Posted by Larry Hoover on November 16, 2003, at 10:17:02
In reply to Howya Doin, Larry?, posted by Destroyo on November 15, 2003, at 23:39:14
In simple reply to the subject line, living the perpetual struggle, one day at a time, thanks, and you?
> My dad went to a mental health seminar not long ago (I was not in attendance) at which a doctor railed against depression sufferers for drinking when under his care, To wit: "drinking interferes with the efficacy of the mediacation, and it only makes their condition worse". Well, with all due respect to the good doctor; there's an alternative perspective....consider; do his patients fail to thrive because they drink, or do they drink, because they fail to thrive as the result of his treatments?
That may well be a false dilemma. Yet another alternative is that the treatments provided are incomplete. One must consider the benefits accruing from alcohol use before one can find more suitable substitutes. The lack of congruence between the effects of alcohol vs. e.g SSRI medication does not invalidate the proposition that alcohol use can both render the medication ineffective and exacerbate the presenting symptoms. I cannot think of a neurotranmsitter that alcohol does not affect; moreover, sleep architecture is disturbed, leading to chronic sleep deprivation, which has its own adverse physiological effects.
> You're a great guy Larry,
Careful, I won't get my head through the door....
> you pointed out to one of our numerous sufferers at our forum that "the perfect person" was a myth; that is TIMELESS wisdom.
My wisdom is hard-won. I might write a book one day.
> My dad; well, damn, he IS quite literally; perfect, I kid you not. Only thing is, he's also an unpredictable PSYCHO. He's had several wives (my stepmons), but both my sisters, myself, and all his former wives (most of whom that I got along with better than he) will tell you that he has psychotic episodes. Want an example?, He helped me move not long ago, from one location to another, a mere distance of 300 yds. in the same city; My weight tends to fluctuate, so I wanted to keep around 20 diferent pairs o' pants. This set off his psychosis in a most extreme manner. Literally, for FOUR HOURS, we argued; he kept hassling me by repeating the same argument over and over again, to wit: NO ONE NEEDS MORE THAN 7-8 PAIRS OF PANTS! Biz-z-a-r-r-e, That's a classic definition of psychosis....your behavior is totally dysfunctional and innappropriate; yet you're the last one to know.
Reading that, psychosis did not come to mind at all. Sound much more like OCD. His inability to come to compromise with you reflects more his innordinate requirement to follow a rule; he quite clearly perceived reality, but his interpretation of it was not rational.
> I'm tellin' ya Lar, I live in "interesting times". I love my Dad, but b'God, what am I gonna do. He's a Psycho, and I'm a Schizo.
Truly? Schizo? You've only spoken of depression (in the posts I've read....I don't read them all).
> Mental illness, in my family, to use that wonderful ol' Hank William's Jr. Song, is just "An Ol' Family Tradition."
Mine too. 100% incidence. Que sera.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:280125
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031113/msgs/280249.html