How skeptical should we be of mental disorder?

[vishnusavestheday]

Let me preface this. I do understand people can undertake serious emotional issues and fundamental problems. I don't want to invalidate someone's certainty that what they feel is real. 

Here's my point.

I don't want to help them believe there is anything disordered to them. Mental health is still a part of the Way, and that by itself is far from the certainty of clinical mental disorder. No matter how scientific it is, it's still fucking astrology.

To the people that want to be diagnosed, more power to them.

To the people that don't want to be diagnosed, this is where I see oppression. If my one desire is NOT to be a diagnosed person, I shouldn't have to live like one. I sure as hell don't want people I know to shove down my throat what I need because of what some doctor figured out in 15 minutes of seeing me. Fuck the meds.

[Yarco]

I'd encourage most people to start exercising and eating healthier if they aren't. As long as it's not severe enough to warrant immediate attention and they have time to try and troubleshoot it themselves a bit. I notice a big difference in my anxiety and general neuroticism based on whether I'm exercising regularly or not.

I guess depression would be an exception, because it takes away all your energy and motivation to help yourself.

[Ethan1]

Pretty sure in the future disorders won't necessarily be disorders.

Looking at the DSM5 and all the attributes that make up a disorder can overlap with multiple disorders at once. 

Even some disorders that seem maladaptive could be functional in the future. Likely because of the social rules that are acceptable today. 

I think IFS is a better system of getting to the root of issues because it's not based on stigmatization. 

Yes, I think Meds can be a catch all solution for problems that people are impatient to understand fully. 

The fact that CBT is the go-to method for mental health issues is a massive signal to the state of the mental health industry. Attempting to solve problems only on the surface and not resolving deeper-rooted issues is alarming. However, insurance companies dictate much of the marketing methods of today. Having explicit descriptions gives to bill on rather than something more abstract and complex.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Ethan1

[Carl-Richard]

Psychiatric diagnoses exist for the purposes of helping people with their problems. Without psychiatric diagnoses, we have no way to systematize which treatments should be used in which cases. If you want professional help, there is no way around it. The reason people take psychiatric diagnoses so seriously is because they're associated with real problems. That doesn't excuse the stigma, but it partially explains it.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Tyler Robinson]

Please don't stigmatize mental disorder just a request 

 

[Tefikos]

Mental disorders are as real, as being injured in a car crash is. You can't just ignore the injury and keep living your life. Yes, there is a problem with just giving a diagnosis and then medicating it without therapy, but that will change in the future. Some people really need medication in the same way as we need pain killers if the physical pain we feel is unbearable. 

Theraphy is like a surgery for the mind, without it, it can't heal and fuction propertly, like a broken bone would not heal and work propertly without a surgery.

[vishnusavestheday]

I'd rather be a high-functioning bipolar, high-functioning schizophrenic, or viewed as a bad actor in denial of a disease rather than mull around in the weakness of my problems as if it's a permanent condition. @Tyler Robinson If I am discouraged from speaking out about confidently being misdiagnosed, am I ruining the mental illness experience for everyone else?

 

Here's another question. Why should others feel hesitant to jump ship from their diagnoses? Why shouldn't they?

___

Some of y'all are really bought in. Absolutely no excuses from where I'm standing. 

 

There is no way I can sell myself as a mental health patient to colleagues or friends without seeing a look of apprehension about them, no matter what I could say in explanation. Furthermore, I'm not here saying at all that "sharing your diagnoses" are SAFE ACTIONS to undertake in conversation if you value other people's trust in your dependability.

--@Tefikos

I just want people to be aware of the effects words have on others. When you say you are suffering from a disorder, it suggests to others that you have malfunction. It's not stigma, it's literally connotation.

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by vishnusavestheday

[Ethan1]

@vishnusavestheday From what I'm understanding, you're mostly frustrated with being misdiagnosed within a short period time from not hearing your full side of the story. You suspect there is something else. Then the person who is in authority has more power to claim what your diagnosis is. Against your will? In addition, you see pharmaceutical drugs as absurd and the entire field of psychology as a pseudo-science?

The connotation of the word "disorder" does imply something is off and broken. The fact something isn't functioning appropriately does creates stigma because of the association with such labels or words. Sounds like you are mostly angry about the word "disorder" being attached to a certain description of characteristics. Words can influence + impact but they can also describe at the same time. It's a mixture of both. 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Ethan1

[vishnusavestheday]

@Ethan1 Yeah, thanks for hearing me out. My cousin died of suicide yesterday, she was 16. She was taking anti-psychotic meds, and I used to force myself to take the same when I was her age. 

I remember having better days lying about taking the meds rather than taking the meds. She probably didn't give herself that space of honesty.

I'm resonating the most with anger through the grieving process right now because of how quick and easy healthcare still claims to sell treatment. It makes me sad that my cousin never even tried or was encouraged to try a vegan diet to better herself.

I only got to cook around her when she lived with me about 2 months ago for a fortnight. She took her meds every night. She was better at drawing than I am.

It's really shallow of the medical industry to not ask their patients to investigate their diets. At least with veganism you have an ethical view on your own sadness and an applicable problem to take the world up with.

All of my relatives are certain she had a mental offishness about her we never could place. She seemed so happy with everybody, they say.

Goddamn, if only she was allowed herself to smoke weed and trip like I did at her age. 

Still, I wasn't allowed by authority by any means.

___

This also made me think of something. 

I look back on all of the run-ins I had with the law as an attempt on my part to BE MORE NORMAL as a young person growing up. It was the rebellion itself that normalized my stigmatized mental illness. I was overjoyed one time, high on acid, laughing through my grandparents dismay, handcuffed to a gurney in the ER because they were fully aware that I was just somebody who didn't care. I was more simple than some new pseudo-illness that society has just realized. 

 

The episodes of grief that struck me before that epiphany occurred in revolt to what authority asked of me.

 

Rather than having been an AFRAID STIFF ANAL mental patient listening to what mom said to take and going to church because she said so, that is who I became.

 Funnily enough, in my senior year, I ended up attending church anyway because I enjoyed going and playing in the worship band.