What is Mental Illness?

[YmirGF]

may I add, persistent? I'm 90% sure all diagnosis of mental illness require that symptoms are causing problems over a period of time.



Here it is! From the link:

"It is not always clear when a problem with mood or thinking has become serious enough to be a mental health concern. Sometimes, for example, a low or depressed mood is normal, such as when a person experiences the loss of a loved one. But if that depressed mood continues to cause distress or gets in the way of normal functioning, the person may benefit from professional care. Family or friends may recognize changes or problems that a person doesn’t see in themselves."

"Persistent" is an important part of the defintion, imo.

Good catch!

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

So, I decided to have PTSD because I chose to be abused and neglected as a child? Interesting. Where did you study psychology?

^ This. Well said, in my opinion. I am also a survivor of childhood abuse, so my heart goes out to you and @YmirGF.

 

[Secret Chief]

Tricky thing that term. "Mental Illness" was possibly appropriated by the medical profession. For a long time this meant "mental illnesses" were treated using the medical model of illness (physical cause, physical cure). There was a backlash against this eventually...maybe PTSD isn't just a chemical imbalance of some kind to be fixed with drugs....maybe electroconvulsive therapy isn't that great...the defining moment of this backlash was probably the publication of The Myth Of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz. These days there seems a more balanced approach. Yes there are the illnesses as alluded to by @ChristineM , those with identified physical causes resulting in distress or impairment in our personal functioning but there are other mental health issues such as phobias, depression and anxiety that come from our upbringing or life experiences.

 

[Secret Chief]

Are you sure?

Artichoke.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

The consequence of your decisions.

In order to avoid further conflict with others in this thread, I suggest that you make it clear in your posts that you are stating your personal beliefs and opinions by using such phrases as "I believe," "I think," and "in my opinion" rather than implying that what you personally believe is a definitive fact.

 

[dybmh]

I have PMDD and have read certain journals wherein some relevant clinicians don't believe it exists and is a culturally-bound disorder. I found this very distressing because I never even knew it existed before I went on the progesterone-only contraceptive pill and all my symptoms pretty much went away. Every time before my period I would become severely moody, sleepless (total non-sleep), depressed, distressed, hopeless and dangerously suicidal. My environment didn't help but nor did I want to acknowledge that it all happened pre-menstruation. When I started the pill I finally understood it as a hormonal issue, looked it up and found PMDD. To be told it's not real was quite jarring and now I'm second guessing if it were all in my head and things weren't that bad. But I nearly killed myself several times. If it's not real why did the pill make it go away when I didn't even know it existed then and couldn't possibly have been a placebo?

This gaslighting is unhelpful from these people.

First, that sounds truly awful. You have my sincere sympathies. I found this to be a good read. Maybe you already read it.

Is PMDD real?

Researchers, physicians and psychologists fall on various sides of the debate over premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

www.apa.org

I think it's also terrible if anyone told you or made you feel that it was all in your head.

Regarding psychaitry, I think it's best to go with a practical approach. If it works and brings relief, that's what matters. The diagnosis and class of perscribed medication doesn't.

To put things in perspective, depression is sometimes treated with anti-psychotics even though the patient is not at all psychotic. Even the label, anti-psychotic, is not a good descriptor of what the medication does. I saw in the article that anti-depressants are perscribed for PMDD. That doesn't mean that PMDD is depression. I saw that it is classified as an unspecified depression, that's just a label, a placeholder. And I also saw that some don't like the PMDD diagnosis because they claim it encourages a sexist stereotype about women on their cycle.

So there are a lot of issues here. And even, arguably, the mechanisms of the oldest known mental illness, schizophrenia, is not well understood.

 

[Rival]

First, that sounds truly awful. You have my sincere sympathies. I found this to be a good read. Maybe you already read it.

Is PMDD real?

Researchers, physicians and psychologists fall on various sides of the debate over premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

www.apa.org

I think it's also terrible if anyone told you or made you feel that it was all in your head.

Regarding psychaitry, I think it's best to go with a practical approach. If it works and brings relief, that's what matters. The diagnosis and class of perscribed medication doesn't.

To put things in perspective, depression is sometimes treated with anti-psychotics even though the patient is not at all psychotic. Even the label, anti-psychotic, is not a good descriptor of what the medication does. I saw in the article that anti-depressants are perscribed for PMDD. That doesn't mean that PMDD is depression. I saw that it is classified as an unspecified depression, that's just a label, a placeholder. And I also saw that some don't like the PMDD diagnosis because they claim it encourages a sexist stereotype about women on their cycle.

So there are a lot of issues here. And even, arguably, the mechanisms of the oldest known mental illness, schizophrenia, is not well understood.

I avoid SSRIs as they can often make the situation worse. The pill works really well, but now I'm essentially medicated for life. Still, if it works....

 

[ChristineM]

but now I'm essentially medicated for life

Or at least until after the change.

 

[Rival]

First, that sounds truly awful. You have my sincere sympathies. I found this to be a good read. Maybe you already read it.

Is PMDD real?

Researchers, physicians and psychologists fall on various sides of the debate over premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

www.apa.org

I think it's also terrible if anyone told you or made you feel that it was all in your head.

Regarding psychaitry, I think it's best to go with a practical approach. If it works and brings relief, that's what matters. The diagnosis and class of perscribed medication doesn't.

To put things in perspective, depression is sometimes treated with anti-psychotics even though the patient is not at all psychotic. Even the label, anti-psychotic, is not a good descriptor of what the medication does. I saw in the article that anti-depressants are perscribed for PMDD. That doesn't mean that PMDD is depression. I saw that it is classified as an unspecified depression, that's just a label, a placeholder. And I also saw that some don't like the PMDD diagnosis because they claim it encourages a sexist stereotype about women on their cycle.

So there are a lot of issues here. And even, arguably, the mechanisms of the oldest known mental illness, schizophrenia, is not well understood.

This is all true though. Some things are fixed through various means and I think we are better not boxing ourselves in to certain methods.

 

[LuisDantas]

Mental illness is a hard thing to define, and I am not sure I quite accept what seems to be the mainstream trends on the matter.

It probably relates to the ability to achieve, maintain and recover motivation, which is a mainstream enough idea.

But I would also include other abilities.

* Empathizing
* Achieving acceptance of the unfamiliar, rebellion against the familiar and balance between both
* Questioning authority and so-called common sense while also having the means of dealing with both
* Learning from the various mythologies that we are exposed to while not being passive subjects to any of them
* Awareness of the possibilities for expression that each situation offers and skill to make constructive, non-predatory use of those

 

[We Never Know]

An OK definition but it lacks what @Quintessence added: the person or people in their vicinity have to suffer. That's the difference between a disorder or a simple deviance and an illness.

So... Do murders, rapists, mass shooters, thiefs, con-men, etc suffer a mental illness?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

No.

We don't have test tube babies. Everyone is someone's child.

 

[Mr. Ed]

What is mental illness. Various conditions of a human mind that may have a negative impact on a person's ability to care for themself mentally and physically. Mental illness is a disruption in a persons ability to have a productive and live a happy life according to the residents of these united states, long live the king and whatever methods used to label people.

 

[Quagmire]

I think a lot of the time mental illness is a result of chronic mental and emotional pain that you don't have any outlet for.

 

[Heyo]

So... Do murders, rapists, mass shooters, thiefs, con-men, etc suffer a mental illness?

Not all as suffering is not the sole criterion for mental illness but in the group of people you listed there are quite some psychopaths and psychopathy is a mental illness. And I guess there are some other illnesses that might also account for criminal behaviour. Illusions of grandeur for example "I'm so smart. I'll never get caught" or other delusions that let people wrongly asses a situation.

 

[Viker]

One of the symptoms of mental illness can be the urge to post on this forum.

The RF probably is some form of group therapy.

 

[JustGeorge]

The RF probably is some form of group therapy.

Yup.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Yup.

And without the dingus facilitator looking down on everyone!

 

[ajay0]

I found this article by Sadhguru on his views on what constitutes mental illness, quite insightful.

What Causes Mental Illness? | Isha Sadhguru

In this week's Spot, Sadhguru addresses the causes of mental illness in today's society, and how one can understand and nurture those around them.

isha.sadhguru.org

An excerpt...

We need to build structures in society where the margin for mental illness is very low. Why I go back pining for the culture that existed in this land is because about 200 to 300 years ago, there were hardly any mentally ill people in this country simply because of certain structures in the society. Slowly, without awareness, we are pulling it down. Today, even in villages, there are psychologically broken people, which was never so in the past. If it happened, it was an extremely negligible percentage of people. The percentage is increasing. You can distinctly see that in so-called “affluent” societies, the percentage is becoming quite high. This is because a human being is a social animal unless he transcends certain things. Either we should work for transcendence or we should create a society which is supportive, which is not demanding. Right now, the social structures that we have created are horribly demanding.

This is happening to urban India, but it has happened even more so in the West. If you want to live in America, even if you fast for the next 30 days, your bills will still add up to 3,000 dollars. The society is structured in such a way that it is very demanding on the individual person – someone cannot take a break and just sit down. Not everyone may be capable of continually being on. A whole lot of people need to withdraw from certain things.

Our education systems are horribly demanding. Not everyone is geared for it. For someone, it may be a cakewalk. For somebody else, they may read one sentence 25 times and not get it, but they may be capable of doing something else. “No, we don’t allow them to do something else. They must do this first.” There are so many horribly cruel structures – these are not structures for the well-being of the human being. We are trying to manufacture cogs for a larger machine we have built. We want the machine to live; we do not care what happens to the individual human being. We need to produce parts for that big machine we have built which is fake; it may collapse any time. If you are not made of the material to make a proper part for that big machine, you will break in so many ways. ~ Sadhguru

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I found this article by Sadhguru on his views on what constitutes mental illness, quite insightful.

What Causes Mental Illness? | Isha Sadhguru

In this week's Spot, Sadhguru addresses the causes of mental illness in today's society, and how one can understand and nurture those around them.

isha.sadhguru.org

An excerpt...

300 years ago we knew hardly a damn thing about mental illness, nor did we.know of the unconscious mind amd how that effects us. No knowledge of genetic disorders (or genetics or neurochemical imbalances.
People were still ill, we just still sometimes thought it was demonic possession because we didn't just quite yet know how to explain schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder, nor did we know of anxiety, agoraphobia, chronic depression or ptsd as significant detrimental factors on people's mental states and heavily rooted in brain shape and function, genes and our past experiences.