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Sorry, but that's a pretty terrible definition of mental illness. Mental illness can be any case where your mind has fallen into a pattern of being chronically

by _bxg1 7y ago

Sorry, but that's a pretty terrible definition of mental illness. Mental illness can be any case where your mind has fallen into a pattern of being chronically unhelpful to you; this can mean it doesn't report on reality correctly, or that it sends incorrect (or merely destructive) emotional signals, or whatever else. That said, this is one of the reasons I like to think of it as "mental health" rather than "mental illness". It's more like weight/nutrition, where a person doesn't simply have a problem or not have a problem; it's a sliding-scale. Everyone's mind benefits from care, the degree of one's challenges just varies based on personal history and genetics.

claudeganon 7y ago
There’s actually some evidence that depressed people perceive the world more accurately: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8x9j3k/depressed-people-see-the-world-more-realistically https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8x9j3k/depressed-people-s... Happiness might be more a form of delusion, albeit a productive and even necessary one.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  It's been my experience that the human psyche fundamentally needs a certain amount of self-delusion (or at least suspension of disbelief) to be able to function. Any hopes or dreams or beliefs are in some sense disconnected from reality, but are also extremely necessary. We must be able to step outside of reality, without losing track of it.
heartbeats 7y ago
Aren't both of those examples special case of my definition though? "[i]t doesn't report on reality correctly, or [...] it sends [...] incorrect signals." But what if the mind is reporting on reality correctly, and the signals it's sending are correct, it's just that we do not like them very much? Can a signal be entirely correct, but destructive? If so, it just seems like a special case of the expression "the truth hurts". It's not my mind which is defect by informing me of the present state of affairs, it's the present state of affairs which are regrettable.

by _bxg1 7y ago

claudeganon 7y ago

There’s actually some evidence that depressed people perceive the world more accurately: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8x9j3k/depressed-people-see-the-world-more-realistically https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8x9j3k/depressed-people-s... Happiness might be more a form of delusion, albeit a productive and even necessary one.

_bxg1 7y ago
It's been my experience that the human psyche fundamentally needs a certain amount of self-delusion (or at least suspension of disbelief) to be able to function. Any hopes or dreams or beliefs are in some sense disconnected from reality, but are also extremely necessary. We must be able to step outside of reality, without losing track of it.

heartbeats 7y ago

Aren't both of those examples special case of my definition though? "[i]t doesn't report on reality correctly, or [...] it sends [...] incorrect signals." But what if the mind is reporting on reality correctly, and the signals it's sending are correct, it's just that we do not like them very much? Can a signal be entirely correct, but destructive? If so, it just seems like a special case of the expression "the truth hurts". It's not my mind which is defect by informing me of the present state of affairs, it's the present state of affairs which are regrettable.