Thanks to advocate Fran Hazam for forwarding Dr. Lloyd I. Sederer’s article “Can You Trust Your Psychiatrist” from HuffPost. Citing influence from Big Pharma — and basically explaining the way the influence filters down to you — Sederer breaks down what you need to do to ensure the best care:
First, be an informed consumer. Just like with a car or washing machine you can learn about medications and other treatments for mental health problems. Turn to websites like your state mental health agency or the National Institute for Mental Health, the National Mental Health Association and the National Alliance for Mental Illness. Google key words about what you want to know, as you would for breast or prostate cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Ask others who have successfully navigated the mental health care system and taken medications. As has been said, caveat emptor — let the buyer beware — and be prepared.
Second, ask questions of your doctor and other health professionals. Rather than being a marketing arm of the pharmaceutical companies, be a prudent buyer. Don’t be shy — you are your best advocate. When you visit your doctor ask two questions: why are you suggesting this treatment for me and what alternatives do I have? When in doubt get a second opinion: any doctor who does not welcome a second opinion is not worth keeping.
Finally, recognize that medications for mental disorders often help but generally are not sufficient. Great reliance on medications has fostered inattention to individual and family therapy and skill building programs.
Emphases mine. For the rest of the article, click here.
Today is PW’s tribute issue, and also the memorial service for our colleague. I won’t be blogging today, but go here for some incredible memories and tributes.
One of the biggest challenges I’ve had in the 10 years I’ve been writing on the subject of mental illness is the evolving use of language around disabilities. Sometimes I’ve been relieved by change; other times I’ve been frustrated. I recently had the opportunity to start thinking about this again because I accidentally let a writer use the phrase “wheelchair-bound” in an article I edited. Afterward, the subject of the article objected, and I felt terrible. I wasn’t hip to that particular change, but in the future I won’t use it again.
Often, the lack of a consensus stymies writers and members of the media. In my case, I’m sort of okay if you call me “bipolar,” but there are many other people who think that’s terrible — and that you should only say “person with bipolar disorder” or “person who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.” As a writer concerned with rhythm and clarity, I have to object to the latter for myself. Yes, I’ve been diagnosed that way, but given that I concur with the diagnosis, I’m comfortable saying “I have bipolar disorder.” A lot of people object to “a person who suffers from bipolar disorder,” but I remember just a couple years ago when that was absolutely the most appropriate language.
One thing I feel we’ve mostly agreed upon: To call a person schizophrenic is really out of date. As in: “I think he’s schizophrenic.” In clinical contexts that emphasize recovery, people definitely say, “I think he has schizophrenia,” if not something more progressive, like the examples above. There’s something historically uncomfortable about the word “schizophrenic” that hasn’t yet accrued to “bipolar,” if only because the illness (oops) only recently shifted from “manic-depression.”
And now to that oops — some people no longer like to say “mental illness.” Some prefer “brain disorders” but others like to go in the opposite direction and say, well, I’m not even sure anymore. Because I subscribe to some of the horrors that many people rail against (like that my symptoms are part of an illness; that medication can work; that not all of the DSM-IV isn’t balderdash), my language may, at times, be less People First-ian than that of others.
For example, I wear two hearing aids and have been, for some years … hearing-impaired? Suffering from hearing loss … ? Partially deaf .. ? (I am not, however, Deaf. That I know for sure.) My friend and I talk about this sometimes because she is partially deaf (with much more impairment than I have) and has been so since childhood. But even she doesn’t know what the hell to call it. If she meets someone who’s like a bit more deaf than she is (but not Deaf), she doesn’t know what to say to contextualize herself. It’s so weird.
Maybe because I was a translation scholar, I love this kind of discussion. I’d be interested to hear (but talk loud! Heh.) what you all think of People First language, in all its permutations.
[Button (that I should really get for public situations) available here.]
How the media delights in coining new terms — the latest being “tweenorexia.” You can imagine them sitting around in a meeting getting all hopped up on coffee and donuts, and patting each other on the back for thinking of it. Ooh, nice one. Perhaps I’ve been in journalism too long.
The trend, as represented by a recent study, is troubling, though. And what’s truly sad is that even the most well-adjusted teens and women I know would see this video and think, in a tiny, horrible corner of their brain: “God, I wish I could get that thin–just for a while.” Sigh.
BBC News Magazine asked a 13-year-old to give up his beloved iPod and use a Walkman for a week instead, in honor of the Walkman’s 30-year anniversary. Since that was my first portable music player, purchased in 1983 and lovingly cradled across continents, I smiled as I read this.
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.
He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book. When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade - a bland grey.
So it’s not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else.
From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
As I boarded the school bus, where I live in Aberdeenshire, I was greeted with laughter. One boy said: “No-one uses them any more.” Another said: “Groovy.” Yet another one quipped: “That would be hard to lose.”
My friends couldn’t imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked. In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is “shuffle”, where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don’t have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, “Walkmans eat tapes”. So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.
Despite the glib title of this ongoing TTWS feature (Blank Made Me Do It), there are some cases that are quite serious and upsetting. The one of Randall Robbins II is that kind of case, if only because it brings up–for the umpteenth time–this issue of those black-box warnings on antidepressants. From the L.A. Times:
Randall Robbins II, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2002 strangulation of 17-year-old Brittany Eurek, argues that both Pfizer and his doctor should have known that Zoloft might have made him attempt suicide and commit murder.
He says the drug intensified his agitation, suicidal desires, hysterical behavior and hostility and diminished his self-control.
Those arguments are similar to claims made in a few other cases since 2004, when antidepressants gained new warning labels highlighting the risk of suicidal behavior in people under 18.
In 2007, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Christopher Pittman, who is serving a 30-year sentence for killing his grandparents when he was 12. The court rejected his argument that he was involuntarily intoxicated by taking Zoloft and didn’t know what he was doing when he killed his grandparents and burned down their home in 2001.
A year earlier, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of a man who killed a 19-year-old woman with a shotgun and later tried to blame the 2003 slaying on the antidepressant drug. Zachary Schmidkunz is serving a 35-year prison term.
What puzzles, somewhat, is the conflicting behavior of Pfizer, though their continuing legal victories do justify it. On the one hand, there is the black-box warning, which specifically concedes that this kind of reaction to the drug is possible. On the other hand, there’s the response to a case like Robbins’:
“Pfizer’s evaluation of Zoloft data never has revealed any signal of an increased risk of violence related to either use or discontinuation of use of Zoloft,” [spokesman Chris] Loder said.
The FDA also says the underlying mental illnesses that antidepressants are used to treat are the most important causes of suicidal thoughts and actions.
So is that tantamount to Pfizer saying they don’t believe their own warning? Robbins, who’s in prison for the murder, is now suing Pfizer for $1 million and serving as his own lawyer. (Isn’t that always a bad idea?) Go here for more.
All right, let’s predict what’s coming next: the list of drugs MJ was allegedly taking will include some psych drugs (Zoloft, I’m hearing), which will cause the Hollywood Hubbardians to get their knickers in a twist. So let’s say what needs to be said before the bombs are launched: It’s not the drugs that are bad. It’s abusing drugs that’s bad.
Jackson, whose cause of death is still unknown, is rumored to have been taking a lotsa meds, all at once. From various sources via Furious Seasons:
“Life & Style reports that Michael Jackson was taking a cocktail of up to seven prescription drugs in the months before his death.
“And a Jackson family lawyer told CNN he ‘feared’ the drugs could kill the pop star.
“The star had been taking prescription painkillers including anti-anxiety drugs Xanax, Zoloft and painkiller Demerol in recent months, sources close to Jackson told Life & Style.
Poor Michael. If it’s true that he’d been taking this cocktail, and it was diagnosed by his doctor, we’ll certainly be hearing more about it.
It’s funny — sometimes celebrity deaths hit me really hard. It seems they’re often celebs who were important to me in my youth, so for instance when Lauren Bacall dies, I might have to take a few days off from work. But despite Hollywood’s two losses of yesterday, I feel almost nothing. This isn’t because I’m a callous person but because having a friend and colleague die the day before really puts a fine point on how absurd it is to be crushed by celebrity deaths. Or not absurd, exactly, but how different it is — how remote. Who were those people to me? As No Minister says, “Fuck Michael Jackson … Steven Wells is dead.” And oddly, on hitched.co.uk, in the off-topic forum section, one poster says they’re more unhappy about Wells than MJ/FF. Another writes:
I’ve had near enough double the number of texts and phone calls about Steven Wells than I have Michael Jackson. One from a school friend I haven’t spoken to in almost 10 years. She remembered me going on and on about how bloody sexy his writing was and that despite my general dislike of NME I’d buy it regardless and read no only read his stuff.
Always controversial, always passionate and incredibly funny.
The world will be a duller place without him.
Isn’t that the truth. Not only that, but I’d love to hear what Steven would have to say about the Michael Jackson stuff — and especially about the BBC comparing his death to Princess Di’s. The fact that I have no idea what he’d say — except that it would be incredibly funny — is exactly what made him so special.
After a long battle with cancer, PW staff writer, Guardian columnist, punk-rock novelist, NME gadfly, gender-twisting rebel comedian and poet Steven Wells has gone on to other things. Well, not really. According to Steven, there’s no such thing as the afterlife, and if there is, I guarantee he’s really, really pissed off right now. I can just picture him at St. Peter’s Gates, saying, “Fuck me! This shit actually exists?”
We’ll all miss Steven so much, and I’ll say more about that later. For now, I’m wishing the best to all family and friends who are hurting. That’s what Steven really cared about in the end, though he was very passionately annoyed by knitting, as well.
Steven was often told he was anti-American. I loved his passion, and he cracked us the fuck up every day. This video was part of a series he did for PW called Steven Wells’ America, in which he took sacred cows and basically grilled them for dinner. Below, he reflects on the religiosity of an America that voted for Bush a second time (Steven was a staunch atheist). Toward the end he smiles a bit, so you know that he knows he’s being ridiculous. And that’s part of what was so cute about Steven — he’d rant, but then laugh at himself.
Liz Spikol is executive editor of Philadelphia Weekly. She writes the award-winning column The Trouble With Spikol, which began as a chronicle of her struggle with mental illness, and has since expanded into humorous musings on everything from graphic novels to how to use a mop. She also writes the paper’s book review column, Lit Gloss. This blog — named one of the Top 10 Bipolar Blogs of 2007 and 2008 by PsychCentral — is about mental illness policy, news, personal journeys and more.
Thanks to advocate Fran Hazam for forwarding Dr. Lloyd I. Sederer’s article “Can You Trust Your Psychiatrist” from HuffPost. Citing influence from Big Pharma — and basically explaining the way the influence filters down to you — Sederer breaks down what you need to do to ensure the best care:
