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This article reminds me of my own childhood. I was badly abused and could not fall asleep. I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling each night, worrying. Somet

This article reminds me of my own childhood. I was badly abused and could not fall asleep. I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling each night, worrying. Sometimes morning would come, time for school, and I would still be awake. When I could sleep, I would often wake up screaming in terror in the middle of the night. After this, it was often hard to fall asleep. I told teachers, friends, relatives. Some would meet with the parent that abused me. They would come out convinced that he was a model citizen. I told our family doctor about what was going on. He prescribed pills. Later I found these were antidepressants. They made me not care so much about being abused. So they "worked". But it wasn't really a solution, and I still lay awake at night. Since then, reading about the field of psychiatry, I have found I was not alone. It is extremely common for people whose lives are horrific to be told that the problem is not the abuse or torture they report, but a "chemical imbalance" and the solution is pills. Because of this I do not trust the medical industry, or these studies, for good reason. I am also deeply skeptical of those who do.

sliverstorm 16y ago
I think you'd be better off distrusting those accused of abuse by their children, than distrusting medical professionals. It's hard to imagine the doctor meant you any ill will.
- insomniac 16y ago
  It's hard to imagine that a doctor meant ill will by deciding the best way to deal with ongoing abuse is to medicate away the pain that it causes? I don't find it hard to imagine there is ill will there. But even if there wasn't ill will, even if the support of abuse was done because doctors genuinely believe that abuse is good for people and it is sufficient to medicate away the pain superficially, why should that engender trust of their profession? edit: shouldn't have gotten off topic with this. My main insight is that, yes some kids don't get enough sleep watching TV or playing video games. These are not insomniacs, they are just doing other things and then not getting enough sleep. There are also those of us that couldn't fall asleep because of the stress. That is totally different. And it is this latter group, not the video and TV group, which I assert is the one more prone to suicide, for reasons that are clear and follow from a known mechanism. The "study" is instead interpreting the data that lack of sleep causes the problems. I look at the exact same data and interpret it that a subset of those are not sleeping because of problems in the family that are the same problems that lead to the suicides. NOT the lack of sleep. If that was true, there would be evidence across the board that less sleep leads to suicide. But that's not the case. The conclusions from the data are wrong here. The data is fine, I believe the data. This gets to a larger issue of the way studies are done. Data is hidden from the public, and the wild assed interpretations are published as a "scientific fact". But in many cases the same facts could lead to an opposite conclusion or no conclusion at all. Just because facts are not in dispute (and that's not always the case) does not mean that the claimed conclusions follow from the data. It's seldom the case that they do in peer reviewed studies, which is a big part of the Ionaddis effect.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    I'm confused, the post I was replying to discussed doctors who did not believe the child was being abused. Are you saying you are 100% certain the doctors KNEW you were being abused, and decided it wasn't important? As for treating the symptoms and not the cause, how can doctors treat teh cause if they can't pin down what it is? Would you prefer they just refused to treat the symptoms before finding the cause? That's the only other option.
    - stonemetal 16y ago
      Then you did not read the post you were replying to I told our family doctor about what was going on. He prescribed pills.
      - insomniac 16y ago
        Yes. He wasn't the only one I reached out to either, there was also a long stream of therapists after that. I begged my parents to get us into therapy. We did and the therapy focused on why is insomniac so mentally ill. Insomniac (me) wasn't ill at all though. That's the point. Sometimes depression is the result of unrealistic expectations. For these the solution is CBT. But in other cases depression and suicide are symptoms of things being seriously fucked up. They are not "Mental illnesses". There is no chemical imbalance. The myth of mental illness as an explanation for why abused people are unhappy has caused a lot of suffering. I am not saying that some people are not insane. I am saying that when 50% of the people are depressed in a psychotic, inconsistent, abusive, warmongering society where abuse and torture are virtues, it's not because of a brain imbalance. It wasn't until I was an adult that I saw what was going on. Now I see pretty clearly and am no longer depressed. But I am angry, and that anger is justified. This was long ago and all the people involved are now dead, of natural causes. Getting the news they had died was the only thing that ever brought me peace.
anigbrowl 16y ago
I don't trust them automatically, but that doesn't mean they're always wrong. I have a similar background and put up with a variety of ineffective treatments before eventually finding something that met my needs. You can mail me via gmail if you would like to compare notes.

sliverstorm 16y ago

I think you'd be better off distrusting those accused of abuse by their children, than distrusting medical professionals. It's hard to imagine the doctor meant you any ill will.

insomniac 16y ago
It's hard to imagine that a doctor meant ill will by deciding the best way to deal with ongoing abuse is to medicate away the pain that it causes? I don't find it hard to imagine there is ill will there. But even if there wasn't ill will, even if the support of abuse was done because doctors genuinely believe that abuse is good for people and it is sufficient to medicate away the pain superficially, why should that engender trust of their profession? edit: shouldn't have gotten off topic with this. My main insight is that, yes some kids don't get enough sleep watching TV or playing video games. These are not insomniacs, they are just doing other things and then not getting enough sleep. There are also those of us that couldn't fall asleep because of the stress. That is totally different. And it is this latter group, not the video and TV group, which I assert is the one more prone to suicide, for reasons that are clear and follow from a known mechanism. The "study" is instead interpreting the data that lack of sleep causes the problems. I look at the exact same data and interpret it that a subset of those are not sleeping because of problems in the family that are the same problems that lead to the suicides. NOT the lack of sleep. If that was true, there would be evidence across the board that less sleep leads to suicide. But that's not the case. The conclusions from the data are wrong here. The data is fine, I believe the data. This gets to a larger issue of the way studies are done. Data is hidden from the public, and the wild assed interpretations are published as a "scientific fact". But in many cases the same facts could lead to an opposite conclusion or no conclusion at all. Just because facts are not in dispute (and that's not always the case) does not mean that the claimed conclusions follow from the data. It's seldom the case that they do in peer reviewed studies, which is a big part of the Ionaddis effect.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  I'm confused, the post I was replying to discussed doctors who did not believe the child was being abused. Are you saying you are 100% certain the doctors KNEW you were being abused, and decided it wasn't important? As for treating the symptoms and not the cause, how can doctors treat teh cause if they can't pin down what it is? Would you prefer they just refused to treat the symptoms before finding the cause? That's the only other option.
  - stonemetal 16y ago
    Then you did not read the post you were replying to I told our family doctor about what was going on. He prescribed pills.
    - insomniac 16y ago
      Yes. He wasn't the only one I reached out to either, there was also a long stream of therapists after that. I begged my parents to get us into therapy. We did and the therapy focused on why is insomniac so mentally ill. Insomniac (me) wasn't ill at all though. That's the point. Sometimes depression is the result of unrealistic expectations. For these the solution is CBT. But in other cases depression and suicide are symptoms of things being seriously fucked up. They are not "Mental illnesses". There is no chemical imbalance. The myth of mental illness as an explanation for why abused people are unhappy has caused a lot of suffering. I am not saying that some people are not insane. I am saying that when 50% of the people are depressed in a psychotic, inconsistent, abusive, warmongering society where abuse and torture are virtues, it's not because of a brain imbalance. It wasn't until I was an adult that I saw what was going on. Now I see pretty clearly and am no longer depressed. But I am angry, and that anger is justified. This was long ago and all the people involved are now dead, of natural causes. Getting the news they had died was the only thing that ever brought me peace.

anigbrowl 16y ago

I don't trust them automatically, but that doesn't mean they're always wrong. I have a similar background and put up with a variety of ineffective treatments before eventually finding something that met my needs. You can mail me via gmail if you would like to compare notes.