Feels natural to me, I suppose. Perhaps hatred/distance for people who tout not being ****ed up, and fear those who are.

It wasnt criticism of any sort.
I just wondered.
I mean, I'm pretty messed up, but I do note that there's a lot of people with serious problems (agressive parents, depression, drug abuse, suicide).
I go to loads of forums but I've never seen so many rather serious problems amongst the core users in one forum.

Again, no criticism at all :)

I mean, I've had a long history of forums though, and I would maybe only compare this to one of those. It's not a complaint of course, but it is a curiosity.

Heh. I don't know, I'd actually say the other forums I've been a part of had more people with issues. Maybe because it's a music forum it attracts more "tortured artist" types?

Haha, that might be true, actually.
I have the same experience as Pedestrian.
I've always thought my own forum was a forum of people with disabilities.
But now I start to think that my forum is a forum of people that somehow seem to manage, despite their disabilities. That's a good thought :)

Not taken, mr.s_k. I know you're a cool guy.

I don't know. As stated before, almost every time it's felt like a means of power when I feel myself to be powerless. Then again, I have issues with paranoia, too. I mean, issues as in hearing voices that aren't there, and I've been lead to believe I'm being taped. It's really illogical, and I have no idea where it stems from.

Supposed the tortured artist theory is right. Music for me is largely a way to help flood out a lot of the sounds. Seeing as I often hear words/voices out of distanced ones it's nice to have one as a focal point.

Reading a bit back, as for psychiatric pills. I highly do not recommend taking them. I was on Abilify for a short amount of time(It's administered as a treatment to schizophrenia as well as depression). There's two important things I notice about it:

A) When you don't take it for awhile, you feel sick taking it at first. They were giving it to me in higher dosages than what you'd just get for depression - however- you have to build a tolerance to the pill. I took it while in a supervised wing of the hospital(they had to keep me there until I was medically cleared ie. no suicide attempts). I went to throw up after taking it... then they brought a freaking dietary expert in to ask me whether I was bulimic. Which is ridiculous seeing as I don't see it as a very common disease in males with skinny not being the attractive look, and not being particularly fat.

B) It ****ing messed my mind up. It made me just lay in bed. That's it. There were things I would have normally wanted to do without it, but I just didn't want to. It just made me an emotionless drone, really.

Never ever recommend psyche medicine. It's not good stuff.

Well with 58 tapedecks in my house I can assure you that you will be taped once you get here :D.
But other than that, I don't think you are taped, indeed.

There's a thing I'd like to say about pills: Try them yourself, don't believe experiences from others. They may be true in their case, but it definately can be different in your case. My ex-girlfriend really functions better with abilify (and a ****load of other medicines) and I'm glad she took the step. Altough I love her the way she is, her quality of life definately improved with those meds.
But she too ran into a lot of meds that had the opposite effect. It's always a question of trial and error, I guess.

Yes, I don't think it's a very good message to say that sick people should stay away from drugs. It's a bit like telling people with cancer that chemotherapy doesn't work.

From a certain point of view, treating these kind of diseases with pills is easy. There's a chemical imbalance in the brain, too much of this or too little of that. If you can administer a drug, that might fix things. However, getting the right drug and the right dosage etc. may be hard and that may lead to some bad experiences, especially from early on, but these drugs still help a lot of people. Plus, there are some pretty horrific examples of what can happen when people who are seriously ill feel "normal" after taking pills for a while and then stop taking them.

Although before taking medicine, people should definetly look at their diets and excercise and so on as well. Cut milk, corn/wheat based food and sugar from your diet for example as there are studies that show these may be related to psychological problems as well as a range of other health problems.

I still don't believe in the power of drugs. You realize that over the long term they literally reshape your brain. It's like crude brain surgery from a half blind surgeon, or trying to cut down trees by throwing tomahawks. It's to inexact to risk permanent change(which could lead to brain damage).

IE. If you don't like what the pills do to you a few years down the line. Tough ****, they've already done it.

I mean, just because you start taking the latest psyche drug, and it makes you feel good, doesn't mean it's always smart. I mean, to me, Abilify is just the much weaker form of Lithium, which is not known to have the most positive effects on the human brain in the long run.

Tore is right, Skaligojurah. Mental illness is just that, an illness. When you are ill you can't be better unless you take something to make you so. Your brain is not going to organically fix itself. Taking psychiatric medicine is not like crude brain surgery and should never feel as such, if it does you have obviously not been put on the right medications. I suggest doing some research into medications and have a chance to make your life better or suffer, it's your choice.