How do you view mental illness?

I agree, it is interesting and quite useful.

People with certain types of personality disorders can be insanely difficult to treat. IMO, there is no 'cure' for a personality disorder. There may be meds. that help somewhat and there are 'tools' that can be learned to manage certain behaviours but if the attitude is, 'If it ain't broke, then why fix it?,' you are going to spin your wheels in therapy.

 

It's a type of illness I live with every day. It took me a long time to accept it, and it took a lot of me to do something about it. And even then, it never really went away.

I live a relatively normal life and form close meaningful bonds with people. I know myself pretty well and there's a lot about me I love. But there will always be a side of me, a side of me I fight, manage or ignore that hates everything about himself, the world, and everyone else in it in a deep and profound way. A little compelling voice to say ending it all might be better. But I ignore it and get on with life.

Sometimes I even feel it just come on like a bad cold and excuse myself from present company till that ugly wave passes. But I honestly believe I am a stronger man for it. I know my own head better than most know theirs. I know what lines I'll never cross. I know exactly what thoughts are real and what aren't. And most importantly, I take full ownership and responsibility for how I feel, how I act, and how I react. My problems are mine, they're not for anyone else. It has meant shutting people out over the years, and I live with that. But I'll be fucked if anyone else is going to take on my burdens.

But, as dark as my little world can be I love the whole life thing and think the universe, the world, and people in general are pretty neat and amazing things to behold. For all the pain and anger I feel I also set aside a lot of room for love and happiness, it would be a pretty retched existence otherwise.

I'm just not as right in the head as most is all, so long as I'm no harm to others or myself it ain't no big thing. Just something I live with and adjust to. Like it or hate it thought, it's very much a part of who I am.

 

Thank you guys so much for your input. It's reassuring to know that there are people out there with mature, intelligent views about mental illness.
Maybe it's being stuck in the South or maybe it's just the people that I've the blissful opportunities to come into contact with, but my faith in humanity's understanding and acceptance of anything other than "normal" gets shaken from time to time. Am I going to let the unkempt, likely schizophrenic homeless man live in my home or lick my face? Nope. Will I mock him, no... and I'll likely give him a buck or two if I have any on me, because I'm probably one out of 30 people that will actually stop. Or at least not stare through him.
I had another "Can You Believe This is What My Daughter is Doing?!?!?" family this week that emails me with a list of things that she's doing. She's 13. She's not supposed to go to bed on time or follow all of your directions... amongst the other family dynamics that I won't delve into. It doesn't make her mentally ill, though she did pop with a 309.9 Adjustment Disorder. Yah, a lot of us do meet criteria for things and half of us probably would be diagnosable IF it was causing impairment in our daily functioning and our relationships with other people. It's so real at times and it's a sucker punch in the gut when you get a eight-year-old sitting in front of you that seriously wants to die. And you can't find anything that makes them want to live. But when the proper medications are put into place, that child can find enjoyment in music and running around with a bunch of other little kids. Tell me it isn't real, crazy parents. It's so frustrating.
And my ten-year-old client that has no emotion, no affect, won't let one of his hands get wet (ever), can't physically deal with his own bathroom habits, and only after heavy antipsychotics have any emotion at all... I want to shake these people who think all you have to do is pray about it or suck it up and deal.

 

Of course mental illness is real. The idea that it might not be considered so astonishes me.

That said, I think we tend to over-medicate in general, and psychopharmaceuticals are no exception. I think that certain conditions are over-diagnosed: I've known many people who were prescribed medication "for depression" who, I am sorry, were just not clinically depressed. Likewise, I've known a bunch of parents who got their kids on ADHD drugs when the kids clearly were not ADHD cases, but were just plain old rambunctious kids, in need of both some understanding and some limits, neither of which they appeared to be getting from Mom and Dad. Which is by no means to say, of course that there is no such thing as those conditions-- only that they are over-diagnosed, and medications for them are over-prescribed.

Dealing with mental illness takes nuance, and it takes patience: two qualities on which the average American is deeply short.

And in any case, severe cases especially, such as dissociative disorders, or impulse control disorders, absolutely need not only diagnosis, therapy, and medication, but patience and understanding. These poor folks have a hard enough time without some jackass telling them to pull themselves up by their own psychological bootstraps.

 

Quite widely recognized by other amateurs as mentally ill, there are also those who witness my ramblings without ill regard. I don't think an accurate reading across individual barriers is possible, no matter how educated one can become about thing-kings. Medication? The side-effects of even an amateur support group are likely more gentle & predictable. That thought & a $ will get me a cup of coffee at a cheap place. Mental illness might be all we have in common.

 

I think of most mental illnesses as essentially regions on a spectrum - "normal" is a region, "depressed" is a region. "normal", "self-indulgent", "spoiled", and "narcissist" are all regions along a different spectrum (in my mental model, anyway). The terms I'm using aren't quite right, but my meaning is...everyone is self-absorbed to one degree or another. A narcissist is just someone who is so far to one extreme that it causes problems.

 

I suppose I have two views.

My mother is on quite a few drugs, she has been in and out of counselling a lot, is on anti-depressants that if she misses a few doses leave her basically unable to function. She hardly leaves the house, doesnt wash, and in my opinion (and despite what attempts to help her I have made which I will readily admit are not enough) she has been completely failed by the system.

_

For myself, I think I have come to terms that there will always be times in my life I am irrationaly unhappy or push people away and seek my own company. I also think I maybe always will have a compulsive personality (whether its over eating, drinking too much, etc). But then again I dont think I am like my mother or ever could be.

_

And I think from that, and from thinking about myself Ive come to the view that it isnt black and white, you cant divide the world between those who are normal, and those who are "mad" (which I probably would have thought when I was 14)... a lot of people have issues of differing kinds, and they all have different abilities to cope (either their own fortitude or the people around them)... some people probably can just "cope" and some people I think can't. I still put myself in the group of people who can cope, and I think I am right to. Whether coping still gives you an unhappier life than getting help I cant answer, but I have a glaring example in front of me of someone who all the help that is available hasnt done much for.

 

Heck ... bloody hard and harrowing question. All your post was hitting me heavily, but that bit especially so, SF. Very hard question. Take care.

 

Liberalism is a mental illness?

WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.

"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness" "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."
While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to "the vast right-wing conspiracy."

For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.

Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by both Barack Obama and his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

"A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

• creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
• satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
• augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
• rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

"The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious

 

^ This is the kind of thing that bothers me. Taking a viewpoint on something (especially as big as the government) and turning it into "mental illness".
By definition, pathology arises when something gets in the way of or strongly impacts daily functioning in a negative way. Obama and Clinton really don't seem to be suffering any ill effects from their liberal "illness". I can guarantee you, it'll never make it into the DSM.
*sigh*

 

To people who say, "Just snap out of it!" or things like it:

\
Source
I'm a mental health worker, so I deal with a lot of concurrent disorder mental illness/drug addiction. It has changed me in a profound way. I've developed nigh-unconditional empathy for people who suffer from a remarkably misunderstood class of disorders.

What do you think? In the old TFP, this kind of drive-by fulltext quoting of articles without any commentary was frowned upon. Personally, I think it's a rather intellectually dishonest way to approach mental illness, particularly considering you could make an equally flippant case for traditional "conservative" values as its own form of mental illness (ASPD comes to mind)

 

It's hard for me to give a short reply here... Of course mental illness is a real thing, but I guess I'm one of those on defensive side by saying, that a lot of anxiety is caused by stress and too many expectations put on people. Are we talking about neurotic symptoms then? I'm saying that unemployment can cause many unnecessary mental conditions like depression, when occupying that person could prevent him/her from going to that state.

Is it wrong for me to hope, that those, who suffer from mental illnesses, which can be harmful to themselves or others, would be more open about it, so that other people could be better aware?

In my childhood, some people were just considered odd, it was not a big deal. They weren't expected to function like mentally more healthy people do. I don't know, if it was just child's way to accept everyone as they were. It's an other thing to view a mentally ill person, as you possibly need to accept, they won't be fully functional in the society.

Are people doing better these days? In some cases I think we are over-analyzing and over-medicating, but as an example from 50 years ago: my grandmother started to gain weight, she became shiftless in her chores and apparently couldn't interact well with others either. They sent her to capital to be examined by more knowledgeable doctors. They feared she might have "something wrong in her head". They found out she had hypothyroidism. She got soon better with proper medication and there was nothing wrong with her mentally.

 

When I was in high school (late 60s), I was in a 'dance band' that was part of the high school band. We would play at a local state mental health hospital once each month. There was a large gymnasium with a stage for the band. The residents would attend the 'dance.' Most were so heavily drugged they could only stand and stare, maybe rock back and forth. And smoke. Nearly everyone smoked Wings (I think). Never heard of that brand before, must have been provided by the state. Maybe a precursor to generic cigarettes? That was my first encounter with mental illness of any kind. Quite an experience for a teenager. Over 40 years later I can still remember it like it just happened.

 

Noodle - kids like the ten year old, do you ever introduce them to Pets As Therapy dogs? Quite often it seems, dogs can cross boundaries people cant. I have heard that stroke patients will try harder to talk to the dogs than to humans - they dont fear failure quite so much I guess, and they are proven to reduce stress. Just wondered.

 

The whole point of liberalism is free choice. (as in Jeremy Bentham, JS Mill, etc)

I think there's a picture meme from the movie the Princess Bride about the word he keeps using doesn't mean what he thinks it means...

If this doctor gave the interview or wrote the book as a joke I suppose it might be ok, but I hope he isnt practicing anymore...

 

^^Well, this doctor's points are largely irrefutable so I'm not sure I'm going to disagree with him. To me, liberals are a lot like a 12 year old girl with a mind full of ideals and fantasies accompanied by a minute or non-existent grasp of reality. I suppose carrying that fantastical, unreal view of the world into adulthood could very much be considered a mental illness, albeit a learned one.

 

This 59 year old man evidently is like a 12 year old girl. Who would have guessed?

 

Well, I have to give credit for answering my question,
though mental illness isn't learned.
Behaviors, maladaptive coping, etc... those are learned.
But thanks for your input, T.E.