Hm, lithium is supposed to just be a mood stabilizer. Some Japanese study even found that areas with high-ish lithium content in the water had significantly lower suicide rates. No telling what lithium does to wombats, though.
Lithium is a metallic salt, not an anti-psychotic or tranquilizer. It brings down the manic side of bipolar disorder. Which is characterized by really high, high manic stages, where a person will do incredibly dangerous and impulsive things on the spur of a moment because “it seemed like a good idea at the time”; and low, low depressive stages, wherein a person will look like they have full blown clinical depression. Most people only go in for treatment when they’re in a very low phase, so bipolar disorder is sometimes hard to diagnose, when they’re manic, they’re happy and energetic and can take over the world so hardly ever go to the doctor for being *too* happy.
Lithium brings the manic part down (they still need to take an “upper” in the form of an anti-depressant to control their down phases, so they basically end up chemically controlling their own impulse centers, it’s very hard work and bipolar disorder is difficult to control early on), they aren’t sure how it does that, but you do need a stable blood-level of the metal to do it. So having lithium in the water won’t make you crazy, but it would probably make you less likely to do something dangerously “impulsive”, by calming down that “devil may care” part of your nervous system.
A much-belated thank you for that clarification, Mishal. As I’m sure you were aware, I wrote only from a poor layman’s understanding of what Lithium is used for.
I have seen first hand (well, through pictures and other evidence) what can happen to a person with severe bipolar disorder when he goes off his meds – when I was a juror on a murder trial. It was pretty gruesome.
I figured it was Digger pointing out how nobody NOTICES more than a little of the weirdness, or rather, treats it as not-so-weird. “It’s all perfectly normal. Never mind all that. Oh, dear, a shadow-monster. I shall emphatically answer its questions as to whether or not it is a bird like I am.”
“Madder than a mole in maytime” DOES imply some sort of ravening, raving, singleminded focus, but so does “mad as a hatter” these days, and THAT started out meaning almost the opposite (given how mercury poisoning works).
I thought lithium UN-crazied you!
Sarah, I think you are confusing lithium with Librium…
No, Lithium is used as a treatment for bipolar disorders.
I suspect that, like most anti-psychotics, it would have an opposite effect when taken by someone without such a disorder.
(In other words, if you’re crazy it can un-crazy you; if you’re not crazy, then you will be … )
🙂
“But after the first hundred years, I assure you, it is hardly noticeable.” That still cracks me right up.
Hm, lithium is supposed to just be a mood stabilizer. Some Japanese study even found that areas with high-ish lithium content in the water had significantly lower suicide rates. No telling what lithium does to wombats, though.
Lithium is a metallic salt, not an anti-psychotic or tranquilizer. It brings down the manic side of bipolar disorder. Which is characterized by really high, high manic stages, where a person will do incredibly dangerous and impulsive things on the spur of a moment because “it seemed like a good idea at the time”; and low, low depressive stages, wherein a person will look like they have full blown clinical depression. Most people only go in for treatment when they’re in a very low phase, so bipolar disorder is sometimes hard to diagnose, when they’re manic, they’re happy and energetic and can take over the world so hardly ever go to the doctor for being *too* happy.
Lithium brings the manic part down (they still need to take an “upper” in the form of an anti-depressant to control their down phases, so they basically end up chemically controlling their own impulse centers, it’s very hard work and bipolar disorder is difficult to control early on), they aren’t sure how it does that, but you do need a stable blood-level of the metal to do it. So having lithium in the water won’t make you crazy, but it would probably make you less likely to do something dangerously “impulsive”, by calming down that “devil may care” part of your nervous system.
*crawls back to their Masters studies*
statue, bro?
A much-belated thank you for that clarification, Mishal. As I’m sure you were aware, I wrote only from a poor layman’s understanding of what Lithium is used for.
I have seen first hand (well, through pictures and other evidence) what can happen to a person with severe bipolar disorder when he goes off his meds – when I was a juror on a murder trial. It was pretty gruesome.
I figured it was Digger pointing out how nobody NOTICES more than a little of the weirdness, or rather, treats it as not-so-weird. “It’s all perfectly normal. Never mind all that. Oh, dear, a shadow-monster. I shall emphatically answer its questions as to whether or not it is a bird like I am.”
“Madder than a mole in maytime” DOES imply some sort of ravening, raving, singleminded focus, but so does “mad as a hatter” these days, and THAT started out meaning almost the opposite (given how mercury poisoning works).