OH ROBIN HOBB NO

[rachelmanija]

I was trying to figure out whether her recent series was two books or three, so I got on her website and ended up finding this recent blog post which made me go AUGH.

Now, I may be misinterpreting it. I hope that what Hobb meant was something like, "Don't mistake normal personality quirks and normal ups and downs for mental illnesses, and attempt to treat them with inappropriate medication. Mental illness is extremely serious business which can ruin your life and kill you if you don't manage it properly, a process which may very well include taking medication, possibly for your entire life. (But it's possible to have an awesome life anyway, just as many diabetics and others with chronic health conditions do.) That is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from being a teeny bit spacy and eccentric. Not the same thing! Don't confuse them!"

...I did not actually read it that way. The way it came across to me was this:

- People with ADHD and ADD do not have real illnesses, and are using medications to make themselves super-attentive, so they never learn to function without them (which they totally could if they applied normal discipline, like her kids do.)

- This is an unfair advantage over people who don't take brain-boosting meds.

- We misinterpret the "artistic temperament" as mental illness and want to medicate artists out of existence.

- If a person who is not actually mentally ill takes drugs intended to treat mental illness, they will obtain an altered personality.

(Note: As opposed to a lot of weird side effects. As far as I'm aware, this is not actually how it works. For instance, I am not bipolar, and so I would guess that if I took a mood stabilizer, it wouldn't make me a less moody version of myself, but would probably only make me feel ill and strange. Is that correct?)

- People who are totally normal and happy are misdiagnosed as mentally ill all the time, solely on the basis of having an artistic temperament or being delightfully quirky.

(Note: I'm not saying no one's ever misdiagnosed. I'm just saying that when it does happen, it's unlikely to have anything to do with artistic temperament and forgetting to drink a mug of coffee you poured.)

Some of us are just not standard issue people. I rather suspect that all of us are not standard issue people but some are better at pretending. In my family, both nuclear and extended, I can trace a genetic heritage that means that every one of us could probably be diagnosed with one mental disorder or another. Yet, for the most part, we are successful people with lives we enjoy (even if others think our lives are a bit strange.)

NO SHIT. If you're happy and successful and leading a life you're pleased with, that means YOU DON'T SUFFER FROM A SERIOUS UNTREATED MENTAL ILLNESS.

This is what it feels like to have a serious untreated mental illness. It's artistic and fun! Thank heavens no one tried to medicate all that artsy goodness out of me!

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

...I'm so glad right now that Hobb's anti-fanfic ranting put her on my Do Not Read list years ago.

[cereta]

Ditto.

[jonquil]

The scariest part of that article, for me, is the "I probably have untreated manic depression and it's just rosy!" Nowhere in the article does she touch on the fact that a major complication of manic depression is death. No, it's all art and stuff.

Ironic to have Hobbs's silliness the same week as the truly excellent Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor", in which the Doctor meets Vincent van Gogh, and which had a loving and truthful depiction of manic depression.

[rachelmanija]

For her sake, I hope that what she really meant was "I have normal mood swings and I was pretty unhappy when I was in my twenties. That must be what people mean when they talk about manic depression."

(Must catch up on Who!)

[umadoshi]

That's...quite the bubble she's in there. O_o

[staranise]

I haven't seriously written since before I started taking Lexapro for my depression. I am having to consider if the drug that makes my brain work like normal is also taking away my creative drive.

And yanno what?

If that's true, I'm keeping the damned drug, because no number of novels are worth hating the fuck out of myself.

[nestra]

Right? I'm pretty sure my writing output has gone down since I went on an anti-depressant. And yet, not crying every day? KIND OF WORTH IT.

[megwrites]

Wow. I just can't even begin with how much that post has provoked my rage.

From second or third grade on, many of her friends have been on drugs for ADD, ADHD, and whatever other initials apply. The most common one seems to be Ritalin.

Yes, because these things are just initials. Just initials. Not actual FUCKING CONDITIONS that have serious repercussions for people's lives. No, they're just initials that lazy/spoiled people who don't want to just WORK HARDER and not cheat use to have an excuse to take drugs. But oh no, not her. She doesn't cheat, she doesn't let her kids "cheat". Because living a functional, happy life where you can accomplish the things you want and need to do in a way that works well is TOTES CHEATING. It's not adapting or functioning or living well. No, it's cheating. Because you're a different person if you're on "brain drugs" (that phrase pisses me off so much I can't even express it).

Being on a psychiatric medication doesn't make you a different person, doesn't mean you're not the same human being - it means you're better functioning (ideally, if the medications are right for you and you're able to get the help you need in whatever form that takes).

The thing that most angered me, however, was this:

You have to be who you genetically are.

OH FUCK THAT NOISE. Fuck that kind attitude because that's the kind of shit that gets thrown at everyone from people with mental illnesses to transgendered folks. Genes are not this great destiny you should obey because not doing it goes against some grand, wonderful design if you don't. There's no "person you're supposed to be" - there's just who you are and who you are shaped to be in the future by your self and your environment and yes, sometimes genes, to varying degrees depending on the situation.

But what they are not is a God-given blueprint that says, "YOU MUST BE THIS OR YOUR'E DOING IT WRONG". Genes are a random draw. Sometimes you get great ones, sometimes you get really shitty ones and when you get shitty ones or ones that don't work for you. There's not a damn thing wrong with trying to work with that and doing things that help you function better and live a life where you're happy and healthy and not at constant risk for self-harm.

Like, yes, psychiatric medications.

Sorry to vent in your space but this article really angered me. I've dealt with these issues of taking meds (and being so deeply shamed that I would NOT take them) and I've got a lot of friends dealing with them now and reading this post just felt like reading so much bragging and shaming of other people.

[elynross]

Her idiocy did make me contemplate the idea of secular predestination, which isn't a concept I've come across articulated quite so clearly as she does it, somehow. Or maybe there was just something in the way she put it that hightlighted that this was exactly what she was promoting, with almost religious fervor. I really despise it when people use the strange concept of what's "natural" as an argument for whatever they're arguing for. I always want to ask them why they wear clothes, then, because that isn't exactly "natural" in most senses of the word.

It makes me wonder, if any of her children had been born with genetically-based and hence "natural" negative conditions that were treatable, if she'd have thought it was "cheating" to have them treated.

Like the person above, this makes me even happier that I'd already slotted her into the category containing authors who piss me the fuck off.

[umbo]

OMFG what an idiot.

Also: SUGAR IS NOT A DRUG YOU STUPID PERSON.

[megwrites]

SUGAR IS NOT A DRUG YOU STUPID PERSON.

Now you're just confusing the situation with facts and truth. That's no way to conduct a discussion about "artistic temperments" (spelling hers, not mine).

[ironed_orchid]

I think and hope she's trying to differentiate between people with debilitating mental illness and people who might have the predisposition, but for the most part get along fine.

disclaimer: I read it this way because I have some personal connection with members of her immediate family, and can see how she might come to that conclusion.

[rydra_wong]

That might be what she meant, but it's not what she ended up saying.

There's no differentiation in the post itself; I'm not seeing a single sentence that indicates any awareness that there are mental conditions more severe than her experience which might need to be treated with medication. In fact, it's the reverse; she's blurring any differentiation by conflating her experience (mild scattiness and mood swings) with bipolar disorder.

"People who have a mild predisposition to a mental illness (but who generally get along fine or even find it a positive) don't need to be medicated" is a perfectly rational proposition. So is "If someone's mental issues can be treated effectively without meds, it's better to try that first". So is "Sometimes it's hard to know whether medication is the right thing to try."

Unfortunately, none of these things are what she actually said.

[dsgood]

I have ADD, and have lived both without and with meds for it. I agree with you.

Note: What I'm taking is primarily an antidepressant; this is an off-label use. It works well for me.

[jesuswasbatman]

- If a person who is not actually mentally ill takes drugs intended to treat mental illness, they will obtain an altered personality.

I may be misremembering but I think when Prozac was first put on the market there were some technobooster buffoons who were claiming that everybody would be a happier, brighter person if they took it and that it should be put in the water supply. Possibly a hangover from that.

[gavagai]

Passing by from network; argh. I really agree, both that maybe she is coming from a more considered and empathic place than what she ended up saying, and that what she actually said is as megwrites said "bragging and shaming". I am very glad that your family members are healthy and functional, Ms Hobb! Good for you! Now stfu and do some learning about people outside your immediate experience.

(I ended up ranting about this way more and with less articulacy than this post on my dw, heh, so will spare you the repeat.)

[green_knight]

I don't see being creative as something you do _instead_ of being a responsible adult. When taken to an extreme - people who seek refuge in art because they cannot deal with the real world - it will pile up real-world problems really quckly and really deeply; and homelessness etc are not conductive to creativity.

If I said to someone I trust 'I am having trouble coping - I forget things, I cannot keep appointments, I am stressed and I make mistakes' and they told me to embrace and celebrate my inner artist I would be rather hurt; I'd also look for guidance from someone else.

[brownbetty]

I know people with are seriously manic-depressive and choose not to take their meds because they can't live with the side effects.

And you know what? Those people don't argue that meds are just blunting the beautiful unique flower they actually are; they just want better flipping meds.

[rydra_wong]

Yep. There are people with serious mental illnesses for whom the meds don't work, and people who are massively meds-intolerant (and I've spent the past year with a foot in each of those groups, and I am not out of the woods yet).

And there are people for whom non-meds treatments work fine; they mostly tend to be folk with mild-to-moderate forms of the illnesses, but not always.

But I would maintain (and will unless presented with very strong evidence to the contrary) that all of us would agree that it's not, in fact, a fun fluffy artistic experience. We wouldn't take the meds (or do the therapy or whatever) if we didn't desperately need something to work.

[recessional]

Here from network, didn't see anyone else answer this:

For instance, I am not bipolar, and so I would guess that if I took a mood stabilizer, it wouldn't make me a less moody version of myself, but would probably only make me feel ill and strange. Is that correct?

Pretty much. They are not actually "happy pills" or "make less moody" pills, they're "sort out this weird chemical imbalance in your brain"(hopefully)-pills, and if you don't have the chemical imbalance you just make yourself sick.

Crudely speaking.

(Paxil stopped working for me unhappily quickly, but the months that it did work were the final kick to my "maybe I'm just malingering" worries. No, if I'd been malingering, the drugs would have made me sicker: instead, they made me better.

. . . and then stopped.)

[thecityofdis.livejournal.com]

- If a person who is not actually mentally ill takes drugs intended to treat mental illness, they will obtain an altered personality.

(Note: As opposed to a lot of weird side effects. As far as I'm aware, this is not actually how it works. For instance, I am not bipolar, and so I would guess that if I took a mood stabilizer, it wouldn't make me a less moody version of myself, but would probably only make me feel ill and strange. Is that correct?)

This is the only part of your post I disagree with. Psychiatric drugs interfere with and alter the chemicals in your brain. If you are improperly or incorrectly medicated, the "side effects" can be severe enough to alter your personality/entire frame of mind. Taking bipolar meds if you're not bipolar won't make you less moody. It may, in fact, make you moreso. Or dysphoric, or experience clinical rage. The same goes for any SSRIs - which are what I'm most familiar with - and I imagine many other drugs.

It's about the least fun thing ever. I know this from having had doctors fuck with my medication for many years until I swore it off altogether, and also by watching my best friend at the time react badly to many series of medications until they were finally able to balance her prescriptions well.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think you actually expressed better what I was trying to get at: they'll have effects, maybe severe ones, but me on a mood stabilizer won't be "completely normal (only less moody) me."

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, when will this attitude end.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

AAAAGH! I can't even read most of that blog post. I skimmed and saw this: Here is my reasoning. You have to be who you genetically are.

By that reasoning, if you genetically can't process a protein that's found in most food such that it builds up in your liver and kills you, it's wrong to take the specialty drug that would allow you to break it down safely. Be who you are! Screw your liver!

Also I guess I should take my son's prosthetic arm away from him, in case his limb difference is genetic and not teratogenic. Who he really is does not involve learning to ride a bicycle!

Also I guess it's good that a person I loved killed herself after years of major depression! She was expressing her artistic temperament!

GRARGH RAGE

*eta: ok now I made myself read it and I still say GRARGH RAGE; also Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict and that's apparently totes fine as compared to taking ritalin.

[heyoka.livejournal.com]

I'm an achondroplastic dwarf, and I pretty much have to be that for the rest of my life, yep. But I appreciate the things that have prevented some of the spillover of the condition -- like spinal surgery to keep the use of my left leg. \o/

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I think my reaction is better shared in private.

[viorica8957.livejournal.com]

We misinterpret the "artistic temperament" as mental illness and want to medicate artists out of existence.

I vote we force her to repeatedly watch last week's "Doctor Who" until she gets it through her skull that "artistic temperament" does not equal "suicide-inducing depression." Because I'm pretty sure that my artistic output was not improved when I was crying all day and wanting to kill myself. Actually, I'm pretty sure it puttered to a halt.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

That's when I caved in and decided 'hey, maybe I should take some meds' myself.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Oh WHAT.

I couldn't read the whole article because it was pissing me off so badly. And there's so much wrong there, that.... aghaghaghaghagh.

But the one that always stands out at me because I hear it so bloody often and it's so WRONG is the idea that mental illness and 'artistic temperament' are the same thing. Because what? No. What?

For me, and for a lot of people, mental illness squashes the ability to do anything creative or artistic at all. SQUASHES IT FLAT. Medication didn't destroy my artistic abilities, it allowed me to actually use them!

And:

NO SHIT. If you're happy and successful and leading a life you're pleased with, that means YOU DON'T SUFFER FROM A SERIOUS UNTREATED MENTAL ILLNESS.

Yes! If you're like, "I don't understand why depressed people need treatment, I've been sad before and I just shook myself out of it," then surprise! That means that you weren't depressed. Good gravy.

In short: omg no!

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

But the one that always stands out at me because I hear it so bloody often and it's so WRONG is the idea that mental illness and 'artistic temperament' are the same thing. Because what? No. What?
It doesn't help that the bipolar research Kay Redfield Jamison (who has bipolar disorder and is a psychologist) wrote a book glorifying the "artistic temperament" thing (Touched with Fire). I've read it. It's terrible. But people cite it anyway and because she's a leading researcher on bipolar disorder, it gives the damnable thing credibility.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

You ever notice how one person's "delightfully quirky" is another person's "insufferable curmudgeon"? Yeah, me too.

To be fair, there is evidence of a correlation between clinical depression and certain artistic professions (the original study was on creative writing teachers). But the fact that it's a correlation: are they depressive because they're writers? Or are they writers because they're depressive? Or -- and I thought this was an insightful theory -- are they writers and depressive because they examine the world carefully, and refuse to ignore its scary scary reality?

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Megan Lindholm or Robin Hobb or whatever her actual name is has just moved to my "too stupid to live" category for human beings.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely disappointed, but I'm hoping she doesn't get dogpiled too badly and quickly comes around to see the light.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

Yyyyyyeah I'm reading it the same way that you're reading it. Kinda hope that we're reading it wrong, though.

- If a person who is not actually mentally ill takes drugs intended to treat mental illness, they will obtain an altered personality.

Certain specific types of antipsychotic drugs are supposed to alter one's personality, yes. That is why they are used to treat personality disorders. And yes, absolutely, there ARE horror stories about antipsychotic drugs being improperly administered (either given to people who don't need them, or given in far too great a dosage, etc) with disasterous and sometimes permanent consequences upon a person's mood, cognitive abilities, and personality. Hell, that's the nightmare scenario that a lot of people struggling within the mental health system are most afraid of.

BUT any medical intervention whatsoever can be used improperly, or administered in a biased manner, or end up doing more harm than good. This doesn't mean that the problem of improper medication given to the mentally ill should be ignored, but it's not a reason to take a broad swipe at the very concept of medicating mental illness altogether, either.

(Note: I'm not saying no one's ever misdiagnosed. I'm just saying that when it does happen, it's unlikely to have anything to do with artistic temperament and forgetting to drink a mug of coffee you poured.)

You're right. Misdiagnosis usually has to do more with race and ethnicity, actually. Young African-American males in the public school system are still far more likely to be misdiagnosed as having ADHD or being mentally retarded than any other demographic group. Somehow I reaaaally don't think that this is the problem that Hobb is talking about, though.

NO SHIT. If you're happy and successful and leading a life you're pleased with, that means YOU DON'T SUFFER FROM A SERIOUS UNTREATED MENTAL ILLNESS.

THIS THIS THIS.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

BUT any medical intervention whatsoever can be used improperly, or administered in a biased manner, or end up doing more harm than good.

THIS YES THIS. I have "happy pills", without which I would be incapable of functioning. I have a friend whose brain chemistry has been permanently altered by being misdiagnosed and overtreated with psychiatric meds as a child, and who now has a phobic fear of psychiatric meds. I understand his fear, but I don't have it. The meds work for me; they didn't work for him.

Years ago, an ex-boyfriend of mine died during a "routine" tonsillectomy, when the surgeon nicked an artery and he bled to death. That's horrible, a tragedy. Does it mean that nobody should ever get their tonsils removed ever again? Gosh no.

I just grrrnhgh. I feel that I have a responsibility to my friends and family to do my best to take care of myself, and that includes knowing when I need help, and finding the most effective help I can. I'm lucky; I found a medication that works wonderfully well for me, with relatively few side effects which don't impact my life much. I recognize that I am very lucky in this, and that other people have to struggle with medications their entire lives, trying to find a balance that works for them. Other people have bad experiences and give up. It's never easy. If it is easy... then, yeah, you don't suffer from a serious untreated mental illness. Grats!

[tanyahp.livejournal.com]

I know this is off the topic, but I wanted to let you know that your autobiography is an excellent read, and your post on PTSD is wonderfully informative.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

If you're happy and successful and leading a life you're pleased with, that means YOU DON'T SUFFER FROM A SERIOUS UNTREATED MENTAL ILLNESS.

This. A thousand times this.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Aaaaargh this makes portions of Wizard of the Pigeons seem very creepy to me now, which is REALLY NOT OK, and I think I am going to have to cling very hard to the thought that what a work of art says can be independent of what the artist meant, or else maybe that she developed these beliefs recently. Because the thing I've always liked about that book is that he actually is crazy.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I wonder what prompted her post. Are her kids having trouble finding jobs or doing well in school or something, and this what prompted her to reach for a crackpot theory?