“and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.” is one I had… opinions… about. And yes, while I was being forced to do so. (to this day, I’m not sure my parents ever managed to really comprehend what it was that I objected to)
Seconded.
Even if ‘right to make medical decisions’ is an unrealistic solution to the problem, I think ‘right to refuse care’ would fix this problem without too many repercussions. It would’ve done the job perfectly in my case (and did, when I turned 17 and gained the right to refuse).
Or at least, there ought be rather strict rules about when medical care can be forced. I guess forcing a kid to take an antibiotic in the case of them having a nasty bacterial illness that doesn’t go away on its own, etc etc… is one thing. ie, if there’s a clear unambiguous no one could reasonably dispute it “you’re unhealthy now, you’ll be better off with this” thing, then okay.
But “well, kids are teasing you, you’re a bit different, we’re not even really going to diagnose you with anything, but it’s just easier for the teachers and everyone if we make you take ritalin ‘to make you focus’ and supposedly ‘help you cope’”, well… zah? (excuse me? You want to forcibly chemically hack my mind, that which makes me, well, me… and without even a really compelling justification?) (yeah, they did mean well, but...)
But yeah. I do admit though that, like most things in this world, pretty much any rule we adopt is going to probably have nontrivial downsides.
I suspect that your suggestion wouldn’t’ve helped in my case. I did fine on the ritalin; it was when I decided that I wanted to learn how to function without it that the problems started: They decided I was being oppositional because I was depressed, and forced antidepressants on me. I had bad reactions to every single one, and wasn’t believed when I told them about the issues. (It turns out the ‘my thoughts feel fuzzy’ issue I had on the prozac was probably a result of me being unable to code things into long-term memory—my memory is pretty sharp for events before and after that two-year stretch, but nearly nonexistant for events during it. I’m still horrified.) I actually became depressed while on the antidepressants, because of how poorly I was being treated, so even an objective evaluation of whether I was having a problem ‘worth forcing treatment of’ wouldn’t’ve helped at that point.
Limiting the situations where treatment can be forced to physical issues would be safer for the kind of situation I’m concerned with, but there’s also the issue of kids with, say, cancer, where the parents may want to signal ‘being a good parent’ by doing everything possible, and the kid knows from experience that the treatment is worse than the disease. I don’t want to screw them over, either.
Well, my suggestion is more along the lines of “the justification for forcing a psych medication against the consent of the patient/victim had better be really strong. Not just ‘you do okay’ with it but that + ‘the situation is really absolutely unambiguously no question about it vastly worse in a reasonable objective sense without it, so much worse that the extreme level of violation of forcibly hacking someone’s mind is actually not as bad as letting the situation continue’”
So that rule would have probably taken care of your situation, I think.
Who gets to decide if it’s ‘unambiguously worse’, though? And how do you make sure that they’re deciding rationally, and from unbiased information? My mother had very little trouble getting the doctors to go along with her way of seeing it, and never mind that I’d never actually been violent or threatened suicide or anything.
Also note, I’m specifically talking about the situation with the antidepressants. While I wish in retrospect that I’d been more informed about the side effects of the ritalin (gee, maybe my dangerously high blood pressure as a kid wasn’t because of ‘too much salt’, especially given that I eat about as much salt now as I did then and it’s fine), I didn’t have any objections to it for the first 8 years I was on it, and wouldn’t’ve chosen to refuse it. If we’re going to talk about how to make it so I never would have been on it at all, that’s a bit of a different conversation, and I’m not actually sure that I agree that that’s a worthwhile goal.
Well, as far as the anti depressants… did they clearly unambiguously show that you were to such an extent clinically depressed (rather than just saying “heh, he’s oppositional. We can’t be wrong, we can’t even be forced to consider his own opinion on its own merits, therefore it’s clearly a symptom of something”) to the extent forcing you (rather than giving you the choice) on them against your will would have been acceptable even under a strict standard?
She had the power, she had a goal. She was going to get what she wanted either through greater experience in the arts of influence or by finding out which doctor was the best candidate for a preferred ‘second opinion’.
The stated rationale, at least at the beginning, was that it was clearly not in my best interests to go off the ritalin, because keeping my grades up was just that important, and thus justified to take other measures to ensure that I kept taking it. I disagreed about the importance of the grades compared to the importance of learning to function without being drugged. Your (Psy-Kosh’s) ‘dramatically objectively worse’ qualifier isn’t clear enough to detangle this issue, because it doesn’t talk about what should be measured. If grades were the measure, I should have stayed on the ritalin and not objected to it strenuously in the first place: My grades did indeed drop dramatically when I went off it, as I expected them to. The same issue comes up with the antidepressants: My mother swears that I was easier to get along with while I was on them, and that they were therefore justified. (I can’t comment, because I don’t remember. D: ) If that isn’t an appropriate thing to measure, what is?
I wasn’t stating or proposing a specific standard. I don’t know exactly what it should be. But I don’t mean just grades. I mean something that could reasonably be described as “a situation that is bad objectively, like obvious physical illnesses, and the situation being so bad that it would actually justify forcibly hacking someone’s mind against their will”
ie, that’s more of the spirit of what I had in mind. I don’t know how to make that explicit sufficiently to have a starting point for a legal standard.
If that isn’t an appropriate thing to measure, what is?
The mass of each pill of SSRI as you steadily taper off your dose. ;)
You start the process only after you have successfully convinced your oppressor that you have submitted to their will. You then take whatever measures necessary to convince them that you are going along with their plan and do whatever you can to thwart it, within the limits of what you think you can get away with. In this case it is fairly difficult to ensure that a victim has swallowed a tablet without intrusive physical intervention.
Disagreement, argument, defiance and even ‘oppositional’ behaviours, undesirable as they seem at first glance, are actually a something of a privilege that you are granting. In the absence of bystanders whose allegiance could be manipulated these all imply that you trust them enough for honest engagement to be in your interests. You (you being a general hypothetical entity in related circumstances) don’t owe this kind of intimacy to anyone, particularly if you suspect their response will be to have you forcibly sedated!
There is a time and place for honest assertiveness. That time and place can be loosely described as ‘when it works’ (with a whole bucket load of caveat). In all other situations lie through your teeth, hide the pills near your cheek and spit the unsavoury incident and unwanted pill out of sight and mind at the earliest possible opportunity. Better yet, use the Prozac to spike her coffee. That’d almost certainly do more to enhance your personal wellbeing than taking it yourself.
It appears to be part of my innate nature to be nicer than that, ironically enough, though I did say ‘fuck it’ and discontinue the prozac on my own after they blatantly lied to me about what I’d have to do to get permission to go off of it.
Thing is, if they’d caught me, they could (according to the threats they were making) have taken even more drastic measures—it’s not exactly difficult for a parent to have a child locked up in horrible conditions, especially if the kid has a psych diagnosis or two.
Thing is, if they’d caught me, they could (according to the threats they were making) have taken even more drastic measures—it’s not exactly difficult for a parent to have a child locked up in horrible conditions, especially if the kid has a psych diagnosis or two.
Ouch, yes, I very nearly brought up that ‘Therapy’ earlier but refrained because the very topic makes my blood boil.
I go more ‘flight’ than ‘fight’ over it, but either way, it’s part of the reality of being in that kind of situation, unfortunately, and it’s not rational to ignore it.
You know, I agree with the general thrust here about the suboptimal treatment of children, but my reaction to this particular sub-thread is to be somewhat envious of those whose parents were actually informed enough to have them put on psychiatric medication for these types of issues. Myself, I was in graduate school before I found out that I needed this sort of treatment. My parents, I think, always viewed my difficulties as character flaws, blamed me (and themselves) for them, and attempted to correct the problem mainly through shaming and punishments of various sorts.
In contrast to the experiences of a lot of other people, I tend to think that if I had been given something like Ritalin from an early age (say middle school), I might not have nearly flunked out of high school (which resulted in my having to attend a run-of-the-mill state university, and so on).
“and can be forced to take psychoactive medications against their will.” is one I had… opinions… about. And yes, while I was being forced to do so. (to this day, I’m not sure my parents ever managed to really comprehend what it was that I objected to)
Wow, I just read about Ritalin on wikipedia… ugh. I would be nearly as worried by doctors prescribing ritalin for gullible adults as for children.
I was on it for quite a number of years actually. I forget exactly. Actually, for a while, they started throwing other things into the mix, for a bit had me also on meleril(a depressant, IIRC) at the same time. but yeah.
Seconded.
Even if ‘right to make medical decisions’ is an unrealistic solution to the problem, I think ‘right to refuse care’ would fix this problem without too many repercussions. It would’ve done the job perfectly in my case (and did, when I turned 17 and gained the right to refuse).
Or at least, there ought be rather strict rules about when medical care can be forced. I guess forcing a kid to take an antibiotic in the case of them having a nasty bacterial illness that doesn’t go away on its own, etc etc… is one thing. ie, if there’s a clear unambiguous no one could reasonably dispute it “you’re unhealthy now, you’ll be better off with this” thing, then okay.
But “well, kids are teasing you, you’re a bit different, we’re not even really going to diagnose you with anything, but it’s just easier for the teachers and everyone if we make you take ritalin ‘to make you focus’ and supposedly ‘help you cope’”, well… zah? (excuse me? You want to forcibly chemically hack my mind, that which makes me, well, me… and without even a really compelling justification?) (yeah, they did mean well, but...)
But yeah. I do admit though that, like most things in this world, pretty much any rule we adopt is going to probably have nontrivial downsides.
I suspect that your suggestion wouldn’t’ve helped in my case. I did fine on the ritalin; it was when I decided that I wanted to learn how to function without it that the problems started: They decided I was being oppositional because I was depressed, and forced antidepressants on me. I had bad reactions to every single one, and wasn’t believed when I told them about the issues. (It turns out the ‘my thoughts feel fuzzy’ issue I had on the prozac was probably a result of me being unable to code things into long-term memory—my memory is pretty sharp for events before and after that two-year stretch, but nearly nonexistant for events during it. I’m still horrified.) I actually became depressed while on the antidepressants, because of how poorly I was being treated, so even an objective evaluation of whether I was having a problem ‘worth forcing treatment of’ wouldn’t’ve helped at that point.
Limiting the situations where treatment can be forced to physical issues would be safer for the kind of situation I’m concerned with, but there’s also the issue of kids with, say, cancer, where the parents may want to signal ‘being a good parent’ by doing everything possible, and the kid knows from experience that the treatment is worse than the disease. I don’t want to screw them over, either.
Well, my suggestion is more along the lines of “the justification for forcing a psych medication against the consent of the patient/victim had better be really strong. Not just ‘you do okay’ with it but that + ‘the situation is really absolutely unambiguously no question about it vastly worse in a reasonable objective sense without it, so much worse that the extreme level of violation of forcibly hacking someone’s mind is actually not as bad as letting the situation continue’”
So that rule would have probably taken care of your situation, I think.
As far as the last, tricky… hrm...
Who gets to decide if it’s ‘unambiguously worse’, though? And how do you make sure that they’re deciding rationally, and from unbiased information? My mother had very little trouble getting the doctors to go along with her way of seeing it, and never mind that I’d never actually been violent or threatened suicide or anything.
Also note, I’m specifically talking about the situation with the antidepressants. While I wish in retrospect that I’d been more informed about the side effects of the ritalin (gee, maybe my dangerously high blood pressure as a kid wasn’t because of ‘too much salt’, especially given that I eat about as much salt now as I did then and it’s fine), I didn’t have any objections to it for the first 8 years I was on it, and wouldn’t’ve chosen to refuse it. If we’re going to talk about how to make it so I never would have been on it at all, that’s a bit of a different conversation, and I’m not actually sure that I agree that that’s a worthwhile goal.
Well, as far as the anti depressants… did they clearly unambiguously show that you were to such an extent clinically depressed (rather than just saying “heh, he’s oppositional. We can’t be wrong, we can’t even be forced to consider his own opinion on its own merits, therefore it’s clearly a symptom of something”) to the extent forcing you (rather than giving you the choice) on them against your will would have been acceptable even under a strict standard?
She had the power, she had a goal. She was going to get what she wanted either through greater experience in the arts of influence or by finding out which doctor was the best candidate for a preferred ‘second opinion’.
What Wedrifid said. (And I’m female, by the way.)
The stated rationale, at least at the beginning, was that it was clearly not in my best interests to go off the ritalin, because keeping my grades up was just that important, and thus justified to take other measures to ensure that I kept taking it. I disagreed about the importance of the grades compared to the importance of learning to function without being drugged. Your (Psy-Kosh’s) ‘dramatically objectively worse’ qualifier isn’t clear enough to detangle this issue, because it doesn’t talk about what should be measured. If grades were the measure, I should have stayed on the ritalin and not objected to it strenuously in the first place: My grades did indeed drop dramatically when I went off it, as I expected them to. The same issue comes up with the antidepressants: My mother swears that I was easier to get along with while I was on them, and that they were therefore justified. (I can’t comment, because I don’t remember. D: ) If that isn’t an appropriate thing to measure, what is?
I wasn’t stating or proposing a specific standard. I don’t know exactly what it should be. But I don’t mean just grades. I mean something that could reasonably be described as “a situation that is bad objectively, like obvious physical illnesses, and the situation being so bad that it would actually justify forcibly hacking someone’s mind against their will”
ie, that’s more of the spirit of what I had in mind. I don’t know how to make that explicit sufficiently to have a starting point for a legal standard.
The mass of each pill of SSRI as you steadily taper off your dose. ;)
You start the process only after you have successfully convinced your oppressor that you have submitted to their will. You then take whatever measures necessary to convince them that you are going along with their plan and do whatever you can to thwart it, within the limits of what you think you can get away with. In this case it is fairly difficult to ensure that a victim has swallowed a tablet without intrusive physical intervention.
Disagreement, argument, defiance and even ‘oppositional’ behaviours, undesirable as they seem at first glance, are actually a something of a privilege that you are granting. In the absence of bystanders whose allegiance could be manipulated these all imply that you trust them enough for honest engagement to be in your interests. You (you being a general hypothetical entity in related circumstances) don’t owe this kind of intimacy to anyone, particularly if you suspect their response will be to have you forcibly sedated!
There is a time and place for honest assertiveness. That time and place can be loosely described as ‘when it works’ (with a whole bucket load of caveat). In all other situations lie through your teeth, hide the pills near your cheek and spit the unsavoury incident and unwanted pill out of sight and mind at the earliest possible opportunity. Better yet, use the Prozac to spike her coffee. That’d almost certainly do more to enhance your personal wellbeing than taking it yourself.
It appears to be part of my innate nature to be nicer than that, ironically enough, though I did say ‘fuck it’ and discontinue the prozac on my own after they blatantly lied to me about what I’d have to do to get permission to go off of it.
Thing is, if they’d caught me, they could (according to the threats they were making) have taken even more drastic measures—it’s not exactly difficult for a parent to have a child locked up in horrible conditions, especially if the kid has a psych diagnosis or two.
Ouch, yes, I very nearly brought up that ‘Therapy’ earlier but refrained because the very topic makes my blood boil.
I go more ‘flight’ than ‘fight’ over it, but either way, it’s part of the reality of being in that kind of situation, unfortunately, and it’s not rational to ignore it.
You know, I agree with the general thrust here about the suboptimal treatment of children, but my reaction to this particular sub-thread is to be somewhat envious of those whose parents were actually informed enough to have them put on psychiatric medication for these types of issues. Myself, I was in graduate school before I found out that I needed this sort of treatment. My parents, I think, always viewed my difficulties as character flaws, blamed me (and themselves) for them, and attempted to correct the problem mainly through shaming and punishments of various sorts.
In contrast to the experiences of a lot of other people, I tend to think that if I had been given something like Ritalin from an early age (say middle school), I might not have nearly flunked out of high school (which resulted in my having to attend a run-of-the-mill state university, and so on).
Wow, I just read about Ritalin on wikipedia… ugh. I would be nearly as worried by doctors prescribing ritalin for gullible adults as for children.
I was on it for quite a number of years actually. I forget exactly. Actually, for a while, they started throwing other things into the mix, for a bit had me also on meleril(a depressant, IIRC) at the same time. but yeah.