Has anyone ever returned to sanity?

[u2rocksbaby]

I wrote a really long, eloquent reply.

But the forum ate it.

So I'm just going to summarise:

Please take no notice of OP.
He was misdiagnosed.
He was never autistic in the first place.
This doesn't happen.
You can't grow out of it.
Oh, and autism is not a form of insanity, so you have not "returned to sanity".
You overcome some simple social difficulties, I repeat, you were never autistic if you have now "grown out of it"

Congratufuckinglations, you just undid everything I've spent a year trying to get into people's heads in seconds.

Do some fucking research before you make a thread like this.

Mods, please, someone, lock this idiocy or I'll start a real fight.

This fucker is to Autism speaks what "ex-gays" are to the Catholic Church.

-snip-

I don't think it's possible to 'grow out of' autism. It's a chronic disorder that -for as far as I'm aware- doesn't change. What does change is the way you deal with it. Yes, you can learn social interactions for example. You'll lack the 'instinct' behind it though, because that's something your disorder would prevent you from having.

The same goes for every other psychiatric disease. You don't ever completely get rid of something like schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder. You can however take medication and therapy that reduce the symptoms enough to be able to live your life normally. Regardless, the disease will be there.

Thank you for being constructive. I suppose the term "grew out of it" was rather misleading, since it implies I didn't have to work to overcome my difficulties. Growing up, that was always the same as learning to live or cope with it, so you may be right. It's also what inspired me to ask this question.

 

[Raesvelg]

The answer here really depends on what you mean by "returned to sanity".

If you're talking about people who manage to compensate for their illness, with or without medication, then yes, it happens all the damn time.

If you're talking about someone managing to correct a mental illness and suddenly be just like everyone else for the rest of their life... I doubt it's ever happened in the history of mankind.

 

[Andothul]

Yes and no, it depends greatly on the type of mental illness and the severity of it.

The brain is pretty tricky, it can repair itself pretty quickly given the right environment/drugs. Your brain rewires itself all the time, thats how addicts kick their addiction is their brain eventually resets to it's normal state but it takes time.

I know because my wife is schizophrenic and she has to take medicine to control it.
She has been on meds for 10 years and the doctor gradually gives her lower and lower doses until she will not need it anymore.

 

[Reine Kuro]

.

 

[Emperor Nat]

Happens all the time actually

^ This.

Mental illness affects 1 in 4 people at some stage of their life.

Now whether you mean mentally ill (as rehabilitation happens all the time) or are referring to Schizophrenia specifically (what most people think of when they say 'insane')... well, Schizophrenia is extremely difficult to treat because we don't know what causes it.

Despite that, people do 'return to sanity' as it were. Apparently their experiences are quite unpleasant however.

ALSO:
As an interesting side-note, a while ago I watched a video as part of a University open-day on Catatonic Schizophrenia. Apparently people with the condition often experience 'demonic' hallucinations - whether you think there's an actual spiritual influence there is up for you to decide. Regardless, it's very interesting.
You can watch the dramatization of a Catatonic Episode here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mDdN1ueO60

(Sorry, I don't know how to embed things.)

 

[Christopher Dudgeon]

Why would you want to be Sane in an Insane world?

We're quite happy being insane here and we have Cookies!

 

[Kargathia]

Spoiler: lotsa text

I wrote a really long, eloquent reply.

But the forum ate it.

So I'm just going to summarise:

Please take no notice of OP.
He was misdiagnosed.
He was never autistic in the first place.
This doesn't happen.
You can't grow out of it.
Oh, and autism is not a form of insanity, so you have not "returned to sanity".
You overcome some simple social difficulties, I repeat, you were never autistic if you have now "grown out of it"

Congratufuckinglations, you just undid everything I've spent a year trying to get into people's heads in seconds.

Do some fucking research before you make a thread like this.

Mods, please, someone, lock this idiocy or I'll start a real fight.

This fucker is to Autism speaks what "ex-gays" are to the Catholic Church.

Wow. You are exactly the kind of person I hoped this topic would avoid. The number of misconceptions in your post are staggering. From your hate-riddled response to a curious inquiry about human psychology, you've managed to not only completely ignore AND misread the question, but insult my entire life because of some paragraph you no doubt read in a medical textbook. Do you have ANY idea who I am? No, you do not. I'm not going to explain how I had Asperger's, doing so would only make you look even more like an insensitive, foul-mouthed fool than you already do. But when I say I "grew out of it", I mean just that, I grew and matured from that disorder because it made me have to work far harder than someone like you clearly ever did if you have such cynical beliefs in your mind and were willing to write a long, "eloquent" reply about it. Did you even read the other posters' comments? Did you think I was just asking about autism? Did I ever say I was insane? Do you seriously believe that if someone can live happily with autism then they couldn't possibly have it? These are all questions you that you clearly haven't thought through, so frankly, I'm glad no one had to suffer reading through your little "speech".

And I'm not even going to touch that religious flamebait that serves no purpose other than give your post some sort of illusion of validity, considering you provided absolutely no scientific evidence or personal experiences of your own to support your point. If you really are on some crusade to raise awareness of how autistic people are beyond helping, you should not only think of a better way to do it than condemning the very people who don't "fit" into your own personal definition of the disorder, but seriously consider what that says about your outlook on life in general.

Please note that none of the following is meant in a facetious or sarcastic tone.

Very eloquently put.

You didn't say you're living happily with autism.
You said you've grown out of it.
You asked "has anyone ever returned to sanity?"
As I said before, do some research before you make threads like these.

Wow. You are exactly the kind of person I hoped this topic would avoid.
...Sorry. Why did you make it, then? I don't mean to say "don't say something if you don't want a hateful response"; I just mean "don't say something if you're not prepared for a response you don't like/agree with."

The number of misconceptions in your post is staggering.
Please tell me what they were. I do hate spreading/beleiving misconceptions.

...completely ignore AND misread the question
Sorry, I do that all the time. I'm really bad with vaguely formed questions, I have to guess to work out what they mean. If you meant one thing, and I completely misread it as something else, please do correct me and I may apologise/alter my response as appropriate.

...insult my entire life because of some paragraph you no doubt read in a medical textbook.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you. No, I know. I swore. I'm sorry. I'm coming off my meds* and coherent, logical thought is a bit of a struggle at the moment. Perhaps I should have waited until I'm completely free of them before I responded.
I've also never actually read a medical textbook. I'm just going by what my psychiatrists and doctors have said about my own autism, on the assumption that qualified professionals generally know what they're talking about.

...have to work far harder than someone like you clearly ever did if you have such cynical beliefs
Now there we have an assumption incredibly similar to one you got angry about me making of you. Let's avoid assumptions from now on, shall we?

Did you even read the other posters' comments?
Of course; isn't that normal procedure in forum threads? I read everything, but I only had something to say about the original post.

Do you seriously believe that if someone can live happily with autism then they couldn't possibly have it?
No, and that's not really the point. You didn't say you were living happily with autism, you said you grew out of it.

And I'm not even going to touch that religious flamebait that serves no purpose other than give your post some sort of illusion of validity, considering you provided absolutely no scientific evidence or personal experiences of your own to support your point.
Fair enough, I was just trying to mention something most people would recognise. Catholics trying to "cure" gays is simply a better-known phenomenon than Autism Speaks trying to "cure" autistics. It was the closest paralell I could draw, as both organisations draw a lot of controversy, and they are both trying to "cure" something that is neither a diseae nor, in any sense of the word, curable or temporary.
As for the personal experiences thing, I did say I wrote a very long, eloquent reply, which the forum promptly "ate" (by which I mean, I hit post and didn't post, but everything I'd written was gone). I'd just written all of that, so I was frustrated and couldn't reproduce it. I tried to summarise what I had already typed out. I need to remember to write my posts up in Word documents first, so they don't get lost like that.

...your own personal definition of the disorder...
It's not my personal definition. It is incurable. It is not a disease, so it cannot be cured. It is a permanent disorder, and as such cannot be "grown out of" either. Perhaps you were misdiagnosed. It's not unknown. Perhaps you haven't actually grown out of it, and everyone is just humouring you. Perhaps you've just - shock - found people who like you and consider you a friend, and aren't cruel or childish enough to bully/haggle/pester/badger/tell you about your tics, social failings and general sperges.

...seriously consider what that says about your outlook on life in general.
Sorry.
I really don't understand that.
What does it say about my outlook on life in general, and how should I be working to change this?
__________________________________________
*I am aware this does not excuse my actions/words. I'm not trying to absolve myself of all responsibility, but rather explain that I am not normally this aggressive and inarticulate.

Somehow I'm getting the impression here that both of you might want to reset this discussion, as I'm very much hearing the same thing twice - once the instinctive charging at perceived red flags is filtered out.

And to answer the original question: Yes, and No. "Insanity" can for all purposes and intents of this discussion be split in two categories: innate, and acquired.
Innate would be everything you're born with, such as autism. In the vast majority of cases you can't "cure" this, you can merely manage it with medication, therapy, and/or practice.
Acquired mental issues (eg. through trauma) can sometimes be fully overcome, but I wouldn't count on it if the severity was such it got you labelled "insane".

Of course there is a lot of crossover in that one can influence ones chances of acquiring "innate" mental disorders (eg. smoking weed raises the chance you'll be displaying schizophrenic symptoms), but this isn't meant to be more than a rough and ready explanation.

 

[DYin01]

I'd like to add something to my earlier post.

Firstly, I assume that with ''returning to sanity'' you mean 'living without mental illness to speak of'. On that notion, people have 'returned to sanity'. There are disorders that you can actually get rid of entirely. If you suffer from a mild to moderate depression, it's possible to overcome it completely. That means you won't have to take medication or follow therapy to supress it.

The same goes for certain phobia's and some forms of post traumatic stress disorder. I'm going to go on a limb here and say that every mental illness that has a clear external cause can be cured completely, but I'm not sure if that's accurate.

In any case, some disorders can be cured but most forms of mental illness are chronic.

 

[Reine Kuro]

.

 

[Wintermoot]

first of AUTISM IS NOT INSANITY!
maybe there are autistic people that are insane but not all autistic people are insane.
second
yes people have been cured of insanity.

 

[Zen Toombs]

-snip-

It's common for those with severe mental disorders to be able to return to a normal life. However, for your second part you need to define "sanity". Some people define it as being able to live a normal life, while others require the mental disorder to have no longer have any affect on the individual.

Well, actually both happen. So the answer to your question is "yes, people have returned to sanity."

 

[KingHodor]

My father used to work at a institution for the mentally ill and he swears that electro shock helps tons of people every year get sane.

Dunno how it works exactly (I mean, zap healthy, wtf?), but he swears that it helps people. Not that it would remove asbergers though, seeing as it is not (or at least I hazard that it is not) caused by trauma

I think read somwhere (cracked.com actually..yeah..I know) that electro-shock therapy isnt like the movies and can actually be helpful rather than some sadistic torture

Yeah, the biggest misconception about ECT is that doctors would be stupid enough to administer seizure-inducing electric shocks to fully conscious patients, meaning they'd have to deal with slightly less depressed but extremely resentful patients with dislocated limbs afterwards. In reality, ECT is done under general anaesthesia, meaning the full-blown seizure your body would normally go through is reduced to a light twitching of the limbs.

However, there is still the problem that your neurons sometimes don't take kindly to being zapped, so ECT can result in memory loss or, in extreme cases, lasting cognitive deficits (of course those are hard to distinguish from the cognitive deficits caused by the depression itself).
There has been a lot of refinement to the methodology to minimize these risks though, and there are novel methods for achieving similar brain-rebooting effects using magnetic stimulation or an intravenous ketamine infusion.

 

[zenoaugustus]

OP: I have no idea, although I would imagine if one can drop into insanity that it is possible in finding your way back.

In other news, Return to Sanity would be a great band name.

 

[StBishop]

Short answer. Yes I personally know someone who's come from 24 hour (suicide) supervision and is now perfectly happy and mostly functions as a normal person.

 

[ms_sunlight]

first of AUTISM IS NOT INSANITY!
maybe there are autistic people that are insane but not all autistic people are insane.
second
yes people have been cured of insanity.

This. Autism is a developmental disability of the brain. If you're autistic, you're always autistic, it's just how you are. People can be misdiagnosed (especially as children) and so get "better" as adults, or they can learn to cope with their autism so that it does not affect their life, but you don't get cured.

Various mental health difficulties are curable or manageable with treatment and medication; some you can grow out of, others can go away on their own. This isn't a simple question.

 

[Griffolion]

My father used to work at a institution for the mentally ill and he swears that electro shock helps tons of people every year get sane.

Dunno how it works exactly (I mean, zap healthy, wtf?), but he swears that it helps people. Not that it would remove asbergers though, seeing as it is not (or at least I hazard that it is not) caused by trauma

I think read somwhere (cracked.com actually..yeah..I know) that electro-shock therapy isnt like the movies and can actually be helpful rather than some sadistic torture

Yeah, EST is one of those things demonised by the media as it was maybe used as a torture device by sick doctors at one point, but the therapeutic effects in the right usage scenarios are known.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yeah, EST is one of those things demonised by the media as it was maybe used as a torture device by sick doctors at one point, but the therapeutic effects in the right usage scenarios are known.

A shame the recidivism is so high.

 

[u2rocksbaby]

I wrote a really long, eloquent reply.

But the forum ate it.

So I'm just going to summarise:

Please take no notice of OP.
He was misdiagnosed.
He was never autistic in the first place.
This doesn't happen.
You can't grow out of it.
Oh, and autism is not a form of insanity, so you have not "returned to sanity".
You overcome some simple social difficulties, I repeat, you were never autistic if you have now "grown out of it"

Congratufuckinglations, you just undid everything I've spent a year trying to get into people's heads in seconds.

Do some fucking research before you make a thread like this.

Mods, please, someone, lock this idiocy or I'll start a real fight.

This fucker is to Autism speaks what "ex-gays" are to the Catholic Church.

Wow. You are exactly the kind of person I hoped this topic would avoid. The number of misconceptions in your post are staggering. From your hate-riddled response to a curious inquiry about human psychology, you've managed to not only completely ignore AND misread the question, but insult my entire life because of some paragraph you no doubt read in a medical textbook. Do you have ANY idea who I am? No, you do not. I'm not going to explain how I had Asperger's, doing so would only make you look even more like an insensitive, foul-mouthed fool than you already do. But when I say I "grew out of it", I mean just that, I grew and matured from that disorder because it made me have to work far harder than someone like you clearly ever did if you have such cynical beliefs in your mind and were willing to write a long, "eloquent" reply about it. Did you even read the other posters' comments? Did you think I was just asking about autism? Did I ever say I was insane? Do you seriously believe that if someone can live happily with autism then they couldn't possibly have it? These are all questions you that you clearly haven't thought through, so frankly, I'm glad no one had to suffer reading through your little "speech".

And I'm not even going to touch that religious flamebait that serves no purpose other than give your post some sort of illusion of validity, considering you provided absolutely no scientific evidence or personal experiences of your own to support your point. If you really are on some crusade to raise awareness of how autistic people are beyond helping, you should not only think of a better way to do it than condemning the very people who don't "fit" into your own personal definition of the disorder, but seriously consider what that says about your outlook on life in general.

Please note that none of the following is meant in a facetious or sarcastic tone.

Very eloquently put.

You didn't say you're living happily with autism.
You said you've grown out of it.
You asked "has anyone ever returned to sanity?"
As I said before, do some research before you make threads like these.

Wow. You are exactly the kind of person I hoped this topic would avoid.
...Sorry. Why did you make it, then? I don't mean to say "don't say something if you don't want a hateful response"; I just mean "don't say something if you're not prepared for a response you don't like/agree with."

The number of misconceptions in your post is staggering.
Please tell me what they were. I do hate spreading/beleiving misconceptions.

...completely ignore AND misread the question
Sorry, I do that all the time. I'm really bad with vaguely formed questions, I have to guess to work out what they mean. If you meant one thing, and I completely misread it as something else, please do correct me and I may apologise/alter my response as appropriate.

...insult my entire life because of some paragraph you no doubt read in a medical textbook.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you. No, I know. I swore. I'm sorry. I'm coming off my meds* and coherent, logical thought is a bit of a struggle at the moment. Perhaps I should have waited until I'm completely free of them before I responded.
I've also never actually read a medical textbook. I'm just going by what my psychiatrists and doctors have said about my own autism, on the assumption that qualified professionals generally know what they're talking about.

...have to work far harder than someone like you clearly ever did if you have such cynical beliefs
Now there we have an assumption incredibly similar to one you got angry about me making of you. Let's avoid assumptions from now on, shall we?

Did you even read the other posters' comments?
Of course; isn't that normal procedure in forum threads? I read everything, but I only had something to say about the original post.

Do you seriously believe that if someone can live happily with autism then they couldn't possibly have it?
No, and that's not really the point. You didn't say you were living happily with autism, you said you grew out of it.

And I'm not even going to touch that religious flamebait that serves no purpose other than give your post some sort of illusion of validity, considering you provided absolutely no scientific evidence or personal experiences of your own to support your point.
Fair enough, I was just trying to mention something most people would recognise. Catholics trying to "cure" gays is simply a better-known phenomenon than Autism Speaks trying to "cure" autistics. It was the closest paralell I could draw, as both organisations draw a lot of controversy, and they are both trying to "cure" something that is neither a diseae nor, in any sense of the word, curable or temporary.
As for the personal experiences thing, I did say I wrote a very long, eloquent reply, which the forum promptly "ate" (by which I mean, I hit post and didn't post, but everything I'd written was gone). I'd just written all of that, so I was frustrated and couldn't reproduce it. I tried to summarise what I had already typed out. I need to remember to write my posts up in Word documents first, so they don't get lost like that.

...your own personal definition of the disorder...
It's not my personal definition. It is incurable. It is not a disease, so it cannot be cured. It is a permanent disorder, and as such cannot be "grown out of" either. Perhaps you were misdiagnosed. It's not unknown. Perhaps you haven't actually grown out of it, and everyone is just humouring you. Perhaps you've just - shock - found people who like you and consider you a friend, and aren't cruel or childish enough to bully/haggle/pester/badger/tell you about your tics, social failings and general sperges.

...seriously consider what that says about your outlook on life in general.
Sorry.
I really don't understand that.
What does it say about my outlook on life in general, and how should I be working to change this?
__________________________________________
*I am aware this does not excuse my actions/words. I'm not trying to absolve myself of all responsibility, but rather explain that I am not normally this aggressive and inarticulate.

Look, I'm really not that interested in having a prolonged discussion about this right now, as that was never the point of this topic, so I'll keep this brief. I'm sorry you have autism, and I'm sure you've suffered for it because of the intolerance of others. But the primary lesson I learned the hard way in order to overcome it was to put more faith in people and trust them to be comfortable with who I was. With that said, do not assume that people are stupid enough to simply think that individuals just stop suffering from autism once they reach a certain age. That was never what I meant. However, if you felt what I said was misleading, you had the option to write a short response like the person below you. Instead, you chose to attack me, the very individual who could most likely empathize with your ordeals. If everyone voiced their concerns about poorly worded questions the way you did, people with autism would NEVER be accepted in society. Please be more open-minded of others' life experiences (that's another lesson I learned), and you'll do yourself a lot of good in life. I promise.

 

[Acier]

Well there are cases of Schizophrenics who just sort of...stop being schizophrenic. It's rare and unpredictable. But it happens. (just had to throw a "true insanity" bone)


Autism? I have no idea. But I think it's more developmentally related than psychotic disorders. What most likely happened is adaptation and getting more comfortable with social situations. But then again, I'm a stranger on the internet