tom cruise...still sucks.

so, this post is actually in regard to my tom cruise sucks post which, surprisingly, got a lot of comments. more than i'm used to on this blog (seriously, where did all you people come from? how did i get this many comments on my little, insignificant blog?). and one of the comments (a good one!) was:

would you agree that some people are too quickly medicated for issues that could be treated in alternative ways and even when medication is necessary, finding the right medication mix for treating bipolar is an inexact science at best? we have to get past the black and white back and forth and move toward answers for the grey areas here..psychiatrists have one hammer in their toolkit, write an rx...if you go to them with a mental health issue, most of them will rx it as if it is a medical issue...let's have the deeper more complex discussion here... shields' and cruise's media grabbing back and forth only muddy the "deeper issues" waters more...would love your comments on the more penetrating answers...

my answer is yes, i would agree that some people are too quickly medicated for certain illnesses that could be treated in different ways (therapy only, or in conjunction with therapy) and that finding the right medication for mental illnesses can be an inexact science. i also agree that the whole issue of medication and mental illnesses is not black and white and it is a huge grey area.

however, i don't agree that psychiatrists treat all issues as medical issues and will only write you a prescription to solve your problem. and this is what bothers me about this whole thing. that a lot of people have this misperception of psychiatry and psychology as a crazy "pseudo-science" (thanks, tom) and that the only thing psychiatrists/psychologists will do is prescribe you a truckload of meds and send you on your merry, numb way. this is just not true. i'm sure that there ARE psychiatrists out there who do this but, just like in every profession, you have your bad seeds and these few psychiatrists, unfortunately, match the misperception that people have so they continue to believe that this is what all psychiatrists are like.

in fact, i don't know if most people know this, but i just feel like i should explain that the difference between psychiatrists and psychologists is that psychiatrists have a medical degree and are licensed to prescribe medication whereas psychologists are either researchers or therapists. psychiatrists and psychologists work together to treat mental illness. and, as with most mental illnesses, the issue is always a grey area that requires BOTH medication and therapy. in a lot of cases, of course, medication is not even needed and therapy or behavioral treament is sufficient. but i don't think there are many cases (if any) out there that would just require medication alone. if medication is used, i'm fairly certain that therapy or some other treatment goes hand in hand with it.

the one issue that a lot of people seem to have a problem with is ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) where a lot of people think that psychiatrists are "drugging" too many kids these days. this is still a controversial issue within the field of psychiatry/psychology. why are so many kids diagnosed with ADHD? is it because we've become better at recognizing the symptoms than in the past? is it because there's something that's "causing" or triggering these symptoms (moreso today than in the past)? or are we just becoming overzealous and ADHD has been the go-to answer for all "problem" children? obviously, there is no correct answer. it's still out there for debate even within the field. i don't even know where i stand on the issue because it's such a complex issue and i feel that i don't have enough facts to form an educated opinion. and this is what bothers me about tom cruise. that, as an actor who has never been educated in psychiatry/psychology, he feels that he can make grand, sweeping statements about evil nazi psychiatrists who do nothing all day but electro-shock and drug kids. i kid you not, this is his actual opinion. and, as a celebrity and a big personality, people, unfortunately, are more inclined to listen to what he says and not look up the facts themselves. (although, these days, the whole katie holmes issue is making tom cruise look like a nutbar - to put it kindly - so his credibility and popularity are sinking faster than the titanic).

this leads to another big misperception that people have regarding psychiatry/psychology. that it is an exact science and mental illnesses are just like medical illnesses. have the flu? take flu medicine. have hepatitis? take hepatitis medication. (yeah, i have no idea what any of these medicines are called. good thing i'm not a medical doctor). unfortunately, with mental illnesses, things are never that cut and dry. the brain is still the one part of the human body that we know very little about. we do our best to treat mental illnesses, not "cure" them. and this is what bothers a lot of people, i think. that we can't "cure" depression or schizophrenia or autism. we can only treat it. and a lot of people are simply unaware that with many of these mental illnesses, therapy or behavioral treatment (or some other type of treatment) is used with or without medication. it's almost never JUST medication. people make the mistake of assuming that suffering from schizophrenia or ADHD (or any other mental illness) is just like having a migraine and all they need is some anti-psychotics or stimulants to make it go away. but a lot of people don't see the therapy or the behavioral treatment that goes with it (and that, oftentimes, preceded it). and why would they care? therapy and behavioral treatment are unglamorous and, unfortunately, regarded as "unscientific" because they don't come in pill form.

i know this blog is getting long, but i have one more issue to cover and that is that a lot of people regard psychology as a "pseudo-science" (really, thanks so much, tom). and i can assure you that psychology follows all the scientific standards, principles, and methods that every "normal science" (chemistry, biology, etc). but people simply don't know this. they don't know about the countless experiments and trials that have led psychiatrists/psychologists to the treatments they have now. while psychiatry can't cure illnesses the way medical science can cure illnesses, it still follows the scientific methods that medical science does in order to find "cures." i think a lot of people still have that huge misperception of psychology in the 50's where electro-shock therapy was excessively used and crazy people were simply locked away. and it's true that psychology does have a dark history but so does medical science (or a lot of other sciences). doctors used to put leeches on people, bleed them, and operate on them in unsanitary conditions. it's an unfortunate trial and error, but without making those mistakes, we wouldn't be at the place we are now. doctors don't bleed people any more and psychiatrists don't simply electro-shock or lobotomize people.

okay, i know there's probably a lot more i can say about this whole thing, but for all your sakes, i'll end it here. and, seriously, kudos to you if you've made it this far because i know this can get really boring for a lot of people (especially since my blog is mostly for my own silly amusement and i almost never write about serious issues like this) but i do feel very strongly about this. and so that's why i've rambled on for a very long time. and i hope i've been coherent and made some sense. i got up early and couldn't sleep so who knows what i've been typing this whole time. anyway, that's all. my next blog won't be so long or boring, i promise.

david and mike imitating the mystere cirque du soleil guys. so funny watching them prance along in their wetsuits. 

me and mike in our rafting getups. so i guess it's true what they say about couples who start to look like one another after a while, huh?  

row row row your boat...

okay, i know, not really the most original title, but i can't think of anything else other than "rafting." which, i guess, would be direct and succinct. but boring. anyway, i'm bored, so here's a recap of the weekend.

on friday, we all (me, deb, david, steven, mike, ha) met up at jacq's house as the l.a. people (chi, jacq, bobby) were home for rafting. we presented jacq with her bday gift which consisted of a tote, a towel, and a bikini (notice a theme?). we then made jacq try on the bikini which got a big thumbs up from bobby. ;D personally, i think it makes her butt look good. but that's what boy shorts do. anyway, then we went off to karaoke. had tons o' fun as usual. i sang a lot. more than usual. i don't know why. excess energy, i suppose. afterwards, we went to the next plaza over for some korean food for dinner. food was okay, but the company and conversation were the best. reminded me of old times in high school when all the girls would congregate and have silly, stupid conversations and laugh our heads off at things that really aren't that funny but for some strange reason we find uber hilarious. i can't even remember what was so funny. just that i liked laughing a lot. anyway, after dinner, we all headed back home to get to bed early (or at least try to).

on saturday, we all (me, deb, san, chi, jacq, bobby, david, mike, steven, kuan, paggy, l.a. mike) met up at deb's house at the oh-so-pleasant time of 530 am. i think we left around 6 and made it to camp lotus around 8. it only took us two hours to get there even though we gave ourselves three. waited around for an hour for the rafting people to meet up with us. got our wetsuits and had a jolly good laugh at how stupid everyone looked. actually, jacq, bobby, paggy, and the other mike all had the exact same wetsuit so they all looked like an impressive rafting team while everyone else just looked weird. i will definitely post up pictures after this entry.

so after getting into our wetsuits, we boarded a school bus and took a long drive to the river. i dozed off a bit on the ride there. was also mildly annoyed at the group of asian fobs sitting in front of us where a couple of the boys had their hair gelled and (as deb later pointed out to me) some of the girls were wearing makeup. also, almost all of them were wearing flip flops and they were speaking to each other in cantonese even though it was quite obvious that they knew how to speak english (quite well too). so. annoying. more about them later.

so, yay, we finally make it to the river, go over some basic safety rules (what to do when you fall out - heh. more about that later), etc etc and finally board the damn rafts. deb, david, san, kuan, chi, and steven are in one boat while me, mike, jacq, bobby, paggy, and the other mike are in another boat. unfortunately, the guides assume that because we're all asian, the fob group must also be part of our group. so they were with us THE ENTIRE TIME. EVEN DURING LUNCH. ohmygod. so. annoying. especially since they clearly sucked at rafting (really, how hard is it to row at the same time as the person in front of you?) and the girls screamed a lot. i was slightly offended at the assumption that just because we're all asian, we must all know each other, but at the same time, i know the guides didn't mean anything bad by it and were just trying to be nice and had good intentions. i think i was just more annoyed and offended by how stupid the fob group was. plus, i was a bit embarrassed by how they were acting. both of our boats pointed out to our guides that they weren't with us. it's really a shame that none of them fell out and lost all their flip flops and had gel and makeup running down their faces. i would've pointed and laughed. okay, maybe silently in my head, but still.

anyway, rafting was awesome. our boat was awesome. (i know, i know, i need a new word other than awesome.) our guide, zach, said that we were the best group he's had all season. i know, i know, he could just be saying that to be nice, but he sounded really genuinely impressed and, well, we really were pretty awesome (okay, you guys can stop rolling your eyes at me now). i, of course, would be the weak link, but still. i think i held my own well enough with the group. zach was a great guide too. very chill and relaxed. and had funny stories to tell us about a crazy toothless woman who chased him in a bar and threw her purse at him. for some reason, this reminds me of jen. hahaha, sorry jen, i don't know why i thought that all of a sudden. you are neither crazy nor toothless, jen (although, who knows what japan has done to you lately. kidding!). anyway, the only problem we had was the other mike paddling so hard on one of the rapids that he paddled himself straight out of the raft. he was sitting right in front of me so i saw him slip out of the raft in slow motion. the guide had to swing him around the other side so that he wouldn't get smooshed between us and a huge rock. ouch. bobby, jacq, and paggy eventually hauled him back up. this, as opposed to...

...the other boat that lost half their occupants. deb, david, and steven all got launched out of their raft on the troublemaker rapid. i'll let deb, chi, and whoever else tell this story. all i remember is that our raft passed theirs, and then zach said, "hey some of your friends fell out" and i turned around and saw a little yellow deb floating down the river away from her raft. the fob raft picked her up (eew) and all was well. they lost all three paddles as well. but our raft - being so very awesome - picked up two of them.

after the whole trip, we went to hotshots - a company that takes pictures of rafters going through the rapids - to take a look at those pictures and their raft has some really funny and crazy pictures of them going through troublemaker. you've gotta see it to see how insane it was. and it's cool because you can clearly see how david, steven, and deb fell out of the raft and how kuan (the hero!) held back chi and san so they wouldn't fall in. plus, kuan also pulled david and steven back in (steven with the help of david, but still). i think the funniest part (although, i'm sure, not that funny at the time) is seeing deb with her pink visor in one shot and then seeing her float away in the next shot. plus, the pictures of david and steven falling out with their legs straight up in the air are pretty good as well. as for our boat, the pictures came out nicely. we all looked like hardcore rafters, all in sync with one another. funny pictures include the vicious, angry look on bobby's face as he paddles and paggy posing in not one, not two, but three photos. she looks straight at the camera and smiles. it's so cute. anyway, we wound up getting the picture cds of both boats and i'm sure they will go up online once we get them.

the drive home was excruciatingly tiring and kuan had to take over driving for mike. got back home around 5, i think, and just lounged at deb's house. had takeout from the hawaiian bbq place at pacific common (ohana's, i think) for dinner. well, everyone else did, i had jack in the box because i was craving fast food. i wasn't very sore (i rowed with my body instead of just my arms) but i was pretty damn exhausted. slept quite well that night even though i had a really bad nightmare about aliens taking over the world (very war of the worlds). it's a recurring nightmare that i haven't had in a while. yuck.

so anyway, that was our little rafting trip. i enjoyed it immensely. and it makes me want to go camping now. who knew that i'd actually WANT to go camping? what's happening to me?! okay okay, blog over. pictures now.