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Permalink Reply by Marc Kivel on 9th mo. 8, 2012 at 12:27pm

As someone who has been on medications for some time, although not as deeply or as long as some Friends who have commented here, I am still waiting for a clear leading on the matter of psychiatric drugs and their proper use.  I offer these queries rather than advices....

At what point does a person's behavior prevent them from safely interacting with others and them self?  Should this be a general standard or specific to the individual and their context?

What is a Friend's obligation to another Friend to address changes in behavior?  What is a Meeting's obligation to a Friend whose behavior changes or becomes threatening?

Should there be a general standard of good treatment that requires complementary therapeutics (e.g. talk therapy with any course of psychiatric medicine?)

Should a Meeting offer Clearance and holding the Friend up in the Light as a complement to any medical support?

Should an Overseer or Care Committee be available to support a Friend in their daily living with their challenges?

Should a Friend under psychiatric care assent to making a Care Committee or Clearance Committee a party to their plan of treatment and their advocate with institutions or physicians?

Your leadings?

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Permalink Reply by Timothy on 9th mo. 8, 2012 at 10:32pm

I humbly feel that dealing with health issues, it is wise for the individual to have choices of their own. Otherwise it will come across as dictatorship. No one would want someone else to choose their doctor for them. No one would like it if someone called their doctor or made choices for the person. I feel it would be best to leave that issue to the individual, their own doctor/health provider, and to God.

I was involuntarily placed in Danville's Mental Institution, and I would not wish for anyone to go there involuntary. It was nightmarish. I was in a room without a window and only artificial light. Involuntary—without thy choice or say in the matter.

In 1991, I was hospitalised at VA Baptist Hospital on Krise 6, the sixth floor of that unit. I was placed on one medicine then another and another. Lithium Bicarbonate made me so very sickly!! I was shackled to the bed, injected with Haldol, then put into a small carpeted room without a window or door knob! Outside the locked door, someone sat watching me constantly.

My suggestion would be leave out the dictation and just encourage the individual. Offer to help them in other ways. Offer to listen to them. Offer love, and prayer. Encourage them with the Light of the Word of God! This is my only plea. Also, the Golden Rule: "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them likewise." Just a few of my thoughts to thee about meetings and medical health care. . .

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 9, 2012 at 12:03am

Someone deleted a reply here, presumably the person who posted it. (I would not have done so.)

While lacking any personal knowledge of the circumstances... I agree with that person that when a Meeting committee, without a person's specific invitation, intervenes in their affairs in such a manner -- it has gone far beyond any just claim to understand whatever-it-is we mean by 'mental illness' or how such phenomena should best be addressed.

People, "mentally ill" or otherwise, simply don't always make good choices. They don't necessarily choose well on their own behalf -- But when they happen to choose badly, that is simply how life works -- While even a "good" choice, made on another's behalf & against their wishes, does harm to them and to any friendship with them.

We have a right to make mistakes and suffer from them. We do not have a right to make someone else's mistakes.

I have friends who I believe have made, who continue to make very self-destructive treatment-choices. There simply isn't a good way to "deal with" this situation, except to remain friends, to pray that any mistakes including my own will be mitigated, that the eventual outcome will be according to God's good will. As Timothy says here.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 9, 2012 at 10:16am

It looks like people are collectively hampered by a bad selection of metaphors, in trying to make sense of the wide range of conditions that can lead to someone being 'diagosed' and/or 'medicated'.

A helpful analogy: "Being on a skateboard" is not the same concept as "falling down" -- despite the fact that for me, they are equivalent conditions.

Back in the day, I knew a great many people who took 'pattern-enhancing' chemicals, almost entirely with beneficial, at worst neutral, outcomes. One friend, recently released from a State hospital, ran into old friends who gave her a dose of 'mescaline' (given the state of the black market at the time, probably 'substandard, weak LSD'). This led to her immediate, direct return to the 'hospital'.

There are at least three dimensions to be considered:

1) To what degree is a person in a state of 'overdrive': somewhat overwhelmed, emotionally-volatile, perceiving outside the range of 'normal psychological functioning'? This could arise from chemical toxins, internal metabolic disruptions, fasting or meditation... and depending on other factors, be a condition to be sought-after or desperately fled.

2) What's the emotional tone? -- 'stoned' aka 'astounded', calm, or 'freaked out'?

3) To what degree is a person "in touch"? This is crucial; and it can vary all over the scale despite where they are on those other two dimensions.

A friend who abruptly 'went off his meds' (These things are addictive!) was trying to play chess with me while insisting that "P-K4 means 'Let's go to Mischa's house!' " Was perfectly competent to drive himself to the hospital, although I went along for company and to make sure he got there. Did not impress the staff as 'needing hospitalization' (although most of his friends were pretty sure!) until he decided he needed to 'tap' one of them to make himself clear.

I have been "talked down from" an extremely bad LSD trip... which did not mean that the floor stopped wriggling before the stuff physiologically wore off. (I'd taken some alone, took some more because "This isn't working", then got desperately lonesome and wandered off into one of those nights when the police were teargassing everything in sight, found refuge in the lobby of the Berkeley Inn, where the guy at the desk was a moonlighting ex-medic.) The LSD neither facilitated nor prevented him in helping me deceive myself (enough to bear with the anxiety & discomfort for the duration.) What it did add, I believe, was awareness that I was, in fact, defending my emotional stability by self-deception.

I was able to look back on this later, say "Hmmmm!!!" and recognize what I'd been doing & how. Another person I talked to later about their own experience -- was evidently still clinging to ideas he'd needed at the time, years before -- went on thinking he needed to continually stave off what he felt to be imminent terror.

I firmly believe that there are "normal" people who have never taken a funny pill, or had an odd experience in their lives -- whose mental functioning and belief systems are as resolutely "out-of-touch" as anyone they'd consider "nuts". That at some level people are struggling with very similar issues, whether they 'self-medicate,' have 'medication' imposed upon them, or simply muddle on...

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Permalink Reply by Ray White on 9th mo. 19, 2012 at 8:28pm

All I can say is I am so grateful for the drugs I finally decided to take.  I have been wandering in a dark depressive cloud for years...afraid of mental health drugs as I saw myself as a "weak" person to give into them.....but my life slowly spiraled out of control to the point I had unbelieveable panic and anxiety attacks that were mind numbingly crippling.  I hated each day.....now....I have found the joy of life again.  I am able to practice deep breathing exercises to control the panic and anxiety that was so amazingly incapacitating. 

They were a God-send.....they saved my life.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 19, 2012 at 10:56pm

Ray White said:

All I can say is I am so grateful for the drugs I finally decided to take.  I have been wandering in a dark depressive cloud for years...afraid of mental health drugs as I saw myself as a "weak" person to give into them.....but my life slowly spiraled out of control to the point I had unbelieveable panic and anxiety attacks that were mind numbingly crippling.  I hated each day.....now....I have found the joy of life again.  I am able to practice deep breathing exercises to control the panic and anxiety that was so amazingly incapacitating. 

They were a God-send.....they saved my life.

That happens too.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Baxter on 9th mo. 28, 2012 at 11:11pm

Please allow me to add my own experiences to this thread.  My own use of psychoactive drugs, mostly legal, has been varied. Currently, I am finding buproprion useful in dealing with depression; however, others I have found to be negative in varying degrees. I suspect the larger lesson on drugs for mental health improvement comes from students I taught over a 30-year career.

The public really doesn't have a clue about the amount of mental health problems confronted in the classroom. These are kids who desperately need help but ours is a culture that offers few resources with often tragic results. My observation was that kids who received professional help often benefitted and this was often due to a medication. Sometimes the change was practically magical. Very immediate and drastic. Sometimes this would last and sometimes the positive would wear off and that situation had to be dealt with. There was also a not insignificant number of these young people on which nothing seemed to help whatever demons their illness was throwing at them. And, of course, many many received little help at all. 

People in the helping professions mostly want to help and possess varying degrees of expertise and ability. But they exist in a societal substrate of Big Pharma and Vulture Capitalism that are powerful forces making it an uphill battle. The awareness and willingness to wage that uphill battle are a major reason I so value my participation in the Quaker community.

I've personally been extremely fortunate to have received help from VA as a PTSD veteran. This has changed my life and I intend to do what I can to engender similar opportunities for others. Sharing with others, whether in a group or a blog, can be a powerful thing. May you all go with God.

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