Posted by GeishaGirl on December 5, 2004, at 12:25:27
In reply to Re: Anyone else have Brain Damage? » GeishaGirl, posted by alexandra_k on December 3, 2004, at 19:09:32
Hi alexandra,
> I guess that the really hard thing to establish is whether you would have those things if you hadn't had the medication. I mean maybe they would be worse without the medication you had been prescribed. Maybe they are the symptoms of the mental illness rather than the treatment of it.
> That being said anytime I have trouble understanding what someone is saying or anytime I have trouble expressing myself I put it down to the bilateral ECT I had...
>
> I dunno.To me, that really depends on how one defines what is called 'mental illness'. For some, it is a chemical imbalance in the brain. The way I and many others see it, 'mental illness' is not a physical illness, but a reaction to trauma and/ or a spiritual crisis. In this line of thought, things that are seen as sypmtoms are actually side effects from meds. Others may be ways of coping in difficult times and go away when a person is feeling more balanced. My own experience with my brain hasn't gotten any better, with the exception of certain memory fucntions returning.
I would like to hear more about what you have to say regarding your feeling on what 'mental illness' means to you. I feel like this is an issue in the mental health communinty that goes too often unspoken. I think that a major problem in talking about all of this is that people are so angry about things that it ends up exploding into fighting and divisiveness. I hate seeing that happen. My way is an open and non-threatening, non-accusing style of dialogue. For me, that is the only way for me to process and think about what's going on in life and the world in general and allow me to either change my concepts and beliefs or find that what I feel still resonates with me.
Hope to hear from you.
Geisha Girl
poster:GeishaGirl
thread:423854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041202/msgs/424713.html