You've pegged it, of course, but I thought it would be nice to experiment and let the med users themselves reveal what the true issue is.

Sure enough, based on the very mild disturbance of reading something they didn't like on the computer, it did not take long for them to start screaming that the author of what made them uncomfortable should be medicated herself.

After almost 50 pages of bitching about "armchair experts" who "couldn't possibly know if they haven't been through it" (even though many of the critics testified that they had) it took 2 flat seconds for them to declare me absolutely insane. I was even called dangerous, merely for airing an unpopular viewpoint that wasn't as wacky or easily mocked as, say, Brightstar's or the bean guy's.

The post isn't here yet demanding that I be dragged off and locked up, but it'll be here before long.

Our freedom of choice has already been dangerously compromised by the user society.

You made the comment about Thomas Kinkaid and Kenny G.--it's a salient one, but I think that is not a result of the drug but something that was already there in their personalities. Users are, in my experience, very uncomfortable with difference and noncomformity in any field; it frightens them. This in turn worries me.

They are already acting as the Thought Police--court ordered stupefication of the senses for at least some people is not far away. They will call me paranoid for saying so. They will say it is a slippery slope argument. But in fact it;s well known historically that many people, esp. women, were locked up, tortured, and executed not for being dangerous or criminal or even insane but merely for being difficult or even just "odd".

In the historical context, being pressured to take drugs is really rather small fish, and preferable to being dragged away in a straightjacket and given electroshocks...(if they weren't insane when they started, they were insane when it was over). But I still consider it a possible infringement on my freedom, and I think even now the AD culture functions as an inhibitor even for people who are not on ADs. Because if you step out of line, you're told you NEED them.

I got a problem with that. The users can hate on me for it if they want. I can take it, guys.

Many of us become depressed in midlife or post-partum, by which time it is too damn late and all that undesirable breeding has already happened.

But I do know enough, also, to take your statements with a few tons of salt. You yourself said, you're throwing it out there to get a rise out of people.

I think there ought to be a new category of self-help which can be defined and studied: comment thread therapy. Brightstar's evolution while he talks to people on Salon has been really interesting.

namely, telling people they are saying something they are not.

Making an observation is not making an argument. You are confusing the two.

Amerigo did not state that meds caused people to prefer a certain kind of pop art. He said the fact that meds users tended to this taste was something he had noticed.

I observed, without making any arguments, that users on this thread expressed a wish for me to go on medication just because they didn't like what I wrote. I then made a speculation, which I acknowledged was a speculation. That, too, is not an argument but you don't seem to know the difference.

We don't need logic lessons from you. You are trying to change the discussion to terms more favorable to yourself by insisting that every statement is an "argument" that must attain to some impossibly pure standard of "logic".

This isn't high school, lillianjane, and we're not on the debate team. Okay?

Well, Strawberry certainly pointed out the phallic symbol thought.....

Although Phallus=Lighthouse isn't exactly the most profound observation in the world, something which Strawberry was also laughing at.

I don't know how much, if anything, you can usefully read into your observation, Amerigo. Kinkaid's popularity is not limited to people who are taking medication.

You can make many true observations about how venal KinKaid is, how he basically appeals to that class of conservatives who idolize Norman Rockwell (although Rockwell was a GOOD painter, inventive and witty and skilled), how his paintings are practically an anti-depressant by themselves, peddling, as they do, some notion of a village utopia combined with the worst aspects of false nostalgia. Many are Victorian themed, and there's a reason for that.

BUT does that have anything to do with AD use, and would that be cause or mere correlation?

You will never, never be able to assert either in good faith. It's an interesting observation, but impossible to take further.

I think you are trying to say that AD use stunts or dulls certain kinds of critical thinking skills. If this is true, it is a readily testable hypothesis and could be proved. No such tests have ever been done, as far as I know. So we can't say anythng about it.

You got me, Lillianjane. I ran out of kittens to torture, got bored, and joined the thread here to taunt the helpless and turn everything around on you.

How could I have dared? I should have known I'd be outed eventually.

I found some flies, I'm gonna go pull their wings off now.

BDD sounds like a manifestation or subset of the OCD disorders.

It will probably go on to be overdiagnosed and everybody will think they know somebody who has it. The net result will be that the real sufferers will be mocked and isolated for saying they have a disorder that has been dismissed as "trendy".

Its like "shopping addiction". Rarely, such a thing may exist. But now that every bored teenager with charge cards has jumped on the bandwagon it's very difficult to know for sure.