3 ms·

Every single person I know on any sort of mental health medication also had therapy before and after being prescribed it. Therapy does help, especially when you

Every single person I know on any sort of mental health medication also had therapy before and after being prescribed it. Therapy does help, especially when your illness requires you to learn how to cope with your condition (and the fact that things are just harder for you for no good reason). Two people very close to me are fucked without medication. My wife was anxious to the point of having regular panic attacks, which caused exhaustion and spirals of depression, and her fear of panic attacks was so great that it caused more of them, and made her want to die. With medication, she simply doesn't have them anymore. My brother is bipolar and has to take lithium (and maybe something else) to stay normal. We've had a couple of emergencies where he's run out of medication or tried to ween off of it (once at the suggestion of his psychiatrist, the fucking idiot), and things deteriorate quickly, going from doing incredibly well to being so paranoid at work he can barely hold it together. Not really sure how their personalities could cause these problems? Even if they are personality defects in some way, those aspects of their personalities must be suppressed or they simply will not function and would probably ultimately be miserable until they just killed themselves. It isn't necessarily a helpful insight to learn that a disease if part of _you_. Regardless, I just don't think it makes any sense to ascribe these problems to personality, and the tendency to do so in the past led to many people being denied medication that could actually help them.

aatd86 4y ago
From experience, the brain is basically processing inputs (perceptions) and then outputs thoughts or actions. The issue is when either the inputs are distorted or the processing is being interfered with. Caffeine for instance can induce psychosis in some people by indirectly effecting dopaminergic response (via its action on adenosine receptors). Other drugs can do the same. (we all know that marijuana can induce "bad trips"). But really, everything we perceive are inputs that can startup brain work. And some inputs are stored in memory. One thing that can work is metathinking, i.e. awareness of one's own brain processing (observing one thoughts and bodily sensations for instance, basically meditation). That's the processing part but one should also avoid distortions by avoiding psychoactive substances (alcohol, tea or coffee included). Psychiatry doesn't work too well because it is underfunded and is stuck on alleviating symptoms. Psychiatrists are the first to admit that they don't really know how things work. There are some weird stuff that can be discovered at the brain level once someone monitors their own thoughts/ brain chatter but this is somewhat esoteric. That's the realm of yogis, qigong practionners etc but there is too much folklore and I won't delve into that. Doesn't seem scientifically proven although I have my own experiences.
philosopher1234 4y ago
I’m not anti medication. It’s practical, and there seems to be a genuine biological aspect to a lot of mental illness. But I think we rely on it too much in America, and personality accounts for more than we give it credit.

aatd86 4y ago

From experience, the brain is basically processing inputs (perceptions) and then outputs thoughts or actions. The issue is when either the inputs are distorted or the processing is being interfered with. Caffeine for instance can induce psychosis in some people by indirectly effecting dopaminergic response (via its action on adenosine receptors). Other drugs can do the same. (we all know that marijuana can induce "bad trips"). But really, everything we perceive are inputs that can startup brain work. And some inputs are stored in memory. One thing that can work is metathinking, i.e. awareness of one's own brain processing (observing one thoughts and bodily sensations for instance, basically meditation). That's the processing part but one should also avoid distortions by avoiding psychoactive substances (alcohol, tea or coffee included). Psychiatry doesn't work too well because it is underfunded and is stuck on alleviating symptoms. Psychiatrists are the first to admit that they don't really know how things work. There are some weird stuff that can be discovered at the brain level once someone monitors their own thoughts/ brain chatter but this is somewhat esoteric. That's the realm of yogis, qigong practionners etc but there is too much folklore and I won't delve into that. Doesn't seem scientifically proven although I have my own experiences.

philosopher1234 4y ago

I’m not anti medication. It’s practical, and there seems to be a genuine biological aspect to a lot of mental illness. But I think we rely on it too much in America, and personality accounts for more than we give it credit.