4 ms·

I wonder if one mechanism is that the pandemic has affected everyone - some people worse than others of course, but we're all affected, there is this THING that

by mrwh 5y ago

I wonder if one mechanism is that the pandemic has affected everyone - some people worse than others of course, but we're all affected, there is this THING that we have in common with everyone else.

PaulKeeble 5y ago
Empathy from others is really important. There was a paper today about why chronically ill people kill themselves and the biggest reason is their doctors not believing them and trying to plying them with anti depressants instead of helping them with their real symptoms. It is a consistent thing you see before chronically ill people kill themselves, the belief that no one is going to help them now or ever (they are right by the way there is no one who is going to help them, their situation is likely never going to get better especially in areas with little to no research). With the pandemic you can find someone else going through the same sort of thing, they will have empathy about their shared experience. For most people this level of isolation is temporary however, for the disabled this is their every day and they also on a day to day before the pandemic they didn't have this empathy from anyone, from their family nor their doctors. It is about the best it has ever been for the chronically ill, people for once have some empathy for what they are going through but I suspect it wont last.
- m0llusk 5y ago
  This is also critical with PTSD in soldiers. It used to be thought that war trauma was the primary factor in veteran PTSD, but ongoing research is revealing that being part of a close group and then losing that contact and trust can have a devastating psychological impact.
  - PaulKeeble 5y ago
    In the past year I have learnt an awful lot about the historic and current maltreatments of a lot of ill people. Medicine is often held on a pedestal as a good example but the reality seems to be they jump to conclusions without good evidence all the time, sometimes they can be found to gaslight patients for decades, ME patients its nearly a century now and covid long haulers are suffering the consequences of that inaction. I have lost a lot of respect for doctors and medical research over the past few years. I suspect pretty much every "mental health" issue will at some point finally be tracked to a physical condition, potentially something we could have been treating decades beforehand if they had bothered to look. I don't know what underpins PTSD, I just know I wouldn't jump to any conclusion. I would want researchers to never stopping looking for answers until we genuinely understand what physically is going on in those individuals bodies. Talk therapy has too long been used to paper over that understanding and tried to tell people they are really just well if they thought differently and I am not convinced that Psychology should be funded as medicine given how it gets it wrong more than it gets it right and can't even get its diagnoses straight. Gulf war syndrome is a physical condition, it is basically PVCS/ME/Fybromylgia but for decades it was considered Psychological. I am constantly appalled by medicines practices.
neap24 5y ago
I think that's true in some circles, this sense of shared empathy. But most people I'm around exude a sense of annoyance over the pandemic restrictions (regardless of how seriously they take covid). I suppose this might count as empathy, in a strange way.

by mrwh 5y ago

I wonder if one mechanism is that the pandemic has affected everyone - some people worse than others of course, but we're all affected, there is this THING that we have in common with everyone else.

PaulKeeble 5y ago

Empathy from others is really important. There was a paper today about why chronically ill people kill themselves and the biggest reason is their doctors not believing them and trying to plying them with anti depressants instead of helping them with their real symptoms. It is a consistent thing you see before chronically ill people kill themselves, the belief that no one is going to help them now or ever (they are right by the way there is no one who is going to help them, their situation is likely never going to get better especially in areas with little to no research). With the pandemic you can find someone else going through the same sort of thing, they will have empathy about their shared experience. For most people this level of isolation is temporary however, for the disabled this is their every day and they also on a day to day before the pandemic they didn't have this empathy from anyone, from their family nor their doctors. It is about the best it has ever been for the chronically ill, people for once have some empathy for what they are going through but I suspect it wont last.

m0llusk 5y ago
This is also critical with PTSD in soldiers. It used to be thought that war trauma was the primary factor in veteran PTSD, but ongoing research is revealing that being part of a close group and then losing that contact and trust can have a devastating psychological impact.
- PaulKeeble 5y ago
  In the past year I have learnt an awful lot about the historic and current maltreatments of a lot of ill people. Medicine is often held on a pedestal as a good example but the reality seems to be they jump to conclusions without good evidence all the time, sometimes they can be found to gaslight patients for decades, ME patients its nearly a century now and covid long haulers are suffering the consequences of that inaction. I have lost a lot of respect for doctors and medical research over the past few years. I suspect pretty much every "mental health" issue will at some point finally be tracked to a physical condition, potentially something we could have been treating decades beforehand if they had bothered to look. I don't know what underpins PTSD, I just know I wouldn't jump to any conclusion. I would want researchers to never stopping looking for answers until we genuinely understand what physically is going on in those individuals bodies. Talk therapy has too long been used to paper over that understanding and tried to tell people they are really just well if they thought differently and I am not convinced that Psychology should be funded as medicine given how it gets it wrong more than it gets it right and can't even get its diagnoses straight. Gulf war syndrome is a physical condition, it is basically PVCS/ME/Fybromylgia but for decades it was considered Psychological. I am constantly appalled by medicines practices.

neap24 5y ago

I think that's true in some circles, this sense of shared empathy. But most people I'm around exude a sense of annoyance over the pandemic restrictions (regardless of how seriously they take covid). I suppose this might count as empathy, in a strange way.