Mental health thread

[Syterion]

I am very depressed because I did things that pushed away the girl I love.

I also have severe social anxiety.

I don't have any female friends anymore.

I do drugs.

Nobody can help me because I can't help but lie to people trying to help me because not even I can't fathom the things that I've done in my past, or even come up with true reasons to why I did them.



Looks like I'm on my own now...

Weren't you a normal well adjusted teen like a year ago?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

As the old-timers here have probably observed already, I have my own issues as well.

My biggest problem is my depression. I've had it since I was very young, after having to take ritalin, and having been treated differently by the school system simply because I was hard-of-hearing. I always hated not having a normal classroom experience, especially having to ride the special ed bus.

In high school, I had to take paxil, which did not end well.

Let's just say that my experinces with psychiatry have not been positive ones. Now I belive the mental health industry is predatory, designed to manipulate society, and turn people into mindless drones. I advise avoiding it at all costs.

As for my depression, I am unhappy because I see the world for what it truly is, and I am utterly powerless to change things. I dwell on it a lot. I also dwell on my own inability to attract females, and so I simply like to escape to Sims, because I believe there is NOTHING I can do to make things better.

 

[nonconformist]

Now I belive the mental health industry is predatory, designed to manipulate society, and turn people into mindless drones. I advise avoiding it at all costs.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS.

The mental health service (it is *not* an industry, at least in a welfare state) is there to provide continuing support and help to people who need it.
It takes on many guises.

Many people go into it expecting a miracle cure. Guess what?
There's no miracle cure. Often, you're broken, and it can't be fixed. But it can be *managed* and you can have just as good, if not better a quality of life as anyone else.
Think about mental health issues like Diabetes.
You've got diabetes. you're never not gonna have diabetes. There's no cure.
But you can manage it well; insulin, balanced diet, whatever.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS.

The mental health service (it is *not* an industry, at least in a welfare state) is there to provide continuing support and help to people who need it.
It takes on many guises.

Whatever it is, it is still predatory.

Many people go into it expecting a miracle cure. Guess what? There's no miracle cure.

But it is often advertised or implied as such, as far as I can tell.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Blame the advertising department.

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

But it is often advertised or implied as such, as far as I can tell.

If you have a malady and you take a daily pill for it, you are treated, not cured. If you were cured, you wouldn't need the pill. TV ads do not imply anything, they just let people infer things, as you seem to do.

 

[innonimatu]

TV ads do not imply anything, they just let people infer things, as you seem to do.

I think that the english term is for what you just did is "splitting straws"...

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

I think that the english term is for what you just did is "splitting straws"...

Guilty. Sorry. What I'm trying to get at is what was in the first sentence. If you are cured, you don't need a cure, or somesuch.

 

[nonconformist]

I think that the english term is for what you just did is "splitting straws"...

Hairs

 

[Kozmos]

DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS.

The mental health service (it is *not* an industry, at least in a welfare state) is there to provide continuing support and help to people who need it.
It takes on many guises.

Many people go into it expecting a miracle cure. Guess what?
There's no miracle cure. Often, you're broken, and it can't be fixed. But it can be *managed* and you can have just as good, if not better a quality of life as anyone else.
Think about mental health issues like Diabetes.
You've got diabetes. you're never not gonna have diabetes. There's no cure.
But you can manage it well; insulin, balanced diet, whatever.

Generally I agree. But the mental health profession is oft underfunded and in some places understaffed or even both. Therefore they will try to, consciously or subconsciously try to 'process' you and the fastest way to do that is prescribing you with drugs with a crapload of side effects.

Mental health drugs are very hit or miss. Mostly miss from what I've heard from my other defective comrades. The ones that are hit are usually totally pacified by them. Like a shell of that person, if that.

Psychologists though, while they can be helpful they can't really ever understand what your going through and they mostly likely never will so all your explaining will not make a herpa derp of difference.

The most you can do is try to find someone as crazy as you, or similarly crazy. Someone you can relate to, someone who will understand and ease the burden a little. Or someone who will tolerate your outbursts or system failures and know that it can't be helped. Someone who will let you be crazy and totally isolated on your own for a week and not ask questions about it.

Something to be dealt with yes. Managed. Oh, yes. Still as you grow older your chances of your brain completely breaking down just increases (unless you are taking certain precautions to put it off a bit longer) and this is with all my wonderful support of friends and girlfriend scares me the most. That I'll have to cave in eventually and go get officially stamped as a loony and medicated with mood stabilizers or *shivers* anti-psychotics. Best not think about it, stress is the real mind killer, despite what Frank Herbert wants you to believe.

 

[Narz]

The mental health service (it is *not* an industry, at least in a welfare state) is there to provide continuing support and help to people who need it.

How do you figure it's not an industry (collection of intersecting industries)?

There's no miracle cure. Often, you're broken, and it can't be fixed.

Personally I don't find the "broken/fixed" dichotomy particularly helpful. There's no such thing as a perfect person unless you believe in Jesus (and even he seemed to have mood swings).

But it can be *managed* and you can have just as good, if not better a quality of life as anyone else.
Think about mental health issues like Diabetes.
You've got diabetes. you're never not gonna have diabetes. There's no cure.
But you can manage it well; insulin, balanced diet, whatever.

You can eliminate type II, not type I though. Personally, I haven't experienced any episodes of major depression in over ten years. I struggle with my daily mood & minor depression, anxiety, insomnia, binge eating sometimes but it's possible to reduce severity of you issues over time & somehow I've avoided major depression (not severe depression is like an orgasm compared to severe depression so I don't really consider myself depressed now even though I might get a slightly above average depression score).

One of the reasons I tried to kill myself fourteen years ago is because I thought my depression would never cease but fortunately it has. No one can really plot your brain/emotional life far into the future.

 

[emzie]

How do you figure it's not an industry (collection of intersecting industries)?

It's an industry in the same way OB/GYN is an industry.

Personally I don't find the "broken/fixed" dichotomy particularly helpful. There's no such thing as a perfect person unless you believe in Jesus (and even he seemed to have mood swings).

It's a friggin' awful way of putting and just plays into a lot of self-pity / self-loathing about how hard life is. While not perfect, functional / not functional is a much better way of looking at it.

One thing I'd like to throw into this thread is that none of the posters here are "broken" -- perhaps they cannot function in society and they need medical help, but they're not broken. I don't mean that in some uplifting way, I mean it in a stop-being-so-misunderstood way.

The most you can do is try to find someone as crazy as you, or similarly crazy. Someone you can relate to, someone who will understand and ease the burden a little. Or someone who will tolerate your outbursts or system failures and know that it can't be helped. Someone who will let you be crazy and totally isolated on your own for a week and not ask questions about it.

That is some seriously terrible advice. It's like turning to a drug addict and saying, surround yourself with other drug addicts who understand what you're going through. Might it be easier than surrounding yourself with people who won't put up with your crap and expect you to work at bettering yourself? Yes, it's probably easier than that. It's not the right choice though.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

And why exactly are we supposed to "better" ourselves? So we can meet the standards of society? To conform to society? So we can be the relative same as everyone else?

 

[emzie]

And why exactly are we supposed to "better" ourselves? So we can meet the standards of society? To conform to society? So we can be the relative same as everyone else?

Bettering one self is a goal everyone should have -- but betterment is a personal and unique goal. If you're depressed about your situation in life, you should be working to change that situation. That's not the same as conforming.

 

[Narz]

It's an industry in the same way OB/GYN is an industry.

Meh, maybe if vaginal creams were a multi-billion dollar industry & people asked their doctors for happy gina creams even when their vaginas were perfectly healthy. Like it or not big-pharm is all wrapped up in the mental health industry.

And why exactly are we supposed to "better" ourselves? So we can meet the standards of society? To conform to society? So we can be the relative same as everyone else?

So you like yourself more & are happier & can better achieve your goals. Screw what other people think or being normal. Most "normal" people do not better themselves in any significant way.

 

[azzaman333]

And why exactly are we supposed to "better" ourselves? So we can meet the standards of society? To conform to society? So we can be the relative same as everyone else?

Because when you refuse to be a part of society, you end up completely and utterly alone.

 

[Mad Man]

The best way to handle mental health issues is the same way I handle bills and family members, I pretend they don't exist and keep on walking. I mean why should you be a human cookiecutter of what mainstream society thinks you should be?

Take me for instance, sure I microwave salads, or argue on the phone when no one calls me, and sometimes when I use public restrooms I make the sign of the z like Zorro using stool, but I'm still more happy than those pill poppin phonies who walk around thinking there better than everybody else, just because there doing what everybody else says they should be doing.

Lets also not forget that mental illness is one of the best excuses in the world. People literally get away with murder using that excuse, and if you can get away with murder than you can pretty much do what ever the hell you want and nobody can do anything about it.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

How easily do you take offense? Do we need to use words like mentally challenged or whatever is the newest trend word or are you ok with more slangish expressions.

 

[Kozmos]

That is some seriously terrible advice. It's like turning to a drug addict and saying, surround yourself with other drug addicts who understand what you're going through. Might it be easier than surrounding yourself with people who won't put up with your crap and expect you to work at bettering yourself? Yes, it's probably easier than that. It's not the right choice though.

And yet don't the drug addicts, alcoholics and god knows what else people have done have support groups and sponsors and what not? People who've been there and can understand? For me, someone I can talk to about my crap and hear his experience on his crap makes all the difference. Reminds me I'm not alone in dealing with this.

Assuming that you mean by bettering yourself is by going on medication, I don't see that as being bettering, one of my friends simply takes a Xanax when anxiety starts getting at him. (so he is pretty much on Xanax all the time ) I try to understand why it happened and how to deal with it. I used to have terrible panic attacks on public transportation. Now I use it like a pro, with the occasional flare up but I've learned to control it. I'm slowly working on my list, dealing with life at my own pace and terms.

As for the broken/fixed thing. I used to think of it that way and that I could only aspire to states of lesser brokenness. Now I think of it as that I'm just slightly phase-shifted by -90 or +90 degrees in relation to the normal flow the current as one of my old professors would say.

 

[useless]

The best way to handle mental health issues is the same way I handle bills and family members, I pretend they don't exist and keep on walking. I mean why should you be a human cookiecutter of what mainstream society thinks you should be?

Take me for instance, sure I microwave salads, or argue on the phone when no one calls me, and sometimes when I use public restrooms I make the sign of the z like Zorro using stool, but I'm still more happy than those pill poppin phonies who walk around thinking there better than everybody else, just because there doing what everybody else says they should be doing.

Lets also not forget that mental illness is one of the best excuses in the world. People literally get away with murder using that excuse, and if you can get away with murder than you can pretty much do what ever the hell you want and nobody can do anything about it.

What? Mental illness isn't an excuse, it's a terrible affliction, that can really screw over a person.