4 ms·

> But when she did Bernstein was able to stop hiding — and hating — so much of herself. “My therapy has been in accepting the paradox that light doesn’t come wi

> But when she did Bernstein was able to stop hiding — and hating — so much of herself. “My therapy has been in accepting the paradox that light doesn’t come without dark and highs don’t come without lows,” she says. “That if I want to be creative to the extent I am, then it’s going to have a dark side. And it does.” I think the big danger in trying to put a medical diagnosis on everything is that it gives a false sense of what is normal and abnormal. When I hear statements like xx% of people have issues with depression, one thought is, what if depression isn’t an illness, but just a variant of normal. Throughout history many, many of the great people, especially creatives struggled with depression. The Greeks actually had melancholy as one of the 4 humors and accepted that a certain percentage of people would be melancholic. Modern psychiatry and psychology seems to have a norm in mind and people who don’t fit that norm have an illness. See for example back when the DSM classified same sex attraction as a mental illness. Now we realize that it is just a normal variant of human sexuality and not an illness to be treated. Similar thing with ADHD. We are seeing 3 and 4 year olds put on medication. If you look at the life of Thomas Edison it seems he may have had what we would today call ADHD. If he had been medicated to be “normal”, would he have been able to do all those prodigious accomplishments? Sometimes, there can be great benefit in seeing something not as a disease but just a variant of normal with some advantages and disadvantages compared to the typical, and accepting it.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
That's putting lipstick on a pig. Chronic depression is debilitating. A person without depression functions better than a person with depression.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  But Melissa in the article clearly isn’t debilitated. She functions better than 99.9% of all the people out there. In fact her depression, may actually contribute to what makes her so successful.
  - nr2x 6y ago
    From a standpoint of value in a capitalist society she’s not debilitated if she makes money. From a standpoint of living a life where one is fulfilled and has peace of mind, money isn’t the relevant metric.
    - staticman2 6y ago
      I don't think fulfillment and peace of mind are psychiatric diagnostic criteria.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
      It is not just value in a capitalist society. Form the article, it seems she has a happy relationship with her husband and 6 children. She is able to do something that she truly loves and is good it (designing toys, which the article mentions gives her euphoria). She has brought joy to thousands ( if not millions) of children through her work. Herb toys are actually beneficial to children in terms of stimulating their imagination and creativity unlike a lot of other things that are marketed to children. Even apart from the money, she has had a good life. And it seems, from the article, that she has embraced the way she is (both the good and the bad) and has found peace with it.
      - watwut 6y ago
        She called it dark side. And by the sound of it, she would happily do without dark side. Which is why she finally went to therapy. > She battled eating disorders, exercise addiction, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, a nagging sense of worthlessness, doubts that life had any meaning or purpose, and the routine emergence of suicidal thoughts. [...] By junior high she’d learned how to starve herself. [...] suffered a mental breakdown and seriously considered suicide That happy marriage and kids were heavily affected too. Yes she loved them. Read this: > It was imperative for them to be the very best athletes, brightest students and most popular of their peer group to ensure my sense of wholeness,” she writes, rather than — as she puts it — “choosing to be average.” She was not happy nor in peace with herself. She was deeply unhappy, using activity and perfectionism to prevent mental descent into darkness.
tediousdemise 6y ago
There is also the consideration whether the abnormality causes distress to the patient. As an example, the average gay person may not be distressed about being gay. However, the average trans person may feel uneasy about their physical body. This is why the DSM-V describes gender dysphoria, previously known as gender identity disorder. [1] Feelings be damned, I think that anything that causes a person to feel bad, particularly bad feelings that stem from internal causes, should be considered a disorder. This is not a bad thing, since recognizing a problem is usually the first step to fixing it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria
- staticman2 6y ago
  I listened to a lecture on psychology by The Great Courses and the lecturer said historically they stopped labeling gay people as having a mental illness because the patients did not respond to treatment, so the logic at the time was not whether the patients were not suffering. The lecturer pointed out this made no sense because in other contexts doctors would not say if they can't treat it, it's not a disease. I'm guessing the patients thought they were going to hell, or thought society was going to abuse them, or they wanted to be heterosexual so they could have kids or whatever and said "please make me not gay, doc". So they were suffering. If "treating the gay" worked it might still be considered an illness today I guess. My point is only the disease labels are arbitrary. And there's a downside to labeling things, especially thing you cannot effectively treat. Also, trusting Doctors without a dose of skepticism can be a mistake.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "I think that anything that causes a person to feel bad, particularly bad feelings that stem from internal causes, should be considered a disorder" What if someone feels bad when they hurt someone else? Should that be considered a disorder? This is not just a theoretical question, as I've read that the military has been funding research in to whether drugs can be used to assuage feelings of guilt and distress some of their trained killers suffer from when they hurt/kill other people. The military wants their soldiers to be more efficient killers and pesky feelings of guilt or suffering when they hurt/kill others gets in the way of that. So should every source of negative feelings be extinguished, and should we all try to live life with a smile on our faces even when we engage in unethical or hurtful actions?
guerrilla 6y ago
> Modern psychiatry and psychology seems to have a norm in mind and people who don’t fit that norm have an illness. This isn't it. The diagnoses usually have criteria for the symptoms being a problem for the persons functioning. People don't seek help because they're a bit diffeent but because they're suffering to the point of having difficulty living.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

That's putting lipstick on a pig. Chronic depression is debilitating. A person without depression functions better than a person with depression.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
But Melissa in the article clearly isn’t debilitated. She functions better than 99.9% of all the people out there. In fact her depression, may actually contribute to what makes her so successful.
- nr2x 6y ago
  From a standpoint of value in a capitalist society she’s not debilitated if she makes money. From a standpoint of living a life where one is fulfilled and has peace of mind, money isn’t the relevant metric.
  - staticman2 6y ago
    I don't think fulfillment and peace of mind are psychiatric diagnostic criteria.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    It is not just value in a capitalist society. Form the article, it seems she has a happy relationship with her husband and 6 children. She is able to do something that she truly loves and is good it (designing toys, which the article mentions gives her euphoria). She has brought joy to thousands ( if not millions) of children through her work. Herb toys are actually beneficial to children in terms of stimulating their imagination and creativity unlike a lot of other things that are marketed to children. Even apart from the money, she has had a good life. And it seems, from the article, that she has embraced the way she is (both the good and the bad) and has found peace with it.
    - watwut 6y ago
      She called it dark side. And by the sound of it, she would happily do without dark side. Which is why she finally went to therapy. > She battled eating disorders, exercise addiction, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, a nagging sense of worthlessness, doubts that life had any meaning or purpose, and the routine emergence of suicidal thoughts. [...] By junior high she’d learned how to starve herself. [...] suffered a mental breakdown and seriously considered suicide That happy marriage and kids were heavily affected too. Yes she loved them. Read this: > It was imperative for them to be the very best athletes, brightest students and most popular of their peer group to ensure my sense of wholeness,” she writes, rather than — as she puts it — “choosing to be average.” She was not happy nor in peace with herself. She was deeply unhappy, using activity and perfectionism to prevent mental descent into darkness.

tediousdemise 6y ago

There is also the consideration whether the abnormality causes distress to the patient. As an example, the average gay person may not be distressed about being gay. However, the average trans person may feel uneasy about their physical body. This is why the DSM-V describes gender dysphoria, previously known as gender identity disorder. [1] Feelings be damned, I think that anything that causes a person to feel bad, particularly bad feelings that stem from internal causes, should be considered a disorder. This is not a bad thing, since recognizing a problem is usually the first step to fixing it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria

staticman2 6y ago
I listened to a lecture on psychology by The Great Courses and the lecturer said historically they stopped labeling gay people as having a mental illness because the patients did not respond to treatment, so the logic at the time was not whether the patients were not suffering. The lecturer pointed out this made no sense because in other contexts doctors would not say if they can't treat it, it's not a disease. I'm guessing the patients thought they were going to hell, or thought society was going to abuse them, or they wanted to be heterosexual so they could have kids or whatever and said "please make me not gay, doc". So they were suffering. If "treating the gay" worked it might still be considered an illness today I guess. My point is only the disease labels are arbitrary. And there's a downside to labeling things, especially thing you cannot effectively treat. Also, trusting Doctors without a dose of skepticism can be a mistake.
pmoriarty 6y ago
"I think that anything that causes a person to feel bad, particularly bad feelings that stem from internal causes, should be considered a disorder" What if someone feels bad when they hurt someone else? Should that be considered a disorder? This is not just a theoretical question, as I've read that the military has been funding research in to whether drugs can be used to assuage feelings of guilt and distress some of their trained killers suffer from when they hurt/kill other people. The military wants their soldiers to be more efficient killers and pesky feelings of guilt or suffering when they hurt/kill others gets in the way of that. So should every source of negative feelings be extinguished, and should we all try to live life with a smile on our faces even when we engage in unethical or hurtful actions?

guerrilla 6y ago

> Modern psychiatry and psychology seems to have a norm in mind and people who don’t fit that norm have an illness. This isn't it. The diagnoses usually have criteria for the symptoms being a problem for the persons functioning. People don't seek help because they're a bit diffeent but because they're suffering to the point of having difficulty living.