A 'high' is something extra. Returning to sanity isn't my idea of something extra.

DrAwkward wrote: but in the end, it's just a tool.

but this raises the question of who is using the tool.

Is it a tool individuals use for personal satisfaction or improvement?

Or is it a social tool used (by ???) to stultify the natural desire people have to want to alter a dissatisfying social environment?

DrAwkward wrote:I couldn't tell what your little bouncy smiley there was trying to convey, i guess.

it was saying 'look at me, aren't I funny saying something so ridiculously, outrageous'

Earwicker wrote:

DrAwkward wrote: but in the end, it's just a tool.

but this raises the question of who is using the tool.

Is it a tool individuals use for personal satisfaction or improvement?

Or is it a social tool used (by ???) to stultify the natural desire people have to want to alter a dissatisfying social environment?

The former.

??? doesn't hold me down for it.

'???'? I mean, really.

Earwicker wrote:

Tommy Alpha wrote:You're far more likely to have a 'high' through depression without taking antidepressants, what with volatile emotions and all. Antidepressants really don't work like that.

For explanation - see above. I was using 'high' as a catch all term for someone using a drug to alter their chemical make up. I am aware that anti-depressants don't (or don't always) make people act like doogle from the magic roundabout.

I already said it was a poor choice of word.

But if someone is feeling 'low' how else might you describe something that people use to make them feel 'not low'? We use expressions like 'a pick me up' to describe certain things that give is a 'lift' in mood, energy etc

Sounds like a pedantic attack has shifted on to an already agreed poor word choice for some reason.

don't know why

And to return the pedantry - surely you are describing 'high' relative to the 'low' when you say depressed people feel 'high'?
If not I'd have thought you are describing manic-depression.

If we’re being pedantic, its Dougal

It really, really wasn’t meant as an act of pedantry or an attack on yourself- I just picked up on the one thing you said rather than reading the whole thing, for which I apologise. I just wanted to differentiate between anti-depressants and ‘pick me ups’ like a beer/zoot/drug of choice after a shit day. It really isn’t like this at all, but then I don’t need to say that as enough people already have, I guess.

With regards to your second point- depression can come with great highs as well as lows- it doesn’t have to be specifically manic depression.

llllllllllllllllllllllll wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote:
If you're fighting depression, these sorts of things happen. It's all in your control, but shit happens.

Its not always "in your control." Einstein said something like, "you can do what you will, but you can't will what you will."

I was too vague.^

The decisions you make, are yours to make. This is what I meant by that.

No one makes good decisions all of the time, do they? I just think we're all pretty flawed, and that you have to try and truly understand the flaws of others in order to love them. (I can't believe I just wrote and posted the preceeding sentence...did I mention I'm full of contradictions?).

Earwicker wrote:My statement was meant to be ironic.
You criticised Rick for offering his opinion without being ‘an expert’.
I was criticising you for the same (with my tongue placed in my cheek. I disagree with the 'you have to be an expert in order to express your opinion' approach, in case you hadn't noticed).

You retort by giving us a run down of your family’s mental history.

Tell me – does this family history make you ‘an expert’ or do you have to go to University for years and study for that privilege?

You don’t see your double standard do you?

There is no double standard.

As I am now pointing out for the second time, I never actually said anything about who deserves medication and who does not - that is for a doctor or pyschiatrist to decide. I've not spent six years at medical school, so why would I think that I have any right in determining who gets medication any more than you do? Unless either of you have actually studied this or have some pool of life experiences that you're not telling us about, then both yours and Rick's opinions on mental health are worth about as much as a drama student's opinion on rocket science.

I was criticising Rick's attitude to depression and those suffering from it.

As for my family history, erm, yes I think that does make my views slightly more informed than many others. I've also done a small amount of reading on the topic and spoken to both friends and family about their experiences. I remember a girl I once knew as a teenager who I often thought was faking it for attention. A few years ago, I met up with her again. Turns out she had since been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and was now taking lithium. I hate to think how my attitude towards her as a teenager made her feel back then, because obviously I was dead wrong.

The point I am making is that you cannot judge from the surface who has 'real' depression and who is just feeling blue or who is lazy. Rick could have made the same point by suggesting that a mild depressive should be recommend exercise or refered to councilling before being prescribed medication, but instead he choose to insult the vulnerable.

Earwicker wrote:

DrAwkward wrote: but in the end, it's just a tool.

but this raises the question of who is using the tool.

Is it a tool individuals use for personal satisfaction or improvement?

Or is it a social tool used (by ???) to stultify the natural desire people have to want to alter a dissatisfying social environment?

Well, of course it brings up that question.

I, from first-hand experience, and anecdotal evidence presented by others i know, have seen antidepressants be used very effectively in the former scenario.

I have yet to see any hard evidence of your latter scenario, which is very conspiracy-minded. As people have said repeatedly in this thread, most people suffering from genuine, clinical depression don't need drugs in order to not have any desire to alter their dissatisfying social environment. This has been said repeatedly here, and as i see this thread has degenerated into the usual "argue on the internet by constantly repeating your opinion until the other side gets exhausted" exchange, that's the last time i will mention it.

tmidgett wrote:The former.

??? doesn't hold me down for it.

'???'? I mean, really.

what does 'doesn't hold me down for it' mean?

I should say that it's use as a social control doesn't necessarily, in my view, need a conspiratorial controlling agent at the top.

The doping of the society happens to serve the elite controllers of that society pretty well - allowing them to maintain there dominant position in the culture blah blah but it is something that could happen without an organising force at the top.

One of the reasons I mentioned Leary's LSD experiments earlier was because at Harvard he seemed to be getting good results in altering people's 'conditions'. Curing them (for want of a better way of putting it) Not through the continuous use of the drug but through a few controlled ingestions of it.

This differs markedly from what the pharmaceutical companies would be happiest with (the continued use of addictive drugs that don't cure anything at all).
I am however, willing to accept that the imprisoning of the man alongside the halting of LSD research and the flooding of the culture in dependency inducing anti-depressants was just a coincidence.

tmidgett wrote:A 'high' is something extra. Returning to sanity isn't my idea of something extra.

You mean 'extra' like vomiting, sleeplessness, loss of libido - that sort of thing?