Posted by alexandra_k on May 5, 2014, at 20:42:20
In reply to Re: Smoking increases mental illness risk??, posted by poser938 on May 5, 2014, at 4:47:29
cigarettes are often used to reward inpatients - like they are in prison. something of a currency... nursing staff use them as incentives for compliance... this especially used to be the case... 60's... skinnerian techniques of behavioural change. of course people have to be motivated by them in order for those techniques to be effective... nurses (and others) encouraged that, though....
even when i was on the ward... one had to go to ward meeting in order to get ones cigarettes... and / or one had to take ones medication before one got ones cigarettes... if one was being a bit of a problem they'd take them from you for 'safe keeping' and you'd go on rations... then they'd ignore you or give depending on how complient you were...
it is hard to know whether mental illness results causes (so to speak) smoking - or whether smoking causes (so to speak) mental illness... one possibility is that people take up smoking because they find it somewhat effective in managing pre-clinical symptoms of mental illness.
the same applies to mj and alcohol.
i think that smoking helped medicate me for a number of years. certain symptoms became much more prominent now that i've quit. i have problems with being overwhelmed by stimuli that aren't particularly strong or obnoxious to most people. smoking... desensitised me in some way. like how beating my body pretty severely in the gym desensatizes me to touch and to the physical proximity most others like to be at smoking desensitised me to obnoxious odours and tastes... and it sort of focused... weird body complaints of i knew not what... into a fairly obvious hacking smokers cough.
killing me... made me sorta kinda somewhat better.
go figure.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1065109
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140419/msgs/1065279.html