Autism Speaks & You, or "Autistic children will ruin your marriage"

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Autism Speaks & You, or "Autistic children will ruin your marriage"

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

As someone who's personality was changed pretty heavily first by illegal drugs and then by legit prescribed psychology drugs I'd like to say that from my point of view who you are fundamentally as a person is more detached from your personality than a lot of people want to believe, and that your personality is much more fluid than a lot of people want to think.

I'm not saying negative personality changes don't occur or aren't terrible (it definitely happened to me while self-medicating and all that) I'm saying that the whole thing is being framed like you pop a pill and are instantly replaced by a pod person who just looks like you, and you start dredging up all these weird existential fears that keep you from something that might genuinely improve your quality of life. I'm not saying force drugs on people to fix them either, but that I think people have this problematic image of psychology or psychiatry as somehow deleting them and replacing them with a functional person when (if done correctly and carefully) it's really not the case.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 05:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:16

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

RagnarokAngel posted:

Antidepressants aren't going to erase that. You're correct, depression is a warning sign that somethings wrong in your life and you need to fix it. The problem is when you become so obsessed with the lovely parts that you cannot even imagine it getting better. Optimism is an emotion that drives us to do things because if we didn't believe we had even a remote chance at something, we never would even try.

My point is calling anti depressants "happy pills" is a misnomer because it doesn't make you euphoric even when the world is crashing around you, you wont go "Well I lost my job and my house is being foreclosed, but lets look on the bright side", but you won't be discouraged by every little bump in the road that comes your way, as people with clinical depression do.

Just wanted to qualify this with the statement that the "something wrong in your life" often is depression itself, caused not by circumstances or problems but from lovely neuroplasticity (like mine :smithicide:

), and that the depression / anxiety can then lead to other problems (drug abuse in my case woo) that leads to more depression and vicious cycle etc. etc.

Anyway sorry I didn't mean to hijack this thread with depressionchat.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 07:47

Shame Boy: Mar 2, 2010

ToxicSlurpee posted:

That right there is actually why mental health services are set up the way they are. Done properly there is a dialog between the professionals and the patient and the final say is almost always with the patient. Patients have a bunch of different options for whatever issues they have and they are well within their rights to refuse treatments for just those reasons, even if their disorders are completely crippling. The only time patients can have treatments forced on them is if they are genuinely dangerous to others which, I get a weird feeling, only extremely rarely applies to autism.

This, though, does not mean a cure for autism or treatment for its issues should not be developed or worked on simply because some people would be all "I know the risks, let's do this anyway." The choice lies with the patient and it would be pretty awful to deny the people who do want the cure the cure.

You do make a valid point and can make your own choice on the matter but, really, it's a thing that is up to individuals. In my case, for example, my therapist gave me crap about the fact that I'm reclusive and thought there was some social anxiety going on but, really, I'm just pretty solitary and not particularly social to the point where it would be considered a disorder in others. I chose not to have that treated or looked at simply because, well, I'm kind of a hermit and I like to have that extra time to work on stuff and get better at things than talk to people.

Of course some people would find my largely solitary life with few friends to be depressing and awful. For them treatment and help exists. I didn't use them because they were unnecessary for me.

Sounds like you're in denial :razz:

Anyway yeah that's a big thing a lot of people don't get about psychs, when done right they're basically people you can go to to talk about your issues, who also know how people work and how their problems work, and can help you solve your problems and better your life in ways you want. A lot of people have the impression that psychology is the attempt to make everyone converge to some ideal "perfect functioning homogeneous human" but really it's more "I want to get to a better place in my life or I have a problem and they have the tools to help me reach my goal for myself mentally".

I mean that impression comes comes naturally from only having the whole "burly guys in white coats carrying off schizophrenics" image of psychology in popular media, and I also know a lot of people who were forced to see psychs in highschool by their parents, where generally the goal was "fix my kid" and not "help my kid."

Bringing it back around to autism (and if I hopefully can talk about something I don't have personally and therefore can't possibly even imagine subjectively without making an rear end of myself) I get the feeling that any autism "cure" would be similar to other psychological medicines, you generally don't just pop a pill and magically your disease is switched off. There would likely be a whole range of treatment levels, and if applied correctly as I outlined above you should be able to choose what you want to do and how far you want to take it.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 08:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Autism Speaks & You, or "Autistic children will ruin your marriage"