Disclaimer: this entry might be a rant. I'm not sure. I just thought I'd let you know, just in case...
For the past ten years or so, I have been surrounded by psychotropic drugs. I knew what Prozac was before I had my first period. Hell, I knew Zoloft and Wellbutrin before they had commercials out. I knew the side effects of thorazine and that ritalin was recommended for learning disabilities and so forth. And over the past ten years -- shit, actually much longer than that -- I've come to a few conclusions. And they're not all nice conclusions. Actually, only a few of them are nice conclusions.
I saw "The Exorcist" on TV a couple of weeks ago. I've seen it before, but this was the first time I noticed that they gave the little possessed girl ritalin, just a little while before she freaked out and began spewing toxic waste and screaming things like, "your mother sucks cocks in hell."
I recognize that "The Exorcist" was a fictional story, and that it's very unlikely that ritalin would cause an individual to become possessed by Satan, but I think I just wanted to mention that little anecdote.
I guess before I talk about my feelings about psychopharmacology, I want to talk about mental illness. I promise you, some of you who are reading this will become offended. That's not my intention.
The problem is, there is no such thing as "Mental Illness" as an umbrella term. There just isn't. The phrase encapsulates three completely different ideas, which simply shouldn't be linked together. I'm not just pulling this out of my ass. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a psychiatrist, and I was reading Freud and Jung by the age of ten. (And, yes, understanding it...) My interests in so-called abnormal psychology has never dwindled, although, the more studying I do, the less I like the mental health industry. I've only taken one psych class, because I no longer have a professional interest, and so I don't want to be taught the profession. I want to learn about the people and the "diseases," and then I want to develop some ethical theories... You've heard of medical ethics? You haven't heard of psychiatric ethics. It's there. Sort of. I'm not sure what my goal is, really, all of this reading the DSM-IV late at night for pleasure, trying to locate the few books out there that deal with the philosophy of "mental illness." I'm not sure I have a goal. But if I did have a goal, it would be to provide eloquence to those who have suffered and those who are suffering. Something like that. Suffering from what is the problem I keep running into... But we'll get to that later...
Anyway, so there's no such thing as "mental illness." Rather, there are three almost-unrelated subcategories of "mental illness." These subcategories are related only in that all three have something to do with the thoughts and behavior. Well, usually. First, there are genetic and anatomical "defects." (I'll try to explain my frequent use of quotation marks later...) Things like brain abnormalities, chemical imbalances, stuff like that. Schizophrenia, manic-depression, Alzheimer's, retardation, Asperger's Syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes depression. Stuff like that.
The second subcategory is the "coping" problems. These are the various disorders that happen to people when something stressful happens to them and they just can't deal with it. Now, some people freak out over their math grades and take to shooting heroin. Other stressors are much, much worse, and no person could be expected to be able to cope. Things like abuse, or war, or rape, or watching somebody shoot down your mom. Or, things like just having an incredibly shitty life: a broken home, a crackhead dad, a few horrible relationships... Sometimes things are just too bad to deal with, for any human being. So, when I say that this subcategory is about not being able to cope, I don't mean that there always IS a way to cope. Anyway, this subcategory includes stuff like addiction, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, multiple personality disorder, and sometimes depression.
The last subcategory is the hardest to define. The DSM-IV calls them the "personality disorders," which I think is sort of fucked up. I especially hate the term "borderline personality disorder," because it sounds like the person has a personality that borders on not being a personality. Anyway, the personality disorders seem, to me, to be... well, sort of a lack of something. I'm not sure what. Something that may or may not be tangible in the body and brain. Something that may be lacking because of horrific stressors in the person's life, or that may never have been there. My personal feeling is that a little piece of the person's soul is missing. The most obvious example would be psychopaths -- people who just don't give a fuck about anybody but themselves. I really do think it has something to do with an incomplete or a damaged soul.