Re: Just now...

Rosemary <mentally_subnormal@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell wrote:
Rosemary wrote:
Rowland McDonnell wrote:
Rosemary wrote:

<snip>
If at all possible, getting some physical exercise can help
a lot. Wear yourself out physically, you know?

I've tried it, but it didn't work. Even completely missing a night's
sleep

Missing sleep on its own isn't going to do it. Heavier exercise
would, coupled with a different diet. Of course, I don't suppose you
would consider doing the sort of exercise I'm thinking of - I
certainly wouldn't do so these days.

How do you know?

Intelligent guesswork based on 40 years' experience?

So: you're willing to do a 12 mile kayak race in the morning and spend
the afternoon trundling up and down hills, are you?

<snip>
Have you tried any herbal stuff? There are all sorts of interesting
herbal teas they sell in Holland and Barrett which might help a bit,
and I've met people who have found that herbal Nytol (not the one with
synthetic antihistamines, the one with valerian and hops and whatnot)
is helpful, but also folk who found it made their sleep a bit strange.

I don't know if I can take any of those herbal drugs, because MAOIs react
badly with so many things.

You've got the list, haven't you? The list tells you what's okay and
what't not. And if in doubt, do a Web search (I'm sure *you* can
separate the wheat from the chaff regarding this sort of thing) and ask
your doctor/shrink too.

And learn what the signs are of tyramine overload (the big risk) so you
can spot things if they're going wrong before it gets too bad.

Really, if you take it gently and stop `whatever' once you notice the
tyramine overload kicking in, I can't see any real risk unless you've
got some sort of other specific problem in that area. FWIW, I get
symptoms of mild tyramine overload at times just eating strong cheese on
its own and that's without me taking any drugs at all.

I've tried herbal Nytol, once, and it was
pointless.

Fair enough - me too, as it happens. On the other hand, I've known folk
to get great benefit from it, and at least one person who found it gave
them really strangely disturbed sleep...

Strangeness in the world.

The drugs have flattened you, you know that? You used to be more
alive.

I'm 5 years older than I was when you last saw me. People do change
between being 16 and being 21, you know.

Yes, but I smelt the changes kick in when you started on the drugs and
the changes haven't left you.

Have you ever spoken to me when I wasn't on medication?

<puzzled> Doesn't much matter, not for the purposes of this analysis.
If you could be like *that* when you were in /that/ state.

<snip>
I feel perfectly normal on
phenelzine,

Of course you would!

Why of course?

<puzzled> Erm. 'cos that's how it works. Umm. Sorry, not a very good
answer.

I tried to test it by
doing one of those online IQ tests, and the difference between the
result when I was on neuroleptics and when I hadn't been taking them
for a while was about 25 points (I know it doesn't mean much without
knowing the scale, and online IQ tests aren't that accurate anyway,
but 25 points is still a difference).

All IQ tests are horribly inaccurate, and they only give meaningful
results if you get to each one `cold' without ever having seen any of
the questions before, and you need to take 'em under proper controlled
circumstances, and you need to take several to get a proper result.

I know that. The only use I've found for them is measuring how much my
thinking abilities have been affected by medications and other factors,
and if I take several different ones, the results of those correlate
pretty closely with the lower cognitive ability I notice in general
activities when I'm on certain drugs.

Yeah, but you're only looking at part of it, y'know?

I think they're pretty much useless
for measuring actual intelligence (whatever that is) and completely
useless for predicting future success. Something like an IQ test can be
useful for telling whether someone is of general low ability or they have
a specific difficulty with reading, or numbers, or concentration, or
spatial ability - and once you know that, you can help them better.

Yes - it was properly conducted IQ tests that got my LEA to give my
little bro the extra help he needed. I.Q. of `120-130' (measured
properly formally under proper controlled conditions) is what he came
out as - and given that he had a reading age of about half his calendar
age, that was kind of useful to persuade 'em.

And
so many people quote IQ results without giving the details of the
distribution curve of the test. I also once noticed, in a TV programme or
a tabloid newspaper article or something, that someone was exclaiming
about a child having an IQ of 160 or so - "even though she's only 5!"

These are the same newspapers that complain that half the population is
under average levels of achievement in whatever they feel like raving
about, yes?

I feel the same way about depression rating scales - I find them useful
to fill in every so often, to see whether my mental health is improving
at all, even though I haven't noticed it myself. It's very difficult to
see gradual change without some kind of measuring stick.

Well, yes - but all the official measures I've met seem to `miss the
point'.

I've developed my own yardsticks so I can measure my own state of
lunacy, if you see what I mean. They don't seem to have much to do with
what `the official lists' look at.

They're not that
great for diagnosing depression or the severity of depression, though,
because what one person describes as extremely low mood may be described
as feeling a bit low by another.

And I don't see any utility at all in doing the spot checks that the
shrinks do. You need a continuous graph, so you can see trends, and you
need to develop a different measure for every individual. What the
shrinks do is just wrong.

Rowland.

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