Medical error, misdiagnosis, dealing with the consequences and the medical world

Recently I´ve been trying to do some research.

 

My initial question was how medical errors (of any kind, including issues caused by benzodiazepines) can lead to misdiagnosis and how one can actually avoid that, and even get a correct diagnosis. I was not very successful.

 

A huge issue is that doctors will never ´attack´ a fellow doctor, they are loyal. They will not say a collegue (wherever in the world) made a medical error. As a consequences, futher harm could easily ensue.

 

I stumbled on the great website w-bad.org .

 

First, I will refer to what usually described the diagnostic process fairly accurately.

The doctor will, based on the medical files, referral letter, anamnesis and any possibly diagnostics judge the patient (from the French ´patience´, to wait/be patient). It is often said that knowledge can only flow one way, from the doctor to the patient. The patient follows the instructions of the doctor.

 

The classical and traditional medical model.

 

Back to that website I mentioned. http://w-bad.org/protractedwithdrawalsyndrome/

´Although I refer to protracted withdrawal as drug neurotoxicity [emphasis added], it is still a bad idea to give the doctor a diagnosis rather than to present symptoms. It’s just the way that doctors work. They want to make the diagnosis and often feel put off by patients who present with a complaint and a diagnosis.  ´

 

Then, what do you do when doctors don´t know ? Or when you´re suffering from the consequences of medical errors made by other doctors ? They surely won´t attack another doctor !

 

It seems like something you can´t escape from unless the original doctor confesses the medical error, or one gets an acknowledgement from whoever or whatever oversees the actions of doctors. It seems like often the best way to avoid futher harm is to avoid contact with medical professionals ! (a bit like my current strategy) Indeed, it sometimes may be an option to ´talk around´ what really happened. But not always.

 

It seems like the MO of most doctors is to make a diagnosis, even if it's wrong. They can say things that stay in the patient's brain for a long time. I've had that happen: medical personnel pronouncing something, and later on it's all a sham. In the meantime, since I believed what I was told, I suffered a lot of anxiety because of the missed diagnosis. For something like benzos, which there seems no definitive way to test appropriately, they will offer drugs to counteract symptoms. We know what happens; we quickly go down the rabbit's hole. We know much more than doctors do when it comes to benzos, and so it's kind of strange to be sitting in the doctor's office having knowledge and yet not being able to tell them. They don't believe it, and so I shut down.

 

The only thing to do, it seems, is do more research on our own. Gradually the truth about these terrible drugs is coming to light. I've found invaluable information here. But to trust a medical doctor about benzos? No. I'm constantly switching doctors, hoping to find someone who has some answers. I haven't found any. They only treat symptoms, and since they don't have any other things to offer, it's always drugs. Nothing else. And drugs are only a band-aid approach. I make up excuses to the doctors as to why I can't go in. My NP wanted me to go every three months. For what reason? I felt she was lacking. Now I'm set to go to a new doctor in the new year. It's a crap shoot. I wish there was another way to get blood tests done, which I think are helpful but hardly help with the symptoms from benzo withdrawal/recovery.

 

And it is the absolute truth that doctors are loyal to each other. This is scary to me. I have found this about drugs. What one doctor prescribes, even if it's wrong, is okayed by another. They don't say anything.

 

A good book is Undoctored, written by a cardiologist. I didn't finish it because it made me anxious. But he's right. The medical system in the U.S. is governed by money and not by empathy. The clinical studies are filled with bias. Of course you can't believe anything from Big Pharma, yet doctors actually listen to Pharma reps who may have been political science majors and are just spouting the jargon they learned to say to get a quick sale.

 

We have to be our own best advocates, but when the information coming about benzos is paltry, especially since this is a very complicated matter affecting the entire system, and because it affects people in so many varied ways, it's very, very difficult to find concrete answers.

 

If I were to tell doctors about all everything that I've been experiencing during benzo withdrawal/recovery, I'd be sent to all kinds of specialists and no doubt would be given a number of pills. So I keep quiet. If I were to say, "I know this is because of benzos, and explain why, who knows what would happen? They would no doubt shake their heads.

 

We are taught to listen to our doctors, to defer to their opinions. But not when they're wrong. Good luck having a doctor admit to wrongdoing. They're afraid of being sued.

 

 

Terry38,

 

'I'm constantly switching doctors, hoping to find someone who has some answers' Lucky for you that you have that option.

 

'They only treat symptoms, and since they don't have any other things to offer, it's always drugs.'

It doesn't have to be that way though, if proper diagnostics reveal an underlying physical cause it could be treated by something else besides symptomatic treatment. Eradicating an infection with antibiotics is a good example. There is surgery, etc.

 

'They're afraid of being sued. ' In this country they are not afraid of being sued, and insurance covers a lot. To a great extent, doctors are above the law. But the medical community in The Netherlands is very closed, and any doc who criticizes another doc in public will likely have to move to a different country to continue to practice !

You are right, but since there is no medical treatment for the damage caused by benzos, I'm not really sure what you're looking for from doctors. Just the satisfaction of getting one doctor to say another one was wrong?

 

Why not just taper on your own and heal on your own?

 

It seems like the MO of most doctors is to make a diagnosis, even if it's wrong. They can say things that stay in the patient's brain for a long time. I've had that happen: medical personnel pronouncing something, and later on it's all a sham. In the meantime, since I believed what I was told, I suffered a lot of anxiety because of the missed diagnosis. For something like benzos, which there seems no definitive way to test appropriately, they will offer drugs to counteract symptoms. We know what happens; we quickly go down the rabbit's hole. We know much more than doctors do when it comes to benzos, and so it's kind of strange to be sitting in the doctor's office having knowledge and yet not being able to tell them. They don't believe it, and so I shut down.

 

The only thing to do, it seems, is do more research on our own. Gradually the truth about these terrible drugs is coming to light. I've found invaluable information here. But to trust a medical doctor about benzos? No. I'm constantly switching doctors, hoping to find someone who has some answers. I haven't found any. They only treat symptoms, and since they don't have any other things to offer, it's always drugs. Nothing else. And drugs are only a band-aid approach. I make up excuses to the doctors as to why I can't go in. My NP wanted me to go every three months. For what reason? I felt she was lacking. Now I'm set to go to a new doctor in the new year. It's a crap shoot. I wish there was another way to get blood tests done, which I think are helpful but hardly help with the symptoms from benzo withdrawal/recovery.

 

And it is the absolute truth that doctors are loyal to each other. This is scary to me. I have found this about drugs. What one doctor prescribes, even if it's wrong, is okayed by another. They don't say anything.

 

A good book is Undoctored, written by a cardiologist. I didn't finish it because it made me anxious. But he's right. The medical system in the U.S. is governed by money and not by empathy. The clinical studies are filled with bias. Of course you can't believe anything from Big Pharma, yet doctors actually listen to Pharma reps who may have been political science majors and are just spouting the jargon they learned to say to get a quick sale.

 

We have to be our own best advocates, but when the information coming about benzos is paltry, especially since this is a very complicated matter affecting the entire system, and because it affects people in so many varied ways, it's very, very difficult to find concrete answers.

 

If I were to tell doctors about all everything that I've been experiencing during benzo withdrawal/recovery, I'd be sent to all kinds of specialists and no doubt would be given a number of pills. So I keep quiet. If I were to say, "I know this is because of benzos, and explain why, who knows what would happen? They would no doubt shake their heads.

 

We are taught to listen to our doctors, to defer to their opinions. But not when they're wrong. Good luck having a doctor admit to wrongdoing. They're afraid of being sued.

 

I agree with the sentiments in this thread.  I'm staying clear of all docs except the Benzo wise doctor.  The more I learn about our neural physiology the more I'm amazed that we can and do recover after the beast is out of our bodies.  One conclusion I've drawn is that there's no way any doctor can predict the consequences of using a drug that profoundly  modulates GABAA receptors indiscriminately throughout the body.  Inhibitory signaling is pervasive thoughout all areas of our nervous system, not just the brain. Clobbering all receptors throughout leads to unintended "side effects", and our inhibitory system does not behave very well when it's modulated and potentiated.  We know this all too well.... In groups of interconnected neurons, the neural circuit destabilizes when inhibitory signaling becomes dysfunctional.  But even neural circuits have an amazong capability to dynamically recover after a "perturbation".  It's only when the "perturbation " exceeds threshold and becomes chronic, that the circuit crashes.

Nonetheless, we do and can recover.....

 

chessplayer,

 

I also suffer from other issues besides those directly caused by 'benzos'. I experienced some very strange issues, statements varying from 'if it's caused by the drug, get off the drug first' (not knowing anything about clonazepam), untreated medical issues (the GP didn't 'see' anything), damage caused by that. Suspending all non-urgent/critical somatic healthcare till you are recovered ?!? (there is a bit more to this story, he went on till things went very wrong) Even the NICE guidlines state 'consider managing problems that cause physical distress first'. Here it's 'it's mental', or 'it's an addiction', or you're a 'satisfied user'. On top of that the GP kept lying to me for a very long time till I figured out what's wrong. Found out the full truth (real medical records) after starting a legal procedure against the doc (who will be judged by his peers).

 

What he did was very illegal, but in this country doctors (especially GPs) are almost above the law. I felt the inclination to file criminal charges, but it seems docs will only be prosecuted if the medical community agrees ... Dutch GPs are gatekeepers (and how do you manage all care - from diagnosis, record keeping, conferring with collegues, deciding when to refer and not, what to prescribe and not to prescribe- if you don't have a clue about what you are doing ! They pride themselves on not referring, not prescribing drugs, avoiding hospital diagnostics) Dutch GP , very different from American GP. Long story, it's almost as if they own you.  'continuity of care' can have a very special meaning.

 

Who needs healthcare when you're tapering ?? Try fixing problems with a damaged CNS 'naturally'.  And that lorazepam taper was NOT based on informed consent.

 

I don't think this can be captured very well in one post. Try tapering with the result of untreated health problems, mistreatment and the resulting cumulative damage to one's health while having the 'relationship' with clonazepam that I do have.

While trying to find a solution for a few things (more: serious health damage than ´recognized medical condition´) and and not expecting the recognition of medical errors:

 

A couple of traps, like avoiding ´taper the clonazepam first´, ´back to the GP´, how do you avoid a doc´s inclination to start diagnosing you (with an illness) when it´s really about a health problem (iatrogenic, but that´s not the key point) ? Say somethign to a doc and they´ll start diagnosing you ... I had preferred the old Dutch response by a GP when entering the office ´what´s the complaint´ ? More obvious.

It's hard to respond if you aren't specific about what health issues you are having, what was the misdiagnosis you got for those issues, and what would be (in your view) the correct diagnosis. You seem to be saying that benzo withdrawal is preventing you from receiving health care for unrelated issues (?). I don't really understand that.

It's really very complicated. You have to understand the Dutch healthcare system, with the GP as a gatekeeper (referrals for specialists required), and the Dutch mentality ('let's keep it natural', 'it's safe in primary care', contrary to secondary care, minimalist attitude re: prescribing drugs, avoiding real diagostics but GP care mostly being based on opinions and 'waiting till it's over', doctors being almost above the law).

 

I don't want to be too specific about my health issues. Up to a point, I don't know since I have had almost no access to real diagnostics.

 

I lack the stamina and fortitude to get through a normal withdrawal process. It's quite different from what I had a few years ago.

 

The general attitude was 'it's mental', and with a variation 'it's psychiatric'. It took me a long time to figure that out, since the GP did his best to keep that hidden. For the most part. I even had to start a formal semi-legal complaint to get my full medical records. It was not a formal diagnosis as such. The way he learned his job, most likely: 'it's mental/psychiatric', 'it's an addiction', the satisfied user')

And doctors, especially in this country want to work 'by the book'. For specialists: no unnecessary treatments, diagnostics etc. The patient exists for the benefit of the doctor.

The correct diagnosis: moderate to severe physical CNS damage (multiple causes), severe physical depence on clonazepam, messed up health/body (consequence of the drugs and untreated and incorrectly treated health problems). Iatrogenic damage.

 

' You seem to be saying that benzo withdrawal is preventing you from receiving health care for unrelated issues (?)' That was the position the GP appeared to have adopted. He 'didn't see anything'. In the literal sense. Listening and thinking didn't go too well either. Not seeing anything that needed medical treatment immediately. Extremely archaic thinking. As for 'unrelated', who knows what's related or not ? It would seem he was thinking of 'addiction', with all sorts of derisive attitudes. 'restrict access to care' rather than 'healthcare as a service' Dutch paternalism, very old style, sugar coated. Only after receiving the full medical records after staring the procedure I realized I had allowed myself to become discouraged more than I should have had to.

Hi everyone,

 

I'd just like to post a general reminder here that this forum is not anti-doctor or anti-medicine.  This is from our Rules and Guidelines:

• [*]Whilst some of our members report negative experiences with doctors, psychiatrists, or the wider medical profession, and although we do not wish to outlaw comments about how members feel let down or mistreated in their personal medical care, you are not permitted to use this community as a platform to spread general anti-doctor or anti-psychiatry propaganda. Nor should you, unless you are posting a recommendation, name those involved in your healthcare. For more about this policy, please read our

Anti-doctor, Anti-psychiatrist and Anti-medicine Comments notice.

 

Thanks for your cooperation.

 

megan918

Administrator

megan,

 

It seems the thread hasn't gone that wat. It's more like: how can we get things right ?

Well, society works in a sort of a Social Darwinist way -- It's your fault if you let yourself be deceived.

'It seems like the MO of most doctors is to make a diagnosis, even if it's wrong.'

 

Does everyone agree that basically the only way doctors can work is by making a diagnosis, based on the way they learned their job ? (and 'a disease is what a doctor has learned to recognize as a disease' ?)

 

So rigid, it's 2018. So they can't treat anything else except tossing toxic pills at a patient to treat symptoms (like amytriptyline) ?

 

Slight exaggeration, I know there are exceptions.

 

Oh, and ´'It seems like the MO of most doctors is to make a diagnosis, even if it's wrong.'´ mine kept his ´diagnosis´secret till it was too late ...

'It seems like the MO of most doctors is to make a diagnosis, even if it's wrong.'

 

Does everyone agree that basically the only way doctors can work is by making a diagnosis, based on the way they learned their job ? (and 'a disease is what a doctors has learned to recognize as a disease' ?)

 

So rigid, it's 2018. So they can't treat anything else except tossing toxic pills at a patient to treat symptoms (like amytriptyline) ?

 

Slight exaggeration, I know there are exceptions.

 

Oh, and ´'It seems like the MO of most doctors is to make a diagnosis, even if it's wrong.'´ mine kept his ´diagnosis´secret till it was too late ...

 

Well, what were you expecting? The system is made so as to generate more profit as possible, without caring about morality. And it doesn't end that, watch as people defend the way things are.

 

I don't think there is such thing as correct diagnosis in Psychiatry, Psychiatry is inherently deceptive and incoherent. It's probably a way the state create jobs.

Personally I don't think "mental illness"s are true illnesses, and I don't think things like "anxiety" can be called symptoms. Anxiety is a "something's wrong" signal from the mind's diagnostic system, similar to how pain is a signal from the body's diagnostic system. Analogous to the "check engine" light on a car. Benzos (and also opiods) work by shutting of their respective diagnostic system so we no longer get the signal. It would be like responding to "check engine" by disabling the car's diagnostic system. If you do that, you've obviously not treating whatever was really wrong with the engine. And you've disabled signals that might tell you something important in the future. That's why benzos are inappropriate - they just shut off the anxiety signal. Fix the problem causing the anxiety instead.

 

I'm not anti-doctor: I think doctors do a lot of good things. Except when they are prescribing benzos. I am anti-psychiatry in the sense that I think mainstream psychiatry has some very wrongheaded views about things. I don't like the term anti-psychiatry though. Galileo disagreed with mainstream physics (at the time), which thought the sun revolved around the earth. Did that make him anti-physics? Sometimes the mainstream is wrong. I think that BB policy should be modified to not be so restrictive. Colin himself recently said in another thread that people on BB should be allowed to post any opinion as long as they are respectful.

To me, the whole division of non-psychiatric Rx drugs vs psychiatric drugs can potentially be dangerous. Many psychiatric drugs cause symptoms that are physical in nature, while many non psychiatric Rx drugs can also cause profound effects to the central nervous system and mental functioning. So, the whole division between physical and mental is an arbitrary one. Mental state can often degrade due to worsening physical health, as can worsening physical health lead due to worsening mental health.

 

I think benzodiazepines are unique in their way to worsen physical health and mental health in very unpredictable, not easily obvious ways. It's this negative back-forth feedback between mental and physical issues loop due to benzo use, which worsens over time, combined with the medical and societal disbelief that actually sustains the benzo use, and makes coming off of them inherently risky.

 

I like the pilot analogy. It's dark, you're forced to fly by intsruments alone, with a co-pilot you've not flown with before, and the instruments are at the same time saying "stall warning", "overspeed", "terrain, pull up pull up", "engine 1 out", while the auto-pilot is trying to re-engage and override your own thinking and problem solving that's been impaired by all the conflicting wanings.

 

So, the pilot realizes that there have been a lot of conflicts between the instruments, the flight controllers, the flight tower, the instruction manual, his own training and his own thinking. So he realizes the utmost gravity of the situation, pulls the airplane up at the last moment, retains a solid climbing rate, and finally gets the 2nd engine running. Yet, in spite of the crash averted, another set of instruments starts engaging.....

 

Yet our pilot (lets call him ...) is trying to land again, but the airplane has sustained some problems and landing seems risky. He is thinking of landing again, and the tower is in touch with him, and he hears from the other controller and the other pilots that he only needs to land and everything will be alright. But ...'s plane has plenty of jet fuel, and he has the time to make a decision. However, it's the airline company that he works for that wants him on the ground ASAP, and the airline company has had a very strict hierarchy and lack of cockpit management strategies, which caused one of its planes to perish in a horrid accident back in the 70's, in a place that most people automatically think of as a vacation spot.

 

The airline's hierarchy has improved, but ... needs access to a maintenance engineer on the ground to tell him whether it's safe to land, yet, he is prevented by the airline's company procedures from getting to one, even though he has declared

PAN-PAN signal (and not full Mayday), so that he doesn't disturb the passengers, flight control and flight tower and airport functioning.

 

It's apparent that our pilot, ... has to get in touch with a maintenance engineer and get some technical and procedural knowledge, so that he can land safely and more importantly mitigate any aircraft/flight problems not obvious to those on the ground in order for him to land safely. What does he do? The whole airline system doesn't seem to be tuned up for these kinds of situations at all.

 

 

I just discovered For-Profit Prisons and it seems to follow the same suit of Psychiatry: Deceiving people for money.

 

Capitalism, yay! Also, my hypothesis was right, these things are made to create jobs.

https://youtu.be/w76_IzLRKkg

 

So I took my guitar

And I threw down some chords

And some words I could sing

Without shame

And I soon had a song

I played it around

For some friends

But they all said the same

 

They said "Music's for fools

You should go back to school

The future is prisons and math."

 

So I did what they said

Now my children are fed

Cause they pay me to do what I'm asked

 

I forgot all my songs

The words now are wrong

And I burned my guitar in a rage

But the fire came to rest

In your white velvet breast

So somehow I just know that it's safe

Private prisons don’t save money, don’t make us safer

https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/private-prisons-don-t-save-money-don-t-make-us-safer-1.13739548

Well, over the time I have understood that in my case I do not need doctors too much. My symptoms are benzo w/d driven / neurological. Have met several doctors and got 5 different diagnosis about the one set of symptoms. I think everyone of the doctors I met tried their best but it is just too difficult to them to know what is causing the symptoms.

 

Well, I think it does not even matter too much if they know or not because available treatment options are very limited -> 1) surgery - for what? No subject to operate, 2) new drug(s) - most probably having CNS impact - no thank you, I'm done with those drugs, ) manual treatment like ciropractor, massage, acupuntur, osteopath, PT etc. - well I can book then without doc and typically they know a lot.

 

 

So my conclusion is to avoid doctors and spend my money by having treatments which might help and make living more confortable. Exception is serious new symptom/ilness requiring diagnosis and/or treatment.

Personally I don't think "mental illness"s are true illnesses, and I don't think things like "anxiety" can be called symptoms. Anxiety is a "something's wrong" signal from the mind's diagnostic system, similar to how pain is a signal from the body's diagnostic system. Analogous to the "check engine" light on a car. Benzos (and also opiods) work by shutting of their respective diagnostic system so we no longer get the signal. It would be like responding to "check engine" by disabling the car's diagnostic system. If you do that, you've obviously not treating whatever was really wrong with the engine. And you've disabled signals that might tell you something important in the future. That's why benzos are inappropriate - they just shut off the anxiety signal. Fix the problem causing the anxiety instead.

 

How do we approach the treatment of mental illnesses then?

 

But am I understanding you right? Even though paracetamol is effective in controlling a fever, it does not address the underlying disorder of which fever is only one symptom. Right?

Personally I don't think "mental illness"s are true illnesses, and I don't think things like "anxiety" can be called symptoms. Anxiety is a "something's wrong" signal from the mind's diagnostic system, similar to how pain is a signal from the body's diagnostic system. Analogous to the "check engine" light on a car. Benzos (and also opiods) work by shutting of their respective diagnostic system so we no longer get the signal. It would be like responding to "check engine" by disabling the car's diagnostic system. If you do that, you've obviously not treating whatever was really wrong with the engine. And you've disabled signals that might tell you something important in the future. That's why benzos are inappropriate - they just shut off the anxiety signal. Fix the problem causing the anxiety instead.

 

How do we approach the treatment of mental illnesses then?

 

But am I understanding you right? Even though paracetamol is effective in controlling a fever, it does not address the underlying disorder of which fever is only one symptom. Right?

 

Yes, exactly.

 

You've asked the million dollar question. The following is just an exploration. I don't have the answer. If I did I'd be rich and famous.

 

Analogous question: "How do I treat pain?" Answer: "You don't: Pain is not an illness". (Side note: How we got to having an opoid epidemic in the US is by acting as if pain was in and of itself an illness). Question: "But I *hurt*. What do I do?" Answer: "Figure out the root cause of the pain and fix that". So you go down the path of figuring that out, which medical science is pretty good at, and you fix it, if you can. If you can't, you live with the pain.

 

Back to benzos:

 

Question: "How do I treat anxiety?" Answer: "You don't. Anxiety is not an illness." Question: "But I'm *stressed*. What do I do?". Answer: "Figure out the cause of your stress and fix that"

 

Psychologists are supposed to help you do that. Unfortunately my experience is they're not that good at it. Maybe some are. Maybe you can find one.

 

On the other hand, it's your mind. Unlike the body, where you need a doctor to peer inside with an X-ray machine or other tools, you don't need another person to peer into your own mind.

 

Example: "I'm stressed." "Why are you stressed?" "My boss is stressing me out" "In what way?" "He's setting impossible deadlines" "Why does that stress you out?" "It triggers fear of failure" ... etc

 

OK, this is getting interesting. The way I view it is, your mind is like a software program running on the brain that is the hardware. This is sort of like a bug in the software program. I.e. it is triggering a diagnostic warning (anxiety). In the world where we evolved, this is only supposed to happen rarely, like when a lion is about to eat you. In the modern world we live in, this happens *all the time*. I mean, this is what bosses actually are supposed to do: put on pressure to make you work harder. This shouldn't be triggering the "lion is about to eat me" response.

 

So how do we fix this bug in the "software" that is our mind? Not by taking a pill. I'm sure of that. I don't know how, but not that.

 

Maybe the bug is really in modern civilization? Maybe we should all go back to being hunter-gatherers? Join the bushmen of the Kalahari and hunt wildebeests and sleep under the stars? I bet none of them has "anxiety disorder". Or is on benzos.

 

On the other hand, 7 billion people can't go back to being hunter-gatherers. We crossed that bridge already by the middle ages I think. World population was already about .5 billion by the time of the Renaissance.

 

So what else? Can we *think* our way out? Of all the things that trigger anxiety, what do they have in common? All involve the mind making some prediction of the future. "I'll fail at my job". And then turning that into something bad "I'll get fired, I'll be unemployed, I'll lose my house, my wife will leave me, I'll wind up sleeping under a bridge, I'll die". Somehow our minds are incorrectly extrapolating. I think fear of death lies at the root of it. I think that's built-in. Like the way the exit() call is built in to C++. If my mind was a C++ program maybe I could fix it. But it's not. In fact I think it's impossible for a mind to fully understand itself. Infinite recursion.

 

Sorry, I'm rambling. I wish I had a good answer. "Don't worry, be happy"?

 

Cheers,

 

CP

 

 

What an interesting post you have made! I will have to mull over the arguments you present to be able to discuss them, so I will respond later.

 

Maybe the bug is really in modern civilization? Maybe we should all go back to being hunter-gatherers? Join the bushmen of the Kalahari and hunt wildebeests and sleep under the stars? I bet none of them has "anxiety disorder". Or is on benzos.

:laugh:

 

But here is a shocker for you. Do you have an explanation for why the following keeps happening to man -- man keeps discovering that nature is prescient. I find it spooky (but that is because I am ignorant of the scientific explanations I think). The bushmen might not have abused benzos but they already had benzodiazepine (BZD) receptors in their brains. These receptors have no other function (not that we know of) except respond to benzodiazepines. (There are other several examples in the neo-darwinistic theory of evolution, where it seems things converged in a way that had presaged man's evolution. Ask me for reference if you need one. If I recall correct, I think one informal explanation for this is that if the present theory of evolution seems lacking, it's because 80% of the universe is still undiscovered - dark energy and matter.)

 

The way I view it is, your mind is like a software program running on the brain that is the hardware. This is sort of like a bug in the software program. I.e. it is triggering a diagnostic warning (anxiety). In the world where we evolved, this is only supposed to happen rarely, like when a lion is about to eat you. In the modern world we live in, this happens *all the time*. I mean, this is what bosses actually are supposed to do: put on pressure to make you work harder. This shouldn't be triggering the "lion is about to eat me" response.

 

OK, this is one school of thought in which man is viewed as an evolving, biochemical algorithm (or, at least it is the logical end of the model you create). I subscribe to it.

 

I will add though that heat, cold and colours do not exist in an objective sense (this is the current belief). Colours, at least, exist merely to aid processing of information by the brain (and, it is now thought, that even the blind can see colours). So clearly many, if not all, of these have a purely diagnostic or, as the digital philosophy guys would say, "reducing complexity" value. Rest later.

 

You might find the works of Wolfram and Chaitin in this department interesting -- Chaitin's metabiology and Wolfram's New Age of Science

chessplayer, very nice post, thank you! There's only something I don't agree which is considering our stress response a software bug. As I see it, it is usually a healthy response to an unhealthy situation, our current working conditions with demanding bosses that treat people as a commodity. We are not commodities, made to produce, and this doesn't mean we have to become hunter-gatherers again. We just need to improve society. If you were a slave in the 18th century, and you got mentally sick due to the way you were treated, that wouldn't mean your brain had a bug. I think what we have today is still an unhealthy mild version of slavery, which is why so many people get sick. This may sound subversive (and it is!) but psych meds have become de facto a means of social control. And psychologists play the same music. With their battery of coping techniques, they still put the blame on you for not fitting. It's coping, coping, coping when what we really need is change, change, change! Which is why they are so ineffective. If you are trapped in a bad working situation you don't need (med or non-med) coping techniques, you need to find a way out of it, which may be difficult because it involves stepping outside our bubble, controlling our fears and reinventing ourselves. But it's the only way!

chessplayer, very nice post, thank you! There's only something I don't agree which is considering our stress response a software bug. As I see it, it is usually a healthy response to an unhealthy situation, our current working conditions with demanding bosses that treat people as a commodity. We are not commodities, made to produce, and this doesn't mean we have to become hunter-gatherers again. We just need to improve society. If you were a slave in the 18th century, and you got mentally sick due to the way you were treated, that wouldn't mean your brain had a bug. I think what we have today is still an unhealthy mild version of slavery, which is why so many people get sick. This may sound subversive (and it is!) but psych meds have become de facto a means of social control. And psychologists play the same music. With their battery of coping techniques, they still put the blame on you for not fitting. It's coping, coping, coping when what we really need is change, change, change! Which is why they are so ineffective. If you are trapped in a bad working situation you don't need (med or non-med) coping techniques, you need to find a way out of it, which may be difficult because it involves stepping outside our bubble, controlling our fears and reinventing ourselves. But it's the only way!

 

OK. I get that. Maybe software *bug* is not the right analogy. Instead try this: I write a software program MyMind.cpp. I compile it to MyMind.exe. I run it on a computer named AncientHumanSociety. And it works fine. For 1 million years. But then, I buy a shiny new computer named ModernHumanSociety. And my program MyMind.exe no longer works. It would be like trying to run a Windows binary on a Mac. We don't have a bug, we're just compiled for the wrong architecture. If that's true, you either recompile your mind (? not really possible ?) or you run it on the computer it was intended to run on.

 

That's what I meant by "maybe the problem is modern civilization". But on reflection, I think the word "modern" can be omitted. I think the problem is with civilization itself. You bring up the example of a slave in the 18th century. True. But, there were slaves in ancient Rome. There were slaves in classical Greece. There were slaves in biblical Israel. (Modern people misinterpret the Jewish Passover story - the Exodus story - as an anti-slavery story. It is not. The Israelites had slaves. They were fine with slavery, as long as *they* were not the slaves). The point being, there were slaves in every "civilized" society up to the time of fossil fuels. Civilization couldn't exist without slaves. It's just too much physical work to farm and to build cities. OK, so fossil fuels came along, and machines could do the heavy lifting and the manufacturing and so on. We no longer need human slaves to clear fields and lift rocks. But we still need slaves. For one thing, our farms still need slaves - cows, pigs, chickens for example. And our econony needs slaves. Machines can do all the heavy work. But who programs the machines? Me, for example. So I am a slave of the company I work for. Not forced to work in the sense that a black person on a sugar plantation in 1700's Jamaica was forced to work. But nonetheless coerced very effectively by society to work long and hard in return for being able to live in our society. Also bear in mind that fossil fuels are not a sustainable solution. Our whole climate is already thrown out of whack, and we'll all be dead from climate change catastrophe if we don't change.

 

I claim this is inherent in civilization. We took a wrong turn when that first group of people in Babylon (modern day Iraq) decided "let's settle down here and try to control nature so that ...". So that *what* exactly? Not so that all people can live better - the slaves were'nt better off. Not so that the majority of people can live better - the slaves were the majority. It was so that *some* people could live better at the expense of others.

 

Do you think you could design a civilized society not having this feature? Nobody has done it yet. The Communists tried, but they ended up in Soviet Russia with an economy that didn't function and everyone poor. We want to live in houses and drive cars and go to Whole Foods and buy fresh rasberries flown in from Mexico and go on the internet to have virtual sex with someone in the Philipines, and so on and so forth. How is that going to happen without somehow forcing people to be on the producing end of all that?

 

Ancient hunter-gatherer societies avoid that problem by not wanting all that stuff. They "worked" maybe 5-10 hours per week, and that wasn't really work for them, it was fun. Go on a hunt, kill a zebra, and the whole clan is fed for a week. No stress.

 

I agree with you, drugs are a form of mind control. I think antidepressants are used for this purpose even more than benzos. 1 in 9 Americans is on an SSRI. An astonishing figure.

 

Well, enough rambling. I need to get to work (ironically...).

 

Good discussion!

 

CP