I know you won't like hearing this, but YOU rock!
(you can not post this comment if you like)

I totally agree with your assessment, and am now being bullied into taking medications without any real thought to why they are trying to push them on me.

The MAIN symptom I seem to have, is that I am now NOT complacent with the abuses I suffered in my work place. I started to speak up. And when I did that in public, I was labeled "ill" and "needing medication." If I go to work, and act blitzed out of my mind, everyone smiles at me, and says.. wow, you are SO much better, those meds must really work. If I go to work angry and try to make them understand what I feel is wrong, they say.. "what dosage of X are you on? Hmmm... maybe you should consider.. upping your dosage to...."

So, your point is well taken and being demonstrated in my life as I write. NO. I am not going to take an atypical psychotic medication, because I am angry at my bosses for the injustices and retributions I have suffered since speaking up.

This is going to be the wave of the future, don't like what your boss or your government does? You are psychotic, and need a med.

I don't really agree with the Last Psychiatrist on one point. Just because we are calling someone "mentally ill" does not mean that society, the culture, the family gets completely off the hook by the way -- or not "implicated". Thinking it does demonstrates his bias towards viewing mental illness as primarily a brain disease or genetic condition. In fact I think societal, cultural and familial ills account for way more "mental illness" than any brain disease or chemical imbalance. Why do you think we get "chemically imbalanced" anyway? It's because a whole lot of bad things are going on around us usually. And I've always said frankly that that's where the work needs to be done -- curing societal, cultural and familial ills. If we all went to work on these I bet "mental illness" would diminish drastically, even schizophrenia, whatever that really is.

Thanks for posting a link to that blog. I have long been uncomfortable with the media's pressing need to link Cho with Depression as if that explained his behavior. I discussed it at length here (http://thesplinteredmind.blogspot.com/2007/04/if-virginia-tech-gunman-was-on-meds.html).

It seems a lot of people don't distinguish a difference between Depression and Psychotic Depression, if indeed Cho suffered from Psychotic Depression. My feelings on the subject are that Cho was a free agent who chose to nurture hatred, blame others for his problems, and preferred his isolation from others. Socializing with people interfered with his hate. Mental illness, if involved, was incidental, not pivotal.

Of course, we may never know what the real motivation was, though his videos gave us the best insight into his twisted world. Still, we all speculate according to our own understandings. For example, I understand why the media, and others, wish to label Cho's actions with a mental illness. They are trying to make sense out of the senseless. But I don't understand why people with Depression have become so protective of Cho. My best guess is that they feel that if people attack him, who might have had Depression, then people are also attacking them. Personally, I wouldn't want anybody to link me and my Depression with Cho in any way, shape, or form...but then I'm a "recovered" Depressive and no longer see my world through those particular dreary glasses.

Great post.

Psychiatric hospitals are still being used for political purposes in China and gays and lesbians were still being locked up in psych. units in Russia for being gay through the '90's--see this link: http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=3001&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=2

It is not a stretch at all to imagine commitment being used against dissidents in the U.S. given the right (I mean wrong) President.

Um Dr Black Kitty. You trying to get fired? You kiss ass at work. Double and triple if need be. To everyone, including those who hate your guts. Let them get fired. Be nice to everyone and kiss ass to everyone, even if you secretly hate them. Wait until 5:05 PM on your way home and scream in your car how much you hate your co-workers. Then at 8 AM you're all smiles and you love them so much. I learned the hard way.