A Moral Dilemma RE Homelessness

[phyrefly]

No, cat whacks doggie (again) on this one. Placing the addict in the context of homelessness (note use of theologian's suffix) is only one of the personae involved when capitalism produces deterritorialized, dispossessed transhumans just as it produces Ford cars and toothpaste. We Other houseless include those deliberately crucifying the Rent Pimp, Protection-Racket/Charity Pimp, shamans, theologs and other psychopaths, by doing Anne Franke imitations to thwart the Gestapo. Without alcohol or drugs, this writer must add that it's some pretty good and lasting sex, doing what we do.

[Psykhronic]

Phyre, I have no clue wtf I just read.

And Zazzy, it's not your fault that crack exists and rehab is shit for long-term recovery. You have done what you can. Unfortunately, people can get pretty fucked up by this world and it's not easy to reach them. That being said, you seem like an awesome friend for trying and being there for so long.

[Angrboda]

I'm of considerably less mixed opinion on this. Enabling only leads to worse outcomes, for all involved. We want to help, to eliminate the immediate suffering we see about to occur, but doing so often leads to more suffering in the long term. When I was first hospitalized for depression, a friend had also been recently hospitalized for depression. I forget exactly what they said to her, but to paraphrase, they told her she'd either accept responsibility for her depression and managing, or she would spend the rest of her life in and out of the hospital. I don't know that I agree in absolute, but there's a core of truth there. I spent the next 5 years, myself, with about 25 hospitalizations, many of them involuntary. I'm not saying I wasn't taking responsibility for myself, as I concluded relatively early that, even if people are willing to help, ultimately, when I get sick, it is all on me to do something; nobody else can step in and be responsible "for me" if I have not chosen to be responsible for myself, and am taking steps to behave and respond to the situation and my needs. At the end of the day, you only have yourself. It starts with you. Once you've decided to help yourself, and have started the process of how to do that (taking care of oneself when one's own brain is working against you is something that involves a long learning process, with a lot of education, experience, and trial and error). You cannot substitute for their judgement and their choosing to seek to be right; and putting band-aids on the immediate crisises only serves to defuse another potential opportunity to learn, another chance to realize where they need to be going, rather than just where they want to be going. As a Taoist, I'm somewhat programmatically against depriving people of the opportunity to learn from experience, when learning from experience is what is needed, and may be the only way to learn it. I don't consider it "tough love." It is, to me, just doing the right thing, for them, and for me.

[Psykhronic]

I'm somewhat programmatically against depriving people of the opportunity to learn from experience, when learning from experience is what is needed, and may be the only way to learn it. I don't consider it "tough love." It is, to me, just doing the right thing, for them, and for me.

I have to agree at least a little with this. Going through psychosis was ridiculous, but if someone came along and could have simply snapped me out of it then I would not have learned nearly as much. I've learned the consequence of not taking care of oneself, how to manage my emotions better, and a lot of fear/anxiety disappeared from going through such experiences. I also learned to trust medication, but more importantly - to assert myself regarding my medication, to stand up for myself if I don't like a drug they put me on and also to stick with what is working.

But there are some people who will not be able to learn after a certain point - going back to my usage of psychosis, something like a third of people do not respond to medications. So it is a situational judgement, but yeah a lot of times people can really learn from their shitty experiences.

[phyrefly]

Rasetsu jumps ahead in the lead, though we suggest the reader chill before getting too intensel with this Punch-and-Judy thread. The poster just before Rasetsu could not make any sense of (all[italics]) of phyrefly's message, apparently. Therefore, we can take it one word at a time, after all, it's likely in most reader's mother tongue and has now been immortalized in cyberspace.

We thus define Dipshitism as the ability of Nurse Ratchet to take one case out of the context of homelessness and (reify it[italics]), excluding any other examples. Nurse Ratchet certainly is a smooth operator. Never believe that smooth space will suffice to save us. We had better go slowly and reach for the dictionary, lest your dogs devour phyrefly prematurely.

If the reader senses an autist on this thread, they could be right: psychic blindness can occur when the reader's territorial rage literally prevents them from reading (and understanding) words they normally would have no difficulty with. Mind-blindness in autism is intimately related to this phenomenon. But it's truly a chicken-shit cop-out to pretend not to understand.

[Angrboda]

I'm somewhat programmatically against depriving people of the opportunity to learn from experience, when learning from experience is what is needed, and may be the only way to learn it. I don't consider it "tough love." It is, to me, just doing the right thing, for them, and for me.

I have to agree at least a little with this. Going through psychosis was ridiculous, but if someone came along and could have simply snapped me out of it then I would not have learned nearly as much. I've learned the consequence of not taking care of oneself, how to manage my emotions better, and a lot of fear/anxiety disappeared from going through such experiences. I also learned to trust medication, but more importantly - to assert myself regarding my medication, to stand up for myself if I don't like a drug they put me on and also to stick with what is working.

But there are some people who will not be able to learn after a certain point - going back to my usage of psychosis, something like a third of people do not respond to medications. So it is a situational judgement, but yeah a lot of times people can really learn from their shitty experiences.

I'm a person who doesn't respond to medication (and am wholeheartedly in love with my psychosis). It isn't about "curing" the illness, that's certainly helpful, but the ultimate goal is just to be able to live with this or these things in your life. I'm on a moderate dosage of one of the few anti-psychotics that I respond to, and it does nothing to change my thinking. But changing the thinking isn't the ultimate goal. Changing the behavior is. And there are many paths to that goal that don't depend on removing the illness. I attend group therapy, individual, I'm social, I take time to learn and enjoy, I get free food and housekeeping -- all these are pieces to the puzzle of keeping me living well in spite of a terrible illness which does not seem to have any fix that will make it right. If a person has an incurable cancer, is that the end of thinking about how to manage and live with the illness? No. Coping with an illness is a much broader question than just fixing what, to many, appears the problem. It's a much more multi-dimensional question than that. People with severely degraded schizophrenic symptoms may never be able to live normally. But do they live better or worse if "supplemental interventions" (money, therapy, supportive social relations, skills training, etc) are removed, or do they live worse lives. Throwing up your hands because somebody doesn't respond to medication is, imo, taking a rather simplistic and wrong-headed approach.

[Psykhronic]

---

Rasetsu jumps ahead in the lead, though we suggest the reader chill before getting too intensel with this Punch-and-Judy thread. The poster just before Rasetsu could not make any sense of (all[italics]) of phyrefly's message, apparently. Therefore, we can take it one word at a time, after all, it's likely in most reader's mother tongue and has now been immortalized in cyberspace.

We thus define Dipshitism as the ability of Nurse Ratchet to take one case out of the context of homelessness and (reify it[italics]), excluding any other examples. Nurse Ratchet certainly is a smooth operator. Never believe that smooth space will suffice to save us. We had better go slowly and reach for the dictionary, lest your dogs devour phyrefly prematurely.

If the reader senses an autist on this thread, they could be right: psychic blindness can occur when the reader's territorial rage literally prevents them from reading (and understanding) words they normally would have no difficulty with. Mind-blindness in autism is intimately related to this phenomenon. But it's truly a chicken-shit cop-out to pretend not to understand.

---

Perphenazine is legit - you should try it out, mate.

[Clueless Morgan]

Thanks, all for the responses. I know I'm doing the right thing... it's just really hard to see someone like this go to waste. If I could stab crack cocaine in the throat and kill it, I would.

I think it says a lot of positive things about you that you're feeling this torn about the decision you made. Caring deeply for the well-being of the people you love is one of the best things about being human to me and it's a good thing that you can't just turn those feelings for him off. We should all be so lucky as to have a friend like you, Zaz.

As for your decision, more of the same here: If all he wants to do it use and to hell with anything that gets in the way of using than there's not much you can do but continue to extend your offer to get him into rehab and to be there for him when he's sober. Without the desire to get clean and stay clean, he'll just go back to using no matter what you do.

[Psykhronic]

I have to agree at least a little with this. Going through psychosis was ridiculous, but if someone came along and could have simply snapped me out of it then I would not have learned nearly as much. I've learned the consequence of not taking care of oneself, how to manage my emotions better, and a lot of fear/anxiety disappeared from going through such experiences. I also learned to trust medication, but more importantly - to assert myself regarding my medication, to stand up for myself if I don't like a drug they put me on and also to stick with what is working.

But there are some people who will not be able to learn after a certain point - going back to my usage of psychosis, something like a third of people do not respond to medications. So it is a situational judgement, but yeah a lot of times people can really learn from their shitty experiences.

I'm a person who doesn't respond to medication (and am wholeheartedly in love with my psychosis). It isn't about "curing" the illness, that's certainly helpful, but the ultimate goal is just to be able to live with this or these things in your life. I'm on a moderate dosage of one of the few anti-psychotics that I respond to, and it does nothing to change my thinking. But changing the thinking isn't the ultimate goal. Changing the behavior is. And there are many paths to that goal that don't depend on removing the illness. I attend group therapy, individual, I'm social, I take time to learn and enjoy, I get free food and housekeeping -- all these are pieces to the puzzle of keeping me living well in spite of a terrible illness which does not seem to have any fix that will make it right. If a person has an incurable cancer, is that the end of thinking about how to manage and live with the illness? No. Coping with an illness is a much broader question than just fixing what, to many, appears the problem. It's a much more multi-dimensional question than that. People with severely degraded schizophrenic symptoms may never be able to live normally. But do they live better or worse if "supplemental interventions" (money, therapy, supportive social relations, skills training, etc) are removed, or do they live worse lives. Throwing up your hands because somebody doesn't respond to medication is, imo, taking a rather simplistic and wrong-headed approach.

I should not have severely implied that not responding to meds = give up now. I apologize. Some people cannot recognize their psychosis even with medication is what I was trying to say, and was thinking of a personal example at the time. I apologize, again, for sounding rather absolutist about meds. I know someone who doesnt know anything of their own psychosis and does not respond to meds. So they cannot acknowledge that they have psychosis, in other words. But yes, you clearly show it is not the end if meds do not work.

[Angrboda]

I should not have severely implied that not responding to meds = give up now. I apologize. Some people cannot recognize their psychosis even with medication is what I was trying to say, and was thinking of a personal example at the time. I apologize, again, for sounding rather absolutist about meds. I know someone who doesnt know anything of their own psychosis and does not respond to meds. So they cannot acknowledge that they have psychosis, in other words. But yes, you clearly show it is not the end if meds do not work.

This is not a complete answer, but it is a beginning. It is a complex question which all too many times is "simplified" to the point of uselessness, a simplification which results in feelings of powerlessness and helplessness.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdVj8gXsETs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppculi-Os2g