reference to early 90's hip-hop inserted to annoy halford.
And here I'd thought it was to the Highlander sequel.
There's a classic post by Scicurious (who has to be believed because she has a tattoo of a caffeine molecule on her back) which is relevant:
No, no, risperdal sucks. It made me shake so hard that I couldn't walk safely and I don't even remember what other horrible symptoms. For me it was Prozac/Zyprexa, now but not then available as some kind of combo drug to beat the patents, that was the final offer, though then I went for several years without health insurance and thus without any psych meds. But since I was in a somewhat abusive relationship, at least I got to experience being depressed for a good reason rather than no particular reason.
I should have just put this on one of the other threads, but I'm feeling lazy. Anyhow, despite having had the serious world-made-of-scary-paper kind of major depression, I've gone entirely without medication for almost all of the last decade and all of the last five years. Lee gets the grumpy kind of minor depression and needs (or feels a need) to be in meds, placebo, etc. and we can both tell when she's skipped a dose. It's a little weird to be the one who looks saner on paperr, though our adoption homestudy has a lot about both of our mental health histories. All over the place it says that my counselor at the time thought I'd have a hard time parenting if I blamed myself for troubles the kid might be having, which is true and probably accurate about my general tendencies, but hasn't turned out to be what's happened. Despite having this all history, I'm surprising myself by being pretty good at parenting so far.
Okay, now back to making plans for fancy metropolitan drinks and antipsychotics.
After several days of hearing a friend narrate the not-particularly-slow-motion crisis of an adolescent stepchild, it occurs to me that there is many a slip 'twixt the scrip and a modicum of stability in many cases the problem of compliance (or even buy-in) with the prescribed regime. Because my poor friend and the relevant spouse are at their wits' end.
I agree risperdal sucks, but there is a thing that happens to you, which I think can be fairly described as "becoming less psychotic" where "psychotic" means "fuck she's going to kill someone, or herself, and she's hearing voices." it's not great or anything, it makes you feel like life is behind nine panes of glass, I got fat and hated myself extra. I didn't take it for a long time. but I think it can reasonably be said to have stabilized me after a psychotic episode, and then I stopped taking it and was ok again.
again, people should not be handing out risperdal like crazy, because it makes you feel horrible, and getting that shit when what you need is more attention, more staff on the nursing home floor, etc. is wrong and a nightmare. nonetheless it stabilizes lots of people who are psychotic, and I don't think anyone imagines that's a placebo effect.
Risperdal is probably better than what they had in the old days.
Which reminds me. Have you heard the one about the religious order that runs a sanitarium and has minor clergymen who administer antipsychotic injections? If you come to them with active psychosis, you'll soon see the Haloperidol Diaconate.
Isn't this like the fourth NYC meetup this year? I'm jealous. When do DC-area commentariat get to have one? I'm pretty sure there hasn't been one since I moved into DC itself last September. You all suck.
Well, that's not fair, there's no reason I couldn't get the ball rolling myself. Hmmm. Well, this weekend I have plans. Next weekend I should probably be available for my girlfriend, who's taking the Bar right after it and has been going a bit crazy studying. I might be free the weekend of the 30th, but a friend of mine might need help moving, no one's sure yet. The weekend of Aug. 6 I have plans. I might be free in mid-August, but I'm traveling in late August and early September.
OK, so I admit that planning this kind of thing is harder than it looks. However, why wait? Tonight, I'm going to a Bastille Day party at 18th & U, and if I'm feeling really brave I may wave around a Motumbo sign and see if anyone responds.
I may also be in DC sometime after the 2nd week of august and if so I will organize a meetup. what bar is the fresh salt of DC?
The weekend of Aug. 6 I have plans.
Not that it would have worked anyway (I'll be playing music at some random venue off U Street), but I was going to point out that I'll be in DC that very same weekend. (Also in NYC, but, you know, same meetup-impairing problem with the playing of the music.)
On preview: it looks like al has your back.
what bar is the fresh salt of DC?
The DC Eagle?
I didn't know the phrase "fresh salt", but on Googling it I found a place in NYC by that name. You mean a DC place like it? (On preview, I guess I should have reread the post title, shouldn't I.) Looking at the Web site, the place it most reminds me of is DC9. Alternately, a previous DC meetup has been at Saint Ex, both of which are in the U St. area. Also at least a third place I can't remember now.
Stanley, out of curiosity, when and where exactly is that gig in DC? You're welcome to e-mail me if you don't want it right here on the blog. I said I have plans that weekend, but not every single minute of it, and it might be fun to drop by if I can.
I didn't know the phrase "fresh salt"
Apo, quit it. Cyrus, it's a disgusting sexual act. Apo's just trying to make you look silly.
12: I'll shoot you an email in a bit.
you should publicize yourself more, at least in comments, stanley, nu? lurkers could support you in meatspace.
A question: hands up all the Ukfoggeders who regularly take or have taken psychiatric medication. Compare and contrast results with the broader community.
14
Apo, quit it. Cyrus, it's a disgusting sexual act. Apo's just trying to make you look silly.
*shrug* He should challenge himself more.
16: Yeah, I don't know why I'm skittish about it, but I am. Happy to supply details to (almost!) anyone by email, though.
re: 17
I never have [unless you count thyroid stuff], but quite a few people I know (irl, not online) have at one time or another.
Same here. Never have, plenty of close friends and boyfriends have.
My count is running at 14:1 so far. Of course, there may well be 14 US users to each international user.
17: I have and do. buproprion works for me, unlike prozac, zoloft, and effexor.
I've never taken any psychiatric medications, but a decent argument could be made that I've been self-medicating with non-approved substances since high school.
sort of stupid for me to put my hand up now, ain't it? my mom, dad, step-mom, sister, and brother except when he's in one of his "true self" moments (which seem to involve more bong hits than the ideal true self) all take them. my step-dad did before he killed himself (in part by saving them up!) my bro's gf, my husband, and some undetermined number of my cousins do not (I put it at 50%). the conclusion that my family is crazy is overdetermined. the child psychiatrist has flirted with the idea of baby valium for my oldest child. half of me thinks, fuck no, and the other, jesus, if she could just take some liquid valium everyday she wouldn't be this anxious insomniac.
24: I say it's more than decent, bro. it's a fucking awesome argument.
re: 24
Well, this, yes. With booze, anyway.
I have never taken any psychiatric medication and am such a square that I have only once filled a prescription for opiate-based painkillers (college, wisdom teeth, one Tylenol-3 tablet, nauseated drowsiness). I am not what one would call the life of the party.
Have not taken. 2 out of 4 of spouse/children have, 1 out of 4 of sibs/parents have (to my knowledge). So 3 of 9 across that slice of "family".
My drug of choice is meeting life with a stalwart can-do attitude--systematically confronting experience with logic and compassion. Also a large stick.
My drug of choice is the rush, bro the action da pump adrenaline Jesus Batman things filled with caramel.
Have taken Zoloft, for 2-3 years over a decade ago (after Prozac caused highly unpleasant vivid dreams that I still remember 15 years later).
But I just noticed that Alex in 17 was asking UK commenters.
32.2: was asking UK commenters.
D'oh! Never mind. I don't know you. Who is this? Don't come here, I'm hanging up the phone! Prank caller, prank caller!
But I just noticed that Alex in 17 was asking UK commenters.
For the purposes of comparing to the broader community. As a member of which, I've never taken psychiatric medication.
Me neither, nor anyone in my nuclear family. I had an uncle who was diagnosed bipolar, but I was too young to know what he was doing treatment-wise before he killed himself.
Friends, I know a bunch of people on meds.
my nuclear family
What is the proper way to distinguish between your two different nuclear families without being as awkward as I was in 30? Does this mean to cover both?
I was using it to cover both -- my childhood nuclear family (parents, sister) and my adult nuclear family (husband, kids).
36: Make everyone wear colored hats. We do it every Thanksgiving.
1 -- but I love! early 90s hip hop.
Related: I have it on excellent authority that Snoop, while going by "Snoop" or his given name to friends and family, insists that his lawyers, accountants, and agents address him as "Dogg." As in, "Yes, Dogg, we agree that there is a problem with the indemnification provisions in Paragraph 7."
I refuse to have a nuclear family until we figure out how to safely dispose of their waste.
37: Just to be clear, I wasn't really meaning to pry into *your* family; I had just sort of gotten stopped by it writing my response and realized that it is not always clear and I did not come up with an easy fixes. Although, yours work.
I've never taken meds, but some of my friends have.
"Yes, Dogg, we agree that there is a problem with the indemnification provisions in Paragraph 7."
That reminds me of Wu-Tang Financial Services.
I took Lexapro(? sp?) for about a month after one divorce. It felt great and I felt totally evened out. Then, my psychologist told me that it took a month for the effects to manifest and that I probably wasn't clinically depressed anyway, even though I totally felt like shit all the time. The placebo effect at work.
Certainly self medicate with booze, used to with other dodgy shit. Did a two month course of amitryptemine (sp?) when I was about 23. Meh. Got over it.
I've never taken any psychiatric meds, but I've often wondered if I might be a candidate for the occasional beta blocker for performance anxiety.
I have considered meds for my anxiety disorder, which renders me periodically non-functional. But if I can get by without them, I will. I have seen my friends go through such dramatic personality changes that it feels like a last resort to me. Not being able to recognize myself is a big fear.
The placebo affect is real for all sorts of ailments. Anecdata is not proof for asthma treatment any more than it is for depression treatment. Just look at all the people who think homeopathy works (which is definitionally a placebo affect because you're just drinking water). Which is not to say that any particular instance necessarily is a case of placebo affect, only that it might be.
Because I can't say it to the person I want to say it to: For fuck's sake it isn't that hard, you certainly don't need to keep pestering my colleague about it within earshot, and what part of "after I finish with this other thing" seems unreasonable to you.
50: I took the homeopathic cure for dehydration and it worked great.
his given name to friends and family, insists that his lawyers, accountants, and agents address him as "Dogg." As in, "Yes, Dogg, we agree that there is a problem with the indemnification provisions in Paragraph 7."
I refer to most of my clients the same way. Bc I am hip and cool like that.
I've been on and off assorted psychotropic drugs since high school. I've had assorted diagnoses, too, the longest-sticking one being "bipolar II", however, the more recent consensus is that most, if not all, of my psychiatric symptoms are related to/caused by other neurological-ish problems (the symptoms of which include hearing loss, loss of balance, and some movement-disorder-type-stuff) so that I'm no longer taking any of the mood stabilizers that had previously been used. Since I haven't had any particular change in mood or behavior since stopping, everyone seems to now think I was never bipolar in the first place.
I'm currently taking mirtazapine, which my psychiatrist claims has a much better effectiveness rate in tests than other antidepressants.
Also, I live in DC, I'll go to a meetup.
If it is on the correct weekend, BR and I would come to a DC meetup.
And she is a professor of pharmacy and an expert on anxiety meds......
"Yes, Dogg, we agree that there is a problem with the indemnification provisions in Paragraph 7."
That confidentiality provision is whack. A twenty-year term? Caucasian, please.
confronting experience with logic and compassion
What a great phrase. I've been thinking about core beliefs lately, and these two are what I have left. I had a pretty lengthy email exchange about this recently.
They're in conflict pretty often, obvs, and deciding who gets the compassion is tricky, as well as what compassionate action is for people who help make their own problms.
I refer to most of my clients the same way.
Fo' shizzle, my cliezzle.
OT: Are any of the UK commenters in the Cambridge area? A good friend of mine just got a faculty appointment there and will, with his wife and daughter, be relocating from his current home in Seattle. They've lived in the UK before (well, not the daughter, she wasn't born yet) but were in London then (back around 2003). They're great people and it would be great to link them up with some Unfogged-approved types if any are available.
Which reminds me, are there any other Unfoggedomites in Portland besides Jesus? We have friends here in Austin moving there soon. I've already linked them up with JMcQ, but just in case he turns out to be a jerk in real life, it would be good to have backups arranged.
Isn't that where Emerson's sister-in-law makes the world's best pie? Not that she comments here, but still, pie.
D to the izz-O, I to the izz-A
Fo' shizzle my nizzle used to dribble down in VA
V to the izz-O, O to the izz-A
That's the anthem get'cha damn hands up
R to the izz-O, C to the izz-A
Not guilty ya'll got-ta feel me
E to the izz-O, Free from chain to the izz-A
That's the anthem get'cha damn hands UP!
59. I think Werdna Nworb hails from that part of the world, but he doesn't come around much any more. Maybe one of the Londoners could reactivate him.
62: "Caucasian is" s/b "cracka's"
My apologies.
45: The internets (including lexapro.com) say that Lexapro can take anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks to have an effect.
Towards the end of 2010, I tried a series of meds for about 2 weeks apiece (aplenzin, pristiq, lexapro), which was long enough to note distinct effects from each, before getting dumped by my then-girlfriend, which turned out to be an extremely effective antidepressant. I've been on a steady dose of not dating her for the past 8 months and feel great.
Will, that's a fantastic song, and I like the acoustic version even better. Maybe I'll introduce my neighbors to it when I get home.
65: If she sat down to pee, you probably had no choice but to leave heer.
Adderall was pretty life-changing for me, when I had health insurance and could afford it.
||
Here's a helpful life lesson for everyone: make sure your spare tire hasn't gone flat in the year since you last checked it. It is very dispiriting when, en route to pick your brother up from the airport, you get a flat on the highway, and then, after changing it on the shoulder in rush hour and being covered with grease and grime, discover that the tire you just put on is equally, if not more, flat when compared to the one you took off.
|>
69: That does cause a problem. I have one of those cans to reinflate a tire, but I probably should check the 17 year old spare in my car. Hope AAA can help you.
71: I'm home now. I don't have AAA, and my phone (it turns out) won't actually do relay calls like it's supposed to. So I texted a friend who called a tow truck. Then midway through that (well. Towards the end) my phone died and I couldn't tell if my last text about my exact location had gone through. Luckily it had, and the tow truck came and brought me to a tire store and between them they took all my money.
Now I have a beer, though, so all is not lost.
69: Run-flats are the future of not being killed by tweaking truckers while changing tires on the roadside.
The problem was that the valve was leaking. The tire itself is fine. Supposedly.
Not the spare, though, I had to drive on that between the tow truck and the entrace of the (tiny, filthy, very entertaining) tire place, which killed it dead.
I went directly from being super proud of myself for being able to change the tire all by myself amidst such stressful surroundings, to being really very irritated with myself for not having paid attention to the spare more recently.
I took risperidone once though I've never been psychotic. It was a pretty low dose. Supposed to help with agitation too and it didn't.
Also risperidone sucks for my Mom. She was way more lucid on Seroquel, but that had two major problems: (1.) it made her too sleepy; and (2.) she had horrible nightmares.
With the hard-core resistant psychosis, the next gen clozaril is the shit. Unfortunately, even it isn't fool proof. See the sad story of my client.
Now reading the thread, I have taken and obviously do take psych meds, but my family is full of crazy people. (My mom was recently in a state hospital.) That's not general U.S. overprescribing. Hell, my Mom fought all the meds other than ativan.
But I also get a lot of therapy. Maybe by UK standards that's navel-gazing, but it's not using drugs to try to avoid hard situations. It's using drugs (and therapy actually--maybe a "crutch") to be able to function.
47: Propranalol was way more helpful with general anxiety for me than benzos or SSRIs. Of course, everyone's different. Biohazard took them for heart stuff, and they sucked for him.
Someone must be building up a very interesting database. Cock photos, income, psychiatric medications taken, ...
Database or a great party, especially once this turns into a food thread?
I've never been mentally ill, but I also never thought I'd live to be thirty. Not for any specific reason, mind you. I just... wasn't sure I'd make it. And I still can't imagine myself living to be fifty or sixty, though I'm starting to think I should take better care of my teeth, just in case I need them to last that long.
I have only once filled a prescription for opiate-based painkillers (college, wisdom teeth, one Tylenol-3 tablet, nauseated drowsiness)
Opiate-based painkillers are routinely...interesting. I think we had a discussion of medical fashion/culture a while back. It's routinely observed that French doctors tend to use "P for Plenty" as a prescribing guide, especially for painkillers, while British ones tend to tell you you're not really in pain. Yet.
The score is now at 17:2, by the way.
do french people go with p for percodan? cause that would be salutary on the whole.
Fuck, my ear is in pain. Cold from hell pretended that it was going away and now won't.
RE: DC meetup.
Clan Chalk is in DC this weekend. Molly and I would love to meet up with anyone in the area tonight or tomorrow night. We have a car and can leave the kids with grandma.
84: There is an extensive literature, from the other direction, about how ethnicity affects how people report pain. As you might expect, east Asians won't admit to being in pain until they are ready to pass out from it. I remember specifically that Iranians are big whiners, but I don't know if that extended to Lur.
Unrelatedly, remember when I was stuck in the Peabody Hotel in Orlando with a drag-racing parts convention and a dance championship for schoolgirls? They've made a movie of it!
t's routinely observed that French doctors tend to use "P for Plenty" as a prescribing guide, especially for painkillers, while British ones tend to tell you you're not really in pain.
Oh, big time. I don't think I've ever been prescribed painkillers by any doctor in Britain, but you break one bone in France and the inside of your car starts to look like the Great White Whale from "Fear and Loathing".
UK commenter: never been prescribed psychiatric medication. Except Lariam. Wow, what a ride.
I don't think I've ever been prescribed painkillers by any doctor in Britain
You live in the wrong part of Britain, mate. I have a repeat prescription for codeine phosphate that I can call up on line any time I want. Also, when I had major surgery about 15 years ago they stuck an IV cannula in my neck feeding me morphine for 96 hours solid. Wheeee!!!!
88: I could do either, but tomorrow (Saturday) would be marginally better for me.
88: Not sure if I'm available tomorrow or not (things still up in the air, but I am tonight. How does Local 16 at 7 p.m. sound? Nice place, mostly a bar but they have a dinner menu to choose from too. There are lots of places to go, but I'm assuming that on a Friday night like tonight, any place is going to be crowded. I'm open to suggestions on where to go. Anyone else interested?
89: I'm going to guess that it does. Call it a hunch based on not any actual Lurs at all.
92: Well, remember I'm younger than you, chris. You're from the rock and roll generation, of course you've taken a lot of drugs.
I remember specifically that Iranians are big whiners
It's all Mossadeq this, SAVAK that, marg bar Amrika...
We can do 7 tonight (Friday) at Local 16. Does someone with the keys to this blog move the notice to the front page?
97: That would be nice. Not sure if they'll bother for such a small group, though. It's you, Molly, me, and probably E. Messily, right? Plus any lurkers or DC residents that might show up on short/no notice, of course.
Also, I posted 94 before I saw 93, but my schedule for Saturday is looking better if it matters to E. Messily or anyone else who might like to come. Still just tossing out suggestions here.
I'll try to show up tonight. I've never lurked in person before. And, I just moved to DC!
It's much more effective in person. The trick is to sit down not at the table with the other commenters, but at the next table, and then listen ostentatiously.
Apo, how come you didn't notice this before Saiselgy did?
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/07/15/270254/fun-with-datasets/
100: you joke, but Von Wafer totally did that at a meetup once.
That's the kind of commitment we expect from our lurkers.
102: Was that one of the ones in Boston, during the summer?
I can do tonight, I just am more tired than (I hope) I will be tomorrow. If the planning machines are already in gear, it's probably best to keep to the plan. Local 16 at 7 it is.
re: 91
Yeah. They never give me useful stuff. Codeine when I had a post-surgical infection, but I didn't take it as I don't like it. But when I've had any number of very painful things happen they tend to just recommend nurofen, and when I tell them I can't take that, the response is basically 'tough shit'. I think the good anti-inflammatories are rationed for old people or some such.
I assumed that nurofen was a brand of ibuprofen, but I googled it all the same. I did not realize that it was developed by Boots.
Does someone with the keys to this blog move the notice to the front page?
You betcha.