Dear Carrol,

I know a poet who is tormented by his belief that he is followed at
all times. He needs no more proof than that people are walking behind
him or look at him from passing vehicles. When he sees a movie he
recognizes messages for and about himself. Popular songs refer to him.

He's as bright and talented as any of us. He knows he's sick, but that
awareness alone does not stop the torment.

He's on anti-psychotic drugs too. And therapy. Have you ever known
someone suffering psychosis? It's real.

My friend's bipolar daughter was awake for 72 hrs, vacuuming the house
and washing windows all night. Also on meds and therapy.

PTSD is real and prevalent.

I have visited a friend in a mental hospital and it was horrifying.
There is serious illness there. Catatonics holdING the same strained
postures for days.

Just because no remedies work doesn't mean none are needed.

I suffered a prolonged bout of agitated depression in college, but I
got a great psychiatrist and meds that eventually worked. But that's
probably exceptional.

Sent from my iPod

On Feb 10, 2010, at 9:20 PM, Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>> Nancy Gish wrote:
>>
>> I don't know about DSM-IV, but DSM-V is about to come out. I think
>> all the categories suspect. And a worse thing is that as far as I
>> can
>> see most psychiatrists are now not doing therapy but just acting as
>> dispensers of medications.
>
> Agreed on all counts. I rather doubt that _any_ of the current
> diagnoses
> will survive. It is even possible that _all_ mental illnesses are
> variations on the 'same' one. It is also possible that all the major
> current ones will be split up, recombined, who konws. And yes, most
> psycihiatrists do as you say. The best bet is a therapist, but
> therapists vary wildly (a) in basic competence and (b) in whether they
> 'fit' a given patient. The same therapist can be wonderful for one
> patient, poison for another. I think if a person is _really_ lucky and
> finds a really good psycholotist, the best bet may be to discuss meds
> with him/her, then have them prescribed by one's own pysician, saving
> thousands of dollars that way. At the end, before I dropped him, my
> psychiatrist was charging $100 for a 5 to 10 minute session. How are
> you, do you need a renewal.
>
> A med (an old one, amitrityline) really helped me around 1984, then
> for
> years I took SSRIs, which do help many people, and did nothing for my
> most commone symptoms, which were not 'plain vanilla' depression but
> pathological procrastination & anxiety. So finally I got wise and
> dropped him. I still see a therapist every 4 weeks. That doesn't 'do'
> anything but it helps me keep tabs on myself.
>
> I rather suspect that "paranoid schizophrenia" has as its sole
> location
> crime fiction. I've known, or known the relatives/friends of a
> number of
> people suffering from schizophrenia. None were paranoid, all knew damn
> well they were sick.
>
> Carrol
>
>> Nancy
>>
>>>>> Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask]> 02/10/10 4:16 PM >>>
>> Diana Manister wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Nancy,
>>>
>>> My comment on paranoid schizophrenia was off-topic. Prufrock is not
>>> psychotic, obviously.
>>
>> I haven't checked, but is "paranoid schizophredia" in the current
>> diagnostic manual?
>>
>> And incidentally, those who suffer from schizophrenia are said to
>> suffer from a cognitive disorder. One speaks of "psychotic"
>> _symptoms_
>>
>> but not ordinarily of "psychoses" as the name of a syndrome. There
>> are
>>
>> other vaarieties of mental illness that can, in some, generate
>> psyhotic
>> symptoms (usually hearing voices." And the patient does not _always_
>> believe his/her symptoms are "real," but despite t that knowledge has
>> a
>> difficuolt time resisting the voices. I had an acquaintance with a
>> woman who suffered both from defective hearing _and_ from (I forget
>> the
>> exact name now) schizoid affective disorder: i.e., she wasn't
>> "schizophreic" but she did have psychotic symptoms, namely voices
>> that
>>
>> told her how worthless she was. That she was extremely hard of
>> hearing
>>
>> greatly complicatted her state. It is true that schizophrenic
>> patients
>>
>> have great difficulty in separateing reality from 'unreality,' but it
>> is
>> not true that ehy always or evn usually do. And of course symptoms
>> vary
>> from patient to patient.
>>
>> All psychiatric diagnoeses remain suspect pending further research.
>>
>> Carrol
>