So did the idea of viruses to the 19th century mind. I posted a thread while back on how environmental pollution is wrecking havoc on hormones & child development. This is especially pronounced in boys. Do you think it's just a coincidence that autism has risen over 100 fold in the last decade (even if we say better diagnosis accounts for a 10 fold increase that's still another 10 fold increase)? Do some research yourself if you're dissatisfied with simplistic descriptions of the problem on an Internet forum.
I like you Lucy but comments like "That sounds like nonsense" is borderline trolling. If Erik (or any other poster besides me) posted that you wouldn't have responded that way.
Oh, leave the horse out of it, okay? It's not trolling to say that
an idea appears to have little merit. And yeah, I admit the messenger matters, but only because his pants are falling off and his bias is showing. I haven't said "that's not true", I've said it
sounds like nonsense, particularly nonsense of the type that someone like my father, who is very interested in "natural medicine" and organic food and such, would buy far too cheaply.
As far as the actual topic, I'd do my own research if I were interested enough, but I just don't see the value right now. If what you say is true, good for you, I was wrong in my judgment and you were right all along. I'm usually on your team, but no two people with brains are going to agree on every last thing.
I meant everything I said in your quote box & will defend all of it. What in particular upsets you. I suspect it's the term "unnatural". I can elaborate if you like & go into the massive restructuring of pretty much every aspect of human life in the last 200 years (from exercise/movement patterns, to diet, to social patterns, etc.) but I suspect I'd be wasting my breath. People don't want to hear that stuff. It's not some grand conspiracy or some other dumbass strawman people throw at me, it's simply common sense. Like with diet, science has shown in dozens of studies to protective effects of diet (which is about 10% of lifestyle I'd say but the easiest to study) & lifestyle against cancer, diabetes, stroke, dementia, etc. but most people aren't going live what they deem asthetic (sp, wrong word prolly) too restrictive. If drugs work equally or almost equally well doctors will prescribe drugs because they're easier. In some cases lifestyle change is impossible & impractical and in many cases (like in severe mental illness) organic brain problems do exist (that are, for all intensive purposes, not fixable) in which case drug therapy may be a necessary part of treatment.
ADD as a "disease" is bullsh!t. It's like calling homosexuality a "disease". I'd be a much duller person if I was lacking the symptoms that some dub team (researchers paid to label behavior patterns) decided was a bad thing. Imagine if Thomas Edison (who had symptoms of ADD) was medicated & deemed "disabled" instead of being treated as any healthy young boy. Einstein was "slow" in some ways as a kid & most certainly would have been on drugs if he grew up in a middle-class suburban family in the 80's.
And unlike even homosexuality, having some ADD symptoms isn't even abnormal. The symptoms are so vague & somewhat universal that almost any kid out there could be shown to have some of them.
If you don't accept my opinion that ADD is not a disease that's fine but please (this goes out not necessarily to you but everyone) don't put words in my mouth about some grand conspiracy or disrespect me for my belief.
You'd only see me agree, if the topic came up, that the modern lifestyle is wildly unnatural and that it's a far, far cry from the environment we're evolutionarily adapted to. Two hundred years? I'd say the past ten thousand are of (of course to a lesser extent, but still) unnatural human habits. Our commutes, our jobs, our food, our games, our relationships, our social conventions, and yes, many of our diseases, are all totally out of line with what our blueprints were drawn up for. No dice there, and I'm frankly surprised you'd thought there would be.
I don't really care very much about ADD, yes, it's overdiagnosed, blah blah blah, yes, it's usually a normal reaction to abnormal habits, blah blah blah, yes, there are usually better treatments than street speed, blah blah blah, yes, the symptoms can be beneficial if properly channelled, blah blah blah, yes, big pharma exploits it, blah blah blah. It's certainly blown out of proportion, which makes it appear to the critical eye to be blown out of the water, but no, it's probably not bullspit.
Basically you completely missed my points of disagreement, which, considering our recent exchange from Bast's thread, is sort of surprising. I'm slower to dismiss ADD, sure, but I don't care about that. What pisses me off is when you talk smack on psychiatry like an authority, when you're just a regular guy that had some experience and did some research. Guess what, all of us have had some experience and done some research. I didn't get a Tom Cruise diploma for mine, neither did aug or phil or aegis.
Depression and bipolar as disorders are not temporary. As a symptom, sure, depression can be temporary, but that's little-d emo crap, not big-D SSRI/MAOI(/whatever) material. Big-D Depression doesn't get cured, it just gets managed; I know at least one person who claims to have dealt with Depression but readily admits experiencing pretty solid day-to-day depression. Surely you do too.
As for drugs, quitting drinking is probably the best first line of defense against cirrhosis. Once it's set, though, you damn well better take your drugs if you don't want your
disease to get worse. Drugs aren't the only treatments and they're more primitive than they will be some day but they're not to be written off just because someone's making money. Intel is turning a profit, too, that's no reason to jump to spit on their product.
You may not be telling anyone "your challenges are not real" but you're very quick to pin the causes down somewhere on the victim. Maybe you don't mean to, but what is heard matters, not what is said. You sound like a slightly less ruthless, slightly more apologetic Scientologist. I'm saying this because I think your heart's in the right place but your voice isn't quite in line with it, and so I'm sick of griping about this crap with you. Especially since we agree in a lot of places.
Look what you just made me do!
) a bit outside of recess (and I've heard they don't even have recess anymore) there is no excuse to medicate him especially on drugs never tested on even teenagers (like Ritalin wasn't before all the guinea pigs of my generation). Ritalin has been found to damage the brains of rats AND increased susceptibility to depression & eating disorders and yet it's still legal!
I try to let bygones be bygones & drop prejudgments if a person shows me they're actually interested in honest discussion despite initial belligerence and misconstrual (may have not been deliberate on your part, not sure).
Jesus, Narz, if you don't mean these things "that way" you should really learn to express them so that they don't come across "that way". Because that reads exactly the same as what you're attacked for every time this topic comes up.
