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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alexander who wrote (64453)	12/1/1999 3:42:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 108807

I have known people who were seriously mentally ill, including one extremely intelligent young man who became schizophrenic in his late teens, and ultimately had to be hospitalized because he was a danger to others (he had a compulsion to set fire to crosses on church altars). I've interacted on a professional level with schizophrenics, and people with bipolar disorder, and am friends with several lawyers who take part in commitment hearings. Some people are simply mentally ill, and you can't blame that on the drugs, they were mentally ill before they took drugs, and the drugs, imperfect though they may be, help them. Lithium has terrible side effects, but it helps people who suffer from mania or bipolar disorder, who suffer delusions, and have compulsions to act in very bizarre and destructive ways. It doesn't help anyone to "blame" people who take medication for mental illness, nor to blame the medical profession. Stigmatizing mental illness is foolish, and harmful, and causes people who need help not to seek it.