Views on mental illness?

[disconnection]

This has no doubt been raised before but I'm new, humour me. Just felt like bringing this up after reading in the suicidal/bipolar thread.

What are everyone's views about mental health/illness if they've been diagnosed? Do you feel it's something that's out of your control (like 'any other' illness), something that you can choose to work at / 'recover' from, or maybe you disagree with the idea of mental illness entirely? What's your take on psych drugs - helpful / unhelpful?

The majority of comments I've seen on the forum so far seem to suggest that people have accepted that they have a mental illness and and need to take drugs for it. Personally, I know my brain can do weird stuff to protect itself (psychosis, dissociation) but I still find diagnoses and the use of meds pretty unscientific - psych meds are riddled with controversy in the literature and the DSM categorisation system isn't based on anything concrete. (I am taking drugs at the moment mind you, mostly because my family want me to! ) Clearly we exist within some - pretty twisted - wider social and economic systems which aren't in our favour for a lot of us. I'd say these issues are more a source of depression and anxiety than any abnormal biochemistry. In some ways people who are depressed are more realistic than those who aren't - does away with that optimistic bias!

For me, I can sum up my own issues much better than my labels can - failed to connect with others and the world. Doesn't want anything. And all the other issues really rest on that.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

It helped me personally to reject it and rather take a philosophical view of my (inner) life.

 

[TheSoulless]

I'm depressed, but I don't think of it as an illness anymore. In my view it's a more natural state of mind you acquire whn things go bad. Treatment of depression seems like brainwashing to me. I'm not saying it's bad to be happy, though, quite the opposite.

Also, so many people seem to have some kind of "mental illness" nowadays that the word has kind of lost its meaning anyway.

 

[Mm80]

This has no doubt been raised before but I'm new, humour me. Just felt like bringing this up after reading in the suicidal/bipolar thread.

What are everyone's views about mental health/illness if they've been diagnosed? Do you feel it's something that's out of your control (like 'any other' illness), something that you can choose to work at / 'recover' from, or maybe you disagree with the idea of mental illness entirely? What's your take on psych drugs - helpful / unhelpful?

The majority of comments I've seen on the forum so far seem to suggest that people have accepted that they have a mental illness and and need to take drugs for it. Personally, I know my brain can do weird stuff to protect itself (psychosis, dissociation) but I still find diagnoses and the use of meds pretty unscientific - psych meds are riddled with controversy in the literature and the DSM categorisation system isn't based on anything concrete. (I am taking drugs at the moment mind you, mostly because my family want me to! ) Clearly we exist within some - pretty twisted - wider social and economic systems which aren't in our favour for a lot of us. I'd say these issues are more a source of depression and anxiety than any abnormal biochemistry. In some ways people who are depressed are more realistic than those who aren't - does away with that optimistic bias!

For me, I can sum up my own issues much better than my labels can - failed to connect with others and the world. Doesn't want anything. And all the other issues really rest on that.

Its a good topic to discuss. I think you are right when you say ...Clearly we exist within some - pretty twisted - wider social and economic systems which aren't in our favour for a lot of us. I'd say these issues are more a source of depression and anxiety than any abnormal biochemistry. In some ways people who are depressed are more realistic than those who arent...
My theory is that put in a different social and econonomic setting or environment, we would do just fine without medicine.
I always saw medicine as a way to help me fit in a bit more and play the game. Ie get a job, have friends, appear a little more confident and generally keep up with the speed and demands of modern life. Ive never seen myself as ill but more society as ill and some of us need some un natural help to be part of it.

 

[GoBack]

The words mental illness give me a headache, no joke intended. My body is making my mind sick and vice versa. I hate that the two are still treated separately in medicine, so people just get lost in the system

 

[Arrow]

I'm depressed, but I don't think of it as an illness anymore. In my view it's a more natural state of mind you acquire whn things go bad.

see, i can relate to this. when i get depressed it's not like i don't have a reason for it, it's usually a response to how things are going in my life. i know for a lot of people they're depressed and they don't know why, and in that case it could definitely be a chemical imbalance, but my depression has always been the result of actual shitty things happening to me, and i can justify it. for me, it's not a mental illness, it's a reasonable reaction.

 

[disconnection]

I'm depressed, but I don't think of it as an illness anymore. In my view it's a more natural state of mind you acquire whn things go bad. Treatment of depression seems like brainwashing to me. I'm not saying it's bad to be happy, though, quite the opposite.

Also, so many people seem to have some kind of "mental illness" nowadays that the word has kind of lost its meaning anyway.

Totally relate to the brainwashing thing. Makes me really uncomfortable even though it's clearly better overall to give into that brainwashing to become happier.

 

[terry_a_davis]

What are everyone's views about mental health/illness if they've been diagnosed? Do you feel it's something that's out of your control (like 'any other' illness), something that you can choose to work at / 'recover' from, or maybe you disagree with the idea of mental illness entirely? What's your take on psych drugs - helpful / unhelpful?

I was diagnosed mentally ill in 2010, forced on meds in 2017 which got rid of my symptoms, and after almost 3 years being mentally ok have recently stopped taking meds.

Out of your control? Seems so for some as some become ill for no obvious reason. Could be genetic predisposition and bad luck. Some illnesses follows a definite path of environmental factors such as abuse, isolation, stress, drug addiction, brain injury etc through to illness. Low birth weight has been implicated by some. It's probably a combination of all these factors for most.

I doubt you can 'choose' to recover, work at it may be in a few cases. Mental illness is 100% real, unfortunately it took for me to be mentally ill to fully appreciate this. Psych drugs helped me but i know they dont help all and may have side effects.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

Mental illness is 100% real

The effects observed are 100% real, yes. But how to categorize, interpret, explain and systematize these phenomena and their causes is a philosophical question.

Reminding everyone that th DSM III listed homosexuality as a mental illness.

The parallels to this are everywhere throughout psychiatry; think of "ADHD" and "oppositional defiant disorder".

For the feminists, think about "hysteria" and wide overprescription of barbiturates to women in the mid 20th century.

There's always a political element to psychiatry and what is considered pathological.

 

[Epsilon0]

Great avatar! I love that you used Blake's own illuminated printing. @disconnection

I think my illness, me/cfs, is an imbalance in my brain and my body. Something to do with the stress system breaking down at some point in my life.

I don't think my illness is something I can control by sheer will power as I tried that for many years without success.

All the doctors I talked to have told me the same thing: we don't understand the precise mechanism behind me/cfs, so the best we can do for you is give you meds that help you deal with the anxiety you feel over your illness. Sounds funny, right?

I wish I had stopped taking meds after a couple of years, because now, after a decade it seems impossible to stop. But I am determined to do it.

 

[terry_a_davis]

^ I'll leave the philosophical debates to those that know philosophy, I don't. For me an illness is a condition which has a detrimental effect on someones life.

About classing homosexuality etc as being ill, it's the nature of scientific discovery and increased tolerance that things that were once deemed an illness are now not considered to be so. Happens in all fields of medicine not just psychiatry, for example using leeches in earlier times because it was widely thought that most diseases were caused by an excess of blood.

Idk much about oppositional defiant disorder to comment on its validity as a mental illnesses. I have an ADHD (and schizophrenia) diagnosis. ADHD meds (which increase dopamine) do seem to have some efficacy in treating the 'symptoms' of ADHD afaik which to me indicates there might be some validity that ADHD is related to low dopamine levels. I tried various illicit drugs throughout my life but seemed to get real benefit from those that greatly effected dopamine (and serotonin) levels, almost like I was self medicating.

In any case there's no escaping that some mental illnesses are very real and can be helped by medical psychiatric intervention, schizophrenia/psychosis (and yes anti psychotic meds to a much lesser extent) have been shown in studies to result in brain tissue loss, it's definitely an illness as the person with the illness most often have bad life outcomes because of it and suffer a great deal.

 

[KleinerWolf]

This has no doubt been raised before but I'm new, humour me. Just felt like bringing this up after reading in the suicidal/bipolar thread.

What are everyone's views about mental health/illness if they've been diagnosed? Do you feel it's something that's out of your control (like 'any other' illness), something that you can choose to work at / 'recover' from, or maybe you disagree with the idea of mental illness entirely? What's your take on psych drugs - helpful / unhelpful?

The majority of comments I've seen on the forum so far seem to suggest that people have accepted that they have a mental illness and and need to take drugs for it. Personally, I know my brain can do weird stuff to protect itself (psychosis, dissociation) but I still find diagnoses and the use of meds pretty unscientific - psych meds are riddled with controversy in the literature and the DSM categorisation system isn't based on anything concrete. (I am taking drugs at the moment mind you, mostly because my family want me to! ) Clearly we exist within some - pretty twisted - wider social and economic systems which aren't in our favour for a lot of us. I'd say these issues are more a source of depression and anxiety than any abnormal biochemistry. In some ways people who are depressed are more realistic than those who aren't - does away with that optimistic bias!

For me, I can sum up my own issues much better than my labels can - failed to connect with others and the world. Doesn't want anything. And all the other issues really rest on that.

you are goddamn right
I feel like one has to be intelligent enough to realise what they are doing in life.
Most people follow what societies program us.

In terms of things like depression and anxiety, I read somewhere that people with higher intelligence tend to have higher chance to suffer from mental illness.
Don't know if factual.


as for the medication I took at the time for depression,
It made me feel angry inside without being to externalise it.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

It's not a black and white issue for sure.

For me an illness is a condition which has a detrimental effect on someones life.

Taking this view of illness, homosexuality would be an illness in majority Muslim countries but not in the west; schizophrenia would be an illness in the west but not in shamanic cultures; having eccentric character traits would be more likely to be considered an illness in poor people than in rich people (the latter being able to afford living in an eccentric manner); hearing voices and having imaginary friends would be considered an illness for the average citizen but not for the pope; being obsessed with detail would be considered an illness for the average person but not for a scientist, an artist etc...

 

[terry_a_davis]

OK, to me, an illness is a condition which has a detrimental effect on someones life in a tolerant and advanced society (which muslim and shamanic cultures generally aren't).

Even in a shamanic culture i very much doubt schizophrenics had good lives. Shamans afaik acted crazy under the influence of drugs, schizophrenics are like this anyway. Even if the society they lived in did not see them as crazy, it's a horrible existence hearing voices that may tell you to kill yourself and mock you, being afraid for no reason, feelings of being persecuted, bullied, stalked, and monitored... i could go on. If the Pope had these symptoms he would be considered schizophrenic too.

Being obsessed is not necessarily a bad thing but if that obsession leads to a breakdown in other areas of your life like feeding or bathing yourself then it does not matter what the status of the person is, I would assess them as having a condition which is detrimental to their well being. Status does not preclude being diagnosed with a mental illness, there are examples of high status people who are thought to have been mentally ill.

 

[K-O]

I find it fascinating and a bit jealous some times when people are fluent in (their) mental health issues.. or have been in the system a lot.. i was forecly deprived of all that ..
and only officially diagnosed a year ago- but duh!!! not shit Sherlock!..took meds but stopped.. dont want conventional help in order to endulge in normal society.. plus the numbing effect.. prefer self medication tnx v much.
I was brought up by a CLOSETED paranoid schizophrenic genius- as in- diagnosed in early age and v often psychotic but- unmedicated and unknown to the outside world.. so i come from a human point of view that stemmes from - i dont give a fuck what its called- u are abusing me to the point i have borderline pds complex ptsd b-sexual addict anxiety depression suicidal..
all these are words.. we need words to express our selves.. to research.. to help.. to sooth.. to save lives.. bring joy act..
Ive always been torn between words\language\diagnosis and emotional\mental\physical human out comes..
Opinions to me will always have more relevance and importance if they genuinely come from personal experience \street wisdom rather than- ive read one too many books or watched the fucking news so ive formed my own opinions on a matters- bs..
we are only contemporary in this day and age beings.. so fuck it. sometimes it help to label yourself and sometimes its a self harm thing.. this pc society it bs and is feeding evil..
Ive spent so much energy on explaining and defending my existance to ignoant unsenseive- or wors- sensutive only to ones self people so now im done with all that. imo it comes down to hole human intelligence- emotional etc, perceptiveness -kindness honesty..
After i got rapedin a hotel on family vacation as child, i secretly confided with my cousin so he ignored me told me to fuck off..
after that i was obsessed with my rapist lover and looked for him the entire holiday.. getting worried sick about his well being!! lol!! today my cousin is a psychologist.. and i still love him.. but damm.. u cannot not lol at that- he is a socially successful breeder and im a fucking junky just -lol
wouldn't have it any other way. no regrets no point.
is this venting?.. x

 

[a.n.kirillov]

I like the move you made there ... but I don't think that we live in a:

tolerant and advanced society.

First, I don't necessarily believe that civilization or in fact life on Earth is advancing towards some higher end goal or state, and secondly I don't see that we live in a very tolerant society. To the contrary, I see most human beings struggling very hard from a very early age to conform. The margin of socially accepted conduct is actually very small, and it doesn't take much peculiarity in behaviour or physical appearance to be declared insane by others.

To your second point: I'm not sure whether being a schizophrenic shaman wouldn't alleviate much of the distress that comes with the condition. Shamans, which are often selected as children that exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia, enjoy social status; their "symptoms" are percieved as an extraordinary ability and they perform a very important function in these cultures.


Status does not preclude being diagnosed with a mental illness, there are examples of high status people who are thought to have been mentally ill.


My point was that rich/ famous/ powerful people can a) live more eccentrically without having to face pushback and problems in the real world (don't have as much "detrimental effect") and b) often are not considered mentally ill for their behaviour.

I don't think anyone considers the pope (or religious people in general) mentally ill for communicating with God? But I don't know whether him hearing god speak to him would be accepted by the Catholic Church or not.

but if that obsession leads to a breakdown in other areas of your life like feeding or bathing yourself then it does not matter what the status of the person is

Yes, agreed, this is my point exactly. Artists, inheritance-rich, upper class people, etc don't have to be "functional" in the same ways as us. They don't have to put up a face, get up at 6AM in the morning, be sober all the time, work 80 percent of their life, cook for themselves, and so on.
.
And note how we already departed from the biomedical model of mental illness and into constructivism/ a normative or interaction model, even in your definition; where in one society a trait causes "detrimental effects", e.g. because it is not accepted or encouraged, like homosexuality, ADHS, women asserting themselves (hysteria) and in another it is considered healthy, normal behaviour.

 

[disconnection]

Great avatar! I love that you used Blake's own illuminated printing. @disconnection

Ah thank you. I absolutely adore Blake so it naturally popped into my head. And it's only right to keep things as they were intended.

I think my illness, me/cfs, is an imbalance in my brain and my body. Something to do with the stress system breaking down at some point in my life.

I don't think my illness is something I can control by sheer will power as I tried that for many years without success.

All the doctors I talked to have told me the same thing: we don't understand the precise mechanism behind me/cfs, so the best we can do for you is give you meds that help you deal with the anxiety you feel over your illness. Sounds funny, right?

I wish I had stopped taking meds after a couple of years, because now, after a decade it seems impossible to stop. But I am determined to do it.

Wish you all the luck in coming off the medication - is it side effects when you try to stop or simply a resurgence in anxiety?

It's interesting isn't it that doctors are honest about not knowing the mechanism with cfs, hence not suggesting drugs, whereas in the case of psychiatric diagnoses they prescribe anyway and actually push the necessity of medication.

 

[Epsilon0]

Ah thank you. I absolutely adore Blake so it naturally popped into my head. And it's only right to keep things as they were intended.

"When the stars threw down their spears"
from The Tyger

That's poetic imagery at its finest.

 

[disconnection]

"When the stars threw down their spears"
from The Tyger

That's poetic imagery at its finest.

Absolutely :)

I first fell for Blake as a teenager when I read these words of his:

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these, I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees.

... If life could only be this pure I could be happy.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

As a man is, so he sees.

indeed

 

[terry_a_davis]

@a.n.kirillov
I believe we are becoming more tolerant and advanced. Gays are no longer imprisoned in most developed nations, gender dysphoria is recognized, women can vote and have careers, mentally ill people aren't forcibly lobotomized and abandoned in such numbers in institutions, women aren't drowned or burnt for being witches, executions are going down, EDIT to add: the introduction of free education and healthcare (irrespective of wealth/status) in many countries = vastly increased avg lifespans....and so on. Even Saudi Arabia are very slowly changing their ways. Do we have a long way to go? Of course yes but the progression is there for all to see.

I disagree that it doesn't take much to take being labelled as insane, it takes quite a lot i think, for me anyway.

Seriously, if you spent 1 day in the mind of a schizophrenic you would realize that there is nothing that can overcome what you feel. You cannot be reasoned with, you feel anxiety for no reason, you trust no one, I also had pretty awful physical/bodily sensations which are hard to describe but they often made me unable to communicate. Schizophrenics are better off with people who are trained to diagnose and treat their illness rather than people reinforcing their bizarre delusions with no hope of treating them.

Yes the rich do have it easier than the poor when it comes to mental illness, they have money, don't need to earn, and the people around them will be 'yes' men.

Communicating with God through prayer isn't mentally ill.

About no biomedical model of mental illness, is this not due to mental illness being impossible to diagnose using the usual diagnostic tools like X rays, CT scans, blood tests, biopsy etc? The very nature of mental illness means it can only be diagnosed on behaviours. This is much more prone to mistakes and prejudices etc than doing a blood test for example but there's not a lot we can do.

 

[Epsilon0]

@disconnection

The Romantics, with their veneration for nature, childhood, beauty and imagination, captured the sublime better than any other literary movement. I spent many hours bent over an anthology of English poetry dedicated to their poetry.

Coleridge's Rime, Wordsworth's Daffodils or Shelley's Autumn are pure, perfect pieces of writing. These poets were true seers and I don't think I ever found others who moved me so deeply, until I stumbled upon Rilke's Book of Images. For Rilke, too, seeing was everything.

 

[disconnection]

Seriously, if you spent 1 day in the mind of schizophrenic you would realize that there is nothing that can overcome what you feel. You cannot be reasoned with, you feel anxiety for no reason, you trust no one, I also had pretty awful physical/bodily sensations which are hard to describe but they often made me unable to communicate. Schizophrenics are better off with people who are trained to diagnose and treat their illness rather than people reinforcing their bizarre ideas with no hope of treating them.

I've experienced psychosis too and absolutely, at the time, nothing anyone could say or do would pull me out of the reality I'd constructed for myself. But as for being 'better off' in mental health services? You've obviously had a much better experience than I have! Made me more 'ill' to be honest - I just became fixated on the appaling 'care' I was receiving and felt I was being targeted.

 

[terry_a_davis]

I've experienced psychosis too and absolutely, at the time, nothing anyone could say or do would pull me out of the reality I'd constructed for myself. But as for being 'better off' in mental health services? You've obviously had a much better experience than I have! Made me more 'ill' to be honest - I just became fixated on the appaling 'care' I was receiving and felt I was being targeted.

I've been there too, there really is nothing anyone can do to reason with you is there. My brother is also schizophrenic and I've long given up trying to reason with him, this makes him worse if anything, changing the subject from his delusions i find is best to calm him down.

Yes I appreciate not everyone is helped by mental health services, luckily I was and no exaggeration they saved my life as I was starving myself to death due to delusions. Hopefully over time treatment success rates will improve as things often do in medicine. I still think you'll have a better chance of recovery by being treated by a psychiatrist than being considered a shaman.

 

[disconnection]

I've been there too, there really is nothing anyone can do to reason with you is there. My brother is also schizophrenic and I've long given up trying to reason with him, this makes him worse if anything, changing the subject from his delusions i find is best to calm him down.

Yes I appreciate not everyone is helped by mental health services, luckily I was and no exaggeration they saved my life as I was starving myself to death due to delusions. Hopefully over time treatment success rates will improve as things often do in medicine. I still think you'll have a better chance of recovery by being treated by a psychiatrist than being considered a shaman.

It's an odd one. Psychosis is probably the one symptom I've had which makes me open to the idea of drug treatments for all their issues - like, woah, my brain definitely screwed up there so maybe there's something to viewing this in a more purely biochemical way. But the life circumstances leading up to that were also insane and what seemed to bring me out of my episode was evidence that my beliefs were wrong (put myself in danger, realised I wasn't invincible) rather than starting on a particular drug. I can see retrospectively where the different bits and pieces of my beliefs came from too and what fuelled my convictions. And for me at least it was very much escaping into the most extreme aspects of myself which had been under wraps almost. I still see everything in terms of societal oppression, can't help myself.

@disconnection

The Romantics, with their veneration for nature, childhood, beauty and imagination, captured the sublime better than any other literary movement. I spent many hours bent over an anthology of English poetry dedicated to their poetry.

Coleridge's Rime, Wordsworth's Daffodils or Shelley's Autumn are pure, perfect pieces of writing. These poets were true seers and I don't think I ever found others who moved me so deeply, until I stumbled upon Rilke's Book of Images. For Rilke, too, seeing was everything.

@Epsilon0 lovely. I don't know Rilke - should I stick around for a while I will check him out, thank you!

I'm more of a sucker for TS Eliot when it comes to poetry - a seer of the damaged, fragile side of man as opposed to the wonder and purity of nature! I think what I rather like about Blake too is that he at once revered nature but was also pretty critical of human nature and society. That and he was rather obsessed with what lay beyond :)