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In America, we call these mental health facilities "prisons", and they are currently benefiting over 2 million citizens. But only 60% have serious mental health issues. But we are working to increase that percentage, and the corresponding profits.

I'm sick and tired of your idiotic posts.

I hope you die of cancer this year.

The true cancer in society, is adult children like you who cannot seem to handle the hard fucking truth.

Perhaps you should shut the fuck up and go play in the corner while the adults talk. Obviously you're too immature to handle this conversation, especially since the parents post was merely stating fact. What exactly do you need to confirm the state of our mental health system? Another dozen mass shootings? If so, give it a month or two. Tops.

In America, we call these mental health facilities "prisons", and they are currently benefiting over 2 million citizens. But only 60% have serious mental health issues. But we are working to increase that percentage, and the corresponding profits.

I'm sick and tired of your idiotic posts.

I hope you die of cancer this year.

It is better to start investigating whether mental health services could help that person live a better life

In America, we call these mental health facilities "prisons", and they are currently benefiting over 2 million citizens. But only 60% have serious mental health issues. But we are working to increase that percentage, and the corresponding profits.

Unfortunately we have a Conservative Party here in Canada that would dearly love to privatize our prison system and start incarceration for profit American style. They already made some moves in that direction a few years back and promptly were handed their collective asses on a platter for that along with their muzzling of federally employed scientists and statistical analysts.

What scares me more about what is happening in Canada is the worst asshole racists are starting to come out of the closet now that the US has one huge racist criminal asshole as President.

The statistical information is useful only in as much as defining areas that need different types of policing. It is a shame to see the popular attitude toward law enforcement at such a low that the good and necessary work done by kind and decent individuals goes unnoticed. WHO would you rather have taking care of a traffic accident or a mass shooting or a home invasion, a bunch of vigilante asshole rednecks or decent professional law enforcement personnel? I am sick and tired of the news media portraying police as bunch of misbegotten misanthropic bullies with billy clubs, guns and mace!

It is better to start investigating whether mental health services could help that person live a better life

In America, we call these mental health facilities "prisons", and they are currently benefiting over 2 million citizens. But only 60% have serious mental health issues. But we are working to increase that percentage, and the corresponding profits.

Is figure out why so many who are on SSRI's or had recently stopped taking them, become suicidal or go on shooting rampages, or both.

It's people like you who encourage the stigma that we're in this mess where people go untreated for decades/lifetime, in spite of the fact that over 1/4 of everyone suffers from a diagnosable mental illness in any given year.

One in four adults - approximately 61.5 million Americans experiences mental illness in a given year. One in 17 - about 13.6 million - live with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder.1

-- NAMI http://www.nami.org/factsheets...

I ask you, where the fuck is the Ice Bucket Challenge for mental illness? That's something I asked last Wednesday at my DBSA meeting. I'm asking it here. Where the fuck is it? We've got the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer, yet more women suffer from mental illness than have ever had breast cancer. But there is pink everywhere.

Unfortunately, NAMI is only there for caregiver support and even for that they are absolutely silent in the media. They do absolutely bupkis for people who actually suffer from mental illness. Support is nearly nonexistent. I don't know of any foundation that supports the treatment of mental illness, raises awareness or even works to end the stigma. And for people who suffer from mental illness, there is not anything in the way of patient support/guidance (like who you should see for what). It's all "fly by the seat of your pants" stuff, and when you are in the middle of a major depressive episode even asking for help from anyone is daunting or even impossible.

I came here to call you a jerk, but I figured I'd say something more informative.

Bye.

--
BMO/Dan

"it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience."
-- William Styron, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

As can be seen from the graph below, schizophrenia definitely has a very significant genetic component. Those who have a third degree relative with schizophrenia are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as those in the general population. Those with a second degree relative have a several-fold higher incidence of schizophrenia than the general population, and first degree relatives have an incidence of schizophrenia an order of magnitude higher than the general populace.

The causes of schizophrenia are not fully known. However, it appears that schizophrenia usually results from a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Schizophrenia has a strong hereditary component. Individuals with a first-degree relative (parent or sibling) who has schizophrenia have a 10 percent chance of developing the disorder, as opposed to the 1 percent chance of the general population. But schizophrenia is only influenced by genetics, not determined by it. While schizophrenia runs in families, about 60% of schizophrenics have no family members with the disorder. Furthermore, individuals who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia don’t always develop the disease, which shows that biology is not destiny.

Unlike other genetic conditions such as Huntington's or cystic fibrosis, it is believed that no one single gene causes the disease by itself but rather that several genes are associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia. While schizophrenia occurs in one percent of the general population, having a history of family psychosis greatly increases the risk. Schizophrenia occurs at roughly ten percent of people who have a first-degree relative with the disorder, i.e., a parent or sibling. However, the highest risk occurs when an identical twin is diagnosed with schizophrenia. The unaffected twin has a roughly 50 percent chance of developing the disorder. The genetic component appears to extend beyond family environment. For example, children with a parent living with schizophrenia who were put up for early adoption still develop schizophrenia at a higher rate than the rest of the of the population.

Further down the page, the US government weighs in:

Scientists have long known that schizophrenia runs in families. The illness occurs in 1 percent of the general population, but it occurs in 10 percent of people who have a first-degree relative with the disorder, such as a parent, brother, or sister. People who have second-degree relatives (aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins) with the disease also develop schizophrenia more often than the general population. The risk is highest for an identical twin of a person with schizophrenia. He or she has a 40 to 65 percent chance of developing the disorder. We inherit our genes from both parents. Scientists believe several genes are associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia, but that no gene causes the disease by itself.16 In fact, recent research has found that people with schizophrenia tend to have higher rates of rare genetic mutations. These genetic differences involve hundreds of different genes and probably disrupt brain development.

Some of those links include actual cites from scientific studies, by the way. I'm not going to bother locating physical copies of those journals and don't have a pubmed subscription, but you're welcome to look them up if you'd like.

The fact is that Foxconn has HALF the suicide rate of Italy, which has the LOWEST rate in Europe.

Hmmm, according to Wikipedia, Greece has about half the rate of Italy... but your comparison is void anyway because:

a) An entire nation has a much more diverse population. Alcoholics, mentally ill, elderly etc. ("about 90 percent of persons who completed suicides in all age groups had [have] a diagnosable mental or substance abuse disorder" link). A young workforce that has been selectively recruited should have much lower levels of mental and substance abuse than the general population, and hence, much lower levels of suicide.

b) Foxconn apparently has a predominantly young, female workforce. Looking at the figures from Wikipedia, the female suicide ratio is about 1/5th that of the male. Until you know the exact gender and age makeup of Foxconn's workforce you can't compare stats accurately, but we would expect a predominantly female workforce to have a much lower suicide rate than the "average" (50/50ish gender mix).

c) All the articles from May-June that mention "14 suicides per 400,000 workers this year" are cunningly refering to "this year" as the period January-May.That is not 12 months, that is 5 months, so the calculated suicide rate from those articles is incorrect.

The correct comparison would be: what is the expected suicide rate given the age/gender of Foxconn employees, either compared to a similar population in manufacturing jobs in the West or China (depending on what point you want to debate). This comparison has not been done by any of the sites on the net that discussed this topic, and the ones that have compared the suicide rate to the general population are being blatantly dishonest due to point a) above.

Another tidbit is also likely explains why I get moderated to hell is that many mental illnesses also show up on MRIs. Which suggests diseases such as sociopaths and psychopaths, among many others, are not actually diseases.

Yes, that *is* probably why you get moderated to hell, because you're *plainly wrong*. Sorry, but the idea of mind-body separation, originally championed by René Descartes in the first half of the *17th century*, was proven to be bullshit, along with most of Freudian psychoanalysis, a long time ago. And good riddance since these bodies of ideas have plagued the understanding and treatment of mental illness ever since.

Your *brain is an organ* and as such is subject to affliction by many and various disorders and *diseases* that interfere with its normal functioning.

And if you're wondering, yes I have a mental illness ( OCD ) and I know many others that do as well ( and have known, as some have taken their own lives ) as my family is heavily involved in NAMI. You're comment, which comes only a day after the Nami Metropolitan Houston Walk, is a testament to how far we still have to go as a society in ridding ourselves of destructive ignorance such as you possess. Welcome to the 21st century.

jdb2

Another tidbit is also likely explains why I get moderated to hell is that many mental illnesses also show up on MRIs. Which suggests diseases such as sociopaths and psychopaths, among many others, are not actually diseases.

Yes, that *is* probably why you get moderated to hell, because you're *plainly wrong*. Sorry, but the idea of mind-body separation, originally championed by René Descartes in the first half of the *17th century*, was proven to be bullshit, along with most of Freudian psychoanalysis, a long time ago. And good riddance since these bodies of ideas have plagued the understanding and treatment of mental illness ever since.

Your *brain is an organ* and as such is subject to affliction by many and various disorders and *diseases* that interfere with its normal functioning.

And if you're wondering, yes I have a mental illness ( OCD ) and I know many others that do as well ( and have known, as some have taken their own lives ) as my family is heavily involved in NAMI. You're comment, which comes only a day after the Nami Metropolitan Houston Walk, is a testament to how far we still have to go as a society in ridding ourselves of destructive ignorance such as you possess. Welcome to the 21st century.

jdb2

While, yes, the "consumer" thing is true, it's taken out of context. It's less of a "code word" than it is general term for anyone who uses mental health services. The full term is "mental health consumer", and refers to an individual who receives mental health services (like counseling, psychiatry, pharmaceuticals, etc., whatever the treatment is that they require). Also, it doesn't only refer to folks who are dealing with a developmental retardation (like Down's, etc.), but it could be clinical depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality, ADHD, or schizophrenia, etc.

The reason it has a more extreme connotation in your brother's experience is likely that during his training, he had a special class (or session at least) to teaching law enforcement how to better deal with situations involving really sick folks, probably dissociated from reality at least partially, probably off of their medications, and probably totally freaked out. In fact, lots of folks really are "consumers" in this sense... if he were to have to shoot & kill a hostile person in the line of duty, he'd likely have mandatory counseling, even if his coping skills are sufficient without the counseling. In that case, he, too would technically be a "mental health consumer". Not everyone using that term to describe themselves is necessarily a very ill person.

Anyway, a short, but reasonably accurate blurb is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health_consumer or, better, lots of good information (though some digging is needed to find good coverage of consumer theory, specifically) is at http://www.nami.org/.

Not to detract from the privacy discussion... but the above discussion is actually somewhat relevant. To sum up the blurb, the term was coined in the '90s by folks who used mental health services to raise awareness of their needs; in particular, focusing on the fact that "mental health consumers" are required for the "mental health service providers" to even exist & stay in business. In particular, it can be really difficult to get attention paid to the quality of your treatment when "people think you're crazy" for example... (off topic, but stigma is a big problem in the mental health field as well). So, their status as consumers of services (being the client, patient, or what have you) can also be empowering in a capitalist sort of way, if applied correctly, and as a large, organized, and influential group.

Similarly, all of us who are exposed to unsavory advertising techniques are, indeed, also consumers of goods and services. We need to find ways to apply that correctly if we wish the market to conform to our privacy wishes.

Saying Bush is "anti-science" by painting him as a member of the far, far right is like saying Obama is "anti-humanity" by painting him in the far, far left. Of course, we'll do both.... but neither is inaccurate.

Oh we'll do both alright--I swear that 80-90% of the people who post here have Borderline Personality Disorder.

That's only because of the way those particular sites decide to define mental illness. From the National Alliance on Mental Illness:
"Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning." link Their definition page then goes on to use mental illness and mental disorder interchangeably.

And from the NIMH it also tends to use disorder and illness interchangeably in this page: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america.shtml

a) there's no indication in the literature that aspartame interferes with schizophrenic medications,

b) there's no warning on the medications that aspartame interferes with schizophrenic medications

c) lithium isn't used as an anti-schizophrenic medication (as you claimed)

d) your anecdotal evidence doesn't even make sense.

I want to start by agreeing with many other slashdot posters - You came to the wrong place in general to ask questions about medical health and/or mental health.

That said, I am a not a doctor, yet. (I'm also finishing my PhD in Clinical Psychology) I've worked on a locked inpatient unit with people who have had schizophrenia, and in an outpatient community clinic with a variety of people. So here is my starting advice: You may want to investigate The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, for further information regarding support groups for mental illness, and make sure that you get supported while you go through this process of learning and working with family and relatives who have a serious mental illness.

The bad news is: There is not a cure for schizophrenia. The good news is: It's a chronic illness that can be treated using medication (Some people understand better if they draw comparisons to diabetes, or other chronic physical illnesses). The bad news again is: Medications are still in need of improvement, because a lot of side effects (weight gain, lowered energy and libido) can certainly drive a person away from treatment. The best things that you can do are to provide a stable and caring environment for your relative, encourage them to stay on their medication (even when they're doing well).

For others of you interested, the "usual" symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations (a person sees or hears things that other people do not, usually hearing voices, but it can be anything), delusions (a person believes something illogical or bizarre, like they are under surveillance of the police), and disorganized thinking or behavior. Medications help mostly with the hallucinations, and sometimes with a persons mood; new medications can also help clear their thinking. Psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients can really range, from simple problem-solving and health management (which could cover taking medication or even just taking a shower), to learning how to interpret the emotions and gestures of other people so they get along better with family and friends.

Again, schizophrenia is a chronic illness, but it is treatable. When a person recieves proper treatment, a person can lead a happy and fulfilling life.

You should also look at the book "I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help!" by Xavier Amador, which gives some extremely useful advice concerning patients compliance (or lack thereof) with taking medication.

The prognosis is not so good. Unless there is some miracle cure that is found - and I see nothing on the horizon - this is a problem that will remain with your sister for the rest of her life. I felt that the first half of the movie "A Beautiful Mind" did a good job of showing how the onset of schizophrenia shows up, but I felt that the second half did a poor job of showing how schizophrenics could "cure" themselves. My opinion is that the current medications are the way to go. They do have some bad side effects, but not as bad as the disease. The disease will slowly get worse as time goes on, but medication seems to slow its progress.

Finally, one of the very newest medications (I am thinking particularly of "Abilify") avoids the problems with many of the anti-schizophrenia medications (e.g. weight gain, a flat personality). Your sister may not be able to tolerate this medication, and it seems that the most effective medication differs from patient to patient.

I want to start by agreeing with many other slashdot posters - You came to the wrong place in general to ask questions about medical health and/or mental health.

That said, I am a not a doctor, yet. (I'm finishing my PhD in Clinical Psychology) I've worked on a locked inpatient unit with people who have had schizophrenia, and in an outpatient community clinic with a variety of people. So here is my starting advice: You may want to investigate The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, for further information regarding support groups for mental illness, and make sure that you get supported while you go through this process of learning and working with family and relatives who have a serious mental illness.

The bad news is: There is not a cure for schizophrenia. The good news is: It's a chronic illness that can be treated using medication (Some people understand better if they draw comparisons to diabetes, or other chronic physical illnesses). The bad news again is: Medications are still in need of improvement, because a lot of side effects (weight gain, lowered energy and libido) can certainly drive a person away from treatment. The best things that you can do are to provide a stable and caring environment for your relative, encourage them to stay on their medication (even when they're doing well).

For others of you interested, the "usual" symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations (a person sees or hears things that other people do not, usually hearing voices, but it can be anything), delusions (a person believes something illogical or bizarre, like they are under surveillance of the police), and disorganized thinking or behavior. Medications help mostly with the hallucinations, and sometimes with a persons mood; new medications can also help clear their thinking. Psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients can really range, from simple problem-solving and health management (which could cover taking medication or even just taking a shower), to learning how to interpret the emotions and gestures of other people so they get along better with family and friends.

Again, schizophrenia is a chronic illness, but it is treatable. When a person recieves proper treatment, a person can lead a happy and fulfilling life.

• The DSM IV (diagnostic and statistical manual)
• National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (find your local chapter and get as much support for the rest of the family as for her)
• schizophrenia.com (get literate and read like crazy [oops], and eventually get a sense of humor rather than just crying)
• Voices by Dream Theater, part of A Mind Beside Itself

Don't confuse schizophrenia vs. manic depression with paranoid delusions or other personality disorders. As I understand it, the distinction is that schizophrenics hallucinate (have false senses in realtime, as if something is really seen or heard) whereas that type of manic depressives do not (they may confabulate memories of having seen or heard something).

Also, be thankful you don't have a major personality or mood disorder like Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar, and so on. It's a real pain in the ass, having one of those, and you don't get nailed with it for sharing needles or banging a cheap hooker. You're born with it, and it's likely your children will be too.

Insensitive clod.

Bupropion. Manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Also sold under the name Zyban.

I wouldn't doubt it.

I used to live there some time back. The depths of winter would see super lows around -60F sometimes in town where the ice fog and carbon monoxide from running vehicles would pile up. (You'd be afraid to turn off your car, too, at those temperatures unless you were near an outlet you could plug your engine block heater and battery warmer into.) Fortunately, on the Fbx campus there are lots of parking spaces with such plugs.

Also, up on the hill where the UAF campus is located, the temperatures in the dead of winter are usually warmer than downtown Fbx, or places southeast of the city (Badger Road).

I could tolerate the cold with minor inconvenience. You can even wear tennis shoes outside quite nicely for up to about 15 minutes at at time - about the time to go between buildings in the worse case. The more insidious drawback to Fbx in the winter is the paucity of daylight.

Summertime high temperatures are usually in the 80s in early July; August is the rainy season. I once saw it go into the low 90's, but that's as unusual as going below -60F in the winter.

Oh, and definitely watch out for the mosquitoes. In the height of the season, the arctic is infested with as many of the little bloodsuckers as the everglades.

Not to be all down on Fairbanks - there's a lot of wonderful scenery (Alaska range to the south, including Denali(/McKinley). Great rivers, fishing, hunting, backpacking, etc. Frequently you can see the aurora borealis in the winter.

Working for a national non-profit organization that advocates for the mentally ill for six years has given me some extra insights into how people behave when they develop a serious mental illness, go off their meds, are having a crisis, etc. No, IANAP (I Am Not a Psychiatrist), but I've seen enough folks at our annual convention wobbling off their meds to know this kid is in trouble. Classic, classic signs of serious mental illness. I only hope he gets help while he's in jail. You just can't imagine what it's like to watch a brilliant person's brain rot away.