Defining Normal: How Psychiatry Has Lost Its Way

I'm Just Sayin...

2/24/2012 11:22:23 AM

The psychiatrists office had gone from being the place no one would be caught dead visiting... to the place where a pill could fix anything... and psychiatry itself had gone from being stigmatized to glamorized. The solution was simple, to embrace the idea that unless your ailments are seriously impeding your quality of life, they can be used to your advantage. Click here to read more and leave a comment.

Posted by: Dr. Dale Archer | Submit comment | Tell a friend

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7 Comments

Lola

2/24/2012 4:25:29 PM

Really enjoyed the article! You know, I think I had to make myself narcisstic and histrionic in order to become successful in my profession, because I wasn't always that way, but I found what worked in that particular business, which was being visible and somewhat grandiose (fake it to make it), going around people who were obstacles, and having a smart enough mouth to throw the sexism right back at them.

marcia

3/2/2012 8:03:58 AM

Here is a little aeroplane that I want to throw! <~~] Just tell me on whose back it landed! :-)

Lola

3/2/2012 9:23:21 PM

Did your divorce and the hurricane happen all about the same time? Were you still reeling from one when the other happened? Either way, it must have been awful having to deal with all that at once. I hope you were able to salvage some of your belongings. My stuff is really important to me, and I would really feel like I was floating in space without it.

Are there places in your town that are not vulnerable to flood? Have you moved somewhere safer? I know you said you are in NY a lot. When Rita happened -- and I know this sounds petty to those who went through it -- I was still so saddened and reeling from Katrina that I wasn't fully deployed when Rita happened, plus it hit landfall on my birthday. I remember some of it, mostly the evacuation in Texas, being relieved it didn't go too badly, but I had had to pull back some because during Katrina I was just fully depressed and at times truly hysterical about the pets being left behind. I mean, I was calling every politician, every local sheriff, the Red Cross, FEMA, tv stations, everyone I could find trying to make them let these people take their pets out, and I'm not much of a crier, but I think I cried more from that than from any other thing except when my pony got ran over as a child. I can't even imagine if I had been in the middle of it. I helped transport some pets to distribute the ones being picked up in N.O. to different shelters here locally, and that was the only thing that I felt I could do to help. I maxed myself out emotionally and by Rita, I was doing my best to check out.

So in the interim between when you wrote this article and today (in between working) I tried to imagine what you've been through and read up on Rita in your area more. The best resource I found was the final police report, which detailed their organization and efforts.

It's a pretty radical decision to go from psychiatry to playing poker full-time! I wonder if it was something you had just been wishing you could go to or if all the trauma made you reach out for it as an escape. Sounds like you were really good at it. I am terrible at poker. My only good game is "Blind Indian." I have a little trouble with the subject at the moment because this year when my sister spent six months in the hospital, I had to handle her business, and I discovered she had been wasting fully half of her income losing at poker instead of paying her bills, which were all in arrears. She left me quite a mess. She becomes addicted to not only online poker but has nearly lost her home in the past when she became addicted to an online role playing game. She is vulnerable to these because she is mostly a recluse and she can live this fantasy life of being a high roller through that sort of thing. It was the online stuff she was spending the most money at. She completely loses her compass and forgets to take care of her animals and everything when she is in that mode. She admittedly has never won a dime at poker, but she's so infatuated with the fantasy that she could strike it big sometime. After this year, if I catch her neglecting her animals and bills again because of any game, I am to the point of just calling adult services or someone on her because I don't want to get stuck picking up the pieces again, and I can't do anything with her, and neither can doctors, we now know. Anyway, so poker isn't my friend at the moment, but I can tell you for sure I would not play against YOU even when the time comes that I am more kindly disposed to it! Now, were those your cigarette smoking days? I'm trying to imagine poker without cigarettes and can't.

Well, you've certainly found your niche once again. I'm glad you didn't choose poker for life or none of us here would know who you were and wouldn't know what we'd missed.

marcia

3/5/2012 7:35:49 AM

Except if we are all playing poker here Lola! Just we didn't know! :-) So tell me did you like the coffee or do I need to work on it more? :-) Let's forget about these bad past experiences up there! We are here to be happy, not saddened. So will you all join me throwing some paper aeroplanes? Let's see who throws the most. I started yesterday! :-)

happy grasshopper

3/5/2012 8:32:01 AM

Yes... phsychiatry may have lost its way. However Dr. Archer hasn't! So - I'll be all right!

Lola

3/9/2012 12:47:33 PM

Your coffee was wonderful. It's a good thing it is virtual coffee though because in real life, I don't drink coffee. I am converting the virtual coffee to tea, because I don't want you to have to make two pots! Here's an aeroplane for you ------ zooommmmmm -- ooops! Steer away from the shredder!

marcia

3/16/2012 8:08:27 AM

Don't I wish a coffee would sort all our problems, Lola! Don't I wish...! :-)

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