What are your opinions on the prevalence, cause and treatment of certain controversial mental illnesses?
1. Attention Deficit Disorder - disclosure: I am being treated for this.
2. Autism/Asperger's
3. Anxiety
4. Depression
5. Manic Depression/Bi-Polar Disorder
6. Obsessive-Compulsive
I am unfortunately surrounded by people who suffer from one or more of these to a greater or lesser degree. I am aware that there are many people who believe that ADD is a bunk diagnosis, or maybe just over-diagnosed. I am aware that vaccines and environmental factors have been suggested for a few of these. I am aware that some people believe that we're just getting better at recognizing these.
But even if you say that there's still a need to wonder if any of these are on the rise?
I have anecdotes relating to each of these but i'm going to stick with ADD since it's the one that affects me directly.
I was diagnosed when I was 9 or 10 years old. I tried Ritalin for a while but I didn't like it. It made me feel like a different person. I stopped taking it. I struggled through middle school and high school. I struuggled through the Navy and a few jobs. Eventually my wife and I had a talk about the subject and I agreed that it might be good to try Adderall. Adderall has been very good for me.
I have started to see a therapist recently and it has changed my thinking on a lot of subjects in a short time. I feel more capable but I also feel more restricted. I know that it seems like a contradiction. I think that ADD is not so much an inability to focus as an inability to CONTROL focus. That minor distinction needs to be made so that an outsider can understand what's really happening. Every person with ADD has the same basic problem but we all develop unique coping mechanisms and behaviors. There is the stereotypical ADD kid whose mouth runs constantly and gets distracted all the time. I wasn't that kid. I think that this behavior is what happens to a kid who hasn't developed any coping mechnisms at all. We all develop a toolbox full of coping mechanisms so it wouldn't be accurate to identify any single activity as "my" coping mechanism, but I can tell you about a few of them. Procrastination. Doodling. Fingernail biting. Starting projects that never get finished.
I was reluctant to associate these problems together under the common cause of ADD. Surely I just had bad habits? Then I started taking Adderall and for a few weeks they all went away. If these were nothing more than bad habits then it's hard to see how a single drug could eliminate them all at once. I am now certain that they were coping mechanisms for the underlying problem. When the underlying problem was removed the coping mechanisms were no longer useful.
The Adderall is no longer as effective as it was at controlling my problem but it still helps. I can't increase dose too much or i'll have other problems, so instead i'm trying to develop better coping mechanisms.
Some interesting parallels have presented themselves. The rocking motion of an autistic person is generally thought to be a self-soothing or coping mechanism. Autistism is sometimes explained as a disease of intense over-stimulation. This reminds me of the hyper-focus that I sometimes experience. I have wondered if ADD and autism are cousins, or (perhaps less likely) maybe even the same disorder, but at varying degrees of intensity?
What are your opinions on the prevalence, cause and treatment of certain controversial mental illnesses?
Prevalence:
I think any time you have profit associated with diagnosis and treatment there are a not an insignificant amount of misdiagnoses.
Causes:
I think there are too many to adequately explain but obviously most are weighted towards physiological and psychological.
Treatment:
Same as prevalence but in my experience, its been all about developing coping mechanisms rather address the causes. These afflictions are part of us that we have to manage which is incredibly frustrating for me. This stigma associated with this stuff is still horrible and its not helped by the people who are taking advantage of it.
An inability to control focus is a great way to describe ADD. I've always been hyper and I think a large reason ADD people move fast is because they do not want to forget what they are doing or get in to a rush because they want to keep pace with their thoughts as least that's the way I feel.
I've been resistance to drugs treatment myself due to my nature of addiction. I've come to conclusion that most people have to accept they have these issues and learn to deal with them one way or another because their is no real cure.
I think the single largest issue is when you string together "mentally ill" and "violence" together can have a really dangerous effect. We also have a very poor grasp about responsibility in this culture, we have understood about individual responsibility but a poor understanding of collective responsibility. So you can and do have people who do seek treatment, then become violent and destroy lives. I don't see then 100% at fault, rather the fault lays at the feet of the institutions or lack of institutions we have to reach those people. Yes, of course, we have people who deny that they have a problem or something. The first ones I'm concerned about are the ones that want to get better, and the ones that absolutely must be treated or else something bad, very bad will happen.
I want to see people get the help they need so they don't destroy themselves or others, and work to build those institutions and tools to be able to do so. That's what being responsible really means.
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Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
How is autism related to ADD other than the sheer degree of moral panic surrounding both of them?
Anyway, I know a dude with bipolar who could tell you stories. Suffice it to say, his doctors' bedside manner was..."You took him off that because he lost half his body weight in a month? Some people would love to lose a few pounds." Or telling him the side effects will decline as the dosage increased.
And I'll say no more of that.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
What are your opinions on the prevalence, cause and treatment of certain controversial mental illnesses?
1. Attention Deficit Disorder - disclosure: I am being treated for this.
2. Autism/Asperger's
3. Anxiety
4. Depression
5. Manic Depression/Bi-Polar Disorder
6. Obsessive-Compulsive
I'm afraid I'm going to be the bad guy, but I do understand why people think that they're bunk diagnoses. How often have we heard someone say something along the lines of "I just have to wash my hands whenever I get home, I so have OCD" or some self-diagnosed asperger kid using it as a blanket against every piece of criticism? It's hard to take these mental illnesses seriously if more than 9 out of 10 cases are like this.
Furthermore, I think that too often, a lot of these illnesses, even when diagnosed properly, are used to do away with personal responsibility. Like people with something in the autism spectrum expecting others to meet their demands 'because of their adherence to schedules', or a manic depressed person saying (s)he shouldn't be held too responsible for decisions made during the manic phase.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Perhaps the word "illness" is improper in some of these cases but let's consider a mental exercise.
At one end you have a person who has no urge to wash his hands when he gets home.
At the other end you have a person who is so dominated by the need to wash his hands that it is impossible for him to do anything else except wash his hands.
In between those extremes you have the entire population of planet Earth. Every person has some degree of hand-cleaning urge. Where do you draw the line between the mentally ill and the people who aren't mentally ill?
What if there's a person who is just barely able to control the urge? If he fights that urge with every ounce of his strength he's capable of keeping it down.
Would that person seem absolutely normal? What if there was some crisis at home? Would it be fair to judge the problem-solving performance of an unafflicted individual against the performance of a person who can only just barely control his hand-cleaning urges?
Perhaps the word "illness" is improper in some of these cases but let's consider a mental exercise.
At one end you have a person who has no urge to wash his hands when he gets home.
At the other end you have a person who is so dominated by the need to wash his hands that it is impossible for him to do anything else except wash his hands.
I do not at all disagree with the definition of these as illness. The world, after all, also refers from everything from man flue to cancer.
In between those extremes you have the entire population of planet Earth. Every person has some degree of hand-cleaning urge. Where do you draw the line between the mentally ill and the people who aren't mentally ill?
That's always difficult, isn't it?
What if there's a person who is just barely able to control the urge? If he fights that urge with every ounce of his strength he's capable of keeping it down.
Would that person seem absolutely normal? What if there was some crisis at home? Would it be fair to judge the problem-solving performance of an unafflicted individual against the performance of a person who can only just barely control his hand-cleaning urges?
No, he would not seem normal. Yes, his his problem-solving performance is impaired. Should he still take responsibility for bad actions taken during such a period? Totally.
EDIT:
Just to clarify it a bit with a few counterexamples:
Suppose I had a friend with a really *****y girlfriend who's been getting on my friend's tits for the last week or so. He's clearly affected by this in a negative way. If he acts like a ****** to his friends because of this, should we say "well, it's clearly not his fault, since he was so stressed out"? No, we call him a douche, because despite of that he is very stressed, he still is responsible for his actions.
Or suppose that I have been sleeping very little the last week due to a flue. Because of that, my problem-solving ability and capability for rational thought are very clearly impaired: my thoughts and reflexes are slower, I'm more prone to make errors and I'm emotionally less stable than usually. However, if I got into a car and caused an accident, does this get written off as not a big deal, and that I couldn't help it? No, people expect me to take responsibility for my actions, despite my obvious mental and physical impairments at the times of the decision making and actions.
[same case as above, but this time it's an alcoholic]
I would say that your examples are not the same as my example. Your friend chooses to date a girl who stresses him out. There's an element of choice.
Similarly - driving when sleep-impaired is a choice you make.
Now if our ocd friend knew that he couldn't be trusted to drive safely because of his ocd - yes he should take responsibility for that, but the fact remains that it is a significant handicap for mr. OCD if he's not ever able to drive a car.
I'm wondering how mr. Ocd should deal with his problem - in your opinion?
If he says he can't drive because of ocd - is that just an excuse he's making to get out of driving? If he drives and gets into an accident - is he supposed to pretend the ocd wasn't a problem so that you won't be able to accuse him of using it as an excuse?
Seems like he would be the recipient of your criticism either way.
I can bring this around to a more concrete scenario - using myself as the example. My problem isn't ocd. I have add. As i related before - i was inclined to believe that my poor decisions were simply a reflection of bad personality traits until a single pill made most of my bad personality traits go away. It seems like an impossibly convenient coincidence to say that all of my bad personality traits were corrected all at once by this singularly specific pill.
The other explanation seems more likely. I had developed a few bad habits as a result of an inability to cope with a disability, and the removal of the disability also removed the necessity of the coping habits.
My point - just because you can ascribe any particular mental illness to poor decision-making doesn't mean it's fair to hold everyone to the same standards. I might be able to match your performance in a task but if i have to put 3x as much effort into it then i'm not the problem. The real problem is the people who have it easy but prefer to think that they're not advantaged. If a task was a piece of cake for you you'd rather not have it pointed out that you didn't have to try all that hard. It might diminish your feelings of accomplishment.
I would say that your examples are not the same as my example. Your friend chooses to date a girl who stresses him out. There's an element of choice.
Similarly - driving when sleep-impaired is a choice you make.
Now if our ocd friend knew that he couldn't be trusted to drive safely because of his ocd - yes he should take responsibility for that, but the fact remains that it is a significant handicap for mr. OCD if he's not ever able to drive a car.
I'm wondering how mr. Ocd should deal with his problem - in your opinion?
If he says he can't drive because of ocd - is that just an excuse he's making to get out of driving? If he drives and gets into an accident - is he supposed to pretend the ocd wasn't a problem so that you won't be able to accuse him of using it as an excuse?
Seems like he would be the recipient of your criticism either way.
You're arguing against a point I am not making.
If he drives and gets into an accident: yes. He can use it as an excuse, just as I would be if I got behind the wheel in a sleep deprived state. Belligerent cocks such as myself will call him/her out on it, however, and rightfully so. This is just as much a choice.
In the other case, I don't have an issue with that, I never said I did.
I can bring this around to a more concrete scenario - using myself as the example. My problem isn't ocd. I have add. As i related before - i was inclined to believe that my poor decisions were simply a reflection of bad personality traits until a single pill made most of my bad personality traits go away. It seems like an impossibly convenient coincidence to say that all of my bad personality traits were corrected all at once by this singularly specific pill.
The other explanation seems more likely. I had developed a few bad habits as a result of an inability to cope with a disability, and the removal of the disability also removed the necessity of the coping habits.
My point - just because you can ascribe any particular mental illness to poor decision-making doesn't mean it's fair to hold everyone to the same standards. I might be able to match your performance in a task but if i have to put 3x as much effort into it then i'm not the problem. The real problem is the people who have it easy but prefer to think that they're not advantaged. If a task was a piece of cake for you you'd rather not have it pointed out that you didn't have to try all that hard. It might diminish your feelings of accomplishment.
Again: this is not the point I made in my original post.
What I argued was that there is a group of people who feel entitled to have other people make adjustments for them.
An example: there was this kid with ADHD in our karate group in high school. He was very loud and obnoxious, often held up lessons and if you were paired with him during practices, you'd get nothing out of that practice. Whenever he was around, the lessons were less fun for everyone involved. When I spoke to my sensei and his parents about this once, they acknowledged this, but said he couldn't be held accountable (or at least to a lesser extent) for it because of his ADHD. What I think is that he and/or his parents should have realised this, and should've decided while these classes were fun for him, he should not feel entitled to expect us to indulge his disruptive behaviour.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Is it fair to say that you're more concerned about fakery and abuse?
Not to suggest that you're mistaken - i've seen it happen myself - but my own circumstances are genuine enough. I am considerably more bothered by the people who react as if i'm full of crap. Not everyone is dishonest or in need of attention.
I appreciate that you've stepped up to the plate and are willing to take on this role. My interests are about figuring out why i get such a bad reaction from certain people here and there. Not just me who gets a bad reaction i should say. There is a stigma. There is also a lot of criticism that you get when people find out that i'm taking adderall. Since other people abuse it it is sometimes assumed that i also abuse it. Not cool.
An example: there was this kid with ADHD in our karate group in high school. He was very loud and obnoxious, often held up lessons and if you were paired with him during practices, you'd get nothing out of that practice. Whenever he was around, the lessons were less fun for everyone involved. When I spoke to my sensei and his parents about this once, they acknowledged this, but said he couldn't be held accountable (or at least to a lesser extent) for it because of his ADHD. What I think is that he and/or his parents should have realised this, and should've decided while these classes were fun for him, he should not feel entitled to expect us to indulge his disruptive behaviour.
That's sort of a problem with ongoing treatment, though, in that the child developing should be encouraged to behave properly with people also understanding that if the child does something "odd" it's within his or her nature for that and with time and maturity that frequency and intensity will decrease. However, that requires the person to actually work on the issue and be good.
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Is it fair to say that you're more concerned about fakery and abuse?
I think those are relevant issues, and I don't know what to do about them. Fakery and abuse however should not be a reason to shut down help for these people, just as abuse of food stamps doesn't mean we shouldn't do that anymore. The problem is, with fakers, you can say: I'm not taking it serious unless you get it diagnosed, but since there's no way you can know they do so, you're using the honour system on someone you mistrust already. Abuse... I'll agree that in any shape or form it is a problem, but in which way do you mean abuse here?
Not to suggest that you're mistaken - i've seen it happen myself - but my own circumstances are genuine enough. I am considerably more bothered by the people who react as if i'm full of crap. Not everyone is dishonest or in need of attention.
I never doubted your honesty here. It'd make discussions on the internet quite difficult. ^^
It's not just what you said though. It's also for those with frequent with younger people who have overbearing parents, who believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that the failures of their children cannot be due to faulty parenting, or that their son/daughter just isn't as clever as everyone else. These parents will try out a whole range of diagnoses until inevitably something sticks so they can say "it's not our fault, he has mental disability X", when everyone dealing with the kid knows it's not this. These experiences tend to stick with people very strongly as well, making them react more negatively towards people giving X as an excuse for something.
I've had to deal with a one or two of such cases during tutoring high school kids. There was this kid whose dad worked at an embassy, which meant that he'd been living in foreign countries until a few months or so before I started seeing him. He was all in all a quite decent study when I forced him to do the work, but he clearly did not do his homework, and his answers when I asked why not were very unsatisfactory. I learned via a superior that his mother was thinking about letting him be tested for common learning disabilities, while to me and the others who were tutoring him, it seemed much more likely that he was being lazy with his homework, was probably still not that well adjusted to life in a new country, mixed with the sullenness and rebelliousness of a teenage boy.
I appreciate that you've stepped up to the plate and are willing to take on this role. My interests are about figuring out why i get such a bad reaction from certain people here and there. Not just me who gets a bad reaction i should say. There is a stigma. There is also a lot of criticism that you get when people find out that i'm taking adderall. Since other people abuse it it is sometimes assumed that i also abuse it. Not cool.
An example: there was this kid with ADHD in our karate group in high school. He was very loud and obnoxious, often held up lessons and if you were paired with him during practices, you'd get nothing out of that practice. Whenever he was around, the lessons were less fun for everyone involved. When I spoke to my sensei and his parents about this once, they acknowledged this, but said he couldn't be held accountable (or at least to a lesser extent) for it because of his ADHD. What I think is that he and/or his parents should have realised this, and should've decided while these classes were fun for him, he should not feel entitled to expect us to indulge his disruptive behaviour.
That's sort of a problem with ongoing treatment, though, in that the child developing should be encouraged to behave properly with people also understanding that if the child does something "odd" it's within his or her nature for that and with time and maturity that frequency and intensity will decrease. However, that requires the person to actually work on the issue and be good.
Sure, I can understand that he needs to learn to cope with such situations, but I feel that until he has shown some manner of restraint, he should, in very biased and melodramatic terms, be let loose on humanity at large.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Prevalence - I am sure that they are over-diagnosed, too much incentive pushing in that direction for doctors/parents for it not to happen. But at least in some cases I also think increased occurrence is a product of changes in our society and our awareness of them.
Cause - Nature and/or nurture, as usual. Differing brain chemistry is probably the biggest factor, but that can be influenced by more than just genetics. Outside influences can warp them and so can your own thought processes. I will say that at least in some cases I don't view them as illnesses so much as characteristics or conditions. Is my poor eye sight an illness? I don't think of it that way, it is just a characteristic I have. But it is one that I don't appreciate and choose to change via glasses/contacts.
Treatment - I have a "whatever works for you" attitude in this case. Drugs or behavioral therapy, doesn't matter, just so long as they are getting you to the best place you can find in your life.
I think some people think ADHD is not a real diagnosis because someone claimed that the person who came up with the diagnosis said he made it up and that it wasn't real on his deathbed.
I think some people think ADHD is not a real diagnosis because someone claimed that the person who came up with the diagnosis said he made it up and that it wasn't real on his deathbed.
My first thought wrt: that is Lady Hope.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Prevalence - I am sure that they are over-diagnosed, too much incentive pushing in that direction for doctors/parents for it not to happen. But at least in some cases I also think increased occurrence is a product of changes in our society and our awareness of them.
Cause - Nature and/or nurture, as usual. Differing brain chemistry is probably the biggest factor, but that can be influenced by more than just genetics. Outside influences can warp them and so can your own thought processes. I will say that at least in some cases I don't view them as illnesses so much as characteristics or conditions. Is my poor eye sight an illness? I don't think of it that way, it is just a characteristic I have. But it is one that I don't appreciate and choose to change via glasses/contacts.
Treatment - I have a "whatever works for you" attitude in this case. Drugs or behavioral therapy, doesn't matter, just so long as they are getting you to the best place you can find in your life.
The poor vision analogy is good. I've never heard that one before.
Maybe i'm not ill, maybe i just don't know how to focus? Maybe i've tried all kinds of obvious things and none of them worked? Maybe i just need to try them again, but with greater effort next time? Maybe i'm still not trying hard enough?
Maybe - "holy crap - i have a hard time believing that the rest of the human race had to struggle like this just to get a simple homework assignment done."
Maybe i've struggled long enough? Maybe i'm tired of busting my butt to do things that my critics claim ought to be simple for me?
There are some interesting problems with depression too. Slight subject change. The depressed person is always thinking about depression in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. Depression can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they truly derive satisfaction from the act of doing - are the people who don't get depressed. I think that the people who get depressed are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
The depressed person is always thinking about depression in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. Depression can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they truly derive satisfaction from the act of doing - are the people who don't get depressed. I think that the people who get depressed are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
The person with ADD is always thinking about ADD in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. ADD can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they understand that it takes some attention to get something done- are the people who don't suffer from ADD. I think that the people who get ADD are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
The depressed person is always thinking about depression in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. Depression can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they truly derive satisfaction from the act of doing - are the people who don't get depressed. I think that the people who get depressed are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
The person with ADD is always thinking about ADD in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. ADD can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they understand that it takes some attention to get something done- are the people who don't suffer from ADD. I think that the people who get ADD are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
I have a tendency to move on to a new thought without adequately indicating that it's not the same. I did that again here. I would hope that the role reversal is clue enough that we've misunderstood one another. I'm not building toward a treatment plan with the portion that you quoted in other words.
The depressed person is always thinking about depression in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. Depression can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they truly derive satisfaction from the act of doing - are the people who don't get depressed. I think that the people who get depressed are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
The person with ADD is always thinking about ADD in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. ADD can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they understand that it takes some attention to get something done- are the people who don't suffer from ADD. I think that the people who get ADD are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
I have a tendency to move on to a new thought without adequately indicating that it's not the same. I did that again here. I would hope that the role reversal is clue enough that we've misunderstood one another. I'm not building toward a treatment plan with the portion that you quoted in other words.
Okay, it may be my lack of sleep talking here, but I don't understand at all what you're saying. Could you spell it out for me?
As for that post: it was more meant to show that it's a fairly generic statement that without any backup can seem quite offensive to people with a depression. Furthermore: I think that the fact that depression has got genetic components kind of argues against what you're saying there.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
I'm trying to take responsibility for poor communication.
Until I have a little bit more time to devote to the phrasing i hope you'll accept my assurance that i'm not trying to belittle anyone's depression.
I get over-excited about ideas and i sometimes push on through a few ideas at once without taking the time to make them all relate to one another. It's not you that's failing to understand. It's me saying things that don't make sense. I'll fix it. Just need some time.
I work in an ED dept in a busy hospital. We see over 300 patients each and every day, and a large number of them are mental health admissions for everything from depression to drug induced psychosis. Looking at your list, I would suggest that some of these aren't a mental illness at all.
I would also suggest that only 1, 4 & 5 would be considered treatable, the rest is usually behaviourally up to individual to adapt and learn, and this can be true in some cases for people with Bi-Polar (I know a few personally).
IMO, Depression can be a life-changing event.
If you've never been severely depressed, never seriously considered ending it all > please refrain fro being judgmental.
It's perfectly fair to be ignorant of just how crippling it can be, but I don't believe anyone can truly understand just how nasty it is unless you've experienced that low for yourself, so be supportive of people with depression.
IME (I've been working ED for some 11 years), money for mental health doesn't come easy. So unless the patient actively searches for help, and has the money for it, the pt. will usually have to be violent to others or themselves to get any attention > even then, the treatment model in my country (Australia) is severely lacking due in part to lack of resources and the sheer number of drug-induced mental-illness patient's clogging the system.
My experience with drug-induced mental illness is that quite of few of these people tend to have other problems, but the reliance and overuse of both prescription & illegal drugs doesn't usually end well.
Some drugs, like Heroine, don't seem to heavily effect the brain neurologically long-term, so once the person is free of addiction they can usually return to some sort of normal life. However, drugs like Ecstacy, Meth-Amphetamine (the worst) and a few others will permanently change the brain if taken over a long period of time, not just reducing their overall intelligence and likelihood of premature conditions like Dementia, but also their life expectancy significantly.
Mark my words, in the next 20 years we're going to see a LOT of people who took way too much ecstacy, with the onset of dementia in their 40's, and if you've taken way too much meth I would expect you to die of a bleed on your brain sometime in the near future.
First of all, I'd say that I think every mental health issue up there is real. ADD/ADHD is more a symptom of the times than anything else, I think. Illinest, I have to agree with your assessment of ADD, I had similar experiences, although Ritalin gave me nervous tics so they switched me to emiprimine and chlonodine (not sure if I'm spelling them right). They both bottomed out my mood and the time I was on them was the most miserable of my life. I went off them early and High School and it was just one part of me turning things around. I will say, of all of your examples, ADD is the most misdiagnosed and the easiest to treat, although for me I only got control of it with self-discipline from Martial Arts that I started while young and by compensating for my forgetfulness and lack of attention span with lists and organization (which I think is the biggest weakness of most people I know with ADD, they don't make the effort to compensate when they know what their issues are).
I'm trying to take responsibility for poor communication.
Until I have a little bit more time to devote to the phrasing i hope you'll accept my assurance that i'm not trying to belittle anyone's depression.
I get over-excited about ideas and i sometimes push on through a few ideas at once without taking the time to make them all relate to one another. It's not you that's failing to understand. It's me saying things that don't make sense. I'll fix it. Just need some time.
There is depression, the colloquial term for people who are sad, and then there is the medical definition of depression, which is people who've largely lost the capacity to feel or care about anything. Make sure you're clear about what you're talking about when you use the term.
Clinical depression is a very real thing. Pray you or your loved ones never experience it.
I have no idea what to feel about ADD. I have an immensely difficult time focusing and doing work if there are distractions around me. I have commonly taken hours to write a paper back in high school and college that I should have been able to finish in 1-2, merely because I get distracted by the things on the internet. I also have a hard time studying because I can't get my mind into it.
Sounds like ADD to me, based on what I've heard. Yet, I also know for a fact that I can spend 6+ hours straight reading and analyzing incredibly boring books, entire days writing a research paper, distilling school notes into organized study-notes, and the like. All with the very same distractions readily around me.
I don't know if ADD actually exists or not. What I do know is that I have a discipline problem.
Honestly? If the above behavior is what constitutes ADD, then I think the vast majority of the people has ADD and only the rare few don't.
Honestly? If the above behavior is what constitutes ADD, then I think the vast majority of the people has ADD and only the rare few don't.
A lot of mental illnesses are basically exaggerated versions of experiences that everybody has some of the time. It's when you have it all the time that it becomes a problem.
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For me ADD is a problem because of the following things that i can't control.
1. If i don't spend some time indulging in some of my interests every day then I tend to have trouble sleeping. I come home from work at 1030 and if i don't spend at least an hour surfing the web (at a minimum) then i can't sleep. I'll lay there wide awake. But if you give me an hour surfing imgur then i'm good.
It feels like my brain just needs to be "drained" every night before bed.
2. Every time i get hyperfocused on an activity my brain retreats from it. This is hard to explain. It's almost as if my brain is contrary with itself. My #1 hobby is drawing comic book characters. every now and then i'll get hyped up about the idea of trying to do it professionally. I'll start planning a project and i'll get more and more excited until all of a sudden my brain says "no more". Then it switches focus abruptly and all of a sudden i won't be able to resist studying about roman history for a while. It's almost like the brain is blocking itself from being too keyed in by making me keyed in on some other thing instead.
If i could solve these problems on my own i would be very happy.
1. Attention Deficit Disorder - disclosure: I am being treated for this.
2. Autism/Asperger's
3. Anxiety
4. Depression
5. Manic Depression/Bi-Polar Disorder
6. Obsessive-Compulsive
I am unfortunately surrounded by people who suffer from one or more of these to a greater or lesser degree. I am aware that there are many people who believe that ADD is a bunk diagnosis, or maybe just over-diagnosed. I am aware that vaccines and environmental factors have been suggested for a few of these. I am aware that some people believe that we're just getting better at recognizing these.
But even if you say that there's still a need to wonder if any of these are on the rise?
I have anecdotes relating to each of these but i'm going to stick with ADD since it's the one that affects me directly.
I was diagnosed when I was 9 or 10 years old. I tried Ritalin for a while but I didn't like it. It made me feel like a different person. I stopped taking it. I struggled through middle school and high school. I struuggled through the Navy and a few jobs. Eventually my wife and I had a talk about the subject and I agreed that it might be good to try Adderall. Adderall has been very good for me.
I have started to see a therapist recently and it has changed my thinking on a lot of subjects in a short time. I feel more capable but I also feel more restricted. I know that it seems like a contradiction. I think that ADD is not so much an inability to focus as an inability to CONTROL focus. That minor distinction needs to be made so that an outsider can understand what's really happening. Every person with ADD has the same basic problem but we all develop unique coping mechanisms and behaviors. There is the stereotypical ADD kid whose mouth runs constantly and gets distracted all the time. I wasn't that kid. I think that this behavior is what happens to a kid who hasn't developed any coping mechnisms at all. We all develop a toolbox full of coping mechanisms so it wouldn't be accurate to identify any single activity as "my" coping mechanism, but I can tell you about a few of them. Procrastination. Doodling. Fingernail biting. Starting projects that never get finished.
I was reluctant to associate these problems together under the common cause of ADD. Surely I just had bad habits? Then I started taking Adderall and for a few weeks they all went away. If these were nothing more than bad habits then it's hard to see how a single drug could eliminate them all at once. I am now certain that they were coping mechanisms for the underlying problem. When the underlying problem was removed the coping mechanisms were no longer useful.
The Adderall is no longer as effective as it was at controlling my problem but it still helps. I can't increase dose too much or i'll have other problems, so instead i'm trying to develop better coping mechanisms.
Some interesting parallels have presented themselves. The rocking motion of an autistic person is generally thought to be a self-soothing or coping mechanism. Autistism is sometimes explained as a disease of intense over-stimulation. This reminds me of the hyper-focus that I sometimes experience. I have wondered if ADD and autism are cousins, or (perhaps less likely) maybe even the same disorder, but at varying degrees of intensity?
Prevalence:
I think any time you have profit associated with diagnosis and treatment there are a not an insignificant amount of misdiagnoses.
Causes:
I think there are too many to adequately explain but obviously most are weighted towards physiological and psychological.
Treatment:
Same as prevalence but in my experience, its been all about developing coping mechanisms rather address the causes. These afflictions are part of us that we have to manage which is incredibly frustrating for me. This stigma associated with this stuff is still horrible and its not helped by the people who are taking advantage of it.
An inability to control focus is a great way to describe ADD. I've always been hyper and I think a large reason ADD people move fast is because they do not want to forget what they are doing or get in to a rush because they want to keep pace with their thoughts as least that's the way I feel.
I've been resistance to drugs treatment myself due to my nature of addiction. I've come to conclusion that most people have to accept they have these issues and learn to deal with them one way or another because their is no real cure.
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I want to see people get the help they need so they don't destroy themselves or others, and work to build those institutions and tools to be able to do so. That's what being responsible really means.
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Anyway, I know a dude with bipolar who could tell you stories. Suffice it to say, his doctors' bedside manner was..."You took him off that because he lost half his body weight in a month? Some people would love to lose a few pounds." Or telling him the side effects will decline as the dosage increased.
And I'll say no more of that.
On phasing:
I'm afraid I'm going to be the bad guy, but I do understand why people think that they're bunk diagnoses. How often have we heard someone say something along the lines of "I just have to wash my hands whenever I get home, I so have OCD" or some self-diagnosed asperger kid using it as a blanket against every piece of criticism? It's hard to take these mental illnesses seriously if more than 9 out of 10 cases are like this.
Furthermore, I think that too often, a lot of these illnesses, even when diagnosed properly, are used to do away with personal responsibility. Like people with something in the autism spectrum expecting others to meet their demands 'because of their adherence to schedules', or a manic depressed person saying (s)he shouldn't be held too responsible for decisions made during the manic phase.
At one end you have a person who has no urge to wash his hands when he gets home.
At the other end you have a person who is so dominated by the need to wash his hands that it is impossible for him to do anything else except wash his hands.
In between those extremes you have the entire population of planet Earth. Every person has some degree of hand-cleaning urge. Where do you draw the line between the mentally ill and the people who aren't mentally ill?
What if there's a person who is just barely able to control the urge? If he fights that urge with every ounce of his strength he's capable of keeping it down.
Would that person seem absolutely normal? What if there was some crisis at home? Would it be fair to judge the problem-solving performance of an unafflicted individual against the performance of a person who can only just barely control his hand-cleaning urges?
I do not at all disagree with the definition of these as illness. The world, after all, also refers from everything from man flue to cancer.
That's always difficult, isn't it?
No, he would not seem normal. Yes, his his problem-solving performance is impaired. Should he still take responsibility for bad actions taken during such a period? Totally.
EDIT:
Just to clarify it a bit with a few counterexamples:
Suppose I had a friend with a really *****y girlfriend who's been getting on my friend's tits for the last week or so. He's clearly affected by this in a negative way. If he acts like a ****** to his friends because of this, should we say "well, it's clearly not his fault, since he was so stressed out"? No, we call him a douche, because despite of that he is very stressed, he still is responsible for his actions.
Or suppose that I have been sleeping very little the last week due to a flue. Because of that, my problem-solving ability and capability for rational thought are very clearly impaired: my thoughts and reflexes are slower, I'm more prone to make errors and I'm emotionally less stable than usually. However, if I got into a car and caused an accident, does this get written off as not a big deal, and that I couldn't help it? No, people expect me to take responsibility for my actions, despite my obvious mental and physical impairments at the times of the decision making and actions.
[same case as above, but this time it's an alcoholic]
Similarly - driving when sleep-impaired is a choice you make.
Now if our ocd friend knew that he couldn't be trusted to drive safely because of his ocd - yes he should take responsibility for that, but the fact remains that it is a significant handicap for mr. OCD if he's not ever able to drive a car.
I'm wondering how mr. Ocd should deal with his problem - in your opinion?
If he says he can't drive because of ocd - is that just an excuse he's making to get out of driving? If he drives and gets into an accident - is he supposed to pretend the ocd wasn't a problem so that you won't be able to accuse him of using it as an excuse?
Seems like he would be the recipient of your criticism either way.
I can bring this around to a more concrete scenario - using myself as the example. My problem isn't ocd. I have add. As i related before - i was inclined to believe that my poor decisions were simply a reflection of bad personality traits until a single pill made most of my bad personality traits go away. It seems like an impossibly convenient coincidence to say that all of my bad personality traits were corrected all at once by this singularly specific pill.
The other explanation seems more likely. I had developed a few bad habits as a result of an inability to cope with a disability, and the removal of the disability also removed the necessity of the coping habits.
My point - just because you can ascribe any particular mental illness to poor decision-making doesn't mean it's fair to hold everyone to the same standards. I might be able to match your performance in a task but if i have to put 3x as much effort into it then i'm not the problem. The real problem is the people who have it easy but prefer to think that they're not advantaged. If a task was a piece of cake for you you'd rather not have it pointed out that you didn't have to try all that hard. It might diminish your feelings of accomplishment.
You're arguing against a point I am not making.
If he drives and gets into an accident: yes. He can use it as an excuse, just as I would be if I got behind the wheel in a sleep deprived state. Belligerent cocks such as myself will call him/her out on it, however, and rightfully so. This is just as much a choice.
In the other case, I don't have an issue with that, I never said I did.
Again: this is not the point I made in my original post.
What I argued was that there is a group of people who feel entitled to have other people make adjustments for them.
An example: there was this kid with ADHD in our karate group in high school. He was very loud and obnoxious, often held up lessons and if you were paired with him during practices, you'd get nothing out of that practice. Whenever he was around, the lessons were less fun for everyone involved. When I spoke to my sensei and his parents about this once, they acknowledged this, but said he couldn't be held accountable (or at least to a lesser extent) for it because of his ADHD. What I think is that he and/or his parents should have realised this, and should've decided while these classes were fun for him, he should not feel entitled to expect us to indulge his disruptive behaviour.
Not to suggest that you're mistaken - i've seen it happen myself - but my own circumstances are genuine enough. I am considerably more bothered by the people who react as if i'm full of crap. Not everyone is dishonest or in need of attention.
I appreciate that you've stepped up to the plate and are willing to take on this role. My interests are about figuring out why i get such a bad reaction from certain people here and there. Not just me who gets a bad reaction i should say. There is a stigma. There is also a lot of criticism that you get when people find out that i'm taking adderall. Since other people abuse it it is sometimes assumed that i also abuse it. Not cool.
That's sort of a problem with ongoing treatment, though, in that the child developing should be encouraged to behave properly with people also understanding that if the child does something "odd" it's within his or her nature for that and with time and maturity that frequency and intensity will decrease. However, that requires the person to actually work on the issue and be good.
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I think those are relevant issues, and I don't know what to do about them. Fakery and abuse however should not be a reason to shut down help for these people, just as abuse of food stamps doesn't mean we shouldn't do that anymore. The problem is, with fakers, you can say: I'm not taking it serious unless you get it diagnosed, but since there's no way you can know they do so, you're using the honour system on someone you mistrust already. Abuse... I'll agree that in any shape or form it is a problem, but in which way do you mean abuse here?
I never doubted your honesty here. It'd make discussions on the internet quite difficult. ^^
It's not just what you said though. It's also for those with frequent with younger people who have overbearing parents, who believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that the failures of their children cannot be due to faulty parenting, or that their son/daughter just isn't as clever as everyone else. These parents will try out a whole range of diagnoses until inevitably something sticks so they can say "it's not our fault, he has mental disability X", when everyone dealing with the kid knows it's not this. These experiences tend to stick with people very strongly as well, making them react more negatively towards people giving X as an excuse for something.
I've had to deal with a one or two of such cases during tutoring high school kids. There was this kid whose dad worked at an embassy, which meant that he'd been living in foreign countries until a few months or so before I started seeing him. He was all in all a quite decent study when I forced him to do the work, but he clearly did not do his homework, and his answers when I asked why not were very unsatisfactory. I learned via a superior that his mother was thinking about letting him be tested for common learning disabilities, while to me and the others who were tutoring him, it seemed much more likely that he was being lazy with his homework, was probably still not that well adjusted to life in a new country, mixed with the sullenness and rebelliousness of a teenage boy.
I completely understand you in this. I think that is partially due to stupid scare stories by media outlets, and part can be explained by the following comics, I think:
http://www.robot-hugs.com/helpful-advice/
http://www.robot-hugs.com/more-helpful-advice/
Sure, I can understand that he needs to learn to cope with such situations, but I feel that until he has shown some manner of restraint, he should, in very biased and melodramatic terms, be let loose on humanity at large.
Cause - Nature and/or nurture, as usual. Differing brain chemistry is probably the biggest factor, but that can be influenced by more than just genetics. Outside influences can warp them and so can your own thought processes. I will say that at least in some cases I don't view them as illnesses so much as characteristics or conditions. Is my poor eye sight an illness? I don't think of it that way, it is just a characteristic I have. But it is one that I don't appreciate and choose to change via glasses/contacts.
Treatment - I have a "whatever works for you" attitude in this case. Drugs or behavioral therapy, doesn't matter, just so long as they are getting you to the best place you can find in your life.
My first thought wrt: that is Lady Hope.
On phasing:
The poor vision analogy is good. I've never heard that one before.
Maybe i'm not ill, maybe i just don't know how to focus? Maybe i've tried all kinds of obvious things and none of them worked? Maybe i just need to try them again, but with greater effort next time? Maybe i'm still not trying hard enough?
Maybe - "holy crap - i have a hard time believing that the rest of the human race had to struggle like this just to get a simple homework assignment done."
Maybe i've struggled long enough? Maybe i'm tired of busting my butt to do things that my critics claim ought to be simple for me?
There are some interesting problems with depression too. Slight subject change. The depressed person is always thinking about depression in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. Depression can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they truly derive satisfaction from the act of doing - are the people who don't get depressed. I think that the people who get depressed are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
The person with ADD is always thinking about ADD in terms of it being this problem that can be fixed if you just find the right cure. ADD can't be cured that way. (My opinion) self-motivated people - people who do things because they understand that it takes some attention to get something done- are the people who don't suffer from ADD. I think that the people who get ADD are the ones who think in terms of the hurdles that need to be navigated every day. It'w largely societal in other words.
I have a tendency to move on to a new thought without adequately indicating that it's not the same. I did that again here. I would hope that the role reversal is clue enough that we've misunderstood one another. I'm not building toward a treatment plan with the portion that you quoted in other words.
Okay, it may be my lack of sleep talking here, but I don't understand at all what you're saying. Could you spell it out for me?
As for that post: it was more meant to show that it's a fairly generic statement that without any backup can seem quite offensive to people with a depression. Furthermore: I think that the fact that depression has got genetic components kind of argues against what you're saying there.
Until I have a little bit more time to devote to the phrasing i hope you'll accept my assurance that i'm not trying to belittle anyone's depression.
I get over-excited about ideas and i sometimes push on through a few ideas at once without taking the time to make them all relate to one another. It's not you that's failing to understand. It's me saying things that don't make sense. I'll fix it. Just need some time.
I work in an ED dept in a busy hospital. We see over 300 patients each and every day, and a large number of them are mental health admissions for everything from depression to drug induced psychosis. Looking at your list, I would suggest that some of these aren't a mental illness at all.
I would also suggest that only 1, 4 & 5 would be considered treatable, the rest is usually behaviourally up to individual to adapt and learn, and this can be true in some cases for people with Bi-Polar (I know a few personally).
IMO, Depression can be a life-changing event.
If you've never been severely depressed, never seriously considered ending it all > please refrain fro being judgmental.
It's perfectly fair to be ignorant of just how crippling it can be, but I don't believe anyone can truly understand just how nasty it is unless you've experienced that low for yourself, so be supportive of people with depression.
IME (I've been working ED for some 11 years), money for mental health doesn't come easy. So unless the patient actively searches for help, and has the money for it, the pt. will usually have to be violent to others or themselves to get any attention > even then, the treatment model in my country (Australia) is severely lacking due in part to lack of resources and the sheer number of drug-induced mental-illness patient's clogging the system.
My experience with drug-induced mental illness is that quite of few of these people tend to have other problems, but the reliance and overuse of both prescription & illegal drugs doesn't usually end well.
Some drugs, like Heroine, don't seem to heavily effect the brain neurologically long-term, so once the person is free of addiction they can usually return to some sort of normal life. However, drugs like Ecstacy, Meth-Amphetamine (the worst) and a few others will permanently change the brain if taken over a long period of time, not just reducing their overall intelligence and likelihood of premature conditions like Dementia, but also their life expectancy significantly.
Mark my words, in the next 20 years we're going to see a LOT of people who took way too much ecstacy, with the onset of dementia in their 40's, and if you've taken way too much meth I would expect you to die of a bleed on your brain sometime in the near future.
There is depression, the colloquial term for people who are sad, and then there is the medical definition of depression, which is people who've largely lost the capacity to feel or care about anything. Make sure you're clear about what you're talking about when you use the term.
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I have no idea what to feel about ADD. I have an immensely difficult time focusing and doing work if there are distractions around me. I have commonly taken hours to write a paper back in high school and college that I should have been able to finish in 1-2, merely because I get distracted by the things on the internet. I also have a hard time studying because I can't get my mind into it.
Sounds like ADD to me, based on what I've heard. Yet, I also know for a fact that I can spend 6+ hours straight reading and analyzing incredibly boring books, entire days writing a research paper, distilling school notes into organized study-notes, and the like. All with the very same distractions readily around me.
I don't know if ADD actually exists or not. What I do know is that I have a discipline problem.
Honestly? If the above behavior is what constitutes ADD, then I think the vast majority of the people has ADD and only the rare few don't.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
1. If i don't spend some time indulging in some of my interests every day then I tend to have trouble sleeping. I come home from work at 1030 and if i don't spend at least an hour surfing the web (at a minimum) then i can't sleep. I'll lay there wide awake. But if you give me an hour surfing imgur then i'm good.
It feels like my brain just needs to be "drained" every night before bed.
2. Every time i get hyperfocused on an activity my brain retreats from it. This is hard to explain. It's almost as if my brain is contrary with itself. My #1 hobby is drawing comic book characters. every now and then i'll get hyped up about the idea of trying to do it professionally. I'll start planning a project and i'll get more and more excited until all of a sudden my brain says "no more". Then it switches focus abruptly and all of a sudden i won't be able to resist studying about roman history for a while. It's almost like the brain is blocking itself from being too keyed in by making me keyed in on some other thing instead.
If i could solve these problems on my own i would be very happy.