User Agreement and What this Forum is About

Don’t complain to me if you get a warning or are banned for violating one or more of these rules / guidelines; or being surprised by and strenuously objecting to the nature of Crazy Meds Talk without reading this long-ass document first.  If you agree with them and wish to proceed with the registration, simply click the "Register" button below. To cancel this registration, simply hit the 'back' button on your browser.

The owners of crazymeds.us are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. All messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of the owners of crazymeds.us .

First up, what you’ll agree to:

1) You agree that you are responsible for the contents of what you post.  We strive for accuracy in the information that we share and as much clarity as possible in the questions we ask.  Please cite where your information comes from and try to use paragraph breaks, the text equivalent of a good deep breath, when asking questions.

2) You agree that you will not engage in personal attacks upon, or harassing other forum members is not allowed.  Personal attacks upon or harassing forum moderators (i.e. Citizen Medical Experts) is especially not allowed.  Doing so will get you a warning or immediately banned depending on the nature of the attack, the target, or what state of the life of the moderator who notices the bad behavior.  So it is best not to piss us off in this regard.  Repeated attacks or harassment will get you banned regardless.

3) You agree that you will not engage in any of the activities that are usually prohibited on the vast majority of fora / bulletin boards / online communities. 

a. You will not spam (i.e. repetitive posts or personal messages advertising something or otherwise annoying us). 

b. You will not post someone else’s intellectual property outside of fair use guidelines. 

c. You will not post anything that is libel (i.e. knowingly false and/or defamatory of another person), abusive, hate speech, obscene (especially that porn), threatening, invasive of a person's privacy (e.g. real name if said person chooses to be anonymous, address, etc), or otherwise violates the laws of the United States.

4) You agree that if the name you choose to use when you register or later change as a screen name is that of a well-known person, I’ll need proof that really is your name. Otherwise using that person’s name falls under either or both the invasion of privacy and libel prohibitions.  Because said person may not wish to be outed as mentally interesting and are ashamed of such, or they are not mentally interesting.

5) While you agreed to refrain from hate speech and obscene material, we don’t have a problem with the occasional naughty word, nor do we require one to always use politically correct terms to describe one’s fellow nutjobs.  As the owner of crazymeds.us I am not “A person with bipolar disorder.”  I am not “A person with epilepsy.” I am not “A person with Asperger’s spectrum disorder.”  I’m an uberspazz.  I’m mentally interesting.  I’m crazy.  I’m a loon.  I’m a nutter.  I’m autistic.  I’m bipolar.  I’m epileptic.  I put the ass in Asperger’s.  If you don’t like the way we make the terms our own so they don’t hurt any more, or you can’t deal with naughty words that are sometimes the only way to accurately describe the side effects of an incorrectly prescribed medication, we suggest someplace safe, such as NAMI.

6) You agree to not copy text or images, outside of fair use guidelines, to other sites without the express permission of the author.  So if it is a post on the forum, you’ll have to ask whoever wrote it (see the section on former members) for permission.  As for within the forum, you agree that other members may copy your text and images entirely to use as quotes for their own posts.  As for text, images and other intellectual property found elsewhere on Crazy Meds, contact me (address below) for permission.  As you can see from our Copyright Violators' and Plagiarizers' Hall of Shame pages, I’m on the lookout for people who don’t ask nicely.

7) You agree not to post questions or any information about specific online pharmacies, nor anything regarding how one goes about obtaining prescription medications without a prescription.  We do discuss the pros and cons of ordering medications online and from countries outside of where one lives, just not from specific vendors.  Ordering medications without a prescription could fall under the heading of, "drug seeking behavior," and we don't tolerate that.  Depending on the content and context of such posts they could result in anything from a gentle reminder to an immediate ban.

8) You agree that if you become a former member, i.e. you are banned, you resign your membership, or you let your membership lapse due to inactivity the ownership of your intellectual property is transferred to the owners of crazymeds.us .  Don’t ask us to delete your posts before you leave, that is your responsibility as you own your material.  Don’t ask us to delete your posts after you leave, as that is too late.

9) All we ask is that you log on once every six months or so.  You don’t have to post, just logging on is enough to let us know that you are still alive.  You agree that if you don’t log on at least once every six months your membership is subject to termination.

10) You agree that if you create a new account for some reason and your old account lapses after six months, your old intellectual property still transfers to the owners of crazymeds.us .

11) This user agreement is subject to modification as circumstances dictate.  You agree that you’ll just have to live with the new rules.  As this big-ass sucker is posted on the forum, and there will be a link to find it as well, and the new and improved rules will get posts of their own, the changes will be easy enough to find.  You agree that if you don’t like the new rules you can bitch and moan to yourself until you can deal with the changes, or go elsewhere.  Life isn’t fair.

Now, what we’re all about here:

1) There is no certified doctor, nurse practitioner, therapist, pharmacist or the like here.  We are, at best, citizen medical experts.  On the Internet anyone claiming to be a doctor may as well claim to be the Emperor of Atlantis.  We’re the ones who have been through the wringer, not the doctors.  We’re about sharing what we have learned over the course of dealing with being mentally interesting, of researching our various conditions, and of asking pointed questions of health care professionals, researchers, and others who have been on similar journeys.

2) We stand by all that is written on the main section of Crazy Meds, although we admit that we can be and have been wrong about stuff and are willing to accept corrections. We can’t control everything that is written on the Crazy Meds Talk forum.  We do our best to keep things under control and to correct erroneous information.  We strongly suggest that you know your sources.  Someone affiliated with the site, or has been around for some time, or who at least includes cites to reliable sites to back up what is written is far more likely to have given you correct information than someone who just signed up and pulled something out of their ass to appear as if they knew something.

3) This is not a support group forum.  There are many fine sites elsewhere to discuss your issues.  We are here to discuss the uses, effects, side effects and the like of various neurological / psychiatric medications that you have taken, are taking, or are considering taking.  We also discuss treatment options for, and get into the very nature of a variety of conditions that you have.  Not your children, parents, spouse, partner, significant other, other relative, roommate, friend, boss, employee, landlord, celebrity you identify with so much that you know the two of you will be Best Friends Forever.  This is one of the few times where it really is all about you.  Trying to deal with such things for a third party is hard enough in the real world, doing it over the Internet is all the more difficult. While we delve into questions about the hows and whys and all thats of conditions, we don’t get into how bad such things make your life, what an awful day you had, why dealing with your DH/DD/DearWhatever is so trying, or any poetic descriptions of what it is like to be whatever you are.  Reread the first sentence of this paragraph if you need any clarifications / simplification of the preceding paragraph.

4) We don't deal with what are primarily psychological issues.  It's one thing if you happen to have a primarily psychological diagnosis (e.g. PTSD) in addition to brain cooties.  List it with your other diagnoses if you want.  Many of such things are treated with the meds we discuss here.  We just aren't going to get into extended discussions about the origins, nature of or treatments for conditions such as borderline personality disorder.  We're all about Axis I in the DSM, and not Axis II.

5) On the subject of Axis II disorders, we will not tolerate self-defeating behavior.  E.g. repeated substance abuse, frequently stopping and restarting medications, withholding important information from one’s doctor no matter how many times one is told that said doctor needs to know about that already.  See the part about how this isn’t a support group.  Keep it up and there’s a ban after so many warnings, which may be as few as one.

6) We will explore some of the more off-label applications of medications, discuss drugs and other treatments that are in clinical trials or are pending final approval, or are available in only select countries for one reason or another.  We are not a site for so-called alternative treatments, but we do discuss complimentary treatments as a way to enhance treatments or alleviate side effects.  We do discuss non-medical treatments that have gone through real studies (e.g. omega 3 fish oils).  We do not tolerate quackery.  Depending on how things are worded one post about a quack "cure" is enough to warrant a ban.

7) We neither diagnose conditions nor encourage self-diagnosis through the plethora of online tests available.  The furthest we’ll go is along the lines of, “You wrote something that describes cyberchondria.  You should talk with your doctor about getting tested for it.” Or "Damn, that celebutante is exhibiting all of the signs of being bipolar.  Someone needs to get her to a shrink immediately.  Maybe then we'll be free of her taking up important news time."

8) You’ll notice a lot of ads here and on the main Crazy Meds section.  Why do you think this is a free site?  Read our advertising policy if you need the details.  There are also donation buttons scattered about.  At some point I hope to get rid of the ones on the information pages, but the one on the forum will stay, as it helps to pay the moderators / Citizen Medical Experts.  I don’t believe in slave labor the way many other communities do.  If you donate on an information page, I get the money.  If you donate on a forum page, the money is divided up among the moderators.

9) We have now or will have software in place to prevent accessing this forum via anonymous IP addresses.  If such a service is used and this forum can’t be reached, too bad.

10) If you absolutely need to have your account terminated immediately we'll do so.  However "immediately" will be whenever we can do so.  If you just leave and never come back your account will eventually vanish.

11) Please see our privacy policy for that sort of information.