I wanted to write an entry about mental illness, internet personas, diversity, identity and many other stuff, but couldn’t come to a conclusion.
So, here is my train of thought:
1 – Read a New Scientist article about autistic people offended by the way they were portraied in a website (Autism Speaks) from a charity.
2 – saw Amanda Baggs video, In My Language . Found it amazing that she could speak those two languages so well. Found it extra-amazing that, being so disabled, she was able to do everything by herself. Maybe she was lying?
3 – Found websites saying that she is a liar (like this ). Not autistic, but desperate for attention.
4 – Concluded that I will never know what is her situation, and it doesn’t matter. Autistic or not, she has serious mental problems. And I hope she finds a way to live with that and be happy.
5 – But I got a little uncomfortable with the whole autistic pride stuff and the idea that if you “treat” someone with these problems and they become less autistic, they lose part of their personality. (correct me if I got it wrong)
6 – Thought of many artists who were depressed or had serious mental illnesses. If they got proper medication and treatment, would they have been the artists they were? Virginia Woolf, Van Gogh, JD Salinger. Syd Barret…
7 – Recalled the case of a friend who took some Ritalin-like medication for some months and said he started to concentrate beautifully in his work and studies. But his creativity just disappeared. “You can’t have it all,” he told me. He gave up the medication and is a creative person again. But what if he had severe attention deficit, and not just a mild case?
8 – It led me to a story I read years ago (Witty Ticcy Ray, from “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”, by Oliver Sacks) about a man with severe Tourette Syndrome who became a high functioning but boring person when under medication and decided to take it only 5 days a week, going back to his old self, witty, great drummer and tourette-ic on weekends.
9 – And so what? No idea.
One of the symptoms of depression is low self-esteem – sometimes suicidally low. So I think ‘depressive pride’ is an oxymoron, like ‘intelligent design’.
Hmmm, that makes a lot of sense :)
Hmmm, that makes a lot of sense :)
(I’m not being ironic)
Agreed with Henry. “Depressive pride” equals “blog”, quite possibly.
Heh @ Maxine. I understand a little of depression, being frequently manic but (usually) only getting as far as the edge of the abyss on the down cycle. Some kind of creative outlet is good, and weblogs are easy to set up, run, and feel as if someone is listening — or cares.
Well, now that you put it that way, I think that the arts have been, in some cases, a big stage for the depressive pride. Some examples (among many others that come to mind) are some Smiths songs and books like Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther
But since we have antidepressants, I’m not aware of movements against “curing” depressive people. There are some people against medication, but they are never against treatment.
So why some people are against treatment for autism, deafness, etc etc etc?
i’m being treated for depression (successfully i hope) and it’s been a long, tough road. also, i’ve just started looking into autism because i get physical therapy (for arthritis) with autistic children. here is where i started: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7395411/deadly_immunity
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it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination that big pharmacy and the government would get together and decide to do what’s best for them, not us.
i know at least one little boy who is recovering from mercury poisoning. if you think of your brain being “burned” (like skin) by mercury in vaccines, then autism isn’t a disease as a symptom.