Drugs can be manipulated to kill. Doctors learn how drugs affect. The Medical Board of California, run by the government, allows countless rapists they know of and have proven to be rapists to practice psychiatry. Don't blame-shift. Lithium is the gold-standard. Big Pharma, with drugs that have lethal side effects they know about, but don't talk about, and pay people to advertise for the (mis)use in children, and this is in the legal books, doesn't adverttise lithium. It is a salt. There are other ways. It isn't necessary in light cases, such as in cyclothymia, which is underpublicized to kill. Mood states improve with age. Psychiatrists go to medical school. It is a long training. The only difference between a psychologist and MD is the ability to give medicine. Unless you care about neurobiology, and the interaction with benefience, then the $300,000 annual payment is what they're after, which is too high. Narcissists are dangerous necessarily to others, and therefore need the holds. Psychopaths are never placed on mental holds necessarily (by virtue of their condition - slight variability, yes.) A lot of doctors have undiagnosed ASPD, like one. Females and males and Females and Males are not to be excused by gender, as both abuse = except, women are more often forgiven nowadays (but men are more physical, still). Side effect includes death. Is it worth it?? Playing GOD. How long do you want to live? Is it your decision, no, you must seek to be correctly spiritual. BE SURE YOUR MEDICAL INFORMATION (HOWEVER SUBJECTIVE) IS IN GOOD HANDS, AND DON'T ALLOW PEOPLE WITHOUT PSYCHIATRIC KNOWLEDGE TO TALK ABOUT IT (WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR MEDICAL DEGREES, FAKE GENIUSES)?
https://d-pdf.com/book/4271/read
He was an army officer, his family was ex
tremely conservative, he desperately wanted children,
and manic-depressive illness was hereditary. It also was
not talked about. It was unpredictable, and not uncom
monly fatal. I wished I had never told him; I wished I
was normal, wished I was anywhere but where I was. I
felt like an idiot for hoping that anyone could accept
what I had just said and resigned myself to a subtle
round of polite farewells. We were not married, after
all, nor had we been seriously involved for any
extended time.
I
told him that I very much wanted to have children,
which immediately led to his asking me what I planned
to do about taking lithium during pregnancy. I started
to tell him that it seemed obvious to me that the dan
gers of my illness far outweighed any potential prob
lems that lithium might cause a developing fetus, and
AN UNQUIET MIND
that I therefore would choose to stay on lithium. Before
I finished, however, he broke in to ask me if I knew that
manic-depressive illness was a genetic disease. Stifling
for the moment an urge to remind him that I had spent
my entire professional life studying manic-depressive
illness and that, in any event, I wasn’t entirely stupid, I
said, “Yes, of course.” At that point, in an icy and impe
rious voice that I can hear to this day, he stated—as
though it were God’s truth, which he no doubt felt that
it was—“You shouldn’t have children.You have manic-
depressive illness.”
I felt sick, unbelievably and utterly sick, and deeply
humiliated. Determined to resist being provoked into
what would, without question, be interpreted as irra
tional behavior, I asked him if his concerns about my
having children stemmed from the fact that, because of
my illness, he thought I would be an inadequate mother
or simply that he thought it was best to avoid bringing
another manic-depressive into the world. Ignoring or
missing my sarcasm, he replied, “Both.” I asked him to
leave the room, put on the rest of my clothes, knocked
on his office door, told him to go to hell, and left. I
walked across the street to my car, sat down, shaking,
and sobbed until I was exhausted. Brutality takes many
forms, and what he had done was not only brutal but
unprofessional and uninformed. It did the kind of last
ing damage that only something that cuts so quick and
deep to the heart can do.
Oddly enough, it had never occurred to me not to
have children simply because I had manic-depressive
illness. Even in my blackest depressions, I never regret
ted having been born. It is true that I had wanted to die,
but that is peculiarly different from regretting having
191
been born. Overwhelmingly, I was enormously glad to
have been born, grateful for life, and I couldn’t imagine
not wanting to pass on life to someone else. All things
considered, I had had a marvelous—albeit turbulent
and occasionally awful—existence. Of course, I had had
serious concerns: How could one not? Would I, for
example, be able to take care of my children properly?
What would happen to them if I got severely
depressed? Much more frightening still, what would
happen to them if I got manic, if my judgment became
impaired, if I became violent or uncontrollable? How
would it be to have to watch my own children struggle
with depression, hopelessness, despair, or insanity if they
themselves became ill? Would I watch them too hawk-
ishly for symptoms or mistake their normal reactions to
life as signs of illness? All of these were things I had
thought about a thousand times, but never, not once,
had I questioned
having
children. And despite the cold
bloodedness of the doctor who examined me and who
told me I shouldn’t, I would have delighted in having a
houseful of children, as David and I once had planned.
But it just didn’t work out that way: David died, and
Richard—the only man since Davids death that I
wanted to have children with—already had three from
a previous marriage.
Not having children of my own is the single most
intolerable regret of my life. I do, however, and very for
tunately, have two nephews and a niece—each wonder
ful and quite remarkable in his or her own way—and I
enjoy, beyond description, my relationships with them.
Being an aunt is an extraordinarily pleasurable sort of
thing, especially if your nephews and niece are reflec
tive, independent, thoughtful, droll, smart, and imagina
AN UNQUIET MIND
193
tive people. It is impossible not to find their company
delightful. My nephews, whose interests, like those of
their father, have leaned toward the study of mathemat
ics and economics, are quiet, witty, freethinking, gentle
souled, and charming young men. My niece, consider
ably younger, is now eleven and, having already won a
national writing award, is very determined to become a
writer. One often finds her curled up in a chair, scrib
bling away, asking about words or people, tending to
her many and various animals, or leaping mouth first
into a family discussion to defend her point of view. She
is fiery, sensitive, original, and disconcertingly able to
hold her own against a very vociferously articulate pack
of older brothers, parents, and sundry other adults. I
cannot imagine the awful gap that would exist in my
life without these three children