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It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible. I remember in 00s there seemed to be mainstream ac

It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible. I remember in 00s there seemed to be mainstream acknowledgement and concern that anorexia and distorted perception of one's body can be socially transmissible, ripping through teen social cliches particularly, and could be spread through the internet by "pro-ana" websites and chat groups. I don't hear much about it these days though. Instead, internet media promoting mental illness seems more common than ever and with few exceptions (threads like this) I rarely see anybody express concern about it. What happened?

rlv-dan 4y ago
It's taboo to criticise such movements because by extension you criticise those that actually have the illness. And some movements have grown quite powerful politically. If you allude that it's problematic to let children change sex, you are painted as anti lgbtixxxx. Activism has won against science.
- JediLuke 4y ago
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Men cry in the office too, but they're better at hiding it because the social expectations are different. A few times during crunches I've heard men sobbing in the restroom instead of at their desk. Men get told to 'man up', so they bottle it up or hide it.
    - collegeburner 4y ago
      counterpoint: no. i been in some pretty stressful environments and never reacted like that. same for most guys i know. maybe it's different where you are but i never seen it even in private like that or with close friends.
      - addicted 4y ago
        Unless you were raised in a forest, you’re also a product of the same environment, that tells boys and men since they are little that they shouldn’t cry.
      - qzx_pierri 4y ago
        Men commit suicide 3.8x more than women[1] due to cavalier attitudes such as yours about the mental struggles men face. I'm not saying you're a "part of the problem", I'm just saying you could really benefit from admitting to yourself that yes, men do cry. Yes, men do feel the same emotions as women. Yes, men do have to hold it in for fear of being labeled a "pussy" or be seen as "crying like a little bitch". 1: https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/ https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/
        ModernMech 4y ago
        This is a little misleading. Men attempt suicide with more reliably lethal methods like firearms, whereas women attempt suicide using more unreliably lethal methods like overdosing on medication [1]. In fact, according to your link, women attempt suicide at a rate of 1.8x that of men [2]. [1]: https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-methods-1067508 https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-m... [2]: https://www.datocms-assets.com/12810/1649682186-14296_afsp_2022_national_fact_sheet_update_m1_v4.pdf https://www.datocms-assets.com/12810/1649682186-14296_afsp_2...
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        Banana699 4y ago
        >Men attempt suicide with more reliably lethal methods like firearms And succeed ~4x times as much. In other words, GP is correct and you just needed to scratch an itch to nitpick.
        ModernMech 4y ago
  - kaikai 4y ago
    If women yelled and threw their weight around in the office as much as men they’d be fired immediately. Being emotional isn’t a woman thing, we just react differently to string emotion from men than women.
  - fsociety 4y ago
    This is an uninformed and sexist viewpoint of differences between men and women. Women cry more.. men bottle it up and let it out as a form of aggression usually to people who are no the source of stress. Ask yourself why are men the ones committing mass shootings and not women? There is probably a large mental health gap that needs to be addressed, and the resistance to getting therapy or being in touch with feelings has to do with this “men don’t cry” BS.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      > Ask yourself why are men the ones committing mass shootings and not women? 1 reason: testosterone it promotes aggressive and risky behavior I agree that sexism is a problem and should be addressed properly, but the untold truth is that mass shootings are the cultural product of a violent society. while the real issue, IMO, is that Globally, death by suicide occur about 1.8 times more often among males than among females The bottom line is most men (especially young men, suicide is one of the primary - if not the most common - cause of death for teenagers all around the World) prefer to kill themselves than kill someone else. Also men make up almost 80 per cent of all homicide victims recorded worldwide. They are also globally much more involved in protecting other people from life threatening situations. That's something we should actually focus on, IMO, instead of the derogatory "boys being boys".
  - dang 4y ago
    > women are not as capable as men at life. I don't know if it's "impolite" but I do know that you can't troll HN like this. We've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- DSingularity 4y ago
  Not everywhere. Common sense prevails in many parts of the world.
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    I think that must be an exaggeration, and a dangerous one at that.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    - opheliate 4y ago
      You're moving the goalposts to a separate issue: The post you're reply to was specifically talking about children receiving medical treatment to address gender dysphoria, not the possibility of a child experiencing gender dysphoria in general. If a teacher feels a child could be unsafe if they expressed they were trans to their family, they might encourage them not to tell them. But the teacher would not have input on any medical decision, that's up to families and healthcare providers.
      - implements 4y ago
        The issue is what causes a child to experience gender dysphoria (or more accurately what causes a child to believe that their distress at their own body is genuine gender dysphoria rather than a symptom conversion from another psychological issue)? And then there’s the issue that holding that objective gender exists and is innate in the same way biological sex does is a philosophical / ideological position - other positions exist. My generation (late X) were taught to see people as unique individuals differentiated by sex only for the purposes of reproductive role - that people are born ‘gendered’ is a complete anathema - society should not be in the business of assigning acceptable appearances, behaviours and attitudes to individuals based on their sex, or worse, surgically modifying people such that their apparent sex matches their gender. (Clarification - surgery is of-course fine as the cure for untreatable gender dysphoria, and in adults as a free choice. My objection is to the belief in appropriate gender norms and appearances as being the correct ordering of individuals in society - I’d rather see a girl with masculine interests remaining comfortable with her female body, rather than asked to question her ‘gender identity’).
- jquery 4y ago
  It was never taboo to criticize pro-ana groups. Being lgbt isn’t a mental illness. Not medically speaking, anyway. Maybe they were considered such in the past. Go far enough back and we used bloodletting as a common treatment, our understanding generally improves with time. I have no desire to go back to an era where lgbt people were persecuted. With respect to your other point. “Children” is a broad category. Pre-pubescents are not “changing sex”. Instead we are being encouraged to respect their gender identity, and not reject gender-non conforming behaviors [1]. Teens may take puberty blockers to buy time, this also isn’t “changing sex”. Perhaps HRT is what you mean by changing sex, and yes some teenagers are able to access the HRT of their preferred gender. The science on this is pretty clear, that suicide rates of trans people is drastically lowered when in a gender-supportive environment, and their mental well-being is infinitely better. [1] I implore you to watch this video: https://youtu.be/h60YLGDJ6n0 https://youtu.be/h60YLGDJ6n0 Edit: despite what a child comment I cannot reply to is saying, while over-medicalization and misdiagnosis is definitely something to watch out for (being gender-nonconforming is not the same as being trans and this is why education about lgbt issues is important), the vast majority of transgender youth do not suffer from an overabundance of societal and medical acceptance for their issues. Puberty blockers are indeed not a drug to prescribe lightly. Same with SRS, it should not be handed out like candy. People who have only had gender dysphoria for a short time may indeed be better served by a “wait and see” approach. All of these things I can agree with. If you are under the impression that being trans isn’t stigmatized enough and all the kids might turn trans if we aren’t careful, I’m simply going to disagree with you. There’s no evidence of this.
  - deepdriver 4y ago
    - Dobbs 4y ago
      - deepdriver 4y ago
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  It's intellectually dishonest to criticize such movements because the vast majority of criticism is coming from people who have never done a lick of study in the fields attempting to diagnose these conditions. Also, apparently it never occurred to people that Google is one of the reasons that more people are getting diagnosed now. Before, people just treated you as weird and allowed you to languish in your own personal little hell. Seeking help at all was seen as a sign of moral weakness. At least now people can go to a doctor and actually get tested for a condition that you recognize having.
- jayd16 4y ago
  >Activism has won against science. What are you trying to say here? Problematic isn't a scientific quantity but maybe you're throwing this in from some other context? Personally, these days I see people of all walks invoking science when they just mean "my own common sense."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  It’s more that the word science has been redefined. People confuse their own preference with science. Also, because preference is political, what to research and what science is focused on is a political question.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  By extension it calls into question the whole surge of gender identity issues. Or at least there is a fear that it will. Better to give a wide berth to these issues.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
The bar also got a lot lower than back then. You jump over the gaps in the tiles on the road? You must have OCD. You broke up with your bf/gf.. you must have depression. You're happy a bit? Bipolar disorder. You're a guy and play with a barbie... trans. Less horny, asexual. And let's not forget a bunch of adhd/autism and other disorders, when a kid gets bored in school. On the other hand, we have professionals (doctors, etc.) reinforcing this, by (eg.) giving pills to kids who can't sit still for 8 hours in school without any physical excercise during that time, and parents give their kids pills,because it's easier than actually parenting that kid.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  There are lots of money to be made from more diagnoses,
  - addicted 4y ago
    This and the parent’s statement is almost entirely wrong. Given 2 statements: 1) Americans don’t seek/receive enough mental healthcare 2) Americans seek/receive too much mental health care no one (other than the old school types who think mental health is simply something for weak people) would pick (2) as true.
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      This is a counterargument to something I didn't say.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      You can have mental health care without over prescribing pills. Some people can really benefit from being asked "how does that make you feel" in a place where they can be honest and not have to provide an answer they think is being sought.
    - kkielhofner 4y ago
      Americans don’t receive enough HEALTH care. Period. When they do it’s a yearly 10 minute appointment with a primary care physician. The physician breezes in, looks at some lab work, asks a few questions, writes a prescription or two (hey they have to “treat” something), and heads to the next patient because they do not have time. 80% of anti-depressants are prescribed by general practitioners, not psychiatrists: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473964/#Sec1title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473964/#Sec1ti... I know many, many people who were going through something in their life and mentioned being “a little down” to their primary care doctor. They were handed a prescription for an SSRI on the spot. So now they have depression. General practitioners do not have the time or the training to be diagnosing and treating mental health disorders. This isn’t a case of “look at a rash for 2 seconds and prescribe a topical steroid”. Psychiatrists schedule hour long appointments and many of them will want to see you a few times before they attempt to diagnose or treat anything. You can receive not enough health care and too much at the same time. It’s a matter of the right quality and appropriate type of health care.
bpodgursky 4y ago
Allowing teens to spread mental illness on social media was less profitable in the 00s. There was a low cost to shutting down pro-ana tumblr accounts. Now, those sites are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Can't afford to do the right thing.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > Now, those sites are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Can't afford to do the right thing. Which sites? Tumblr was started in 2007 - it wasn't very big until 2009. I'm not sure why it's even in your comparison. The only company worth hundreds of billions of dollars remotely relevant is Facebook and - possibly - TikTok. Are you implying that the majority of their business is promoting teen mental illness and eating disorders? Because it's not - especially Facebook. Most of the tweens have moved to TikTok. Facebook's audience is like ~3% teens & tweens. And of that a small percentage is getting sucked into this strange & toxic echo chamber. The reason this is mostly a TikTok problem is because Facebook can easily and did do things to prevent this. They could do more, and TikTok can certainly afford to do something about it. The impacts on the top and bottom line would be irrelevant. I'll end by saying I find it odd we seem to be talking about this being a children only problem. Every time there's a new allergy in the buzz or a new condition - I have at least 100 contacts talking about how they're convinced they have it. This is just typical human behavior - trying to always be the center of attention. Should we be surprised kids want to special? No.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Facebook was one of the websites being criticized for hosting pro-ana content in the late 00s and early 2010s. Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, Xanga, Livejournal all caught criticism for this; of those only Facebook remains and has arguably lost the demographic of users most susceptible to pro-ana propaganda. The new 2010s-present wave of social media seems to have largely avoided this sort of controversy. All the focus is now on the way these websites/apps can indoctrinate people into political extremism, but little attention seems to be given to [other sorts of] socially transmissible mental illness.
  - 4y ago
faeriechangling 4y ago
Anorexia has a body count, these TikTok disorders do not.
martin_bech 4y ago
Fashion has moved on, so the anorexic has been largely replaced with bikini fitness. This is not a joke. You will also find that among bikini fitness athletes, you will find a lot who have been previously anorexic.
- woweoe 4y ago
  https://nutrition.org/eating-disorders-are-on-the-rise/ https://nutrition.org/eating-disorders-are-on-the-rise/
addicted 4y ago
What happened is that as we have understood eating disorders better focus on anorexia specifically has been replaced by a much broader class of eating disorders. In addition what people have learnt is that focusing on illness prevention isn’t the best approach. Focusing instead on more positive alternatives works better. Hence the rise of the body positivity movement. Finally, anorexia and other eating disorders are much better known so parents and children receive information and education about them through normal channels. Their doctors and school teachers. So discussing it through news media isn’t as important.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
There's still a lot of discussion of this in the political discourse here in Norway, in fact I'd argue it's become increasingly more discussed as social media have taken over. Just recently, a law was passed requiring advertising that is edited to significantly change the physical appearance of people, to marked as such. One of the most common practices is editing to make a model's boobs look bigger, or her figure more hourglass-like. Removing skin blemishes is another. Details in the requirements are being ironed out right now, but I think this is a good example of a fairly simple regulation that should help improve things. It will become too expensive to try to do this kind of editing within the limits due to red tape, and the practice should go away almost completely in time. There's a lot more to be done in the ad, modelling, cosmetics, fashion, entertainment and tech(social media) industries to combat this though. But this kind of photoshopping practice is very harmful because it serves to amplify all of the other harmful signalling.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > Just recently, a law was passed requiring advertising that is edited to significantly change the physical appearance of people, to marked as such. This makes so much sense, I can't believe I've never thought of it. We do this on boxes of breakfast cereal, why not fashion magazines too?
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  The iPhone selfie camera changes the physical appearance of the user to appear more attractive. I wonder if every selfie will have to have a notifier.
  - jeffdn 4y ago
    That's not advertising though -- the commenter stated that the scope of the law was for edited photos in advertisements.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    No, that would be a a clear violation of freedom of speech. Advertising is an act of speech, but it is also an act of trying to get someone to buy something, and that act can be constrained by law. If you wanted to regulate the iPhone camera issue, I suppose regulating Apple would be the only way to go about it, though I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.
electrondood 4y ago
> It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible I mean, that's what religion is. It's a shared delusion that functions as a mind virus, where the conceptualization of deities that are on your side (but not the other side's) is mistaken for there actually being such a thing. The fact that it's normalized doesn't change the fact that it's a delusion.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Religion is a contemplation of free will, e.g. it’s a central ethos of Christianity. If free will is an illusion, none of this matters anyway :)
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > I mean, that's what religion is. It's a shared delusion that functions as a mind virus, I don't believe in anything super human or God like, but that's a very strong assumption People do know that God might and probably does not exist I mean, ancient Greeks knew that gods did not exist, it was never intended literally. Religion is simply a set of rule that defines the identity of a community. I don't like or follow them, but if religion was really a threat for humanity, we would be all dead by now. Most religious people, the vast majority of them, are perfectly capable of living a normal life.
coding123 4y ago
The drug industry does the same thing. Has anyone else watched a anti-depression medicine commercial and suddenly felt they are depressed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twhvtzd6gXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twhvtzd6gXA I mean watch this and tell me you don't want what they're selling.
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  Banning advertisements for prescription-only drugs makes quite a bit of sense for reasons like that.
- pseudalopex 4y ago
  I don't want what they're selling. I don't feel exhausted, hopeless, and anxious. And I don't want dry mouth, insomnia, sexual side effects, diarrhea, nausea, and sleepiness.
baisq 4y ago
New paper ignites storm over whether teens experience ‘rapid onset' of transgender identity https://www.science.org/content/article/new-paper-ignites-storm-over-whether-teens-experience-rapid-onset-transgender-identity https://www.science.org/content/article/new-paper-ignites-st... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
agumonkey 4y ago
You bring an interesting point and it's absolutely true that mental reality is very relative. And considering the shallowness and speed of socnets... It seems a very bad combo. Old world may be what it is but there were some natural brakes.
arrosenberg 4y ago
A meme is a memetic virus, people just forgot it can cut both ways because of the funny cat pictures in the early 00s.
newsclues 4y ago
The social transmission is obvious in clusters to youth becoming trans. It’s willful blindness
- deepdriver 4y ago
  I've spoken to a mother whose school-aged daughters' circle of friends, five biological girls, all identify somewhere between trans and nonbinary. The teachers encourage and reward it. So do most of the parents. Among these girls it's uncool to accept the body and sex you were born with. I've read stories of similar clusters in other deep-blue cities and school districts. I believe we're seeing a massive Clever Hans effect among children whose mentors have deep moral anxiety. They grew up during the final battles and ultimate victory of the LGB rights movement, and desperately wish to avoid being seen "on the wrong side of history." Driven by this anxiety, they aggressively pursue gender-affirming care for their children. They do this even in cases where the child's discomfort may more likely result from depression, autism spectrum disorders, the normal effects of puberty, or other conditions unrelated to gender dysphoria. Their children will bear this moral panic's lasting fallout. The effects of puberty blockers are lifelong and largely unknown. The effects of mastectomies and testosterone injections are irreversible. The real shame will be felt by those who knew, but said nothing, because they didn't want to lose their personal comfort or social networks. The evidence of most trans children desisting in adulthood is clear. "For decades, follow-up studies of transgender kids have shown that a substantial majority-- anywhere from 65 to 94 percent-- eventually ceased to identify as transgender": https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/441784/the-controversial-research-on-desistance-in-transgender-youth https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/441784/the-controversial-re... The detransitioner phenomenon has been covered since 2017 (this article got Katie Herzog harassed and fired from The Stranger; she now runs a successful podcast with writer Jesse Singal): https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/06/28/25252342/the-detransitioners-they-were-transgender-until-they-werent https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/06/28/25252342/the...
  - newsclues 4y ago
    It’s child abuse.
  - 4y ago
deltarholamda 4y ago
>It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible. I remember in 00s there seemed to be mainstream acknowledgement and concern that anorexia and distorted perception of one's body can be socially transmissible In the 90s, there was a study done on "sensitivity to environmental toxins," where people would complain about sickness and headaches and similar things from new carpet or new paint in offices. IIRC, the study found that the reported cases were in a kind of "line of sight," i.e. one person would complain about it to another person, and before long it had passed all the way through the weird social groupings in cube farms, passed from person to person. It's odd, but important to remember, that humans are still just smarter than average herd animals.
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
because the mental illnesses being promoted today are deemed socially acceptable by the few percent of the Western population with disproportionate amount of power over our mass and social media.
dqpb 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  That's another way of doing what we just asked you not to do. Not cool. You can call moderation 'censorship' if you like - people use that word based on how they feel - but turning what was already a flamewar about other social issues into a generic religious flamewar is obviously against the HN guidelines and therefore obviously off topic here. That's the kind of thing we ban accounts for, and trying to start the same thing up again under a different guise is not ok.

rlv-dan 4y ago

It's taboo to criticise such movements because by extension you criticise those that actually have the illness. And some movements have grown quite powerful politically. If you allude that it's problematic to let children change sex, you are painted as anti lgbtixxxx. Activism has won against science.

JediLuke 4y ago
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Men cry in the office too, but they're better at hiding it because the social expectations are different. A few times during crunches I've heard men sobbing in the restroom instead of at their desk. Men get told to 'man up', so they bottle it up or hide it.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    counterpoint: no. i been in some pretty stressful environments and never reacted like that. same for most guys i know. maybe it's different where you are but i never seen it even in private like that or with close friends.
    - addicted 4y ago
      Unless you were raised in a forest, you’re also a product of the same environment, that tells boys and men since they are little that they shouldn’t cry.
    - qzx_pierri 4y ago
      Men commit suicide 3.8x more than women[1] due to cavalier attitudes such as yours about the mental struggles men face. I'm not saying you're a "part of the problem", I'm just saying you could really benefit from admitting to yourself that yes, men do cry. Yes, men do feel the same emotions as women. Yes, men do have to hold it in for fear of being labeled a "pussy" or be seen as "crying like a little bitch". 1: https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/ https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/
      - ModernMech 4y ago
        This is a little misleading. Men attempt suicide with more reliably lethal methods like firearms, whereas women attempt suicide using more unreliably lethal methods like overdosing on medication [1]. In fact, according to your link, women attempt suicide at a rate of 1.8x that of men [2]. [1]: https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-methods-1067508 https://www.verywellmind.com/gender-differences-in-suicide-m... [2]: https://www.datocms-assets.com/12810/1649682186-14296_afsp_2022_national_fact_sheet_update_m1_v4.pdf https://www.datocms-assets.com/12810/1649682186-14296_afsp_2...
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        Banana699 4y ago
        >Men attempt suicide with more reliably lethal methods like firearms And succeed ~4x times as much. In other words, GP is correct and you just needed to scratch an itch to nitpick.
        ModernMech 4y ago
- kaikai 4y ago
  If women yelled and threw their weight around in the office as much as men they’d be fired immediately. Being emotional isn’t a woman thing, we just react differently to string emotion from men than women.
- fsociety 4y ago
  This is an uninformed and sexist viewpoint of differences between men and women. Women cry more.. men bottle it up and let it out as a form of aggression usually to people who are no the source of stress. Ask yourself why are men the ones committing mass shootings and not women? There is probably a large mental health gap that needs to be addressed, and the resistance to getting therapy or being in touch with feelings has to do with this “men don’t cry” BS.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > Ask yourself why are men the ones committing mass shootings and not women? 1 reason: testosterone it promotes aggressive and risky behavior I agree that sexism is a problem and should be addressed properly, but the untold truth is that mass shootings are the cultural product of a violent society. while the real issue, IMO, is that Globally, death by suicide occur about 1.8 times more often among males than among females The bottom line is most men (especially young men, suicide is one of the primary - if not the most common - cause of death for teenagers all around the World) prefer to kill themselves than kill someone else. Also men make up almost 80 per cent of all homicide victims recorded worldwide. They are also globally much more involved in protecting other people from life threatening situations. That's something we should actually focus on, IMO, instead of the derogatory "boys being boys".
- dang 4y ago
  > women are not as capable as men at life. I don't know if it's "impolite" but I do know that you can't troll HN like this. We've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
DSingularity 4y ago
Not everywhere. Common sense prevails in many parts of the world.
alphabettsy 4y ago
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I think that must be an exaggeration, and a dangerous one at that.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  - opheliate 4y ago
    You're moving the goalposts to a separate issue: The post you're reply to was specifically talking about children receiving medical treatment to address gender dysphoria, not the possibility of a child experiencing gender dysphoria in general. If a teacher feels a child could be unsafe if they expressed they were trans to their family, they might encourage them not to tell them. But the teacher would not have input on any medical decision, that's up to families and healthcare providers.
    - implements 4y ago
      The issue is what causes a child to experience gender dysphoria (or more accurately what causes a child to believe that their distress at their own body is genuine gender dysphoria rather than a symptom conversion from another psychological issue)? And then there’s the issue that holding that objective gender exists and is innate in the same way biological sex does is a philosophical / ideological position - other positions exist. My generation (late X) were taught to see people as unique individuals differentiated by sex only for the purposes of reproductive role - that people are born ‘gendered’ is a complete anathema - society should not be in the business of assigning acceptable appearances, behaviours and attitudes to individuals based on their sex, or worse, surgically modifying people such that their apparent sex matches their gender. (Clarification - surgery is of-course fine as the cure for untreatable gender dysphoria, and in adults as a free choice. My objection is to the belief in appropriate gender norms and appearances as being the correct ordering of individuals in society - I’d rather see a girl with masculine interests remaining comfortable with her female body, rather than asked to question her ‘gender identity’).
jquery 4y ago
It was never taboo to criticize pro-ana groups. Being lgbt isn’t a mental illness. Not medically speaking, anyway. Maybe they were considered such in the past. Go far enough back and we used bloodletting as a common treatment, our understanding generally improves with time. I have no desire to go back to an era where lgbt people were persecuted. With respect to your other point. “Children” is a broad category. Pre-pubescents are not “changing sex”. Instead we are being encouraged to respect their gender identity, and not reject gender-non conforming behaviors [1]. Teens may take puberty blockers to buy time, this also isn’t “changing sex”. Perhaps HRT is what you mean by changing sex, and yes some teenagers are able to access the HRT of their preferred gender. The science on this is pretty clear, that suicide rates of trans people is drastically lowered when in a gender-supportive environment, and their mental well-being is infinitely better. [1] I implore you to watch this video: https://youtu.be/h60YLGDJ6n0 https://youtu.be/h60YLGDJ6n0 Edit: despite what a child comment I cannot reply to is saying, while over-medicalization and misdiagnosis is definitely something to watch out for (being gender-nonconforming is not the same as being trans and this is why education about lgbt issues is important), the vast majority of transgender youth do not suffer from an overabundance of societal and medical acceptance for their issues. Puberty blockers are indeed not a drug to prescribe lightly. Same with SRS, it should not be handed out like candy. People who have only had gender dysphoria for a short time may indeed be better served by a “wait and see” approach. All of these things I can agree with. If you are under the impression that being trans isn’t stigmatized enough and all the kids might turn trans if we aren’t careful, I’m simply going to disagree with you. There’s no evidence of this.
- deepdriver 4y ago
  - Dobbs 4y ago
    - deepdriver 4y ago
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
It's intellectually dishonest to criticize such movements because the vast majority of criticism is coming from people who have never done a lick of study in the fields attempting to diagnose these conditions. Also, apparently it never occurred to people that Google is one of the reasons that more people are getting diagnosed now. Before, people just treated you as weird and allowed you to languish in your own personal little hell. Seeking help at all was seen as a sign of moral weakness. At least now people can go to a doctor and actually get tested for a condition that you recognize having.
jayd16 4y ago
>Activism has won against science. What are you trying to say here? Problematic isn't a scientific quantity but maybe you're throwing this in from some other context? Personally, these days I see people of all walks invoking science when they just mean "my own common sense."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mensetmanusman 4y ago
It’s more that the word science has been redefined. People confuse their own preference with science. Also, because preference is political, what to research and what science is focused on is a political question.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
By extension it calls into question the whole surge of gender identity issues. Or at least there is a fear that it will. Better to give a wide berth to these issues.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

The bar also got a lot lower than back then. You jump over the gaps in the tiles on the road? You must have OCD. You broke up with your bf/gf.. you must have depression. You're happy a bit? Bipolar disorder. You're a guy and play with a barbie... trans. Less horny, asexual. And let's not forget a bunch of adhd/autism and other disorders, when a kid gets bored in school. On the other hand, we have professionals (doctors, etc.) reinforcing this, by (eg.) giving pills to kids who can't sit still for 8 hours in school without any physical excercise during that time, and parents give their kids pills,because it's easier than actually parenting that kid.

BurningFrog 4y ago
There are lots of money to be made from more diagnoses,
- addicted 4y ago
  This and the parent’s statement is almost entirely wrong. Given 2 statements: 1) Americans don’t seek/receive enough mental healthcare 2) Americans seek/receive too much mental health care no one (other than the old school types who think mental health is simply something for weak people) would pick (2) as true.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    This is a counterargument to something I didn't say.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    You can have mental health care without over prescribing pills. Some people can really benefit from being asked "how does that make you feel" in a place where they can be honest and not have to provide an answer they think is being sought.
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    Americans don’t receive enough HEALTH care. Period. When they do it’s a yearly 10 minute appointment with a primary care physician. The physician breezes in, looks at some lab work, asks a few questions, writes a prescription or two (hey they have to “treat” something), and heads to the next patient because they do not have time. 80% of anti-depressants are prescribed by general practitioners, not psychiatrists: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473964/#Sec1title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473964/#Sec1ti... I know many, many people who were going through something in their life and mentioned being “a little down” to their primary care doctor. They were handed a prescription for an SSRI on the spot. So now they have depression. General practitioners do not have the time or the training to be diagnosing and treating mental health disorders. This isn’t a case of “look at a rash for 2 seconds and prescribe a topical steroid”. Psychiatrists schedule hour long appointments and many of them will want to see you a few times before they attempt to diagnose or treat anything. You can receive not enough health care and too much at the same time. It’s a matter of the right quality and appropriate type of health care.

bpodgursky 4y ago

Allowing teens to spread mental illness on social media was less profitable in the 00s. There was a low cost to shutting down pro-ana tumblr accounts. Now, those sites are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Can't afford to do the right thing.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> Now, those sites are worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Can't afford to do the right thing. Which sites? Tumblr was started in 2007 - it wasn't very big until 2009. I'm not sure why it's even in your comparison. The only company worth hundreds of billions of dollars remotely relevant is Facebook and - possibly - TikTok. Are you implying that the majority of their business is promoting teen mental illness and eating disorders? Because it's not - especially Facebook. Most of the tweens have moved to TikTok. Facebook's audience is like ~3% teens & tweens. And of that a small percentage is getting sucked into this strange & toxic echo chamber. The reason this is mostly a TikTok problem is because Facebook can easily and did do things to prevent this. They could do more, and TikTok can certainly afford to do something about it. The impacts on the top and bottom line would be irrelevant. I'll end by saying I find it odd we seem to be talking about this being a children only problem. Every time there's a new allergy in the buzz or a new condition - I have at least 100 contacts talking about how they're convinced they have it. This is just typical human behavior - trying to always be the center of attention. Should we be surprised kids want to special? No.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Facebook was one of the websites being criticized for hosting pro-ana content in the late 00s and early 2010s. Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, Xanga, Livejournal all caught criticism for this; of those only Facebook remains and has arguably lost the demographic of users most susceptible to pro-ana propaganda. The new 2010s-present wave of social media seems to have largely avoided this sort of controversy. All the focus is now on the way these websites/apps can indoctrinate people into political extremism, but little attention seems to be given to [other sorts of] socially transmissible mental illness.
- 4y ago

faeriechangling 4y ago

Anorexia has a body count, these TikTok disorders do not.

martin_bech 4y ago

Fashion has moved on, so the anorexic has been largely replaced with bikini fitness. This is not a joke. You will also find that among bikini fitness athletes, you will find a lot who have been previously anorexic.

woweoe 4y ago
https://nutrition.org/eating-disorders-are-on-the-rise/ https://nutrition.org/eating-disorders-are-on-the-rise/

addicted 4y ago

What happened is that as we have understood eating disorders better focus on anorexia specifically has been replaced by a much broader class of eating disorders. In addition what people have learnt is that focusing on illness prevention isn’t the best approach. Focusing instead on more positive alternatives works better. Hence the rise of the body positivity movement. Finally, anorexia and other eating disorders are much better known so parents and children receive information and education about them through normal channels. Their doctors and school teachers. So discussing it through news media isn’t as important.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

There's still a lot of discussion of this in the political discourse here in Norway, in fact I'd argue it's become increasingly more discussed as social media have taken over. Just recently, a law was passed requiring advertising that is edited to significantly change the physical appearance of people, to marked as such. One of the most common practices is editing to make a model's boobs look bigger, or her figure more hourglass-like. Removing skin blemishes is another. Details in the requirements are being ironed out right now, but I think this is a good example of a fairly simple regulation that should help improve things. It will become too expensive to try to do this kind of editing within the limits due to red tape, and the practice should go away almost completely in time. There's a lot more to be done in the ad, modelling, cosmetics, fashion, entertainment and tech(social media) industries to combat this though. But this kind of photoshopping practice is very harmful because it serves to amplify all of the other harmful signalling.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Just recently, a law was passed requiring advertising that is edited to significantly change the physical appearance of people, to marked as such. This makes so much sense, I can't believe I've never thought of it. We do this on boxes of breakfast cereal, why not fashion magazines too?
mensetmanusman 4y ago
The iPhone selfie camera changes the physical appearance of the user to appear more attractive. I wonder if every selfie will have to have a notifier.
- jeffdn 4y ago
  That's not advertising though -- the commenter stated that the scope of the law was for edited photos in advertisements.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  No, that would be a a clear violation of freedom of speech. Advertising is an act of speech, but it is also an act of trying to get someone to buy something, and that act can be constrained by law. If you wanted to regulate the iPhone camera issue, I suppose regulating Apple would be the only way to go about it, though I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.

electrondood 4y ago

> It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible I mean, that's what religion is. It's a shared delusion that functions as a mind virus, where the conceptualization of deities that are on your side (but not the other side's) is mistaken for there actually being such a thing. The fact that it's normalized doesn't change the fact that it's a delusion.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
Religion is a contemplation of free will, e.g. it’s a central ethos of Christianity. If free will is an illusion, none of this matters anyway :)
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> I mean, that's what religion is. It's a shared delusion that functions as a mind virus, I don't believe in anything super human or God like, but that's a very strong assumption People do know that God might and probably does not exist I mean, ancient Greeks knew that gods did not exist, it was never intended literally. Religion is simply a set of rule that defines the identity of a community. I don't like or follow them, but if religion was really a threat for humanity, we would be all dead by now. Most religious people, the vast majority of them, are perfectly capable of living a normal life.

coding123 4y ago

The drug industry does the same thing. Has anyone else watched a anti-depression medicine commercial and suddenly felt they are depressed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twhvtzd6gXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twhvtzd6gXA I mean watch this and tell me you don't want what they're selling.

photochemsyn 4y ago
Banning advertisements for prescription-only drugs makes quite a bit of sense for reasons like that.
pseudalopex 4y ago
I don't want what they're selling. I don't feel exhausted, hopeless, and anxious. And I don't want dry mouth, insomnia, sexual side effects, diarrhea, nausea, and sleepiness.

baisq 4y ago

New paper ignites storm over whether teens experience ‘rapid onset' of transgender identity https://www.science.org/content/article/new-paper-ignites-storm-over-whether-teens-experience-rapid-onset-transgender-identity https://www.science.org/content/article/new-paper-ignites-st... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

agumonkey 4y ago

You bring an interesting point and it's absolutely true that mental reality is very relative. And considering the shallowness and speed of socnets... It seems a very bad combo. Old world may be what it is but there were some natural brakes.

arrosenberg 4y ago

A meme is a memetic virus, people just forgot it can cut both ways because of the funny cat pictures in the early 00s.

newsclues 4y ago

The social transmission is obvious in clusters to youth becoming trans. It’s willful blindness

deepdriver 4y ago
I've spoken to a mother whose school-aged daughters' circle of friends, five biological girls, all identify somewhere between trans and nonbinary. The teachers encourage and reward it. So do most of the parents. Among these girls it's uncool to accept the body and sex you were born with. I've read stories of similar clusters in other deep-blue cities and school districts. I believe we're seeing a massive Clever Hans effect among children whose mentors have deep moral anxiety. They grew up during the final battles and ultimate victory of the LGB rights movement, and desperately wish to avoid being seen "on the wrong side of history." Driven by this anxiety, they aggressively pursue gender-affirming care for their children. They do this even in cases where the child's discomfort may more likely result from depression, autism spectrum disorders, the normal effects of puberty, or other conditions unrelated to gender dysphoria. Their children will bear this moral panic's lasting fallout. The effects of puberty blockers are lifelong and largely unknown. The effects of mastectomies and testosterone injections are irreversible. The real shame will be felt by those who knew, but said nothing, because they didn't want to lose their personal comfort or social networks. The evidence of most trans children desisting in adulthood is clear. "For decades, follow-up studies of transgender kids have shown that a substantial majority-- anywhere from 65 to 94 percent-- eventually ceased to identify as transgender": https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/441784/the-controversial-research-on-desistance-in-transgender-youth https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/441784/the-controversial-re... The detransitioner phenomenon has been covered since 2017 (this article got Katie Herzog harassed and fired from The Stranger; she now runs a successful podcast with writer Jesse Singal): https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/06/28/25252342/the-detransitioners-they-were-transgender-until-they-werent https://www.thestranger.com/features/2017/06/28/25252342/the...
- newsclues 4y ago
  It’s child abuse.
- 4y ago

deltarholamda 4y ago

>It feels as though our society has collectively forgotten that mental illness can be socially transmissible. I remember in 00s there seemed to be mainstream acknowledgement and concern that anorexia and distorted perception of one's body can be socially transmissible In the 90s, there was a study done on "sensitivity to environmental toxins," where people would complain about sickness and headaches and similar things from new carpet or new paint in offices. IIRC, the study found that the reported cases were in a kind of "line of sight," i.e. one person would complain about it to another person, and before long it had passed all the way through the weird social groupings in cube farms, passed from person to person. It's odd, but important to remember, that humans are still just smarter than average herd animals.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

because the mental illnesses being promoted today are deemed socially acceptable by the few percent of the Western population with disproportionate amount of power over our mass and social media.

dqpb 4y ago

dang 4y ago
That's another way of doing what we just asked you not to do. Not cool. You can call moderation 'censorship' if you like - people use that word based on how they feel - but turning what was already a flamewar about other social issues into a generic religious flamewar is obviously against the HN guidelines and therefore obviously off topic here. That's the kind of thing we ban accounts for, and trying to start the same thing up again under a different guise is not ok.