Now that I think about it there may be other reasons that Pandora was in the hospital. Like her namesake she always carried around a little box with her. She once showed me what was in it. It contained her pens and pencils. So, for her writing was like opening Pandora’s box.
She also believed that God controlled the outcomes of sporting events in order to give us secret messages. We would watch sports on TV and try to guess what God was trying to tell us.
In general she acted a lot like Jamie Foxx’s character in the movie The Soloist. Society doesn’t like it when “crazy” people like Pandora wander the streets, so they lock them up in mental hospitals until they can act more “normal.” Whatever that means.
My former priest, who recently retired, once told me that I was the most normal person he had ever known. He thought that was strange because he knew that I was given the diagnoses of schizophrenia.
Having been put in three different mental hospitals over the years I learned that in order to get out and stay out you need to be excessively “normal.” So, Spider-Man is no longer my favorite comic. Batman is. And the Eagles and Led Zeppelin are no longer my favorite bands. Imagine Dragons and Coldplay are. But I still go by William instead of Bill because I am stubborn.
Back in 1999 I spent some time in a mental hospital. The people who worked there were more interested in getting me to go by Bill instead of William than they were in helping me with my problems. There is nothing wrong with the name Bill, of course. I just prefer William. I eventually realized that they would never let me out of the hospital until I started going by Bill. So, I told the nurses that I wanted to go by Bill now. They were so happy! I was discharged soon afterwards and was still as sick as I was as when I entered the hospital. They did not help me at all. They were only interested in getting me to conform to society.
One of my fellow patients there insisted on going by the name Pandora. I think she had been there for a long time. They probably weren’t going to let her out until she started going by whatever name they wanted her to go by.
One of the nurses asked me if I liked comic books. I said yes, because I do. He then said, “What’s your favorite comic, the X-Men?” I said, “No. Spider-Man.” Wrong answer. He was very displeased with me because the correct answer was X-Men. He also asked me what kind of music I liked. I said, “I like classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin and the Eagles.” Once again, wrong answer. If it were up to this nurse I probably never would have been discharged because I liked Spider-Man instead of the X-Men and Led Zeppelin and the Eagles instead of whatever kind of music I was supposed to like.
Mental hospitals only care about getting people to act “normal.” They have no interest in helping us become well.
This all sounds very interesting. When I first started hearing voices in 2003 there was nothing like this in my community. In fact, there is still nothing like this in my community. At the mental health clinic I go to the people who work there won’t let me anywhere near a fellow voice hearer. They say that my fellow voice hearers are too hung up on their delusions for me to be allowed to be near them. They told me I should just go to church. So, I’ve been going to church since 2005, but during this time I have only made one friend there and that friendship only lasted for a few months. If during coffee hour at church, I go up to someone and start talking to them they don’t like it and just want me to go away. If I wait for someone to come up to me and start talking to me hardly anyone ever does. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be doing.
I agree. Everyone should have access to treatment.
The FDA definitely needs to be reformed. It is not doing its job of protecting the American people from ineffective drugs. All it is doing is causing the price of drugs to skyrocket.
Antipsychotics require an RX. Without the doctor and the DSM there would have been no RX and I wouldn’t have gotten the drug that saved my life. Do you think all drugs should be legal without RX, like Thomas Szasz did?
Answers to your questions.
1. No.
2. Because they work.
3. No.
4. There is nothing wrong with the DSM.
5. No.
6. No.
You’re welcome.
Removed for moderation.
For years I had voices in my head screaming at me that I needed to rape my neighbor. I tried reasoning with the voices, saying “I don’t want to rape her! I don’t want to rape anyone!” But the voices wouldn’t listen. They kept insisting that I “Just rape her, already!” After several years of this torture I tried to kill myself. I failed and was put in a mental hospital for two months. I was given the diagnosis of schizophrenia and given an antipsychotic. Within one day of taking this antipsychotic the voices were gone. They only returned when I stopped taking the antipsychotic and went away again when I started taking the antipsychotic again. From my own experience, being given a diagnosis led to a treatment that worked. I haven’t tried to kill myself since. The DSM helped me.
“We need more accessible treatment when we ask for it.” I agree 100 percent. I live in a rural area where it is very hard to get an appointment with a psychiatrist during a crisis. You usually have to wait several weeks for a slot to open up. Once, during a bad relapse of my schizophrenia I felt like I couldn’t wait, so I went to the ER. The ER doctor got very angry with me and said that “We don’t treat that here.” Only people with serious mental illness are treated this way. If I had shown up with any other medical condition the ER doctor wouldn’t have gotten angry with me.
Now that I think about it there may be other reasons that Pandora was in the hospital. Like her namesake she always carried around a little box with her. She once showed me what was in it. It contained her pens and pencils. So, for her writing was like opening Pandora’s box.
She also believed that God controlled the outcomes of sporting events in order to give us secret messages. We would watch sports on TV and try to guess what God was trying to tell us.
In general she acted a lot like Jamie Foxx’s character in the movie The Soloist. Society doesn’t like it when “crazy” people like Pandora wander the streets, so they lock them up in mental hospitals until they can act more “normal.” Whatever that means.
My former priest, who recently retired, once told me that I was the most normal person he had ever known. He thought that was strange because he knew that I was given the diagnoses of schizophrenia.
Having been put in three different mental hospitals over the years I learned that in order to get out and stay out you need to be excessively “normal.” So, Spider-Man is no longer my favorite comic. Batman is. And the Eagles and Led Zeppelin are no longer my favorite bands. Imagine Dragons and Coldplay are. But I still go by William instead of Bill because I am stubborn.
Back in 1999 I spent some time in a mental hospital. The people who worked there were more interested in getting me to go by Bill instead of William than they were in helping me with my problems. There is nothing wrong with the name Bill, of course. I just prefer William. I eventually realized that they would never let me out of the hospital until I started going by Bill. So, I told the nurses that I wanted to go by Bill now. They were so happy! I was discharged soon afterwards and was still as sick as I was as when I entered the hospital. They did not help me at all. They were only interested in getting me to conform to society.
One of my fellow patients there insisted on going by the name Pandora. I think she had been there for a long time. They probably weren’t going to let her out until she started going by whatever name they wanted her to go by.
One of the nurses asked me if I liked comic books. I said yes, because I do. He then said, “What’s your favorite comic, the X-Men?” I said, “No. Spider-Man.” Wrong answer. He was very displeased with me because the correct answer was X-Men. He also asked me what kind of music I liked. I said, “I like classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin and the Eagles.” Once again, wrong answer. If it were up to this nurse I probably never would have been discharged because I liked Spider-Man instead of the X-Men and Led Zeppelin and the Eagles instead of whatever kind of music I was supposed to like.
Mental hospitals only care about getting people to act “normal.” They have no interest in helping us become well.
This all sounds very interesting. When I first started hearing voices in 2003 there was nothing like this in my community. In fact, there is still nothing like this in my community. At the mental health clinic I go to the people who work there won’t let me anywhere near a fellow voice hearer. They say that my fellow voice hearers are too hung up on their delusions for me to be allowed to be near them. They told me I should just go to church. So, I’ve been going to church since 2005, but during this time I have only made one friend there and that friendship only lasted for a few months. If during coffee hour at church, I go up to someone and start talking to them they don’t like it and just want me to go away. If I wait for someone to come up to me and start talking to me hardly anyone ever does. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be doing.
I agree. Everyone should have access to treatment.
The FDA definitely needs to be reformed. It is not doing its job of protecting the American people from ineffective drugs. All it is doing is causing the price of drugs to skyrocket.
Antipsychotics require an RX. Without the doctor and the DSM there would have been no RX and I wouldn’t have gotten the drug that saved my life. Do you think all drugs should be legal without RX, like Thomas Szasz did?
Answers to your questions.
1. No.
2. Because they work.
3. No.
4. There is nothing wrong with the DSM.
5. No.
6. No.
You’re welcome.
Removed for moderation.
For years I had voices in my head screaming at me that I needed to rape my neighbor. I tried reasoning with the voices, saying “I don’t want to rape her! I don’t want to rape anyone!” But the voices wouldn’t listen. They kept insisting that I “Just rape her, already!” After several years of this torture I tried to kill myself. I failed and was put in a mental hospital for two months. I was given the diagnosis of schizophrenia and given an antipsychotic. Within one day of taking this antipsychotic the voices were gone. They only returned when I stopped taking the antipsychotic and went away again when I started taking the antipsychotic again. From my own experience, being given a diagnosis led to a treatment that worked. I haven’t tried to kill myself since. The DSM helped me.
“We need more accessible treatment when we ask for it.” I agree 100 percent. I live in a rural area where it is very hard to get an appointment with a psychiatrist during a crisis. You usually have to wait several weeks for a slot to open up. Once, during a bad relapse of my schizophrenia I felt like I couldn’t wait, so I went to the ER. The ER doctor got very angry with me and said that “We don’t treat that here.” Only people with serious mental illness are treated this way. If I had shown up with any other medical condition the ER doctor wouldn’t have gotten angry with me.
Removed for moderation.