A Question Has Been Posed.....

When people go off of their mood disorder medications don't they go back to their old behaviors, attitudes, and personalities that are "normal" for them? If they are depressed people, or manic people, or cycle between the two, whether they are compulsive gamblers, sexually obsessive, loud and dispruptive, angry and violent, or quiet and suicidal, isn't that "normal" for them? Isn't that who they really are? Isn't the medicated version of them, the calm, stable, polite person they are on medication, just a medicated version and not who they really are? Which one is the "real" person?

Is it simply that we want to medicate bipolar people to make it easier for polite society to deal with them? We want to make them easier to live with by not allowing them to be the self destructive, suicidal, compulsive people they are by nature? How do you know who is the "real" person? Should we just allow them to self-destruct and end up in prison, the poor house, a mental institution or an early grave? These are the people who are prone to accidents, criminal behavior, violence and suicide.

My client was diagnosed with a mood disorder. They have labeled her as bipolar. She is facing 43 felony counts. She's only 27 years old. She has totalled three cars, and stolen countless identities and thousands of dollars from hundreds of people. She has broken into dozens of homes and cars and she's been in a dozen different facilities for troubled teens. She has destroyed every relationship she has ever had. She's angry, violent, beligerent and believes she is smarter than anyone alive. Is this who she really is? When she's on medication she is calm, easier to be around, much more pleasant, and rather adorable. But, who is she really? Who is the real Sarah? Is she the violent, angry, beligerant version with a grandious self perception or the medicated, calm, funny and clear-headed version?

I have another friend who recently went off of his medication. I used to think he was a calm, easy-to-be-around, kinda guy. I liked him. I thought that was the "real" version. I've since seen the other version. Which one is real?


Can managing beliefs and emotional energy transcend a chemical imbalance or brain damage? Can a mentally ill person heal the genetic predisposition for bipolar mood disorders without pharmaceutal intervention? And even if belief managment can......still.....which personality is the real version? Do you let the mentally ill decide who they want to present themselves to be? Can we afford to allow them the identity they choose? Or do we medicate the entire population of disordered people? And if we medicate that population, do we include those with borderline disorders? Should we medicate the sex addicts? Do we medicate the criminal mind, the pornography addicts, the child molesters, the alcoholics and drug addicts, the shopaholics and the bitchy, anti-establishment, conspiracy theorists too? Some people would argue that homosexuals are in need of some mind altering pharmaceuticals. And what about the gross, trailor trash parents who leave their babies in cars while they shop at Wal-Mart? Are they mentally retarded or mentally disordered? Do we jail them all or shoot them up?

Why would anyone want to act unkind? Why would anyone choose destruction and isolation over its opposite? A logical, rational, healthy person would want to have healthy relationships and balanced lives, would they not?

I want to know...this has kept me up all night. I know many people who have littered pasts due to so called "mental illnesses." Some have mulitple divorces, some have littered the countryside with off-spring they don't know and don't seem to care about and all of whom find a convenient rationaliztion for their behaviors and decisions. The criminal exibitionist doesn't see what wrong with his behavior. "What's the big deal? It's natural to be naked."

Gwyneth Paltrow's stalker claims his has a mental disorder and doesn't belong in jail but wants to go live with his sister who will make sure he takes his meds. He committed a crime while off his meds and became obsessed with a woman he was sure wanted him.

A judge said that a man who stole two weed wackers from a Home Depot last year is facing 25 years to life because 14 years ago he was convicted of a couple of non violent felonies. He claims he couldn't afford his medication because he lost his job and blah, blah, blah.

Mentally ill or lost soul?



Have to go vote...will continue later....maybe.



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