ANTI DEPRESSANTS

I thought I'd write about a Newsweek article on the effect (or lack of effect) of anti depressants. Given the likely readers, I think I'm talking to people (ok, I'm talking to one person, El Capitan) who don't have these issues, nonetheless, loyal followers of Georgetown Tales: Here goes...

The Newsweek article cited studies that suggest most of the effects of anti depressants in curing mild to moderate depression can be attributed to the placebo effect. The idea that you are taking something that can help your depression has just the same effectiveness in curing your depression as taking an anti depressant helps you. Considering that therapy helps much better than antidepressants for all but the most severe forms of depression, this lack of impact by the anti depressants is not really all that surprising. The debate is over whether to tell patients this and lose the placebo effect of the drugs, or just let the placebo effect of the drugs do the trick and let ignorance be bliss.

After reading several economics books that talk about how taking a $1 aspirin, helps more than a 10 cent one, I'm a firm believer in the power of the placebo. But, I'll warn you, as someone with a mental illness, just because it's just in your head, doesn't make it less real. Society use to stigmize those with cancer, because people didn't know what cancer really was. We now have a stigma with mental illness, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, for the same reason. Finding out more about cancer, made it less stigmized; hopefully as we find out more about the brain and mental illnesses, we will erase the stigmism.

So, my recommendation is if you are depressed, see a therapist. Talk to someone (whose a professional). There are no side effects. If you have issues with getting help. You can be really open and joke and say you are seeing a "shrink", like Barbara Streisand in "Prince of Tides," and make a joke about it and remind everyone exactly where you are going or you can lie and say you have a weekly lunch or coffee date with your "friend," Lowenstein. If you choose this option, make sure no one is following you when you go to his or her office. I recommend wearing a disguise, even just a baseball hat and sunglasses. And make sure you don't put your guard down until it's just you and your therapist. You never know who you might see in the waiting room.

Therapy has definitely helped with my situation, but it didn't prevent my episodes. And unlike depression, the meds for serious mental illness are probably not much better than a placebo. The med I'm on, even says, it works, Eli Lilly is just not sure exactly why. This makes sense, because as far as I know, we (the best scientists/doctors in the world and, of course, me) don't know exactly what goes wrong in the first place. If you don't know what causes something to go wrong, it's kind of hard to fix it. Of course, everyone I know with a serious mental illness who changes meds has an episode and winds back up in the hospital. Could all this be because of the placebo effect?

Speaking of friends and hospitals. You can get an update of my friend, who I blogged about last week. Doug's posts are at http://www.dougmeron.blogspot.com/. He's in the hospital and am pretty sure he's not going to be let out any time soon. : -(.

Love to hear your thoughts on the anti depressant article, or any issue of mental health.

Finally, for anonymous, is this emo boy style thing a porn website, or is it to help us get some style so that we can become cool; and therefore, we will be able to pick-up hot chicks, have real sex and therefore not have to visit porn websites?

Peace, (used My friend, Doug and also, I think, cousin N)
GCNOF

It's Hard Out There For a Pimp

Actually, I doubt that. Watch American Pimp for substantiation, the central premise of which seems to be that The Game is in fact incredibly easy. You gotta wonder though, would the struggling pimps agree to an interview? If they did, would they admit their hardships? The question casts more than a shadow of doubt. Do pimps, maybe even the successful ones, ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what might have been?

For all of us, even the L7s, the big existential questions loom. Our choices about friendship, education, love, career, family, all the big stuff, are spilling over with personal meaning, but the decisions can also feel weighed down by a lack of moral purpose. Do I do these things solely for my benefit? If it is just about me, what is the point of personal sacrificc, and what will it all mean when I am gone? Do I do the way my family wants me too? How God tells me too? Do I just do what seems to work for my friends? Putting your shoes on in the morning for those reasons seems like the definition of Socrates’ “unexplored life”. So how do you operate with integrity in a seemingly hollow world? These capital-B-Big concerns can definitely lose you some sleep, but they have also inspired a lot of great writing. Many times I have thought about how my life choices stack up against the problems faced by the characters in Shakespeare, Faulkner, Hemingway, Joyce, Schulz, etc.

But really a writer doesn’t know anything more about the truths of human existence than you. They are just better able to pry their own opinions and prejudices into a pleasing narrative. So in a way, writing fiction is a little like being a pimp. Whether the fantasy is packaged in fake fur and plastic pumps or realistic dialogue and surprising plot twists, both are false and fleeting constructions. The reader gets a cheap thrill as the story builds and then the last page turns, she reapplies her lipstick, and you don’t really know anything more about the world or yourself than you did before. Or even worse, you think you do. I guess, to stretch the metaphor, that is like believing a working girl when she says she really likes you. So if even the classics are starting feel as fake as a stripper’s D cups, what is left? Paul Krassner once said, “irreverence is my only sacred cow,” but you gotta wonder, just where then does the man get his milk?

While we’re on the topic of prostitution, watching the news, even reading the NY Times, is starting feel like a trip to opposite-world, where borrowing more money than you could ever even intend to pay back is fiscally responsible and sending other peoples’ children to die takes courage. The politicians' and pundits' only real ability is to pull themselves into a a miniskirt and smile like it isn’t 35 degrees in the DC night air. At least this go around there is Obama, who seems like a relatively straight shooter. Plus he is like Rocky Marciano in negative: the great black hope. Wouldn’t it be crazy if a black man was president?

Well, not if he is compromised by corporate money, professional handlers and his own burning desire to triangulate to the middle of opinion polls. Is he just Hillary in black face? Probably, but either one will seem like a savior. Obama is definitely a thoughtful, articulate speaker and he has some genuine policies, like health care that you or your employer could afford, and not nuking countries that we aren’t at war with. What a nutcase-liberal that guy is huh?

But at the end of the day Obama is a politician. He gets ahead by telling us whatever it is we want to hear. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my father a few years back when I was doing volunteer work for Ralph Nader. HeMy dad smirked at my idealism, blaming it on my youth. “You young people think you’re so special, looking for a political candidate that has real integrity. Just hold your nose and pick the best looking whore, like the rest of us”. Not the worst advice I have ever heard.

Depression

Ok, I haven't written in a long time and have been a little depressed. I got passed over for two jobs I should have had. Now I haven't nothing baking in the oven.

Writing helps me put things in perspective and when I get down, I don't usually don't write. I have this thing where if I really like something, I tend to save it for when I feel really good. As if my bad/unhappy thoughts will ruin a good thing. And I want to keep that thing always positive.

For example, I am applying for a job in Lake Tahoe. Tahoe has always been that special place. Like a get away. I'm not doing well, so I go up there and am better, and then I head back to civilization, usually the Bay Area. I'm afraid that by living there, it will no longer remain my "safe space." It will lose the healing affects it has on my soul.

In a sense, I've made the entire Northern California region my safe space get-away by living (in DC) on the East Coast. Lafayette, the Bay Area and Tahoe have all become my safe space. I visit them to boost my mood.

I do that with other "happy" things as well. Like waiting to watch TV or a movie or ask a girl on a date until I'm in my happy space.

It's like my mood is too powerful and the external forces aren't powerful enough. Maybe I'm overestimating the power of my mood. Maybe my mood is really powerful. But I think that putting too much stock in the power of my mood, is part of the problem. maybe I should lighten up a little and give more credit to the external world, rather than the internal one.

on another note: My grandfather is gravely ill. I maybe flying to Indiana, anytime in the next couple of days. I hope it's after my date on Monday. (first one in a long time.) It probably won't be. He was a very strong man, still is in some respects, and I won't count him out, until he is.

on another matter: It looks like I will move back home to California by the end of the summer, or earlier.

Signing off.
GCNOF