, don't play intellectual hardball in this thread. The OP just lost his brother.
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