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Being labeled mentally ill can feel like it's gas lighting, especially if oneself knows their self to be just as rational and competent as anyone else. Mental i
by s-shellfish 8y ago
Being labeled mentally ill can feel like it's gas lighting, especially if oneself knows their self to be just as rational and competent as anyone else. Mental illness is often a matter of circumstance. Of course people who are homeless or fear the worst happening to them over and over are going to appear as though their decision making is being degraded by being called mentally ill. It's basically like being called an idiot, which is ironic, because, lots of mental healthcare attempts to reduce stigma, but still must discriminate between types of individuals for diagnosis, even though people really, really can't be labeled that way. It's always an observer bias.
I don't know if this helps or hurts generally, about mental illness, I don't know your specific circumstance or people you have interacted with who have mental illness. But feeling slapped with a label for the rest of your life feels like a huge burden to carry. Just because, you made some big 'mistakes', in front of someone who had the authority to give you that label.
Something I'm personally very stubborn about, and very outspoken about, is mental illness discrimination. You can read through these papers and see if they make sense to you, if you want to. I'm not sure how many of the papers I've read throughout my life about psychology, neuroscience, etc, but I've read a lot. I'm not a psychologist, therapist, or anyone who has been correctly (via an accredited institution) educated in mental health care, and I only study myself, and to a lesser degree, my family, as they study me. Mental illness should be a label you can have removed - because every variation of behavior mental illness describes as negative can also have a positive side, and trying to remove all the things mental illness labels as negative can really be handicapping, eventually. You need 'black and white' thinking for software development. Application of it to social systems, can be useful, but only in chaotic social systems where people identify you as 'the enemy', which is just as much up to them as it is to you.
Trying to identify one big thing as 'the error' in life just, this a burdensome mindset to have. No matter what it gets attached to. Oneself can convince oneself they believe 'that was it, that was the error' at any moment in time. Those things aren't future proof, and it's erroneous to assume they are.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470910802319710 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1747091080231971...
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/49/11489?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=JNeurosci_TrendMD_0 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/49/11489?utm_source=Tren...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29561-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29561-w
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6171/675 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/343/6171/675
- xupybd 8y agoYeah I totally get that. But there are cases where people are not as rational and competent as anyone else. I've a good friend with Bipolar. 99% of the time they are as rational and competent as anyone I know. But there are times when they get manic. During that phase everything is amazing they are amazing and every decision they make is brilliant. Only you know that in a couple of weeks that the depression is going to hit and if you don't help will have done things that they regret. Things that lead them to getting fired, spending too much money etc. And you're going to feel super guilty trying to comfort that person if you didn't do everything you could to stop them. If in that manic phase they decide you're only gas lighting them, they wont listen. You just have to sit back and hope it doesn't get too bad. Hope that they don't wipe out everything they spent the last 5 years investing in. I don't really care what label you use. But there are professionals that can help. Even in a non manic state my friend wont go beyond the GP. They've been on the same medication for decades. There must be more that can be done. More than just going back for a repeat prescription from a GP that has never been told how bad it gets.
- s-shellfish 8y agoWell, hopefully that friend can learn how to see everything they do as amazing internally, when they want to. Everyone needs that sometimes in life. Comes down to self belief, self expectations, hopes, dreams. I don't know what your manic friend is like, but I do know that if you really care about them, think of yourself as a guide to find those things out, and help them get there. As children we are allowed to believe we can do anything. It's vitally important to retain that part of you. I can't assume that a lot of people understand their cycles. But we all have them. Every person I've met, known, or read from or about. Everyone has insecurities and dreams. http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html