I believe my children deserve the right to exist even if their lives won't be perfect or pain-free. I hope my children never have depression (not all of my relatives do): but if they do, I don't think that renders their lives worthless. I am a freestanding and productive member of society, as are most mentally ill people. I love my children and have done everything I can to be a good parent. All three are intelligent, caring and gifted people. They may carry the same genetic load I do, but it is a load for a TREATABLE illness that can be lived with. I suggest you read Kay Jamison's book "Touched by fire" about potential connections between creativity (good genes!) and bipolar disease (bad genes!). I wish people who feel so superior to the mentally ill would make up their &^(*^&^ minds. We get dumped on for our despair: but when we refuse to let our illness crush us, we get dumped on for being "cruel". Anyway: for all you know, you may be carrying a recessive gene for something that could manifest itself if you reproduce with the "wrong" partner. My genetic load is more obvious than some, but reproduction has a huge stochastic element for EVERYBODY.
One of my Grandfathers couldn't work for 30 years because of depression. An uncle lost his medical practice and ended up living in a rat-infested old house on disability. My father spent 6 months in a psychiatric hospital getting ECT in the early sixties. My mother never finished her PhD because of psychiatric problems. I myself take Prozac, probably for life. I don't take it to pretend there are no problems in my life: I take it so I can continue to move and speak. I *do* play a musical instrument, and am learning a lot about a culture of the past (17th century english radicals). It's a lot easier to do this when you don't have to spend 75% of your energy fighting with the constant desire to kill yourself. Mental illness is real, and most mentally ill people are not Woody Allen-style self-absorbed whiners. It's very likely my family's illnesses have a genetic basis, and this is probably true for many others. And before you social-darwinist assholes mutter under your breath "So why let them breed?" Let me say I have as much right to be alive as anyone else. I am a gifted teacher, a skilled programmer, a scholar of intellectual property ethics and a loving husband and father. None of those things were possible during the years I spent doing talk therapy and stress management alone. If you back hurts, you may need tylenol or a massage. If it hurts because of the malignant tumor wrapped around your spinal cord, you better try something a little more heavy duty. I have no idea whether 20% of the US population is mentally ill or not. I do know there are a lot of depressed people who never get help. Some idiot called depression "the common cold of Psychiatry". It isn't. Think high blood pressure: often almost invisible from the outside, but a massive killer if ignored and untreated. It would be ridiculous for anyone to go running to the medicine cabinet every time they felt sad or anxious. It would also be ridiculous for some guru of the medical establishment to decide that anyone whose feelings and behavior don't measure up to some abstract standard is "sick" and should be "fixed" with pills. But it is a crime against humanity to mock the wretches consumed by the suffering of depression as "whiners" who need to "get over it". The only people who think psychiatric drugs are poison are those who haven't been eaten alive by a psychiatric disease.
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I believe my children deserve the right to exist even if their lives won't be perfect or pain-free. I hope my children never have depression (not all of my relatives do): but if they do, I don't think that renders their lives worthless. I am a freestanding and productive member of society, as are most mentally ill people. I love my children and have done everything I can to be a good parent. All three are intelligent, caring and gifted people. They may carry the same genetic load I do, but it is a load for a TREATABLE illness that can be lived with. I suggest you read Kay Jamison's book "Touched by fire" about potential connections between creativity (good genes!) and bipolar disease (bad genes!). I wish people who feel so superior to the mentally ill would make up their &^(*^&^ minds. We get dumped on for our despair: but when we refuse to let our illness crush us, we get dumped on for being "cruel". Anyway: for all you know, you may be carrying a recessive gene for something that could manifest itself if you reproduce with the "wrong" partner. My genetic load is more obvious than some, but reproduction has a huge stochastic element for EVERYBODY.
One of my Grandfathers couldn't work for 30 years because of depression. An uncle lost his medical practice and ended up living in a rat-infested old house on disability. My father spent 6 months in a psychiatric hospital getting ECT in the early sixties. My mother never finished her PhD because of psychiatric problems. I myself take Prozac, probably for life. I don't take it to pretend there are no problems in my life: I take it so I can continue to move and speak. I *do* play a musical instrument, and am learning a lot about a culture of the past (17th century english radicals). It's a lot easier to do this when you don't have to spend 75% of your energy fighting with the constant desire to kill yourself. Mental illness is real, and most mentally ill people are not Woody Allen-style self-absorbed whiners. It's very likely my family's illnesses have a genetic basis, and this is probably true for many others. And before you social-darwinist assholes mutter under your breath "So why let them breed?" Let me say I have as much right to be alive as anyone else. I am a gifted teacher, a skilled programmer, a scholar of intellectual property ethics and a loving husband and father. None of those things were possible during the years I spent doing talk therapy and stress management alone. If you back hurts, you may need tylenol or a massage. If it hurts because of the malignant tumor wrapped around your spinal cord, you better try something a little more heavy duty. I have no idea whether 20% of the US population is mentally ill or not. I do know there are a lot of depressed people who never get help. Some idiot called depression "the common cold of Psychiatry". It isn't. Think high blood pressure: often almost invisible from the outside, but a massive killer if ignored and untreated. It would be ridiculous for anyone to go running to the medicine cabinet every time they felt sad or anxious. It would also be ridiculous for some guru of the medical establishment to decide that anyone whose feelings and behavior don't measure up to some abstract standard is "sick" and should be "fixed" with pills. But it is a crime against humanity to mock the wretches consumed by the suffering of depression as "whiners" who need to "get over it". The only people who think psychiatric drugs are poison are those who haven't been eaten alive by a psychiatric disease.