I have more friends on various anti-depressents/anti-anxiety/etc drugs than I can possibly name. But I wouldn’t call any of them crazy. I have been diagnosed as bipolar (which I would actually like to talk to someone about cause I’m not 100% sure it is an accurate diagnosis) but I don’t really think I am crazy.
So I really don’t think that all people who take such meds are nuts. But there are people who take those meds who are insane.
Where is the line? How totally inappropriate does someone’s behavior have to be before you will consider them unsafe and insane?
Edit:
I am not looking for comments about me. 🙂 I’m pretty comfortable with me right now. I have recently had reason to wonder about a woman who is going to be impacting my life and I am NOT happy about it.
I have run into bipolar a few times, I honestly don’t think you qualify. I would be more likely to describe you as a very hard worker who has boughts of depression and very strong externalized emotions, but you never strike me as manic. (Let’s compare you shall we with other folks who would be catagorized as utterly sane and normal, who manage to give themselves ulcers because so internalize their stress.)
I have a feeling that you would resolve more by signing up with a local zen center and learning on how to create internal quite then you would from drugs.
Bipolars that wouldn’t work for, they need the drugs and THEN the work. Some folks just need the work.
For me, the questions aren’t really about sane or insane, so much as it is “how does this person handle their shit”.
I have a bipolar friend who is on meds, and the meds are working and that means they they handle their shit just fine. If their meds were to stop working (and sometimes that happens), as long as they were working to get things back under control, they’d pretty much maintain the level of closeness that we currently enjoy. If my friend were to decide not to try to rectify things, then I’d become more distant. If there was a long enough time of them doing things like yelling at random strangers in public, flaking on their obligations to me, etc., then I’d also create whatever distance I needed for safety.
IOW, it isn’t the diagnosis, it is the symptoms.
I understand that some symptoms mean I don’t see some friends before noon, or I don’t take long walks with friends, or that I need to remind the friend of an upcoming commitment. But I don’t feel any need to accept or tolerate symptoms that include unmitigated unkindness, or ongoing directed-at-me rage, etc.
Note: I have no clue of what, exactly, my parameters around adjusting meds is. Some of it is about what I think the basic underlying person is like. Some of it is also about how much other crud I am dealing with at any particular time.
There are degrees of almost all mental illnesses, but the same symptoms get diagnosed differently by different doctors.
Some mental illnesses are curable primarily through “talk therapy” – essentially getting you to make appropriate decisions and learning to react to stuff; with enough reinforcement, you no longer have the “not sane” responses. Others require drugs, and others require both – essentially requiring drugs to break the mental cycles which then talk therapy can reorient to healthier cycles. Mildness of an illness doesn’t always correlate with a preference for talk therapy, but sometimes it does.
I’m not sure I could verbalize a line, but I don’t look at the cause too much – if I find someone’s behavior offensive or harmful to me, I limit my exposure to them. The person who is the reason I don’t go to the Citadel much probably isn’t insane, but his behavior is offensive enough that I don’t care to be around him, and so avoid the Citadel. If someone told me that his behavior *was* the result of mental illness, I wouldn’t change my reaction to him.
Bi-polar is a popular diagnosis these days as the condition has recently been widened to include a great many manic-depression case types. And it can be given to someone who is so acute as to be nearly dual personality or as mild as to have mood swings.
With that disclaimer, I can see how some of the mood swings may trigger a therapist or doctor to see a pattern and suggest this diagnosis. I can see a diagnosis like that as nothing more than a way to direct the flow of your therapy in a path to control the ebb and flow of your depression.
For me, when someone’s actions start to directly decrease the quality of my life, they have become unsafe. I am willing to tolerate a great deal from the ones I love, but will reach a point where I just, for the sake of my own sanity and safety, reduce or remove their presence in my life.
Or if it impacts my children’s lives. In that case, they are gone from my life immediately.
I hate having to choose whether or not to allow someone into my life based on stuff like this…
*strict boundaries…simple (ha!) as that…*Until you find where you can allow the boundaries to relax…
Well, being as I knew I was bipolar before any doctor told me I was… and with my family history of mental illness… I think I’d be a good person to talk to regarding whether or not you’re bipolar. Feel free to drop me a line or an email. *smile*
Today, basically, insane = danger to self or others or is incapable of taking care of self. That’s the point at which the state, court, police, etc, are willing to step in and intervene.
If you check the dsm4, there are some other bits about diagnosis. things that interfere with ability to form lasting relationships, etc. these are about whether a diagnosis fits, not necessarily about insanity. insanity really only comes into the picture when questioning whether society has a right or a duty to remove the person from society and/or to place them into custodial care.
There are plenty of people in the world who are emotionally incomplete or emotionally manipulative or whose reality testing is fairly fragile who still don’t qualify as insane.
Yeah well, this person is dangerous to herself and others. And I am NOT pleased by how she will be intersecting with my life.
If she’s a physical danger, then call the police.
“Responsibility” means more to me than “Insanity” does =
ie, if someone has 10 million mental problems but takes responsibility for them and is attempting to work on them, and has a fairly good ability to recognize that their view of reality may have some gaps in it, great! I have no problems with them or their mental state, and I’ll probably cut them a lot of slack when they’re adjusting meds or shrinks or whatever. (though someone I don’t have history with walking up, being an asshole, then saying “well, I’ve got this mental problem I can’t help it” is still an asshole, with minor exceptions obviously based on exact behavior and exact problem.)
However, if someone has one relatively minor mental issue but refuses to acknowledge it and insists that everyone *else* is wrong and crazy, and they have no interest in working on their problems…well, I’m going to have trouble being around that person.
Being depressed or bi-polar != crazy. There are varying degrees of both of course, but it really comes down to how functional someone is. I have a hard time calling someone crazy if they’re functional on their own.
What’s always bothered me is the taboo towards mental issues, even when they’re under control, and being treated for them. How is keeping one’s depression under control with meds significantly different than keeping one’s diabetes under control with meds? Why is one acceptable, and the other illicits such wonderful advice as “get over it” or “cheer up”. *sigh*
It makes absolutely no difference whether someone has a DSM label or a Nobel Prize lapel pin. If they make you uncomfortable, make you feel unsafe, set off your drama-dar, creep you out, or hurt your feelings one time too many, you don’t have to deal with them. I don’t care if everyone else thinks they’re Jesus Christ Incarnate.
Some of the most intelligent, ethical, giving, responsible people I know are on meds of one kind and another. Some of the most insane and unsafe people in the world are currently running our country.
You don’t have to justify your boundaries with a rationale about relative craziness. You are an extremely introspective, observant, and ethical person. Your judgement is trustworthy. You need make no apologies.
Yeah, what flavoroflove said
Generally:
If someone makes you feel unsafe, creeps you out, etc, say “buh-bye.” That doesn’t have much to do meds, taking or not. Insane and unsafe are 2 different things to me. They may co-exist, but I’ve, unfortunately, met many sane-unsafe folk.
Specific to this person:
Seems to me you already know she’s in that unsafe/creep-me-out category, but that some influence, *outside* of you, needs to have her intersect in your life.
Questions: Can you alter that influence? Can you alter that influence’s perception on your needing to interact with unsafe-person? Is dealing w/unsafe-person an absolute requirement (i.e. she’s your boss, landlord, etc?)
In one of my books, the line of “crazy” is drawn at “an inability to successfully communicate”. In practice, you can define “successful communication” as being able to explain why you chose to do something, why something bothers you, and other things. The mere taking of medicine doesn’t affect my beliefs in their crazy/non-crazy status.
I draw the line of inappropriate behaviour at when it affects me, but that includes affecting my friends to the degree that it does affect me. If you’re going out of your way to avoid someone, if I can’t do something with you because someone else will be there, then that’s behaviour that needs looking into.
And friends get the benefit of the doubt, every time.
For me the line came when I couldn’t function in day to day life. We’re not talking about having some difficulty with motivation or only feeling depressed, but not being able to leave my room out of irrational fear, literally being unable to eat because my stomach is so knotted up by a manic episode, my fiance literally having to hide the knives from me, an inability to walk by a man on the sidewalk without physically flinching, consistently being suicidal literally every 3 days for an extended period of time, panic attacks so strong that I vomit, etc.
I was extremely hesitant to go on meds of any kind, so I know that I was more than a ‘little unstable’ in order to be convinced to go on them. Btw, I actually am bipolar (and suffer from PTSD), but I don’t know what kind of information you’re looking for.