Forcing someone to take mind-altering medications against their will is an incredibly cruel and invasive act, an assault on one's personhood that exceeds most physical assaults and in some cases exceeds outright killing.
I'd rather be beaten up than be psychdrugged with short-term medication, if the beating is something I could limp away from.
I'd rather be anally raped, knifed, and beaten up badly enough to require hospitalization than be psychdrugged with long-acting medication ("depo" shots, etc), if I could recover with no permanent disability or bodily dysfunction as a consequence.
I would suffer permanent disability including loss of limb, sight, or hearing in order to escape an ongoing administration of psychmeds with no end in sight, or electroshock, either one.
If my only choices were being permanently drugged up with psych drugs or an electroshock series or behavior-mod psychosurgery, on the one hand, or just being executed, I'd choose death.
Now...all I'm asking for is a straightforward extension of identical nondiscriminatory due process in cases where y'all think we are dangerous to others -- i.e., the same laws that apply to violence and assault that are applicable to so-called "normal" people; and a straightforward extension of identical nondiscriminatory due process in cases where y'all think we are a danger to ourselves -- i.e., the same laws that apply to senility and other mental incapacity when they strike so-called "normal" people.
And outside of those parameters, we have choices and choices have consequences and we live with the consequences of the choices we make.
This is Great Debates. Explain why the fuck it's OK to treat us according
to different standards and subject us to different rules. Defend that. And
as you do so, refresh your memory of my post on how easy it is for anyone
to acquire one of these diagnostic labels, and keep in mind that when you
defend this double standard you're effectively saying "It's OK to suspend
normative due process as long as you first call someone 'schizophrenic'
or 'bipolar' or 'depressed' ". And if you don't agree with that summary,
explain and defend your dissent from it.
See my next post on this same thread
See my previous post on this same thread
Original SDMB thread Is manic-depression a disease to be cured?