Garden of Daisies

8 Comments Add your own

• 1.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 12:38 am

  It’s nice having the passive option to act normal without drugs, isn’t it?

• 2.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 8:38 am

  i’m sure it is.

  i’ve spent most of the last six months, however, trying to convince my parents and doctors, that i don’t need drugs. i’m not passive on this one. i’m extremely active.

  http://patriciajane.com/index.php/2005/12/07/3-reasons-i-will-not-go-on-anti-depressants/

• 3.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 10:28 am

  Don’t get me wrong.

  Obviously there are problems people can and should fix on their own without drugs, dedication will get you farther in the long run. However, not all problems are readily fixed through time and tribulation.

• 4.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 12:18 pm

  readily |ˈredl-ē| adverb without hesitation or reluctance; willingly : he readily admits that the new car surpasses its predecessors. • without delay or difficulty; easily : [as submodifier ] illegal fireworks are readily available.

  no problems are fixed readily through time and tribulation. …by definition.

  it is true that there are drugs to make people feel better (or seem healthier), and if sick people are after a quick fix that is probably where they should turn.

  however, i am against the drug companies not because they don’t help people, but because the system they have helped to put in place have people believing that drugs are the *only* or even *best* way for them to get better. i think that is wrong. AND i think as long as drug companies have as much money as they do, and as long as psychiatric experiments are funded directly or indirectly by drug compaines, the truth of the fact that they are not the best solution will never reach people.

• 5.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 10:59 pm

  Eeech, Padg, my dear, I take __ with this point of yours:

  it is true that there are drugs to make people feel better (or seem healthier), and if sick people are after a quick fix that is probably where they should turn.

  Granted, I’m sitting and marking papers right now (peer review en masse for PSY290), so I’m in a rather pedantic mood. Forgive me for that in advance. But feeling better and seeming healthier are sometimes the only options. In the cases of chronic illness (this is where I self-identifyingly raise my hand in the air and wave it around like I just don’t care), what else is there? I use naturopathy to complement my pharmaceuticals (and use my pharmaceuticals to complement my naturopathy…it is a two-way street, after all, with no superior), but the fact is that neither is really, ultimately curing me. (Case in point: deprive me of my 40-some-odd daily pills for a few weeks and watch me leave Graduate House to take up long-term residence in Mount Sinai Hospital.) AND it is worth mentioning that both find me chemically altering my system (including the dietary changes recommended by my naturopath). And neither is a quick fix, but, rather, more like a long-term negotiation: I leash myself to a few bottles of pills, I get to live a relatively normal life for a while. So it goes.

  Truly, my qualm there is quite literalist in nature, but I think it is worth saying.

  I agree with your last statement there–it’s really unfortunate that pharmaceuticals are so often presented as the only (or the best) choice. There is, after all, a reason it took me so long to see a naturopath…

  (Ah, I do love a healthy debate [pun fully intended]!)

• 6.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 11:00 pm

  Oops, that ‘___’ after take was supposed to say ‘issue.’ I had momentarily blanked on the word…

• 7.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 11:13 pm

  interesting.

  i definately acknowledge what you’re saying, 100%. from reading what i wrote a while back on my refusal to take antidepressants, you’ve probably already read my rather harsh take on chronic illnesses…which i do admit i am probably able to hold only because i am not personally afflicted with one (and certainly the discovery that i may have a chronic mental illness (to give depression a over-the-top classification) definately tested my stance, but in the end it held strong). …..at the end of the day, i don’t think drugs are the right way to go. HOWEVER that i acknowledge as my opinion, and readily accept that i could be dreadfully wrong.

  What I stand by 100%, however, is being against the drug culture that is pharmeceutical companies and where their fingers end up lying in research labs both for bodily and psychological health. It’s as bad as the lobbyiests that demanded roads rather than railways when developing this great landmass of north american that have left us fucked in need of oil now only to have more lobbyiests keeping us stuck there. These companies have their survival in mind when they fund projects, and scientiests working on projects a. have been indoctrinated to believe drugs are the way to go, and b. risk losing funding if they bring back too many ‘we actually found a drug-free way to fix this’ results (because God knows the naturopaths can’t fund any studies).

  Aryuveda interests me. Eastern views of bodily health in general interest me. I think there are sooo many things that the structure of the drug culture are preventing us from learning that it breaks my heart. ….and i stand by that…

• 8.  |  March 14th, 2006 at 11:16 pm

  …which is partly to say….that i know you’re not the type to be after a quick fix….but doesn’t it infuriate you to think that you are going to all this effort with pharmeceutical bandaids etc etc….when it’s possible that if research were being conducted in another way your effort could be bringing back more natural results?

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