Self harming mental illness and those it effects

[Munch]

I sat today talking to my mum on the phone, not to toot my own horn here, but I consider myself a good natured person who would offer a hand to someone in need of it, as does my mother, probably where I got that from. However the story she was telling me, about one of her long time friends made me think about how I'd handle myself in this situation, and even reflect on something from my past.

My mums friend, who I'll call Sue, who she's known for about 30 years, was telling her about this woman she's known for about five years now, who I'll call Anne. This Anne, whos in her late 70s, from everything Sue told my mum has a serious problem, that being an addiction to laxatives, always taking them, and always going to the bathroom, often near shitting herself in the process.
But it gets worse, once when Sue invited Anne over for the first time, she asked to use her toilet, this was before Sue knew she had a problem, she used the toilet and left right away, and when Sue went to check on a smell, she found her small toilet was covered in shit, around bowel, on the floor, even on the walls.
It also happened in a public restroom in our town center, where Anne invited sue for Coffee, she went to the local restroom, came out with shit down her dress, and it got reported someone had sit all over the toilet cubicle.

This carried on for a while until Anne was finally admitted to the local mental health hospital in our area, having a serious addiction to laxatives. It was also found out she had abandoned her children when they were young and ran off with a man, who dumped her years after, so nobody visits her, and Sue is the only person who talks to Anne, now out of sympathy, despite her really not wanting to get involved anymore.
The reason it came up was because Anne was released from the mental health ward she was in, and within the first week, she meet with Sue in the town center, went to the restroom, came out, and had shit down her arm, before she ran back in to wash it off.

The woman is self harming, and despite doctors and whatever friends she might have left telling her to stop what she's doing and get help, she refuses to, and its not just a disgusting act going on inself her home, but out in public and in our peoples houses she visits.

The reason why I mentioned this being something I've known before, is because my dad was a self harming man. He was an alcoholic who despite not being violent, drank himself into numbness every single moment he could. He was never sober, and first destroyed his bladder, which he had to have replaced with a catheter, and despite saying he'd quit drinking, slowly bit by bit got back on it, until he finally destroyed his liver and killed himself.
I had no real relationship with my dad so it wasn't a devastating loss, but it still made me think about self harmers who fuck up there lives like this, and how it effects those around them.

With the story of Anne, and what I said about my father, I'm someone who would extend a hand to someone who wanted help and takes it, however if its someone who when offering help not only refuses it, but is so dull to any form of empathy they don't know how their actions effect others around them, I can't be arsed with these kind of people anymore.

[Nam]

It is a FACT that atheistic nations have massive levels of suicide and self harming issues.

Evidence?

You won't find that in a true, believing Christian nation. You just won't, thank you God.

Evidence? (If one even exists)

-Nam

[SGOS]

This is a strange addition, if that's what it is.  It's more like a strange behavior.  Addictions usually provide some kind of benefit, if only to relieve a pointless craving.  But laxatives?  To the point of uncontrollable jet propelled shitting?  I'd call that certifiably crazy. I wouldn't have any interest in comforting that woman or being her friend.  Bizarre behavior doesn't interest me.  I've simply got more enjoyable ways to spend the time I have left.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Laxative addiction often occurs with people who have taken pain killers over a long period of time. Pain killers often cause severe constipation and people begin taking laxatives to fix the problem with constipation. It's a vicious cycle not always of their own doing. I've known a few people who developed the problem.
It's not so much addiction as it is physical dependence.

[Solitary]

I personally believe all so-called mental illness is physical illness. How many people have actually been cured of mental illness? They may be made to feel good with talk therapy, but cured, not unless drugs are involved or brain surgery. And some mental illnesses cure themselves, just  like physical illnesses. How many pedophiles have been cured unless they had brain surgery.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/05/22/how-do-you-cure-mental-illness/

How Do You Cure Mental Illness?
By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

One of the challenges faced by people who have a mental illness â€" such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or ADHD or the like â€" is that not too many people will talk to you about “curing” the condition. (Except snake-oil salesmen, who will claim they can cure your bipolar disorder with their amazing technique or CD.) In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a professional who talks openly about “cures” for mental illness.

For instance, Pete Quily (twitter: petequily) drives the point home with a recent set of twitters:
If someone on twitter saying he/she can “Cure #ADHD” with their snake oil/brain machine, donkey ride, miracle ebook etc. Realize 2 things: 1. They’re spammers. 2.They’re ignorant, liars or both. You don’t cure #ADHD, you learn to manage it more effectively.

Really? It got me to thinking why we don’t talk about “curing” mental disorders.
What we have instead of cures are a bunch of treatments. Most of which work pretty well, to varying degrees. But to most people seeking mental health assistance, treatments can take a frustratingly long period of time before finding one that works. For instance, finding the right medication can take months. And finding the right, experienced therapist you feel comfortable working with can also take months (even longer if the “good” therapists have waiting lists).

Once in treatment, your physician or psychologist rarely mentions the word “cure.” Cure is what doctors do for a broken wrist or scurvy. Set the wrist or give the patient a vitamin C shot, and voila! Done. Treating mental illness rarely results in a “cure,” per se. What it does result in is a person feeling better, getting better, and eventually no longer needing treatment (in most cases). But even then, rarely will a professional say, “Yes, you’re cured of your depression.”

Why is that? Why is there such a reluctance to invoke this magical word? I mean, cure literally means, “recovery or relief from a disease,” so if someone has recovered or has found relief from depression, why not say the person has been cured?
I think our reluctance comes from the belief that mental illness is far more recurring than most diseases in many people’s lives. If you have a bout of depression or a depressive episode, that doesn’t stop the depression from coming back at some later time (even if successfully treated). Whereas once you’ve treated a broken wrist, it’s not going to return (unless you break it again); once you’ve treated scurvy, it too won’t return if you prod the patient into drinking more orange juice or eating an orange once in awhile.

Depression, on the other hand, like most mental illness, knows no boundaries. It will come and go as it pleases in our lives, even if we’ve successfully treated one episode of it. There seems to be little rhyme nor reason to when a mental disorder strikes, who it will strike (outside of genetic predispositions for some of them), and how deep or long the episode will last.
To Pete Quily’s claim that one does not “cure” ADHD (attention deficit disorder), there are certainly many good treatment options for ADHD that minimize its impact in a person’s life. I’m not sure I’d call that a “cure” either, but I wonder at how demotivating it must be for someone to hear that a mental disorder â€" like ADHD, depression, or bipolar disorder â€" is not typically “cured,” but rather just treated in varying degrees of intensity for the rest of one’s life.

But what accounts for the discrepancy in prevalence rates between childhood ADHD (5.29%) and adult ADHD (4.40%) â€" a 0.9% difference? If not being “cured,” then children seem to be doing something that makes them less likely to receive an adult ADHD diagnosis.

Professionals have a term for this “non-curing” of mental illness, too… Instead of removing the diagnosis from the chart at the end of treatment, they often place the phrase, “In remission” onto the end of the diagnosis instead. It’s good to hedge your bets, because you see, even when you are “cured” of your mental illness, nobody will come out and actually say it.

Naturally professionals can’t lie to people and tell them depression or ADHD or any other disorder can be readily cured. They cannot. In virtually every instance, treatment for a mental disorder takes time, effort, and money. And even treatment takes 3 to 4 months, in most cases and for most disorders, before one starts feeling any sort of relief.

Which brings me back to the question â€" how do you cure mental illness? The answer â€" you don’t. You help people understand what it is, learn and engage new ways of coping with its symptoms, and help them do the best they can with the resources they have available. Right now, there’s no “cure” for mental illness. I hope within my lifetime, I can answer this question in a very different way.

Solitary

[SGOS]

It's not so much addiction as it is physical dependence.

I can understand a possible physical dependence that requires constant laxatives to be regular, but his goes beyond regular to the other extreme with uncontrollable near nuclear shit explosions.