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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

(For everyone but you, Deborah, because you seem like a nice enough lady, but we're just never going to agree on anything remotely related to modern psychiatry.)

This tragedy was caused by:

Malpractice by the pshrink, or negligence bythe patient *before* she became manic, or negligence by the spouse.

Anyone taking any antidepressant should be warned of what the symptoms of mania are and should be told to call their doctor *immediately* if they notice any.

This woman had *multiple* nights of sleeping through the day and cleaning the house in manic bursts at night?

*ONE* manic night should have triggered immediate action by her pshrink to do absolutely whatever was necessary control the mania, to assess her for immediate risks to self and others, etc.

It also should have triggered her shrink evaluating her for bipolar disorder.

Either the doctor didn't address the potential side effects with the patient and ensure she had someone watching her who knew what to watch for and who to call in case of problems, or the patient didn't take the information at the beginning to her spouse, or the spouse ignored it, or the doctor did not respond correctly when told the patient was having side effects.

Chainsaws can be incredibly useful for doing things like removing fallen trees safely from downed power lines--by qualified personnel only, of course.

If you cut off your leg with a chainsaw, the problem is not that chainsaws are bad and evil, the problem is that you or someone else didn't follow the appropriate safety rules for using a chainsaw (which include knowing what you're doing before using one at all).

Psychiatric drugs are not bad and evil.

When the safety rules for using them are followed, they are powerful, useful, necessary, and safe.

When the safety rules for using them are not followed, they're every bit as dangerous as a chainsaw in the hands of a 25 year old man with the mind of a six year old.

The problem is not that the drug is bad, any more than the problem in chainsaw accidents is that chainsaws are bad.

The problem is that the *sane* people did not follow the appropriate safety rules for handling a powerful, necessary, but potentially very dangerous tool.

The doctor *should* have provided the patient with a handout on the warning signs for all of the serious possible side effects, including mania.  The doctor should have carefully explained everything on the handout and made sure the patient knew when to call the doctor immediately and when to call 911.  The doctor should have required the patient to provide the handout to a friend or responsible third party--usually but not necessarily the spouse--with the offer to have his nurse explain anything on the sheet that the friend didn't understand.  The doctor should have followed up with the patient to ensure this had been done and gotten a signed acknowledgement of informed consent for the patient's files.

When you go in for surgery and they drug you so you mustn't drive for a certain length of time, they *make* you bring a friend to drive you home.  If you're going to take psychiatric medications, they should make you have a friend to keep an eye on you *at least* whenever you're making a major change.

Most pshrinks that I've encountered *do* carefully explain possible side effects, but they aren't as careful as I've recommended above at *documenting* that they have done so.  I think they should document it.  That's a procedural change I'd like to see made.

If this woman had had her dose(s) lowered, and specific problem drugs (problems *for her personally*) removed, and had had a mood stabilizer added if necessary to bring the mania under control, the violence would have never happened.

Just like if you learn what you're doing first and follow the safety rules for using a chainsaw properly you're going to cut off the log, not your leg.

Does malpractice happen?  Yes, it sometimes does.

Does criminal negligence happen even when malpractice does not?  Yes, it sometimes does.

So do serious chainsaw accidents, or other serious or fatal accidents among people operating power tools or heavy equipment.

Psychiatric drugs are powerful, dangerous, necessary tools.

Someone not careful and conscientious enough to be a heart surgeon or a brain surgeon shouldn't be a psychiatrist, either.  Practice of any branch of medicine is one of the most serious responsibilities there is.

We have procedures to screen out poor candidates before they become doctors.  We have medical licensing boards to yank the licenses of bad doctors who slip through the cracks.

We have criminal negligence laws for when people are told how to handle something dangerous and they don't pay attention.

The doctor should have explained about mania and psychosis risks.  Her husband had noticed what he should have known was mania.  He should have reported it to the doctor.  The doctor should have immediately acted to control the mania or hospitalized the woman until they could get it controlled.

Somebody along that whole chain of events failed in a major responsibility.  The first person in that chain of failure needs to go to jail for it.

If it was the pshrink's fault, his license needs to be yanked.

If the woman told the pshrink, when she was in a responsible state of mind, that she had told her husband what to watch for and she lied, then it wasn't "involuntary"---it was negligent, and she's responsible for it.

If I was the pshrink, I would have insisted on the husband knowing since they were both in the house with kids and he was the other custodial parent.

If the husband had been told and just blew it off, he was criminally negligent.

Somebody belongs in jail, and the pshrink *probably*, looking at the whole chain of events, was negligent and needs to lose his license.  But it's not the drug company, or the drug, or the drug rep that belongs in jail.

This comes down to the pshrink, the woman, and her husband.  One or all of them didn't do something vital that they absolutely had a responsibility to do and people died from the negligence.

It's nice and comfortable to blame the drug and say, "Oh, it's nobody's fault, it was just that big bad old evil nasty mean chemical."

The problem is, it's letting someone off the hoook whose *personal* criminal negligence caused deaths.

I don't know if it's the woman, the husband, or the doctor who's the guilty party here, or some combination of the three, but I know *at least* one of them is.

We don't like to call other people stupid, or socially obnoxious, or ignorant, or criminally negligent.  It's embarrassing.  It's "not nice."

It's "rude."

And it's a lot less socially unpleasant to blame an inanimate object or a big corporation when someone does something bad or a horrible accident happens.

Even when you have three people where at least one of them was clearly horribly criminally negligent and whose horrible criminal negligence *is* what caused the bad thing to happen.

"Nice" and "polite"---but wrong.

It's a terrible thing that the woman did.

A terrible thing that was the direct, personal, criminal fault of the doctor, the woman, and/or her husband.

Bad ol' me for saying so, but hell yes it was that person(s)' personal fault and not the fault of an inanimate chemical, or the company that makes and sells it, or the FDA.

Individuals personally close to the events failed to follow vital safety rules and people died.

Some people hate corporations so much they like to blame them for anything they can.  Some people hate "chemicals" or things that are "unnatural" so much they like to blame them for anything they can.  Some people just think it's "mean" or "rude" to blame anyone who's "suffered a loss" for things they screwed up that caused it to happen.

I guess people can have a lot of motivations to let someone off the hook for something they did.

But, hey, look, the emperor over there ain't got no clothes on!

It was their fault.

Timoclea

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
--Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist

On 2005-05-19 18:43:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Students are not provoked to act this way. They were obviously acting like jack asses before they got themselves into a program. What should parents do let there kids continue to destroy themselves with drugs and violence? Maybe I should be like the rest of the people on this forum and continue to not care. It is hard for me to understand what to do with these kids that are beating up others who are innocent and just happen to be standing in the way of a child who has a drug addiction or can't control himself. Tell me what would you do?  "

Well, first off, I'd take the bag off my head and step up to the plate.

I understand the survivors of bad stuff wanting their anonymity.

You, on the other hand, have no *good* excuse at all.

I use a handle, but anybody who reads here very long knows my real name, I don't hide it.

Why should I give any weight to your opinion if *you* don't believe in yourself and what you say enough to step up and stand behind it?

Everyone who knows me from this forum knows I support involuntary commitment of adults or children in certain situations, and what my standards for an appropriate facility are, and why.

So far, all you've given to support your argument is prejudice and hot air in a brown paper bag.

Continue to not care?  That's rich.  What do you think I'm here for, my health?

What I would do, since you asked, if I were you, is: first, take the bag off your head; second, instead of speaking from prejudice that assumes that any child whose parents want to send him away needs to be confined, I'd start talking about criteria and who decides; third, I'd start talking about appropriate standards for safe and effective facilities.

Oh, wait.  That's what I am doing.

That's what *most* of the parents and survivors (most of whom, if middle-aged, are *also* parents) here are doing.

If you really care, then the effective thing to do is step up to the plate and start discussing the meat of the issue.  The legislators are already discussing it, to a degree that virtually guarantees that in the next five years there *will* be significant legislation.  You can either take part in shaping the debate, or you can snipe from the sidelines.  But sniping from the sidelines isn't caring, it's just venting your spleen.

Sure, I do that.  Can't help it sometimes, even though I do try.  If you care so much, come out from behind the bag and get involved with the debate about criteria, and standards, and safeguards.

Timoclea

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there;  lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well;  but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=circlofmiamithem&keyword=mark+twain&mode=books' target='_new'> Mark Twain

Well, if you understand about Swift River, you can't be all bad.

I had a friend sent there and she had to smuggle in a CD of e-books to have books to read.  What kind of "school" thinks it's a good idea to force a child not to read?

Although they *did* let her have some books I sent her for Christmas.  They were the only things anyone sent that got through, and those only because they were on an "approved" list her flaky mother had given  and I sent them completely anonymously.

But I snuck in "A Handmaid's Tale" and Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning."

Not happy books, but *great* for their wisdom about surviving mind control.

Timoclea

Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
--Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

On 2005-05-12 19:15:00, Nihilanthic wrote:

"Anon, this is the bitch that chewed me out for consentual kinky sex with my GF... while she advocates their damn seminars!



Talk about rose colored glasses.

It is criminal to steal a purse. It is daring to steal a fortune. It is a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases

--Schiller (1759-1805)

"

Geez, Niles, it was that good that someone you've never met feels the need to bitch about it?

Well, hooah for you! :nworthy:  :nworthy:  :nworthy:

By the year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.
--Gloria Steinam, women's rights activist

Ginger, I only favor involuntary commitment if the person is *actively, immediately* dangerous to self or others.

But I do support continuing outpatient commitment for psychotic people with a history of being actively, immediately dangerous to others---what outpatient commitment is, for anyone who doesn't know, is ordering a patient to take his meds as a condition of staying out of the hospital.

If they took me off my meds and did a SPECT scan on my brain, patches of it all over the top left and top right, all over the place, would be bright red among the blue lines (on the black background for that kind of picture), with some patchiness around the front.  The red is from abnormally high blood flow to certain areas of the brain.  Even on my meds, if they scanned me, the picture would be patchy, particularly on the upper left temporal lobe in the language area.  It's why I write so much.  I have hypergraphia and no meds they've got even touch it---but I can get paid for it, too, so it's not so bad. :smile:

Maybe if you have bad PMS when you were PMSing you'd have some red patchiness, but not a patch on mine.

Just about everyone even remotely normal has a scan almost entirely of blue lines with two little red eggs down in the forward center.

They've got another kind of picture the scan puts out where your brain looks like a fluffy cloud.  ADHD?  There's little swiss cheese holes in the fluffy cloud picture in your frontal lobe when you're trying to concentrate.

Schizophrenic or got general paresis(iirc)?  Swiss cheese holes all over your brain.

Had brain damage from an injury?  Most likely a swiss cheese hole or two where you got injured in the fluffy cloud picture, but maybe you've got the high blood flow for an oddly-located red patch or few.

The unusual red patches go around your brain kind of like a ring, or maybe you've got big red blotches down low in the back in your limbic system?  Then chances are much higher that you have a problem with violence.

People shouldn't be imprisoned for their beliefs unless their belief is that they ought to or are justified in killing other people and they demonstrate a high willingness to act on those beliefs---like getting convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.  Even then, that qualifies you for a jail cell, IMO, not a mental hospital.

People like me, with serious mental illnesses that are clearly biological---need to be left the hell alone unless we become immediately and actively dangerous to self or others.  And the "self" bit is more a concession to the rest of society's norms than a personal belief.

People whose serious mental illness or serious brain damage makes them violent and actively dangerous to others really need to be quarantined in a mental hospital while they're dangerous so they won't hurt anybody; but with medications, those of us who have that happen to us can become not dangerous, get released, and live normal lives.

What it comes down to is none of the rest of you have to worry about someday, if someone *doesn't* commit you and needs to, maybe being so out of your head that you murder somebody.

Thank whatever you hold sacred that you *don't* have to worry about that personally.

Just about every mentally ill person I know would fall down on their knees and beg their family that if someday they got sick enough to maybe kill someone, and didn't know it, to be committed and stabilized so that that didn't happen and they didn't have to live with the realization that they had done horrible things when their mind finally cleared again.

Seeing how easy it is for seriously mentally ill adults to avoid treatment if we don't want it, I just have real trouble believing that non mentally ill adults can't *also* avoid it.

Timoclea

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
--Thomas Paine, American revolutionary

(This doesn't refer to Buzz, because I don't know that he *can't* understand the 2nd law of thermo, only that he apparently *doesn't*.)

I asked myself why.

Mostly, on the issue of what the Second Law of Thermodynamics does or doesn't say, and what the scientific terms in it do and don't mean, my answer to "why" is pretty much that they're just either stupid or ignorant.

It's not politically correct to call anyone stupid.

It's like all of us admit that there are stupid people in the world, but it's considered really rude to in any way point out who they are.

A *few* of the people who misquote the 2nd Law of Thermo are merely ignorant.

Most of them still don't understand the 2nd Law of Thermo and why it doesn't say or mean what they think it does after a very careful, precise, detailed explanation in very small words.

Someone who's never had the 2nd Law of Thermo explained reasonably well and misquotes it is merely ignorant.

Someone who wouldn't, or didn't, understand it even with a competent explanation is stupid.

It really is that simple.

They're not dishonest, they're just stupid.

Stupidity is not a character flaw.  I've known and do know and like some very nice people who, through no fault of their own, are stupid.

There's nothing inherently wrong with being stupid.  It's certainly better not to be, but it's not like anybody chooses it on purpose.

But a lot of the things wrong with public policy or society that go counter to what should be good sense happen because there's a critical point that most people are too stupid to understand.  It's a fundamental flaw in democracy, but all the alternative systems are even worse.

There's no point in arguing with someone who misquotes the 2nd Law of Thermo.  You can ask them to listen to an explanation and explain it briefly.  But if they continue to argue with you about it, trying to convince them is just a waste of time.

Some people are not capable of understanding why certain arguments they make are just factually, and/or logically wrong.

If they not only don't "get it" but can't "get it," debate is pointless.

They're not bad people, but debating them is pointless.

Timoclea

Never let your sense of
    morals get in the way of
    doing what's right
--Isaac Asimov

Yeah, everybody in *my* suburb-city has guns, too.  I live about 2 miles from Kennesaw Georgia where the law is that you *must* own a gun.

But we don't have the same problems of DC.

We *do* have a certain amount of petty theft, like anywhere else, but the criminals here make damned sure nobody's home before breaking into a house.

Wonder why that is?

Don't like the thugs in DC?  Change the law (but you'd have to talk to Congress for that) so that anybody who can pass a background check of being over 21, not a felon, and never involuntarily committed can get a permit to carry one.

Your thugs will get a lot more non-confrontational and a lot more inclined to property crime when there's absolutely *nobody* around than they are now.

Ah Gar-ohn-tee. (insert Cajun voice here)

It's not the guns.

It's that the decent people have to leave theirs home or skulk in fear about carrying one, while the criminals carry theirs with little fear.

In my town, the decent folks are confident and it's the criminal thugs who are afraid.

Yeah, I know the issue we're all here for shows us the dark side of "decent people" and the relative innocence of many of the kids some of the "decent people" demonize.  Most "decent people" really are decent and aren't Program Parents or Program owner/operators.  Most convicted felons really are thugs, and if they start actually attacking someone, dangerous thugs.

Don't take the lesson of Program drones and normal, pain-in-the-ass teens and extend the analogy too far.

Any group has its jerks.  Program people are the jerks of the "decent people" group.

Everybody here owns guns, and we're just fine.  It's not the guns.

Timoclea

Every man has a property in his own person.
This nobody has any right to but himself.
The labor of his body and the work of his
 hands are properly his.


--John Locke

I lied to my parents all the time about where I was going to be.  So did just about every teenager I knew.  I was just smart enough to never get caught in most of those lies.  I only got caught a very, very, very few times.

I went to a nationally ranked college, graduated with a 2.9 GPA (the average for students graduating in my major was 2.7), supported myself, ended up with a good job until I was married and had a daughter and we decided we could afford for me to be a stay-home mom.

Program advocates on here don't like my religion or my social skills, but I'm not a drunk, I don't take illegal drugs, I'm obviously not dead, and I've never been in jail.

I have a single drink, something between half a dozen and a dozen times a year.

I'm 38 and a productive member of the community.  What the program folks don't like is mostly that I actually have some individuality and don't follow their cookie-cutter script for what *they*, control freaks that they are, want their children to be.

I had sex, I drank underage, I was mentally ill and suicidal, and I got bad grades.

Grounding and whatever else my parents tried didn't stop me either.  I was going to do what I was going to do.  It just made me mistrustful of my parents and more careful than ever about not getting caught.

I'm fine.

My sister did the same, but she drank to the point of a problem, she smoked pot, once she got so trashed at a party that she stayed out overnight, she got medium-bad grades, screwed around with multiple guys (sequential, not cheating).  She was a real party girl.  And she lied to our parents about it all the time.

She took speed a few times in college.

She's 44, married with 2 kids, sober without support groups, doesn't drug, pays her taxes, has a decent job, graduated college with an associates degree (she's always had fantastic sales talents, so she didn't need a lot of higher education for a good career), attends her Christian fundamentalist church with the whole family every time the doors are open.

And other than coping successfully with an eating disorder, she's never had a problem with mental illness--lucky her.

Not dead.  Never been to jail other than overnight for a single DUI, no crash, years ago--it's what motivated her to sober up.  Not cold turkey, but with responsible moderation.  Now she's a teetotaler, but we were raised that way.

She's fine.

We're *typical* of people who were like us as teens.  We simply grew up.

We did some worse things that I'm just not comfortable listing.  We grew up.

The lying, the drinking, the screwing around, the occasional casual drug use, the dropping grades, the fights with parents, the anger and occasional destructive rages, the mood swings---all of that is normal teenage misbehavior.  

Those aren't troubled teens, those are teens who aren't as good as their peers at not getting caught.

Kids with mental illnesses or learning disabilities on top of all that normal teenage misbehavior aren't troubled teens, either.  They're just teens with mental illnesses or learning disabilities that need to be treated or accommodated.

Troubled teens are teens that are habitual truants; physically addicted to hard drugs so that they regularly flunk drug tests showing same (not merely showing marijuana use); teens that commit vandalism serious enough that it's reasonable when they're prosecuted; teens that actually start fights with smaller or weaker kids and injure them--more than once; teens that steal from other-than-parents by shoplifting more than once, or by breaking and entering; teens that get busted for driving drunk when they really were or teens that the parents catch driving drunk more than twice or riding with a drunk driver more than three times; teens that rape or kill; teens that torture animals; teens that have or play with illicit guns or explosives other than fireworks or an over-enthusiastic interest in chemistry; kids that are dealing hard drugs or dealing soft drugs other than sharing with their immediate friends; sneaking out at night more than about half a dozen times; physically addicted to alcohol to the point of getting the DTs without it; in the hospital more than once to get his/her stomach pumped; or running away from home more than twice where the teen is not running to a friend, relative, or boyfriend's house, or some independent rental roof over their head, but is genuinely running to the street.

That's what a troubled teen is.  That's the behavior that genuinely risks dead or in jail.

And even so most of the time the answer is one parent staying home to provide close supervision, or where the teen has a single parent, moving to the same town as a relative like a grandparent who can provide close supervision until the parent gets home from work.

All the other stuff is unacceptable, horrible behavior that the teen will outgrow and grow up from.  And probably nothing the parent tries will work to "stop" it.  The most you can reasonably do with a teen's unacceptable behavior is keep it down to a dull roar until they outgrow it.

I "get" that many parents would rather incarcerate their teen in a strict program than put up with the fact that nothing less is going to "stop" horrible but common teen misbehavior rather than keep it down to a dull roar.

But since most teens outgrow that stuff and outrageous rebellion and lots of totally unacceptable behavior and getting in lots of trouble over and over again is within the range of normal stuff that won't last beyond the teen years, I absolutely believe parents should not be *allowed* to incarcerate a teen for those things.

Timoclea

Every man has a property in his own person.
This nobody has any right to but himself.
The labor of his body and the work of his
 hands are properly his.


--John Locke