Posted by cindy lou on January 30, 2006, at 14:28:29
In reply to Re: Help!! Bipolar, off meds, losing it, posted by fenix on January 29, 2006, at 5:03:22
A couple notes on this ...
Sure, there is a lot more to mental illness than "just" brain chemistry. However, I have heard an analogy that makes sense to me:
In the baseball game of life (for those of us with mental illness), therapy and other support help us run the bases. However, we can't even get up to bat without medication.
You were given benzos for stress. But if a vacation worked for you and you no longer needed benzos, than your stress was obviously not caused by a true "chemical imbalance."
Those of us who do have a true chemical imbalance -- for whatever reason -- would still be depressed, anxious, etc. if we were on a tropical island with no obligations or worries in the world.
cindy
> And defend it I shall dear player. It is taken out of context yet again, as was a few of my other posts of late.
>
> Yes, when chemicals act in different ways they produce different actions. Different situations cause your body to respond in different ways, cause the neurochemistry to change, etc. When you are in a bad environment, your mind becomes ill of it, but not just your mind... your brain and its chemicals as well.
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> The whole thing is ridiculous about the imbalance, and this is where I will have to be more specific. It is not that a chemical imbalance doesn't happen, it is that drugs are not the answer, at least no the ultimate answer. The real problem is, you are in a trap, you are given drugs to cope in the trap, the suffocating box. The trap is the environment that you are in, what the environment is doing to you, it is established deeply in the survivalist nature of humans and of course in that of other living species.
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> Most people don't have a million dollars so they can escape the places that are bothering them. You may argue that the trap is in the mind sometimes as well caused by past traumas such as incest. However, just leaving a certain place that you have been at for a very long time... can do profound things on you regardless of your past experiences. I know this from personal experience s myself, and not just me, but from various people that suffered from rape, incest, and other such things in there past.
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> So, to sum it up, the whole chemical imbalance things being pushed on everyone is like an empty truth. Yes, it is indeed fact, but how useful is it? You aren't forever in the chains of your neurochemistry, there are other ways to change it besides powerful and often times dangerous drugs.
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> You may then decide to go on these drugs that they toy around you, these SSRIs.. the neuroleptics. But you ain't going anywhere anytime soon.
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> They gave me benzos for stress because of chemical imbalances. I went on a long vacation, I didn't need benzos anymore.
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> If you can escape, do it. Those drugs knock you out for a reason.
poster:cindy lou
thread:603849
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060129/msgs/604515.html