4 ms·

I'm disappointed by the downvotes this person is getting. I have a close friend who went through a manic episode, and can imagine how "cute" stories like this m

by safek 9y ago

I'm disappointed by the downvotes this person is getting. I have a close friend who went through a manic episode, and can imagine how "cute" stories like this might seem. As an observer, the most alarming thing to me about this whole "raising awareness of mental illness" movement is that it's another judgment-forbidden sort of "every subjective experience is equal" movement. It's gone mainstream, too, in the usual sickening, missing-the-point way; you now have neurotypical college students with essentially easy lives drawing posters and holding fundraisers. It's not surprising people with authentic mental illnesses are rolling their eyes. The downvotes this person is getting are a symptom of exactly this problem. "How can this person belittle someone else's illness?" In other words, everyone's illness is equally important. We've got to be diverse and inclusive. Never mind that some cases of mental illness are actually more severe than others. If everyone's entitled to their own perspective and experience, isn't this person entitled to theirs? Why downvote that? Because it doesn't fit into the modern mental-health-awareness agenda? I think it's important that instead of lazily saying "everyone's suffering is a problem," we discern between degrees of suffering. Partly because perspective matters, but also because being told your problems are non-problems compared to someone else's is a helpful thing. The truth is, most people's problems are to some extent self-inflicted/self-created, and it's never a bad time to examine the size of that extent.

re 9y ago
> If everyone's entitled to their own perspective and experience, isn't this person entitled to theirs? The downvotes (not mine) aren't for their experience, they're for the dismissiveness. It's like the paradox of tolerance; you shouldn't be surprised if people don't support your viewpoint about not supporting other viewpoints. > Because it doesn't fit into the modern mental-health-awareness agenda? Because it doesn't actual contribute anything substantive; it invalidates the author's experience seemly just to make a point that the author already acknowledged ("It seemed the only real difference between us was that I knew something was wrong") > being told your problems are non-problems compared to someone else's is a helpful thing How so? Far more often, people tell others that their problems are non-problems in an attempt to shut them up, not to help them. What actual value comes from attempting to precisely determine who has it worst? http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as
- safek 9y ago
  Fair enough on the first two points. That makes sense. > How so? Far more often, people tell others that their problems are non-problems in an attempt to shut them up, not to help them. What actual value comes from attempting to precisely determine who has it worst? Now that I think about it, I do see this on the internet a lot, and agree that it's highly unconstructive. What I was more getting at was a critique of a pervasive idea that everyone's self-reports should be taken at face value, and treated with equal gravity. A contrived example: imagine someone who feels depressed because they were pumped full of self-esteem as a kid, then found out in their twenties that they weren't that special; and someone who feels depressed because of chemical imbalances they can't control. Both people would use the word "depression" to describe themselves, and in our culture, you're not allowed to say that one is "real" while the another "isn't." But in fact it would probably help the first person to know that their depression isn't, in a strict sense, real: they can get out it by improving their external circumstances, while the second person can't. (That's not analogous to the situation here; it's just a random example.)
  - mercer 9y ago
    > But in fact it would probably help the first person to know that their depression isn't, in a strict sense, real: they can get out it by improving their external circumstances, while the second person can't. But that's kind of the crux of the matter, isn't it? First off, we still know so little about mental health that we can't accurately tell which is which. And it strikes me as really harmful to categorize people's issues as 'real' or 'not real' based on vague notions. Autism, for example, was initially seriously considered a result of bad parenting, and the consequences are noticeable to this day. Second, even if we can distinguish between, say, depression because 'raised with too much self-esteem' or 'chemical imbalance', this is mostly relevant for treatment, not diagnosis. If the person in question cannot find their own way out of the situation, the problem is by definition 'real'. The only difference might be how the situation is handled. In fact, in many cases the treatment is the same, regardless of how someone got there. I've seen a lot of harm caused by people arbitrarily distinguishing problems as either 'nature' or 'nurture' or 'internal' or 'external'. This distinction is not only extremely vague, it doesn't actually matter to anyone except those who are developing or implementing solutions. To everyone else, I'd advise compassion, support, and avoiding judgment. That said, you do have a point. Personally I've become more and more convinced that for various reasons, some good, most bad, our current treatment models err on the side of adjusting yourself to fit your environment, while the most beneficial solutions I've seen involve shaping your environment to fit 'you', or at the very least a combination of both. Regardless of whether an issue is 'internal' or 'external' (again, I don't think making the distinction is as valuable as it seems).
zaptheimpaler 9y ago
When a message goes mainstream enough it is inevitably distorted. Like a big game of chinese whisper, it starts (ideally) with the experts saying true things, and ends with people with little background/experience of mental illness repeating the parts they understand/agree with. Society as a whole is too disinterested to grasp a complex message like yours because most people are not affected by mental illness. Given that, its a good thing people are raising awareness of mental illness. I'm especially glad that they convey a message of witholding judgement because there are a lot of people who feel entitled to be mean/judgemental to "weirdos". Those people will only stop if they are shamed for it - its a matter of emotion not knowledge. The "everyone's suffering is a problem" is like a "society-approved response" to those who shrug off problems they can't see and judge too quickly.

by safek 9y ago

re 9y ago

> If everyone's entitled to their own perspective and experience, isn't this person entitled to theirs? The downvotes (not mine) aren't for their experience, they're for the dismissiveness. It's like the paradox of tolerance; you shouldn't be surprised if people don't support your viewpoint about not supporting other viewpoints. > Because it doesn't fit into the modern mental-health-awareness agenda? Because it doesn't actual contribute anything substantive; it invalidates the author's experience seemly just to make a point that the author already acknowledged ("It seemed the only real difference between us was that I knew something was wrong") > being told your problems are non-problems compared to someone else's is a helpful thing How so? Far more often, people tell others that their problems are non-problems in an attempt to shut them up, not to help them. What actual value comes from attempting to precisely determine who has it worst? http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

safek 9y ago
Fair enough on the first two points. That makes sense. > How so? Far more often, people tell others that their problems are non-problems in an attempt to shut them up, not to help them. What actual value comes from attempting to precisely determine who has it worst? Now that I think about it, I do see this on the internet a lot, and agree that it's highly unconstructive. What I was more getting at was a critique of a pervasive idea that everyone's self-reports should be taken at face value, and treated with equal gravity. A contrived example: imagine someone who feels depressed because they were pumped full of self-esteem as a kid, then found out in their twenties that they weren't that special; and someone who feels depressed because of chemical imbalances they can't control. Both people would use the word "depression" to describe themselves, and in our culture, you're not allowed to say that one is "real" while the another "isn't." But in fact it would probably help the first person to know that their depression isn't, in a strict sense, real: they can get out it by improving their external circumstances, while the second person can't. (That's not analogous to the situation here; it's just a random example.)
- mercer 9y ago
  > But in fact it would probably help the first person to know that their depression isn't, in a strict sense, real: they can get out it by improving their external circumstances, while the second person can't. But that's kind of the crux of the matter, isn't it? First off, we still know so little about mental health that we can't accurately tell which is which. And it strikes me as really harmful to categorize people's issues as 'real' or 'not real' based on vague notions. Autism, for example, was initially seriously considered a result of bad parenting, and the consequences are noticeable to this day. Second, even if we can distinguish between, say, depression because 'raised with too much self-esteem' or 'chemical imbalance', this is mostly relevant for treatment, not diagnosis. If the person in question cannot find their own way out of the situation, the problem is by definition 'real'. The only difference might be how the situation is handled. In fact, in many cases the treatment is the same, regardless of how someone got there. I've seen a lot of harm caused by people arbitrarily distinguishing problems as either 'nature' or 'nurture' or 'internal' or 'external'. This distinction is not only extremely vague, it doesn't actually matter to anyone except those who are developing or implementing solutions. To everyone else, I'd advise compassion, support, and avoiding judgment. That said, you do have a point. Personally I've become more and more convinced that for various reasons, some good, most bad, our current treatment models err on the side of adjusting yourself to fit your environment, while the most beneficial solutions I've seen involve shaping your environment to fit 'you', or at the very least a combination of both. Regardless of whether an issue is 'internal' or 'external' (again, I don't think making the distinction is as valuable as it seems).

zaptheimpaler 9y ago

When a message goes mainstream enough it is inevitably distorted. Like a big game of chinese whisper, it starts (ideally) with the experts saying true things, and ends with people with little background/experience of mental illness repeating the parts they understand/agree with. Society as a whole is too disinterested to grasp a complex message like yours because most people are not affected by mental illness. Given that, its a good thing people are raising awareness of mental illness. I'm especially glad that they convey a message of witholding judgement because there are a lot of people who feel entitled to be mean/judgemental to "weirdos". Those people will only stop if they are shamed for it - its a matter of emotion not knowledge. The "everyone's suffering is a problem" is like a "society-approved response" to those who shrug off problems they can't see and judge too quickly.