I’ve been procrastinating by looking through other people’s blogs for ones that I feel support the messages that I’m trying to get across in this blog rather than duplicating what they’ve already written. In the future, I’ll probably copy and paste their entries and do my best to do full attributions to give them credit for their work.
One that I came across is:
Marine Snow
http://operationlola.wordpress.com/
It’s written from the point of view of someone struggling with anorexia. I like the blog because it details what it’s like for her to have anorexia, her mentality behind it, her view of her disorder and its effects, and well as how she feels about her treatment staff.
The last part is of great concern to my husband, who is concerned about people who appear to advocate on behalf of those who reject their treatment plans and think that their mental health staff are conspiring against them. Hence, I’m talking about this blog in a post rather than directly linking to it in the blog roll.
Personally, I can see his point of view as I agree that people need to become educated consumers and understand that the mental health profession is there to help people, not control them. While it did used to be this way decades ago, it’s not anymore. Also, people have more choices. If you don’t like your doctor or therapist, you are free to select another one that is a better fit for you. At the same time, you need to be honest with yourself as to whether or not you are switching doctors because you don’t think they’re suited to treat you or because you’re just using it as a way to avoid treatment altogether.
One of the objectives of this blog is to advocate for the use of therapy, medication, and support groups to treat mental illness while acknowledging the misgivings that I and other people have. Many Americans are highly skeptical of the medical profession because they are touted as knowing more about ourselves than we do. I think this is purely a construction of the mainstream media, which is often incorrect in it’s depiction of mental illness in many regards, especially symptoms, treatment, and humanity.
As stated before, I am not very knowledgeable about medications myself and rely heavily on my husband. Physical science is above my head. He suggests Crazy Meds and often relies as well on more scientific materials that are not written in laymen’s terms. (He already has a BA and wants to go to med school so he’s better trained in reading this stuff.)
Since social sciences and humanities are more my thing, I’ve read up on issues related to mental illness, therapeutic treatments like CBT, and general wellness advice from professors teaching at reputable schools.
From an education point of view, the most important things are to learn how to learn and to use critical thinking. Always know your sources and what their agenda is. This is what being educated really is.
