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Old 11-03-2014, 02:22 PM   #1
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Dewott Mental Health in Today's Society

This was inspired in part by some of the significant activity the Emotion Baggage Claim thread has had, as well as some ideas that have come up while I have been speaking to therapists and psychiatrists. I've putting it here in debate because I'm wanting some nice, at least somewhat deep discussion and some ideas and feelings in this can become highly opinionated, so I thought it best fitting here.

Now, first off, the pink elephant in the room: no-one likes to talk about mental illness. For a lot of people, it's just not talked about. The second you mention you're hearing things that aren't there, or get so depressed you get severe suicidal thoughts, or most other major symptoms, there are generally three kinds of people you'll get:

1. The ones who just plain don't believe you
These people, some they just don't believe in that kind of illness, or believe it's just so rare they'd never meet someone with real mental illness like that. Behind your back, they mention how unfortunate and sad it is that you're that desperate for attention.

2. The ones who believe you, and then instantly judge
This includes the ones who judge you as a bad or unstable person just because that one thing wrong ("I don't want him anywhere near my family", "I'm kind of afraid to spend time around him"). You know the ones, the ones who mark you as crazy, and let that, and society's love of things like psycho killers, define you in their minds. But then this also includes the SJWs, the social justice warriors who now have a reason to act high and mighty, defending this poor, mentally ill person from this terrible, terrible societal oppression ("Oh, you poor dear!").

3. The ones who half-believe you
In my opinion the most harmful, they never believe it's as bad as you tell them. They think that hard work and discipline is a perfect cure for it all, or that with just love, you can break out of it without needing meds, or something equally offensive. Often, these kinds of people don't learn it really is that bad, or they seem to understand one day and then the next it's square one. These are the ones who won't try to help when you're in the middle of a panic attack.

And like I said, as a society we just don't talk about it. I learned at about 19 I had been having auditory hallucinations my entire life, something I had never put together for three reasons. One, I thought hearing things meant only voices, and of course that was for crazy, unstable people. Hearing voices was for guys who burned down houses with their families in them, or went on serial killing sprees. I wasn't an arsonist or a serial murderer, how could I hear things? Two, I had thought everyone heard sounds. For me, it is mostly music, and I thought that was what the phrase of having a song in one's head was. It took me almost twenty years to realise that meant something else. Third, it just wasn't discussed. Our health class never went into things like bipolar disorder, or suicidal depression, or anything like that. We didn't have an overview, really, let alone a comprehensive unit about understanding mental illness.

I want to say more, and I will later, but I have a lot going on today, so I'll leave the discussion open here, and with the question:

How should today's society deal with mental illness?
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Old 11-03-2014, 02:36 PM   #2
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As I said in the EBC, we're entering into fall. This means more responsibilities for teenagers plus something called Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is a very nice and cute name for something which actually sucks a lot. It's just like depression, but rather than being a constant state of misery, it's on a cycle. It goes away during spring and summer and comes crushing back in when the days start to get shorter again. People tend to underestimate it, mostly because the acronym for it is "SAD" so people say "oh he's just sad." No. He is not just sad.

I think if more people understood that we call them "mental illnesses" because they are outside of the person's control, we would be a lot better off.

(by the way mental illness cannot be cured only treated so those people are actually kind of right in saying that hard work and discipline is important, but they are totally wrong because the hard work and discipline needs to come alongside a strong network of family and friends or it's next to worthless)
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Old 11-06-2014, 04:45 PM   #3
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Well, to note, when I said hard work I mean work as in physical. Labour.

Okay, I meant to get to this the other day but I've been in a downward spiral the past few days, so I'm just now getting around to it.

Where I left off was, talking about how we can help with mental illness.

I think it comes down to two things, treatment and outlook.

Treatment is simple enough on the surface. There are all kinds of tools and techniques to use. The question is of course the balance. There are meds, all kinds of meds. There's therapy, in groups or solo time. Exercise, diet, and just plain being able to relax, all figure in, as well as other things. There are natural remedies (some of which aren't all crock, either, although many are) and pharmaceuticals, which are simple enough to get access to if you have insurance and a regular doctor for it. However, it's my belief that for low-level illnesses, meds are over-prescribed. I think they're something that can help, but they're far from a cure-all and need to be but a part of an entire regimen. Meds alone will not cure it.

So I guess a major thing I would love to discuss here is about meds. It can be a point of argument, with extremes and all kinds of middle grounds. Some people feel meds are not necessary at all, and that they only block the road to real recovery. Others swear by meds and fully embrace meds being more prevalent. Myself, I'm in a middle camp. I think meds should be very accessible for those who need them, but I'm also justifiably wary on that front as well, as a lot of anti-psychotics and other psych meds can really fuck someone up and make them even more paranoid or manic or suicidal. Everyone's brain chemistry is different, so there's really no way of telling if what helps person A will help or even harm person B.

Another step I think should be going on, is more regular psych testing for children, especially teenagers. Teenage years is when a lot of these things can really rear their ugly heads, especially with a not-insignificant rate of teenage suicides and just in general how their hormones are, it's difficult. I know if I had a real talk or three with a psychiatrist when I was in high school, it would have helped me catch all this sooner and maybe prevented some of the worse episodes. And some teens get this help, they do, but clearly not enough are getting it.

All this and more factor into treatment, which is difficult to pin down for each person, let alone as time passes and new meds are released.

As for outlook, that's also very important and very hard to deal with. For one, there's a huge social stigma about it. This was covered a little in my previous post. Essentially, I think it's something that needs a gradual shift to let folks, especially kids, know that although these feelings are bad, that we're not bad people for having them. Something that might seem so simple of an idea to some, sure, but when someone's so affected, maybe they have never had someone to tell them that.

Stopping short again, things are getting blurry. But I hope I've set up a few things that can be discussed.
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