12 ms·

Tell HN: It's Mental Health Awareness Month

14 points by clearmind 4y ago

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. If you are suffering from depression, anxiety or are experiencing any sort of mental distress, please seek help. The easiest way to find help is to search for "therapist in {your city}". If you believe you need medication, you can ask your primary care physician for help and they can refer you to a psychiatrist. If you're new to therapy, you should know that one of the most successful approaches to treating depression and anxiety is cognitive behavioral therapy. Be sure to ask your prospective therapist if they have received training in that approach.

RoseBuckler 4y ago
> If you are suffering from depression, anxiety or are experiencing any sort of mental distress, please seek help. I have a really hard time concluding if I have any of these, as I don't really feel anything. I also don't like to bother people with my issues, how does one seek help in that case?
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Great question. I'm in a similar boat. It's challenging when it seems like my life experiences have reinforced the "keep your cards close to your chest" approach to mental health, despite the positivity of mental health awareness. I don't feel like the current zeitgeist takes this questions seriously, and appeals only to very open and trusting people with solvable problems. /end rant
- clearmind 4y ago
  > as I don't really feel anything. > I also don't like to bother people with my issues Feelings like these can be a sign of depression. I would suggest finding a therapist who is trained in cognitive behavioral therapy and meet with them for a few sessions to determine if it is, in fact, depression.
- derbOac 4y ago
  You don't have to have debilitating problems to go see a therapist. This is one reason I think there's a fight against stigma about it. I think the simple rule of thumb is, if you're thinking you might want to get help with some issue, but don't want to bother friends, you could go see someone and talk to them and see how it goes. Nowadays there's lots of apps to feel around in this space (I would look for apps addressing mood and mental wellness). I don't have any specific recommendations but it's another option if you just don't feel like going in to see someone in person at first. You could also take a screening test (probably depression and/or anxiety): https://screening.mhanational.org https://screening.mhanational.org
- smackeyacky 4y ago
  I would personally start with your doctor, rather than going straight to a therapist. The reasoning behind this is that if you are feeling anything between somewhat detached right to "can't get out of bed", mental issues are not the only possible cause. Getting a check-up is relatively simple, your doctor will have resources around anxiety/depression and will also have access to a list of therapists. A couple of years ago, when I was suffering from depression, I visited my doctor first who screened out physical problems before recommending a very good therapist.
Jonovono 4y ago
Ah how fitting. It's mental health month, meanwhile Canada is the only country that does not let the unvaccinated travel within it's own country or to leave the country. They also cannot work many jobs. Keep in mind, many of those unvaccinated our people from our minority populations that have built up a deep distrust of our government over years of poor treatment (and having their kids be used in vaccine experiments). I'm sure forcing these communities to get a vaccine or have their lives destroyed is great for mental health. /s
b20000 4y ago
i tried a therapist. didn’t work because she did not understand founders, entrepreneurship or being self employed. i think the challenge is finding someone who can relate and knows what to do to fix you rather than just asking you to talk about it. also, i refuse to go on any medication.
- I_complete_me 4y ago
  Caveat: This may be a challenging view for some people. I am not dismissing the actual suffering that people experience, I am questioning the "medicine". Mental illness is a made up thing. Mental health is a made up thing. It's just life. People have issues, problems, dilemmas. Sometimes they can't adjust, adapt. But a bunch of people step up and say "We're professionals, we can help". Where is the evidence that they really can? People heal themselves or they don't, just like in the previous 100,000 years+. If they don't well, they suffer, sometimes awfully badly. Very few therapists are going to say "I am not helping your problem lessen or go away so stop giving me money and try some thing or someone else".
  - b20000 4y ago
    there isa difference between dealing with some issues and having depression or anxiety to the point where you cannot do your job anymore. but you cannot understand that until you experience it yourself. i doubt that any amount of talking or medecine can fix it. i feel that you have to go back to the root events that caused it and address those or experience a powerful positive event to negate the previous event. without that i feel it is difficult to address the problem and find closure.
  - derbOac 4y ago
    Mental illness is not made up, nor is mental wellness. There are problematic aspects of the mental health field, but there are problematic features of every field. Physical diseases have been around for 100000+ years too, part of life, but we don't say there's no such thing as health or illness. I agree that the the diagnostic categories in things like the DSM are probably imperfect, and many aren't "real" but there are many in the area of mental health sciences who would agree with that. But that doesn't mean mental illness or wellness aren't real, any more than mismodeling bacterial disease in the 1800s didn't mean they didn't exist. Part of the problem is that people want to project concepts from things like cardiology or virology or oncology onto behavioral health and it doesn't quite work the same. But that doesn't mean it's not real. As for therapy, there are decades of randomized controlled trials with all sorts of controls that show efficacy of treatment: various types of treatment and behavioral controls, waitlist controls, pharmacological controls, and pharmacological placebo controls. It works on average, just like everything else. Not perfectly not all the time, but on average it works. We can get into arguments about why it works, and I think there are serious issues about what the "active effective components" of therapy are (I don't think they're what e.g., CBT theorists think it is) but that's a different issue. This is a good overview of my perspective on things; note that it assumes therapy is effective, because there's so much evidence at this point that it is, but asserts that no one really knows why: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095424 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095424
kleer001 4y ago
Those new to therapy should also keep in mind that finding the right fit can take time. Time either getting to know your therapist or time finding the best one for you.

14 points by clearmind 4y ago

RoseBuckler 4y ago

> If you are suffering from depression, anxiety or are experiencing any sort of mental distress, please seek help. I have a really hard time concluding if I have any of these, as I don't really feel anything. I also don't like to bother people with my issues, how does one seek help in that case?

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
Great question. I'm in a similar boat. It's challenging when it seems like my life experiences have reinforced the "keep your cards close to your chest" approach to mental health, despite the positivity of mental health awareness. I don't feel like the current zeitgeist takes this questions seriously, and appeals only to very open and trusting people with solvable problems. /end rant
clearmind 4y ago
> as I don't really feel anything. > I also don't like to bother people with my issues Feelings like these can be a sign of depression. I would suggest finding a therapist who is trained in cognitive behavioral therapy and meet with them for a few sessions to determine if it is, in fact, depression.
derbOac 4y ago
You don't have to have debilitating problems to go see a therapist. This is one reason I think there's a fight against stigma about it. I think the simple rule of thumb is, if you're thinking you might want to get help with some issue, but don't want to bother friends, you could go see someone and talk to them and see how it goes. Nowadays there's lots of apps to feel around in this space (I would look for apps addressing mood and mental wellness). I don't have any specific recommendations but it's another option if you just don't feel like going in to see someone in person at first. You could also take a screening test (probably depression and/or anxiety): https://screening.mhanational.org https://screening.mhanational.org
smackeyacky 4y ago
I would personally start with your doctor, rather than going straight to a therapist. The reasoning behind this is that if you are feeling anything between somewhat detached right to "can't get out of bed", mental issues are not the only possible cause. Getting a check-up is relatively simple, your doctor will have resources around anxiety/depression and will also have access to a list of therapists. A couple of years ago, when I was suffering from depression, I visited my doctor first who screened out physical problems before recommending a very good therapist.

Jonovono 4y ago

Ah how fitting. It's mental health month, meanwhile Canada is the only country that does not let the unvaccinated travel within it's own country or to leave the country. They also cannot work many jobs. Keep in mind, many of those unvaccinated our people from our minority populations that have built up a deep distrust of our government over years of poor treatment (and having their kids be used in vaccine experiments). I'm sure forcing these communities to get a vaccine or have their lives destroyed is great for mental health. /s

b20000 4y ago

i tried a therapist. didn’t work because she did not understand founders, entrepreneurship or being self employed. i think the challenge is finding someone who can relate and knows what to do to fix you rather than just asking you to talk about it. also, i refuse to go on any medication.

I_complete_me 4y ago
Caveat: This may be a challenging view for some people. I am not dismissing the actual suffering that people experience, I am questioning the "medicine". Mental illness is a made up thing. Mental health is a made up thing. It's just life. People have issues, problems, dilemmas. Sometimes they can't adjust, adapt. But a bunch of people step up and say "We're professionals, we can help". Where is the evidence that they really can? People heal themselves or they don't, just like in the previous 100,000 years+. If they don't well, they suffer, sometimes awfully badly. Very few therapists are going to say "I am not helping your problem lessen or go away so stop giving me money and try some thing or someone else".
- b20000 4y ago
  there isa difference between dealing with some issues and having depression or anxiety to the point where you cannot do your job anymore. but you cannot understand that until you experience it yourself. i doubt that any amount of talking or medecine can fix it. i feel that you have to go back to the root events that caused it and address those or experience a powerful positive event to negate the previous event. without that i feel it is difficult to address the problem and find closure.
- derbOac 4y ago
  Mental illness is not made up, nor is mental wellness. There are problematic aspects of the mental health field, but there are problematic features of every field. Physical diseases have been around for 100000+ years too, part of life, but we don't say there's no such thing as health or illness. I agree that the the diagnostic categories in things like the DSM are probably imperfect, and many aren't "real" but there are many in the area of mental health sciences who would agree with that. But that doesn't mean mental illness or wellness aren't real, any more than mismodeling bacterial disease in the 1800s didn't mean they didn't exist. Part of the problem is that people want to project concepts from things like cardiology or virology or oncology onto behavioral health and it doesn't quite work the same. But that doesn't mean it's not real. As for therapy, there are decades of randomized controlled trials with all sorts of controls that show efficacy of treatment: various types of treatment and behavioral controls, waitlist controls, pharmacological controls, and pharmacological placebo controls. It works on average, just like everything else. Not perfectly not all the time, but on average it works. We can get into arguments about why it works, and I think there are serious issues about what the "active effective components" of therapy are (I don't think they're what e.g., CBT theorists think it is) but that's a different issue. This is a good overview of my perspective on things; note that it assumes therapy is effective, because there's so much evidence at this point that it is, but asserts that no one really knows why: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095424 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-050718-095424

kleer001 4y ago

Those new to therapy should also keep in mind that finding the right fit can take time. Time either getting to know your therapist or time finding the best one for you.