The Freedom Bulletin

Famous psychiatrist Keith Ablow blogged about an advertising campaign from Final Exit Network, a pro-assisted-suicide organization, which is posting billboards along highways that read “My life. My death. My choice.” Dr. Ablow argues that these billboards could trigger people with depression to commit suicide, and that the organization should be held liable if that happened.

I disagree. All that the billboard says is that people have the right to choose whether to live or die. It doesn’t encourage anyone to kill themselves or say that dying is a better decision than living; it just says that both are valid choices. If someone decides to commit suicide, it means that at that point in time, they believed suicide to be the best option. In my opinion, people have a right to make that decision, even though it is drastic and in some cases might be rash.

People commit suicide because their lives are so miserable that they would prefer death, whether because of a terminal illness, low self-esteem, being tormented or bullied by others, or some other reason. These things are the causes of suicide that need to be solved, not some billboard proclaiming that you have the right to decide for yourself how and when to die (which is true). Billboards do not force anyone to commit suicide, nor can they truly cause suicide, and the creators of such billboards should not be held responsible for anyone’s deaths.

Photo by Wing-Chi Poon, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5

The title of this post must be what the psychiatric and medical establishment is thinking of late.

A bunch of researchers recently came out with a study showing that giving oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in bonding, to people with Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism, makes them more social. I am willing to concede that oxytocin and social behavior are correlated, although as a dualist I do not believe that hormones or brain processes actually cause mental states.

But what I don’t get is why anyone would think this is a good idea. Asperger’s and other mental differences are not illnesses. They are not unpleasant things like pains or sicknesses that people want to get rid of. They are a part of people’s personalities, and a part of who they are. To get rid of Asperger’s syndrome would not be to help people but to change them into someone else.

Some people are social, and some people are not very social. Some people have lots of oxytocin, some people have an average amount, and some people don’t have a lot. All these ways of being are equally good.

To say that oxytocin can “help” people with Asperger’s to be more social is like saying that hair dye can “help” blond people to become brunette. If you want to be brunette, than yes, hair dye enables you to do that. But why would society want everyone in the world to be brunette? The world should have people with all different hair colors, just like it should have people with all different temperaments.  

If you want to take hormones to change the way you are, fine. But by no means should people be encouraged to do this. To say that making people with Asperger’s more social is a way of “helping” them is incredibly insulting, intolerant, and cruel. As long as you do not violate the rights of others, no way of being is better than other ways.  If less social people have trouble getting along in society, then that reflects badly on our society and indicates a need for our society to change, not for perfectly good people to change who they are to fit society’s unjust expectations.

Right now a woman named Carolyn Riley is on trial in Plymouth Superior Court for first-degree murder for allegedly giving her 4-year-old daughter, Rebecca, excessive doses of three psychiatric medications that led to her death. Rebecca’s father, Michael Riley, will go on trial later for similar charges. The defense is claiming that Rebecca died of pneumonia, not from the drugs. While this could be true, I believe that both parents, as well as the psychiatrist who prescribed the drugs, committed a terrible wrong and should be punished.

When Rebecca was just 2 years old, her mother brought her to Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and later bipolar disorder and prescribed her three psychiatric medications. Incidentally, Kifuij was also the psychiatrist of Rebecca’s two older siblings and gave them similar diagnoses and medications. The diagnosis seems to have been based entirely on the fact that Carolyn Riley said that her daughter was aggressive and had mood swings.

How could people think it is OK for a 2-year-old to be given mind-altering drugs? From all accounts, it seems like there was nothing wrong with Rebecca. A psychologist who visited the home said that she was well-adjusted and showed no signs of mental disorders or conditions. As for aggression and mood swings, what would you expect from a 2-year-old? Little kids have temper tantrums. They also tend to be aggressive, because they usually have not yet developed the capacity for empathy or respect for the rights of others. That’s just how little kids are. There’s nothing wrong with that. And even if Rebecca was more aggressive than average or had more mood swings than average, there’s nothing wrong with that, either. It is good for people to have diverse personality traits – some aggressive, some passive, some with strong emotions, others more calm. Why would you want to take everyone who differs from the average and make them be average?

Everyone who allowed Rebecca to be given these drugs but could have stopped it should be charged with child abuse. This includes her parents, as well as Dr. Kifuji, who outrageously not only was never indicted by a grand jury but is still practicing psychiatry! It’s ridiculous that parents can be charged with child endangerment for leaving their kids alone for a few minutes in a perfectly safe place, which doesn’t harm the kids at all, but cannot be charged with anything for branding kids with a lifelong label of mental illness and forcing them to take mind-altering drugs!

Another thing worth mentioning is that the Rileys were receiving about $2300 of federal disability benefits each month, much of it because of the psychiatric diagnoses of their two older children.  There is clearly something wrong with this system. Why should people be given free money simply because they have been diagnosed with a mental illness? People with bipolar disorder, ADHD, and many other so-called mental illnesses may have more challenging lives than others, but they can work, so why would they need disability benefits? Of course, little kids don’t work anyways, which makes it even more puzzling that they were given disability benefits. Plus, this system creates an incentive to have your kids or yourself diagnosed with a mental illness, even if you don’t actually have one.

The only people who should see psychiatrists (and even then, only if they truly want to and come up with the idea on their own) are those who have a mental problem so severe that they cannot function. This certainly does not include little kids who were brought to a psychiatrist by their mother and have nothing wrong with them. For whatever reason, be it genuine concern, desire for disability benefits, or greed on the part of psychiatrists and drug companies, society is narrowing the range of acceptable human behavior by declaring more and more personality traits “unhealthy” and then “curing” them with brainwashing or medication. Any deviation from the average is considered a mental illness, and people are encouraged to seek therapy for every tiny problem they have. This is evil, it destroys diversity and independence, and it may have taken little Rebecca Riley’s life.

Did you hear about the 8-year-old boy who was ordered by his school to go to a psychologist because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross?

While there are many facts in dispute between the boy’s parents and school officials, there is no doubt in my mind that the school is in the wrong. The boy’s father said that he drew the cross when asked to draw something that reminded him of Christmas; the school denies that. It’s unclear whether the boy meant to draw himself or Jesus on the cross. The school says they didn’t actually suspend the boy but just forced him to have a psychological evaluation before he could return – seems like the same thing to me. They even disagree on whether the drawing the boy’s father has been showing to the media is the one the boy drew.

But even if you interpret the evidence in the way that is the most favorable to the school, what happened to this boy is unjust. It’s just like what I posted about last time – people need to let other people be. A school’s job is to teach kids facts about math, writing, grammar, history, science, computers, and other subjects. It shouldn’t be a school’s job to meddle in students’ lives or to push value judgments on them. Kids should be able to draw whatever they want, and teachers and superintendents shouldn’t psychoanalyze their drawings and send them to shrinks for anything different or unusual.

The father in this case has been criticized for being too willing to speak to the media and for demanding that the school reimburse his son for his suffering and pay for tuition to a private school since the boy is too traumatized to go back to the same school. But I agree with him! The school officials violated the boy’s rights and should compensate him for his suffering. I don’t blame him for wanting to go to a different school. Being singled out and sent to a psychiatrist would be traumatic, and drawing a picture, even if it is of yourself on the cross, does not merit that.

As Pink Floyd said, teachers need to leave kids alone! Schools should teach facts and skills, not psychoanalyze kids’ drawings and single them out for psychotherapy for every little thing. Kids should be able to express themselves without being labeled as mentally ill.

The parents of a Harvard student are suing the university’s health services after they prescribed him three psych drugs and he committed suicide. I hope they win, and for what it’s worth in my non-medical-expert opinion, I believe that the medications were totally inappropriate.

It seems that the only reason that the student, John Edwards, went to see mental health services was because he was not able to study as long as his friends. Because of this, he was diagnosed with ADHD and an anxiety disorder, and a nurse practitioner decided to prescribe him the antidepressants Prozac and Wellbutrin and the anti-ADHD drug Adderall. Five months after his first visit, he killed himself.

From what I can tell by reading about this, there was nothing wrong with John Edwards and absolutely no need for him to undergo any psychotherapy or psych medications. This is just another example of how our society tries to make everyone the same. If someone is bad at anything or has any unusual qualities or is sad about anything, psychiatrists want to give them psychotherapy and medications to turn them into whatever society has arbitrarily decided the perfect person should be like.

When a kid learns to walk later than average, they give them physical therapy. When a kid learns to talk later than average, they give them speech therapy. If someone is shorter than average, they give them human growth hormone. If someone’s teeth aren’t perfectly straight, they have to get braces. If you’re shy, you are diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and have to get therapy. If you’re sad, you have to take anti-depressants. If you have any ache or pain, you are told to go to the doctor. If you aren’t great in a school subject, you have to get extra tutoring.

I could keep going on and on, but I think you get the point. Basically, everyone is expected to eat healthy food all the time, exercise for an hour every day, get good grades, be outgoing, dress stylishly, do prestigious internships every summer, and do a million extracurricular activities. Anyone who differs from this is made to get therapy and medications to make them just like everyone else.

Why can’t society accept all different kinds of people? Some people are optimistic, some are pessimistic. Some are quiet, some are loud. Some are tall, some are short. Some are skinny, some are fat. Some like to socialize, some don’t and instead prefer going on the computer or reading. Some people are athletic, some aren’t. Some people are good at math, some are good at writing, some are good at art, some are good with cars, and some are good with animals. People are good and bad at all different things, and that’s okay!

If you can’t study for as long as your friends, just don’t! Not everyone has to get perfect grades. If you really, really want to, then either drink more coffee, drink less coffee, find a quiet room to study, or play music to help yourself study.

The conformist, authoritarian attitude that much of society, especially the mental health profession, seems to have is evil, and it looks like it cost this young man his life.