“Is life really worth living if you’re sober all the time?” – while the original author clearly intends this as a joke, I find it similar to arguments I’ve heard that “messing with someone’s emotions” through pharmaceutical intervention will inherently result in significant changes to that person’s personality and identity. This seems similar, in that it questions whether life will be the same if such a fundamental component of their self is being affected by pharmaceutical treatments.
Those who know me are aware of how critical I am regarding psychoactive pharmaceuticals. I'm critical of how psychiatric drugs are used as chemical restraints, how they are used without proper informed consent, how they are often used in leu of a situational understanding of the patient's life. There are a lot of things I am critical of in regards to psychiatric drugs. It might surprise many, then, how okay I am with the potential for medication to alter, even fundamentally, an individual's personality.
I'll repeat that: I'm okay with the fact that psychiatric drugs affect people's personality.
Here's the thing: it's not a bad thing to change as a person. We do it all the time. Normally, we call it "growing" and we do it every time our lives face upheaval and evolve. Our personalities are never truly set in stone. This is a good thing.
Nonetheless, society places very strict regulations upon appropriate growth. Growth which occurs though otherwise sanctioned behaviour, such as needing psychiatric medication, becomes taboo. It shouldn't be. Taking psychiatric medication should not be something which is looked down upon in our society any more than any other needed medical treatment. The state of attitude towards psychiatric medication in our society is nothing less than pure ableism.
So I say: Personal change should not be viewed in any different light when it is affected though psychiatric medication than when it is affected though any other means of personal growth.
Finally, this all comes down to informed consent. Are the people who are taking the drugs which impact their personalities fully engaged in the decision to take their medication? Are they knowledgeable regarding the personal impact their drugs will have on their personhood, are they willing to accept these changes, and are the changes which these drugs affect something which they accept as positive?
Forcing individuals to take drugs which fundamentally change who they are is wrong, but that shouldn't extend to voluntary, fully informed drug use.
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The Untoward Lady
2 comments:
Did you know I'm on ADs?
I didn't want to talk to a therapist about my life because I hate that situation. Also, my parents both have mental illnesses and those are shown to be genetic.
Actually, there's another odd issue around this topic. The way things normally go when researching recreational psychotropic drugs, is that governments generally only allow research when negative affects are proposed to be examined. Back in the 60's this wasn't so fixed, and a study came out comparing people who'd been through a range of therapies for alcoholism with another group that varied in that some forms of therapy involving lsd were used. At 1 year the recidivism rate in the latter group was hugely better. So obviously....no more research.
Certainly anecdotal evidence from psychotherapists in europe on therapies involving ecstasy, before it was made illegal, was immensely positive.
The problem is that the more powerful a drug's potential for aiding personality change, the more it can be used for fun, which means that with an un-fun loving government these drugs become unavailable for therapeutic use.
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