November 20, 2007Black MondayI had a bad bit of news yesterday--unexpected and deeply disappointing, professionally and financially--and so I had to spend much of yesterday afternoon and evening doing all the mindfulness, self-awareness kinds of things that those of us who've actually learned to live with a mental illness (and we are out there, not that researchers ever bother to ask us any questions about how we do it) have to do in order to keep from falling into a bad cycle instead of rushing to the doc to get medicated into the next time zone, so I have no posts to offer this morning. Probably none at all today. I am fighting a lot of stress and have been working myself too much lately, and I need to back off. Besides, it being a holiday week in the States, hits are already way down. Anyhow, it is the kind of crap that is forcing me into a reckoning with myself about the future and what the hell it is exactly that I seem to be doing with my life. Things just aren't adding up particularly well for me this year, just like last year. But I prefer sucking it up and moving forward on my own terms to allowing anyone to turn me into a victim, or to their telling me, "Oooh, poor baby, you're depressed, you're upset. Mental illness is very dangerous, please see your health care provider." Nah, folks it's just life in its omnipresent screwiness. I'll take my life meds-free and my side-effects all natural, thanks. Speaking of omnipresent screwiness, the Treatment Advocacy Center has named a new executive director, someone with bipolar disorder. See what he has to say for himself here. In other weirdness, Jonah Lehrer, who writes the Frontal Cortex blog and whom many in the blogosphere have been cooing over lately, is seriously dumb enough to believe that 44 percent of all cigarettes smoked in the US are smoked by the mentally ill. Not only does such an assumption not pencil out (2 million adults with schizophrenia plus 7 million or so adults with bipolar disorder plus gets us to 9 million people. It's not clear to me whether to include depression in this calculation or not. But there's no way on Earth that so few people could smoke that many cigs. Hell, i know several schizophrenics who don't smoke at all, same with bipolars), but it carries with it the implicit Nanny State message (not made by him but sure to be made by others) that we must medicate these "people beset by a woefully unpredictable mind" for their own good. Please. The typical thumb-sucking of a 25-year-old who's had the anti-smoking nazi message pounded into his head since Grade 1. Unless, the antis can somehow prove that Zyprexa is healthier than a Marlboro. Maybe some of the antis can go take 10 mgs. of Zyprexa each day for a year, and I'll go off and smoke a pack a day, and we'll compare notes and have a 40-yard sprint to see who's doing better. I know who will win that race. Posted by Philip Dawdy at November 20, 2007 12:58 AM
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Phillip, You're doing great. Sorry about the financial news. As for the cigarettes, look for NAMI (membership in this organization must be criminilized), TAC, and big pharma to manipulate the statistics like it does with suicide and murder, in other words, every one who murders or commits suicide is retroactiviely diagnosed as severely mentally ill, and now, if you smoke, you'll get the label of smi, it's proof (unless of course you're in NAMI, or a mental health professional, then you're just smoking because of the pain caused to you be other people's mental illnesses). .."it's just life in its omnipresent screwiness." I think you could market that phrase on mugs, shirts and wall plaques. Posted by: Stephany at November 20, 2007 09:41 AM"But I prefer sucking it up and moving forward on my own terms to allowing anyone to turn me into a victim, or to their telling me, "Oooh, poor baby, you're depressed, you're upset. Mental illness is very dangerous, please see your health care provider." Nah, folks it's just life in its omnipresent screwiness. I'll take my life meds-free and my side-effects all natural, thanks." I think this is very plausible, depending on who is included in the mental illness category. I have read some of the scholarly research on this and they include a very broad range of disorders....major depressions, bipolar disorder, phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, substance dependence (I think it includes nicotine dependence!),conduct disorder, schizophrenia, and a few more. But assuming it is just schizophrenia and Bipolar, if you use the info in the article and the total U.S. population figure of about 300,000,000 to try to estimate the number of mentally ill people given the smoking percentages given, it will come out to close to the 9 million number you have, depending on what figure you use for the % of all mentally ill who smoke. Posted by: Mark at November 20, 2007 10:37 AMum sure mark. if you are naive enough to buy into the 50 percent of america is mentally ill estimate propounded by kessler and other morons at harvard, then it might add up. i attacked this claim and smoking and mental illness when it first came out and i am thrilled to see the nanny staters/social controllers buy into once again. i really want them to declare smoking a form of insanity so we can see them for what they are. Posted by: Philip Dawdy at November 20, 2007 11:35 AMRe: the Jonah Lehrer link, and reading some comments there left by ppl. with experience working inside psych wards or group homes, and commenting on how smoking is often only able way to pass time? Here's the flipside to that: at each psych ward and group home Ive been inside[which are many]I also observed most of the staff smoke too, and it's how they pass time on their own breaks. Posted by: Stephany at November 20, 2007 11:42 AMThat thread, those comments, jaysus. You nailed it, Stephany, it's nothing but the Other mentality, giving them zero awareness, and a complete inability to see what's in front of them. Posted by: flawedplan at November 20, 2007 01:42 PMPost a comment
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