November 17, 2005

• mefi mofi fefi fofum
• I just read about this in a magazine, and reading that and the npr site gives me the shivers. I want to shake my finger at Dully's father and ask "how dare you?" *sigh* But I guess that lots of kids are damaged in far less direct ways by the people who are supposed to care for them.
• What a world we live in.
• If you were touched by reading it, please listen to him tell the story. His voice is so emotive and raw, and the conversation with his father has so many levels of complex feelings happening at once. I'll confess that I cried at the end.
• A little way down this page, there is the actualphoto taken by Dr. Freeman during the surgery. Imagine being taken to a doctor's office, being put to sleep and waking up with two black eyes and mired in a mental fog that never goes away. That people could ever have believed in this type of mutilation is completely beyond my ken.
• That picture's in the link too, but the poster makes a good point about why he actually bothered to take the pictures. What a horrible story. It just strengthens my distrust in anyone I'm supposed to believe knows better than me.
• If you read or listen to the story, you will find out what happens when Howard finally talks to his father about his 'treatment'. While the story is about lobotomy, I found the motif of parental neglect and denial of parental responsibility particularly relevant to my own experience. Then again, I wasn't lobomotized.
• I was struck by how many of his patients seemed to be women.
• Reading about Howard Dully's experience, I felt quite distressed about how this could have been done to a human being, especially a child. But when I saw the photograph, it was an effort not to literally burst out crying. meredithea is right, the father is at fault, for not helping his wife and son learn to live with each other. And I don't understand why he wouldn't let Howard go to a foster home, but didn't take him home. Bastard.
• Freedom only applied to *some* people in the 'good old days'.
• Words fail me.
• Amazing that he and some of the other patients physically survived that kind of butchery, to say the least.
• Well, the brain is quite resilient, at least in areas of less absolute necessity. One is reminded of Phineas Gage, a bloke who had a foot long iron tamping rod blown thru his frontal lobe, and survived. It altered his personality, but he could still function. Frontal lobes are the seat of personality and emotion, IIRC.
• oy. i heard it on kpcc and it reminded me so much of the movie session 9 that i frantically fumbled to switch to my ipod. reading about it is ok, listening to it made me feel all sorts of creepy. session 9 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261983/
• What a world, indeed, HawthorneWingo. It's all about control. Consider this: so many people are currently using antidepressants, levels of same are actually detectable in water supplies in some areas of the U.S. People with very good reasons to be discontented are being regularly fed SSRIs so they won't act on their discontent. Folks who might have been motivated to change things, make a difference, improve their lives, etc. are being rendered placid and uncomplaining. I know--I'm a medical transcriptionist, I see this every single day. This is having a huge impact on the world, larger even than lobotomies, and people aren't the least bit alarmed (if they are, they take Paxil, Zoloft, etc.) And the beat goes on...
• This is having a huge impact on the world My world is bigger than your world.
• Nyaah nyaah!
• Hang on a second... his name is Howard Dully?
• It altered his personality, but he could still function. If we're thinking of the same person, no he couldn't -- railroad worker who had the spike blown through his head when an explosive charge went off? He had wild, violent mood swings and psychotic episodes afterward -- of the sort that can be treated with antipsychotic medications nowadays, but which weren't available then. Poor bastard wound up killing himself, IIRC. His case wound up leading to some significant medical discoveries.
• mct- he still functioned in that he could walk and talk and in general do a lot more than you'd think someone with a spike blown through their head would be able to do. But yeah, it completely screwed up his life.
• I heard this on the radio on the way home yesterday. What a strange trip it was. When I got home I grabbed my wife and whispered in her ear "Icepick Lobotomy." We both shivered, as she had been listening, in horrified fascination, at home. I admire NPR for putting this on. I am glad I heard it. I wish that there had been more warning, though. They are going to get a lot of letters on this one, I am sure. For those of you who did not hear the story, or did not read the link, and want to know what was the most icky part, I will relate it. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW, DO NOT READ THIS: The doctor pulls back the eyelid. He places the instrument, which resembles an icepick, above the eyeball. And pushes it. There is a crunch as the icepick penetrates the bone behind the eyeball, and then enters the brain. The doctor (oh, God) pushes it in and then Twirls the Instrument Like an Eggbeater. The world outside the car seemed less real for a while. I had goosebumps. Icepick Lobotomy would make a good name for a band.
• Thanks for the FPP, scratchpad. I'll read this thread later after I've had the chance to listen. And welcome!
• -- "There were some very unpleasant results, very tragic results and some excellent results and a lot in between," says Dr. Elliot Valenstein, who wrote Great and Desperate Cures, a book about the history of lobotomies. Can anyone tell me how or why any of the results would be excellent? What sort of medical explanation is there for any of the positive results?
• Fascinating, but tragic. I always have been so saddened by the "traditional" lobotomies performed in the past on the criminally and not-so-criminally insane. These seem even less well-intentioned, and even more horrible.
• People with very good reasons to be discontented are being regularly fed SSRIs so they won't act on their discontent. SOMA, anyone?
• This is the sort of post I have a hard time commenting on, I really don't know what to say. I would like to comment on the comments re SSRIs though. While I agree that a stance of vigilance is never a bad idea in regards to the pharmaceutical industry, my personal experiences with SSRIs in the past year have been very positive. I do not feel that my personality has changed, nor have I become "placid and uncomplaining". SSRIs are like many other technologies we possess, they have potential both good and not so good, it depends on their being used in a responsible, appropriate, ethical way. I have known many people for whom psych meds have offered great benefits, including putting them in a position to act more strongly against the agents of placidity. In fact, I happened to get rid of my TV around the same time I started taking meds; it seems to me a more promising avenue for ridding our cultures of their passivity in the face of myriad outrages.
• Can anyone tell me how or why any of the results would be excellent? What sort of medical explanation is there for any of the positive results? My guess is that it's the placebo effect. Do something on thousands of people, some are bound to feel that they benefited from it. Also, given that the statistics seem to have been collected by the doctor himself, he's bound to have massaged them at least a bit.
• Thanks for the welcome, techsmith! I too heard the story on the way home from work and was just blown away. Thought I'd post it from one monkey to another. The story is a tragic one, but it also made me wish that NPR was something that I could hug. It put an interesting spin on stories about this .
• "placid and uncomplaining" No shit. Every single time I hear this kneejerk-like-the-Rockettes SSRI's are for dumb people who aren't me bullshit, I want to punch someone in the head.
• Seriously...how long is it going to take for many Monkeys who enjoy Monkeyfilter for its intelligence, sharpness, and curiousity to realize that many of these intelligent, sharp, curious monkeys now take, have taken in the past, or will in the future take some sort of psychiatric medication? Don't patronize the nutjobs. It's a rookie move.
• You will pry my Lamictal from my cold, dead fingers.
• See also: A Hole in One. or not
• Depression and anxiety have ways of making you more removed from your problems (and adding to them). But I bet the medicines are being over-prescribed and they just dull some people into agreeable stoopers.
• There was an article in National Geographic, circa 99' about a boy who had a hemishere(not sure right or left) of his brain removed. the operation was done is the last decade. strangely enough he retained all his faculties, and the void just filled up with fluid. There was supposedly no dulling of skills or such realteing to corresponding hemishpere. I have the magizine somewhere.
• Hemispherectomy, sometimes done to treat severe epilepsy. The brain is an amazing piece of tissue.
• Bless you.
• The meds are definitely overprescribed Alex Ander, but I think that your perceptions re the potential effects etc., may have more to do with the type of people who are seeking meds as a bandaid to ignore their issues (ie, placid and uncomplaining) vs. those who require and desire assistance to live a full and focused life instead of drowning in the frustrations and outrages against which they are unplacidly complaining. moneyjane's got my back, nobody fuckin' with me now!!
• Is hemispherectomy really a good idea, notwithstanding the ability of children to reorganise what's left of their brains to cope (I assume adults would be permanently handicapped, severely so if the dominant hemisphere were removed?) Isn't commissurotomy (cutting the connection between the hemispheres) a less radical option, and even then only something to be undertaken in the last resort? I'm not being rhetorical here, I'd welcome further enlightenment.
• My admittedly ignorant lay understanding is that commissurotomy is the preferred surgery in extreme cases of epilepsy, but I'd guess (and this pure speculation) there are cases where a hemispherectomy would be more effective. Otherwise I can't imagine justifying something so extreme.
• Look if God didn't want us to cut bits out of other people's brains he wouldn't have made them so damn tasty.
• You know, if you had half a brain -- oh, sorry!
• medicines are being over-prescribed and they just dull some people into agreeable stoopers BWAAHAAAHAHAHA! MonkeyFilter: Agreeable stoopers.
• The best anti anxiety medicine of course is alchol. It seems to be the most effective anti anxiety drug. The best anti depression drug is of course adreniline, which requires exerice, oh wait, have a choclate bar and a telivision show instead. Welcome to America.
• This story particularly hits home with me, as I have been hospitalized for depression induced psychosis more than once. Now, I manage a department at a large public sector institution, and am told that my performance is more than adequate. I am blindingly happy most of the time, and my emotional balance has made me a much more formidable opponent and less easily manipulated than I ever have been. It is from finally finding the right psychiatric medication regimen. Doing so has felt like the lifting of a life scentence to an internal torture I felt doomed to always bear. This feeling is compounded by the well meaning that tell you to just snap out of it. Would they tell that to someone with epilepsy or parkinsons or alzheimers? Psychiatric medication is overperscribed, there is no doubt. However most that don't need it will stop taking it after a while. Those that need it and stop eventually become unable to function and try again or perish. A real organic problem will come back as it is not situational, it is not within ones mental control and time cannot heal it. When people say antidepressants are worthless, orwellian, etc. it feels like a slap in the face. Without them, in another age, I might have faced the icepick and lost.
• Without them, in another age, I might have faced the icepick and lost. Very well said. I would only add that the well meaning that tell you to just snap out of it are, in 2005, with so much information available online, rather less well meaning than oblivious or snidely bigoted.
• I would have to say the best way to treat a depressed person is rather akin to how one would raise a dog. Quite wineing, get outside, your not fat ugly or stupid, no one hates you, shut up and work! The problem is that we've become a nation of snivleing winey basterds(myself somewhat included). Push the patients nose in the shit, give him some beer tell him you've been there give him a good hobby, where he or she might find a friend, tell him or her to get some exercise, (raises saratonin levels, alternativly one can recomend cocaine as was the vogue in the states with the Coca cola generation) get off the cross we need the wood etcetera.
• Crackpot - the "tough love" thing really doesn't work for those with clinical depression. Maybe it does help for those with a situational depression, sometimes (though curing the situation is probably a better answer.) And, I have to think that raising a dog similarly would give you one who pees at the slightest attention. I know, I know, you're not a doctor but you portray one on MoFi.
• Heh, I don't know about agreeable, BlueHorse...
• Crackpot, it would appear that I was not clear enough in my statements. Either that or you have some non compos mentis issues yourself. Some people have an actual physiological problem with the structure or chemistry of their brain that causes them to be unable to regulate certain mental functions. Picture it like insulin for the head, if you need it and don't take it, you are going to have issues eventually. You can get by for a while, but, if you run into sugar enough, you are going to end up in the hospital or worse. stress and change are a chronically depressed persons "sugar" if they get enough, things are going to go downhill fst if they aren't being treated. Thanks for the kind words moneyjane. Some "helpful" folk may be bigoted, most just have no idea what might be different between a clinical depression and a bad mood. Since they may be able to cheer themselves up, they figure you could do it if you followed their path. That your own brain can betray you is not something within most peoples ken. It is like trying to explain the difference between blue and purple to someone blind since birth. Given the ability to understand the experience, people would be more apt to treat mental illness seriously, and temper their advice giving. I hate to end with a platitude, but the fit is too exact. "Forgive them for they know not what they do."
• jester, eloquent explanation of clinical depression/mental illness! I am unipolar depressed (that serotonin thing) and my husband, with the best of intentions, always tries to get me to "buck up" and like, "choose to change my mental state" but as far as I know its not possible for someone to affect their brain chemistry thru sheer force of will.
• ...as far as I know its not possible for someone to affect their brain chemistry thru sheer force of will. Sure you can, goddamit! I even saw you do that rabbit out of a hat thing too! It's kind of like asking The Thing That Isn't Working to tell The Thing That Isn't Working to work.The prospects of success are limited.
• monkeyfilter: the prospects of sucess are limited
• MonkeyFilter: Like asking The Thing That Isn't Working to tell The Thing That Isn't Working to work. pure genius
• Also, giving a depressed person alcohol -- a depressant -- only adds fuel to the fire. Too many people with chemical depression self-medicate with alcohol and only end up as depressed alcoholics.
• There's a saying in Chinese: "借酒消愁，愁更愁“ "Borrowing wine to dissipate your worries will only make them multiply"
• Apologies. It should be "Using wine to drown your sorrows will only make them multiply."
• He's on a book tour now.