Stigmatizing depression

[WilliamPitt]

It is becoming clear that the pilot who apparently deliberately crashed the Germanwings flight suffered from severe depression. Just a quick, quiet note of reminder that this must not become an excuse to stigmatize people who deal with this malady. Don't do it yourselves, and if you see/hear someone doing it, very gently correct them. Blaming "depression," thus putting all who deal with depression under suspicion, is a shortcut to thinking. Don't indulge it.

Thanks.



William Rivers Pitt | To Know the Darkness and the Light
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25564-william-rivers-pitt-to-know-the-darkness-and-the-light

[LeftishBrit]

1. k&r

At least 25% of the population will be treated for a mental health problem at some point; many others will have such problems but not receive treatment. There is NO correlation between mental health problems and risk of committing a crime, though there is some correlation between mental health problems and risk of being the victim of a crime.

[hlthe2b]

2. Indeed... An estimate that 7% of the population will suffer severe depression is likely

to be a serious underestimate as well. There is no correlation with commission of violent acts towards others Quite the opposite, actually.

[blue neen]

3. Treatment for clinical depression is finally, finally starting to become a science.

There is now DNA testing, done by a simple cheek swab, that can help predict what anti-depressants and other brain medicines will work best for a person. Genesight is one of these tests. I'm sure there are others on the horizon.

Anyone who has dealt with any type of depression has been subject to the "guinea pig effect"-----being part of a giant guessing game as to what medicines will be effective. Just one horrible experience with the wrong med is enough to scare many people away from seeking further treatment. Many of us know someone who ended up hospitalized from the wrong meds.

The Genesight test was developed by the Mayo Clinic and the Children's Hospital of Cincinnati. I have a number of friends who are already benefiting from the knowledge this DNA test provides. For some, it is a godsend.

I think that fear of the unknown is one of the things that has helped to stigmatize clinical depression and other brain disorders.

[anotojefiremnesuka]

5. True but in practice it is here try this for a few weeks

Doc it does not really work or I get X side effect

Here try this for a few weeks…..

and so it will go until the right combination is found and even after the right one(s) are found they never last and always need to be changed.

Still mostly guessing and hit or miss on the front lines.

[blue neen]

7. Yes, there is a long, long way to go...

it all starts with a step. Let's hope they'll continue those steps and bring psychiatric treatment out of the dark ages.

[mopinko]

8. the wall between shrinks and neurologists is finally STARTING to come down.

after a long battle w depression and after a dx of ptsd, my daughter finally got comprehensive brain studies. turns out it was really traumatic brain injury that caused pretty bad epilepsy.
more than one mass shooter suffered from brain tumors.
sleep apnea is a common cause of depression.

there are a lot of things that can go wrong with a brain. there really is no such thing as "mental illness".
we can all stop blaming our parents. it's a brain disorder.

if you want to advocate for something here, advocated for more scientific and thorough brain care. it will get us a lot farther than making every person whose job includes the safety of other divulge their medical records to their employers.
this will only result in fewer people seeking help. it CAN only result in fewer people seeking help.

[blue neen]

19. + 1000.

Agree with every point you make.

I hope that your daughter is doing better now. What a horrible ordeal.

[meow2u3]

21. It's not coming down fast enough

The more I rail against being blamed for having major depression--as if I consciously chose to suffer--the more I want society itself committed until they understand so-called mental illness are nothing but maladies of the brain.

I'm sick of this double standard which assumes brain diseases are nothing more than personal weakness, but treats illnesses affecting the rest of the body with proper treatment.

[mopinko]

23. or your mom's fault. i want sigmund freud's memory erased from the culture.

therapy that focuses on experiences that hurt you, instead of coping with a brain that basically lies to you, is time not only wasted, but often harmful.

it just reinforces your disrupted perception. especially w kids. my daughter was quite convinced that she was seriously abused, beaten even, when no such thing took place. this is a terrible thing to allow to fester in a person's brain. it drove a wedge where there could have been healing.
it should be about finding ways to see things more clearly. having some god figure accept everything you say when you are not thinking clearly is not helpful.

[Pooka Fey]

4. Excellent reminder to those brandishing the E-pitchforks

We can't make the world safe from random incomprehensible tragedy. It's normal that people need to talk, and normal to search to "make sense" out of such craziness. Scapegoating depressed people, however, is deeply wrong and unhealthy. On another thread, I see that pilots are feeling pressured to "show their papers" --- expose their private life to outside scrutiny, in order to reassure their passengers that they don't intend to crash the airplane

"Don't worry! both my co-pilot and I are ex-military and happily married with 2.5 kids and a dog".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141052318

And the rest of us?

Excellent essay on the link - literary quality writing. Thank you, Will. You are my brother, and I am your sister.

[AngryAmish]

6. I think be was schizophrenic

Nightmares, vision problems etc.

Schizophrenics should not fly airplanes.

[DeadLetterOffice]

26. Um...

Nightmares and 'vision problems' do not a diagnosis of schizophrenia make. Not even a little bit.

And by the way, they're not 'schizophrenics' -- they are people diagnosed with schizophrenia. There's more to a person than their diagnostic label.

[AngryAmish]

28. oh shut up

[DeadLetterOffice]

30. Well THAT was certainly an enlightening response.

Oy.

[nomorenomore08]

33. What did they say that was untrue?

[nomorenomore08]

34. *Untreated* (or improperly/inadequately treated) schizophrenics should not fly airplanes.

I'm sure we can all agree on that much, at least.

[mopinko]

9. thx will.

[jwirr]

10. Thank you. Is "To Know the Darkness and the Light" a book you wrote?

[WilliamPitt]

14. Just an article

Written on the occasion of the death of Robin Williams.

[jwirr]

16. Thank you.

[heaven05]

11. +1000

people are way to quick to form mobs and hang the mofo on the flimsiest notions, reasons or rumors. It's a mob thing, I guess....

[DFW]

12. I don't see it that way at all

As one affected by the German Wings incident more than most, I'd remind people that the main issue to many of on the ground here, as well as those, like me, who take that airline on that route frequently (like tomorrow!) is that the airline has an iron-bound responsibility to its passengers to make sure its pilots are in perfect health (of all kinds). Lufthansa dropped the ball here. The consequences were fatal, and at least 149 of those 150 people shouldn't have died last Tuesday.

Certain afflictions disqualify people (or should) from certain lines of work. It's that simple. A blind person shouldn't be a truck driver. A quadraplegic shouldn't be a bricklayer. A person with an emotional disturbance should not be a pilot for a commercial airline. There are plenty of jobs where people with these handicaps can do the work perfectly well without endangering anyone else's life. No one is stigmatizing depression, but I sure as hell am willing to stigmatize an airline that lets an emotionally unstable man be in command of a commercial airliner, whether or not I risk being on it.

[WilliamPitt]

15. "...the airline has an iron-bound responsibility to its passengers..."

No argument.

[Sienna86]

17. Well said.

Depression and other mental illness are a physical health matter.

[Coventina]

18. As a person who has battled severe clinical depression since adolescence, I agree with you.

There have been times when I certainly should NOT have had the lives of others depending upon me.

In my case, I never had a job that put others in danger due to my illness.

Most of the time (thanks to meds and talk therapy) I manage my illness very well and I'm as safe as any healthy person, but at my lowest....I can tell you I would not want to board a plane flown by anyone in that condition.

I don't feel that it is a stigma to say that severely depressed people should have close monitoring of their condition if their illness could endanger others.

[KingCharlemagne]

38. Bravo! (Brava!) - I salute your forthrightness and self-awareness. - nt

[pipi_k]

55. Exactly what I was thnking

the other day:

There have been times when I certainly should NOT have had the lives of others depending upon me.

I've been dealing with depression in varying degrees of severity since 1972. Normally, I'm really only a danger to myself during those episodes, but there have been times when my mind has taken me to some extremely disturbing places. Places I don't even want to talk about because they are so disturbing and frightening.

I would not have trusted myself to be responsible for the lives of others at those times.

[steve2470]

24. agreed

If a board-certified psychiatrist thinks a particular pilot should NOT be flying, I'm cool with that. This particular guy slipped through the cracks somehow, sadly and very tragically.

[former9thward]

25. Germany has privacy laws.

The co-pilot hid his illness. What exactly was the airline supposed to do? Do you suggest a physical, both body and mind, before every flight? How else are they going to be responsible for "perfect health"?

[DFW]

35. Germany violates its privacy laws as regularly as any other country that has them, including ours

Besides, the guy's interruption of his training in Phoenix for treatment was apparently no secret. The airline was supposed to pay attention to that. That's what they are supposed to do. They don't need to test every pilot before every flight, but they should test them before certifying them to fly passenger aircraft, and test them periodically. As we saw last week, this is not a case where a mistake can be subsequently rectified. My wife does not need to become a widow just because some guy being treated for mental illness wants his privacy. I'm about to get on a German Wings flight from Düsseldorf to Barcelona in 2 hours. I expect LH to have made completely sure, and not "reasonably sure" that the men and women in the cockpit are not remotely in a state of mind to do this again.

[former9thward]

44. So you are saying the airlines should violate the law.

And of course you did not say anything practical about how they would do this. I would suggest you not fly until you can do this.

[MFrohike]

29. You're wrong

You don't understand the condition, as evidenced by your use of phrases like "emotional disturbance" and "emotionally unstable." It might feel good to argue that this is all for safety, but you really have jack squat evidence that a depressed person is any more likely to take others with him or her when he or she commits suicide. Not only, that but the millions upon millions of living depressed people who work at plenty of dangerous jobs and drive cars (one of the most hazardous activities in modern life) are a testament to the proposition that your uninformed alarmism is nothing but the latest installment of the well-meaning trying to apply solutions where problems don't exist.

I guess I could point out that your choice of phrases goes a long way toward stigmatizing the very people you claim it's wrong to stigmatize. It's a bit too easy. Low-hanging fruit, if you will. I guess I did just point it out, so there you go.

[nomorenomore08]

36. True. Narcissism and psychopathy are far more dangerous to others than mental illness proper -

of which depression is a subset.

[MFrohike]

43. Hell

Substance abuse is a far greater danger in the context of mass transit than depression, yet I don't see anybody calling for all addicts to be put out of a job.

[DFW]

37. You are picking your low-hanging fruit from quite a high horse

There is a big difference between a car and an A-320 at 30,000 feet. One you can stop. The other you can't. I'm about to get into a German Wings plane from Düsseldorf to Barcelona. There is no argument good enough for me that the pilots should be cleared to be in perfect health of all natures before taking my life, as well as that of 100 others, into their hands.

[MFrohike]

42. Am I?

So, we have one case in all of human history where a pilot may have crashed a plane because he may have been depressed and this is sufficient reason to not allow anyone with depression, or presumably a history of it, to be a pilot. Yeah, nothing quite says overreaction like dealing with an outlier.

You can stop a car? Cool. What if you don't see the other person coming at you? What good is that brake pedal?

If you're really worried about pilots' health in regard to their passengers, you'd be looking at substance abuse. After all, that at least has a documented history of causing death in air travel. But no, let's go after the boogeyman. Let's buy the CNN hysteria and piss on people who least need it because, you know, security. That always ends well!

[Major Hogwash]

47. From what I saw on the news, he had been examined by 2 different doctors.

And that is how his mental condition has come to be known.

I agree with what you said, because a friend of mine, who was a semi-truck and trailer long-haul driver many years ago, told me that a lot of his fellow truckers were half drunk while on the road.
Or high on pills.
How many he didn't know, but he said it wasn't uncommon.

[LiberalLoner]

13. K&R

[WilliamPitt]

20. Up

[gwheezie]

22. This was pretty unusual

To the people who died and those who loved them it doesn't matter if this happens every day or once a decade. But this was pretty uncommon so I'm not ready to say people treated for depression at some point is the same as blind truck drivers.

[cwydro]

27. The clinic where he received treatment

for an undisclosed ailment has said that he did NOT seek treatment for depression.

[uppityperson]

31. K&R. Please do not over react or react badly to so many of us.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026423534


Don’t stigmatise depression after Germanwings crash, says top doctor
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026429318

[liberal_at_heart]

32. Those so quick to judge should be careful. The majority of humans experience depression

sometime in their life, and the majority never hurt themselves or others. If you find yourself sitting in judgment of someone experiencing depression just remember it will probably be you some day.

[nomorenomore08]

39. +1

[nomorenomore08]

40. Call it depression or whatever you will, but it's been a constant for me since early childhood.

At various times it's driven me to overeat, to self-harm, to abuse hard drugs. Most of the time my symptoms are only mild to moderate (thank God) but when it gets bad it's really bad. And when my lack of productivity leads me to feel useless and good-for-nothing, it only continues the vicious cycle.

Thank you for this post. Seriously.

[Ghost in the Machine]

41. I recognized signs of depression in myself in 2001. I was married, had kids, an excellent job making

close to $2000.00/week, my wife was pulling in about $1300.00/week and we had everything we wanted and/or needed, but nothing seemed to make me happy anymore. After about a year of this, in which time I developed a gambling habit on electronic poker machines spending $100 - $200/day sometimes. There were also times I would hit a jackpot of over 2500.00 on the first $5 I spent amd I still wasn't happy. I finally took a test for depression online and it said I had Major Clinical Depression and to get to mental health services immediately. It took me 3 more months and then the breakup of my marriage, losing my home and my job alll in the same day to make an appointment... just because I didn;t want to be "one of *those people*.

I always thought that this depression thing was just a cop-out by lazy people who didn't know how to just "suck it up and keep moving on", which was a credo that I lived by. When something bad happened, just suck it up and keep going forward, things will get better. It always worked for me... until it didn't anymore. Now I have a whole different outlook on it after experiencing it first hand. At my first appointment, the doctor started talkind about filing out paperwork to get me on disability but I told him hell no, just give me meds and I'll keep working. Iwas an ironworker, commercial roofer, certified welder, carpenter and certified for all terrain high-reach forklifts amd certified crane operator. I never had a problem finding a job. I had quit jobs before just because I didn't like the boss, or the commute, and I'd stop at other construction sites on my way home and usually had 2 or 3 jobs to choose from before I got home.

I worked until late 2003 when I was seriously injured in a construction accident that left me disabled after breaking my neck and back. When I went to see a neurosurgeon, he looked at my MRIs and told me that he "didn't know how or why I was able to walk because from the extent of my injuries I should be a quadriplegic". After 2 major neck surgeries and 12 years later. I can still walk, but I stagger and limp and people think I'm drunk lol. I'm on total, permanent disability now, and on xanax for anxiety and panic attacks. I still have dreams about falling off the roof, and some days I wake up and can't move from the neck down, but about 15 minutes later it seems like the rest of my body wakes up, then I can move. I have tethered cord syndrome at the C-4 level and if it ever breaks loose I'll drop where I stand, paralyzed from the neck down... with the possibility of dying because it could affect my automatic reflexes and I could just stop breathing and die. I just try to make the best of each day now, and still suck it up and keep trying to go forward.

I'm also suffering from depression again, but I can't take anti-depressants. They have tried me on 5 different kinds, and when I was on them was the *ONLY TIME* I ever had thoughts of suicide. I always tell people that "after everything I've been through in my life, the only reason I haven't killed myself yet is because I want to hang out and see what the fuck is going to happen next! I have a one way ticket on this ride called life and so far it's been a white-knuckle ride with lots of twists and turns and loop de loops, but I have no plans on jumping off early, I'm gonna ride this sumbitch out to the very end"!

Peace,

Ghost

[marions ghost]

45. thanks for your story

[Ghost in the Machine]

46. You're welcome, I'm glad that someone read it. I feel for anyone suffering from depression now...

and hope they get help without being worried about being stymatized. Like I said, at first I thought it was a cop-out and didn't want to be "one of *those people*", but I know it's for real now. I *AM* one of those people now, and if it encourages even one person to seel help it's worth it to me for telling my story. I haven't ever really spoken about it in public like this, mainly I've just shared it with close friends and family.

Peace to you and yours, marions ghost! I hope all is well with you all.

Ghost

[WilliamPitt]

48. Good to see you again, old friend

[Ghost in the Machine]

50. It's always good to read your posts, my friend. I read often, just haven't been posting much

in a while. I hope all is well with you and yours....

Peace,

Ghost

[In_The_Wind]

49. You are amazing, Ghost.

[img][/img]

[Ghost in the Machine]

51. Well thank you, In_The_Wind! I'm glad that someone thinks so, and it made me smile this morning

Peace within, Peace among, Peace between...

Ghost

[Jenny Red Eye]

52. Respect.

I have serious respect for you.

[Ghost in the Machine]

56. Thank you, Jenny Red Eye

I'm just me though, just trudging on trying to make it through this mean ol' world....

Welcome to DU

Peace,

Ghost

[DUgosh]

54. Wow

Just Wow, thanks.

[Ghost in the Machine]

57. You're welcome....

Like I said in a reply above, this is the first time I've spoken publicly about this, but if it encourages even one person to seek help, it's worth it to me to finally tell my experience. There may be others who think and feel the same way I originally thought and felt.

Peace,

Ghost

[DUgosh]

58. Thank you for posting this.

I thought about it all day

[HockeyMom]

53. Anti-Depressants Risk of Suicide

http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60

My daughter was diagnosed with BiPolar in her early 20s. The first medication she was on caused her to gain 50 lbs, so her doctor switched her to Paxil. Horrible. She could not sleep, did not want to go to work, and was always agitated. One night she tried to slit her wrists, but stopped before she got too far with it.

I woke up to find her with her wrists taped in gauze. She told me she felt so depressed she just wanted to kill herself, but then said she realized that it must have been the MEDICATION which was making her depression even worse. "This is supposed to make me feel BETTER?" "The other meds caused me to put on weight". "No, more of this SHIT". This was almost 10 years ago and she takes no meds for depression today.

Her older cousin (also BiPolar) had a similar experience. She tried to kill herself crashing her car into a tree. They both talked to each other about their similar symptoms on Paxil. Her cousin stopped taking anti-depressants about 15 years ago.

Today, both are married and have jobs which they love. Her cousin has raised three daughters. No problems. My daughter always wanted to be a LEO. With her former diagnosis of Bipolar she is automatically disqualified. In NYS she cannot own a gun because of her mental condition. Both she and her cousin had voluntarily checked themselves into a hospital at first for treatment. That will show up on records for certain occupations. Background checks.

To get back to the topic. In some people these anti-depressants can cause severe reactions, including that which they are supposed to prevent. Just listen to those TV Warning Ads on the side effects of these anti-depressants. Are doctors telling their patients this when they prescribe them? They SHOULD. I do know my daughter's doctor never told her any of this.

It is very, very frightening that a medication can cause the most severe symptom that it is supposedly trying to treat. It also makes me wonder about Lubitz. I did read somewhere that bottle of pills were found in his apartment. Perhaps, just like LEO's, maybe commercial airline pilots should be barred from flying when taking these medications.

BTW, I also read there was a major lawsuit against the manufacturers of Paxil. Please, be careful when taking these, or any, medications. If you are experiencing any side effects, stop taking them, and call your doctor. Your life, and others, may depend on it.

Edit: It was reported in German media, that his former girlfriend said Lubitz had said to her that he was going to do something someday that would make people remember his name. Not just depression/suicide, but the mania side of it. Delusions of grandure. Most people in the manic stage just go on shopping sprees and rack up debt, but I suppose a horrific, extreme mania could be killing 100 other people along with yourelf. Horrible thought.