duck monster posted:I can sort of understand the aversion to some extent. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the early 80s (Back when it was called, I kid you not, "Minimum brain disfunction", which is an AWESOME thing to tell a 7yo he has. Pretty much had me wondering if I had to start wearing a crash helmet to school). Back then it was poorly understood, and the docs tried all sorts of hosed up things but eventually put me on Ritalin. My grades went from D-'s to duxing year 6 and 7 primary school. Then in High school I went off the medicine and discovered weed and my grades sailed back down again. Anyway, where I'm going with this, is that somewhere mid 90s they started realising ADHD wasnt primarily a childhood thing that wore off after puberty like previously believed, and the doctors suggested I go back on it, although this time Dexamphetamine. Now whilst it worked, it also altered my personality in ways I did not like at all. I became hyperfocused, professionally agressive (I'd have yelling fits at the juniors over my coffee being the wrong temperature!) , I'd become violent towards men and sleazy towards women when drinking, and basically it turned me into a total oval office and the total opposite of what I am normally, a fairly relaxed sociable person. So I stopped taking it. I just did not like the effects on my personality, its like in exchange for a good attention span I'd lose my sense of empathy. I'd rather have MY personality and put up with having a total ditz of an attention span than be a total oval office of a human who treats other people like poo poo. I care too much about other people to inflict that on them. As someone who was diagnosed with Asperger's, this is right on the nose. I would not have any interest in a permanent cure that had a chance to change my personality for the worse, intuitive understanding of non-verbal communication be damned. That said I'm in favor of the idea of looking for one and if it was guaranteed to not alter my personality I'd take it.
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Jul 6, 2014 01:01
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Obdicut posted:Who cares, though? It's irrelevant to the question of "Is changing your personality by taking drugs to address a mental illness a bad thing?" or any iteration thereof. Personality change is not equivalent to death or anything extreme, it is mutable, it is part of what we do throughout our lives, and what we want to do. This logic could be used to justify stopping research into a cure for Alzheimer's, which I'm sorry but I'm not fond of that in the slightest.
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Jul 6, 2014 19:12
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My basic thing is that while in an absolute sense you are totally right, I don't perceive or live my life in the absolute reality and neither does anyone else. It'd be literally impossible even if I had 20/20 vision and didn't have mild autism, so I have to make do with the subjective one where I know what "I" am and what the people around me are but not what some medication might make me (or them). I can appreciate the existence of it but it's not compassionate IMO to say it doesn't matter if things that change subjectively all the time anyway are altered in ways the rest of us aren't happy with because they lower our perceived subjective quality of life. That said, I'm not worried anyone would force a cure on those with mild symptoms, but Obdicut has sounded like he doesn't see any rational reason for someone to be mistrustful of the idea that their personality might change in ways they don't like because in an absolute sense there'll still be the same body walking around that's identified with the same moniker in the end. For some strange reason that tack doesn't make me believe in the 'compassionate' part outside the kind that Bible thumpers might say they have when they recommend gay members of their church to go to those ex-gay camps.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:04
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Ogmius815 posted:What? Explain. "Personality is mutable and in fact, the whole of a 'mind' is mutable and subject to change, therefore not essential. Since it is not essential that this man keep his mind the same, we don't need to treat his Alzheimer's. He'll be just dandy without it because he'll still essentially be the same person." Your turn!
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Jul 7, 2014 00:29
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Obdicut posted:No, it couldn't. I'm saying you have to evaluate the change, not quack about how changing someone is like killing them. Okay, that's a more reasonable position I can agree with. Obdicut posted:Again, homosexuality and autism are not things that should be compared. They're not similar, and I don't feel it's compassionate towards autists to pretend that they are. There's a lot of frustration and pain involved with autism that is not involved with homosexuality, except in the presence of bigotry. It's completely possible to be completely compassionate towards people with autism and still want to reassure autistic people they won't be 'someone different' if a cure were actually available. I was not comparing homosexuality and autism but the attitude that someone is being helpful in advocating for a change when the proposed change in question either isn't or is of questionable value (hypothetically speaking obviously). Being the same absolute person is not the same thing as being the same subjective person. I think you're assuming neutral or positive changes which isn't always the way medicine works as has already been mentioned. I think the "side-effects I can't deal with" might be what you'd fit turning into an rear end in a top hat under, but it's not obvious from the way you're writing.
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Jul 7, 2014 00:42
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