Poll: Mental illness: a conspiracy?

[Zephemus]

NO, mental illnesses aren't a conspiracy, though a lot of the time they are grossly overdiagnosed. And I don't even believe that ADHD or Depression are "wishy-washy" made up ones.

The problem is is that, at least in America, medicine is incredibly privatized and while that leads to a couple of benefits (i.e. taxes not being quite so high, and a steady stream of doctors being inducted into the field) this also leads to a couple of problems, namely that of doctors being able to use thier patients to fuel thier private careers. And while this may not sound like a bad idea in theory, especially if you're a doctor, we have to remember that the doctors in this world are just as human as you or I and if over dramatizing one's symptoms in order to "discover" a new desease would help to fuel that doctor's career, then we must step back a moment to give ourselves a spectaor's perspective and think about if the process or methods makes sense.

That being said the "wishy-washy" ones such as ADHD or Depression aren't blatent behavioral problems, like Schizophrenia or Borderline Personality Disorder, and therefore a whole new debate must be approached of whether they are legitimate mental illness or not. And honestly I believe that there are people who really suffer from these holdbacks. Though, again with the privatization of medicine problem, doctors overdiagnose people with both of these illnesses, and a lot of the time people will be diagnosed with one illness when they actually have the other disorder.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Mental illness is as real as physical. There is no question.

BUT, diagnoses like ADD and Bipolar disorder are thrown around as excuses for poor behavior way too much these days. Not to say they aren't real, I have a friend who is Bipolar and it is very real, and I have mild ADD, though I've mostly grown out of it (yes, that really does happen, some people don't believe it).

EDIT:

Ehhhh, why is it that people call Aspergers and Autism a disease, you can't die from it. Alzheimer's is a disease because it decays the brain. Asperger's and Autism does not.

I actually really understand your point here, and agree, but I think when they're talking about stuff like that they use "disease" as a very broad blanket term.

 

[JodaSFU]

I find it funny how organizations who claim this such as $cientology, seem to come up with their own "treatments" and "diagnosis methods" as an alternative to scientific psychiatry. As if talking to an ashtray or disconnecting from your family is a way to treat someone who has a clinical depression for instance.

 

[razer17]

NO, mental illnesses aren't a conspiracy, though a lot of the time they are grossly overdiagnosed. And I don't even believe that ADHD or Depression are "wishy-washy" made up ones.

i wasnt saying they were made up, and i wasn't refering to depression as being wishy-washy either. the types of things that are "wishy-washy" are those that are really hard to define, like ADD. and by that i dont mean they dont exist, its just hard to define and accurately diagnose

 

[the_hessian]

Mental illnesses definitely exist. There are far too many findings to prove otherwise, ie like evolution, there is far too much to say that's more likely than creationism.
That was not a pop at religion, it was just the only example I could think of.
Anyway, but there are people who are not mentally ill, but act like they are. I've met plenty of people who say they're depressed, for instance, when they're just teenagers and angsty. Depression is when you're so incapacitated by your general feeling of saddness that you wont even leave your bed. You're not always sleeping, but you just won get up. Depression doesn't always mean suicidal either. You can be bi-polar and not try and kill yourself while depressed, but then you're manic all you do is try and kill yourself all the time because you have too much energy you can't controle and want it to stop, for instance.
But anyway, I knew someone that didn't have any mental problems, did psychology at college, then thought they had a whole host of nuerosis, they didn't, but they convinced themselves they did so much they caused themselves to become bi-polar.
And it wasn't faked when it happened, you couldn't fake it, why would you?
And if you're that starved for attention, which they weren't, that you think acting like you have a mental illness will help your situation, you pretty much have a mental illness right there.
On the note of my, well now ex-friend, not being starved for attention, when they were going crazy with hypochondria, they alienated all their friends who were trying to keep them sane and okay.
The human mind is very fragile and can be easily manipulated, by other people, or by itself. Hell even a little chemical inbalance can f*** a person up.
People who think mental illness is fake... they're the kind of person I imagine would say the hollacaust didn't happen. It did. Once again, too much evidence to say otherwise. So could we not say that these people have a mental illness? They have a form of chronic denial perhaps?

 

[the_hessian]

I recently seen some posts on a topic here that shocked me. people who said that mental illness was a term invented to protect people who have behavioural problems.
the fact that someone can be so callous is beyond me. im pretty sure there is no conspiracy between millions of people in all the continents, to explain bad behaviour by " fake" illnesses. Autism, schizophrenia, have you ever read about these. it can't be easy pretend, especially autism in children. why would people want to be locked up and medicated, were they nbot actually mentally ill.
fair enough some illnesses are a bit "wishy-washy" (ADHD and ADD spring to mind), and some are over diagnosed (i.e, diagnosed just because they have some of the symptoms, lazy psychiatrists) like ADHD, but still.
so who thinks that mental illnesss exists and who doesnt? and give your reasons as well.

Just for the record ADD (attention deficit disorder) is the old name for ADHD (attention deficit hyper-activity disorder)

 

[razer17]

Just for the record ADD (attention deficit disorder) is the old name for ADHD (attention deficit hyper-activity disorder)

thanks for that. i never actually knew that, i thought they were very slightly different. i haven't done much on i never realised that there was a difference.

 

[DoW Lowen]

I recently seen some posts on a topic here that shocked me. people who said that mental illness was a term invented to protect people who have behavioural problems.
the fact that someone can be so callous is beyond me. im pretty sure there is no conspiracy between millions of people in all the continents, to explain bad behaviour by " fake" illnesses. Autism, schizophrenia, have you ever read about these. it can't be easy pretend, especially autism in children. why would people want to be locked up and medicated, were they nbot actually mentally ill.
fair enough some illnesses are a bit "wishy-washy" (ADHD and ADD spring to mind), and some are over diagnosed (i.e, diagnosed just because they have some of the symptoms, lazy psychiatrists) like ADHD, but still.
so who thinks that mental illnesss exists and who doesnt? and give your reasons as well.

READ THIS IT WILL CLARIFY EVERYTHING!!!

People don't understand the concept of what others generally mean when they say "mental illness" is created do they?

It's either one of the following, either people are really ignorant and will actually believe that mental illness is fake.

Or hopefully in the more likely case, they mean that back in ye olden days of psychology, that is 19th century up until about 1980, psychology had a bit of a black taint upon their history. People with mental illnesses were considered the decay of society, so a few doctors got together and said "hey wouldn't it be easier to just put god's mistakes into an institution?" and so it was the birth of clinic. Undesirables were rounded up, and so doctors began giving names to disorders, they prescribed medicine which more often than not was for the purpose of just seeing what high dosages of a substance did to people, they began throwing in people who weren't always crazy, but of course they were given the crazy badge so anything they said would be disregarding. Basically it was a sham on their part.

Of course this led to something great, people actually began taking it seriously and much progress was made over the years. But for psychology it would always be their equivalent of an ethnic cleansing, many people were permanently made dysfunctional due to electroshock therapy, lobotomies, unproven drugs etc.

Anyone doing psychology would now know that there is so much red tape in what we do due to past errors. Which is kind of a downer, considering what we are capable of doing now. I don't mean round people up and cut into their brains, but the bureaucracy and restrictions implaced are most of the time for lack of a better word... shit.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

Over diagnosed, yes. I have to point out that ADD didn't exist in my grandparent's time... It's not a disease and you shouldn't drug a child to fix it... I think it's just a perfectly normal reaction to overstimulation from today's world, everything is fast paced and exciting nowdays, it's no wonder a kid doesn't want to sit still and listen to a boring fuck talk about history...
That's right. I blame teachers. They don't want to admit they suck at teaching so they say the kids have a disease and can't listen. I obviously won't blame ALL teachers. Some do a good job of keeping their students interested and I respect those ones.

 

[razer17]

Over diagnosed, yes. I have to point out that ADD didn't exist in my grandparent's time... It's not a disease and you shouldn't drug a child to fix it... I think it's just a perfectly normal reaction to overstimulation from today's world, everything is fast paced and exciting nowdays, it's no wonder a kid doesn't want to sit still and listen to a boring fuck talk about history...
That's right. I blame teachers. They don't want to admit they suck at teaching so they say the kids have a disease and can't listen. I obviously won't blame ALL teachers. Some do a good job of keeping their students interested and I respect those ones.

no dont blame teachers. blame parents who can't teach their children to sit still and behave properly. teachers are there to educate and give knowledge, not to babysit children and teach manners and proper behaviour. thats a parents job

 

[Lozzo87]

I'm conviced ADHD doesn't exist. I still think it's a label given to kids who are just unruly and disobediant. It would make sense for this term to become available because it allows teachers to bundle difficult children together in a group, label them insane, and therefore there is no need to treat them 'normally' because that would require far too much effort.

Also a more beleivable excuse for the mental illness would be the fact it allows parents to purchase Ritalin ($$$$$ for the drugs companies), and basically get them stoned and docile so they don't have to be dealt with properly. Label them insane, pump em full of drugs and be done with it. There's a difference between a full blown mental illness and having a short attention span out of either being stupid or just being easily exciteable.

I call personal foul on that. When I was young, I had ADHD, was given Ritalin for it, and it aggravated my dormant Tourettes Syndrome. I now take in the AM:
?1500 mg Keppra
?.5 mg clonazaepam
?15 mg Lexapro
?80 mg Strattera

In the PM:
?1500 mg Keppra
?.5 mg clonazaepam

Tell me that's a conspiracy.

My sympathies go to you, but is reeling off a massive list of drugs supposed to be proof of the existance of your illness? I think not. Though I may have been a bit rash with my statement earlier, and there is most probably some cases of real ADHD, it does seem to be something that is heavily overdiagnosed. I am fully aware Tourettes is a REAL illness as I have known people with it, and it's not at all pleasant for them, but ADHD clearly covers too broad a spectrum of unruly children.

 

[Axeli]

Over diagnosed, yes. I have to point out that ADD didn't exist in my grandparent's time...

And bacteria didn't exists before the end of the 17th century. Just because nobody realized it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

 

[Zephemus]

Over diagnosed, yes. I have to point out that ADD didn't exist in my grandparent's time...

And bacteria didn't exists before the end of the 17th century. Just because nobody realized it doesn't mean it wasn't there.

Very good point, science advances and changes throughout time and that being said I think that we may be on a verge of actually having these disorders recognized for the actuallities that they are. Sure some diagnosies might be wrong, but that can be said with any viral and bactirial sickness that exists today. One of the major reasons that vague mental disorders might go undiagnosed or undetected is mostly because of society's outlook on the idea that someone's behavior is solely thier responsibility and that's how it's always been. Well this is just not 100% true, some of the most brilliant people in history had quirks about them that would make them somewhat of a social outcast, if not had them lcoked up, today.

Really, psychology is a growing profession and science even to this day. Civilizations have tried to find ways of dealing with those that are "abnormal" without truly understanding what makes them so. And with our pursuit to classify behavior and personality disorders we pursue the capabilities of helping those afflicted with said disorders and try to enable those people with the capabilities to exist and function to what society deems "normal".

In short ADD didn't exist in your granparent's time because the kids that legitimately had ADD back then weren't helped or diagnosed they were scolded and beaten, by both thier teachers and parents. It's only now that we're trying to find a solution to this problem seeing as how the best outcome for the kids back then was usually being a relativly smart grocery store clerk with the capabilities of going to college or becoming more than a private in the ARMY, but with an ailment that prohibits them from doing so.