What is mental illness?

[cuddly_tomato]

A form of illness which is caused by the thought processes of the patent which in turn produces symptoms of prolonged stress, suffering, pain, or discomfort or impedes the patients ability to lead a normal life.

 

[khaimera]

Well, in repsonse to your repsonse about my response, jk.
1. You can loko in any psych textbook and see the finding that therapy and meds work about 60% of the time.
2. Anxeity is, in my opinion, a thought disorder caused by the maginification of normal worries, Meds slow down the entire nervous system which seems to quiet the brain also. Its not casual though, just correlational.
3. People are not bron with mental illnes. It takes experiences for our brain to develop into what it becomes. Depression is not caused by a checmical imbalance. Drug companies will say otherwise for obvious reasons. Nobody talks about how there are over 12 subtypes of serotonin, of which we have no idea what over half of them are or do. It could be argued that all depression is situational.

1.Meds + Therapy is the best thing for somebody with mental illness, I agree, but you can't remove medication and have the therapy work on it's own. I could talk to a psychologist until I'm blue in the face but it's not going to do the same to my brain as an SSRI does.

2. I'm not as well versed in anxiety as I am in bipolar disorder. I did suffer from panic attacks related to agoraphobia, but when I got on the right medications for my bipolar disorder the phobia disappeared, along with my anxiety. I'm sure that's not a typical case.

3. I'm sorry but I'll simply have to disagree with you. If mental illness is not caused by genetics, then why do I come from a long line of people with mental illness? My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my mom, my aunt, my uncle, my cousins, etc, everyone in my immediate family has bipolar disorder.

I'm sure you could argue that by being raised with people with mental illness I developed it myself, but how does that jive with the fact that my mother was always medicated, and my grandparents were not diagnosed until long after I was?

Usually bipolar disorder is sparked by puberty, but if it was simply the changing of hormones in our brain that did it, every teenager would be bipolar. We can agree to disagree, as I have seen too much evidence that mental illnesses are genetic.

I get what you are saying and agree with you to some extent. It is true that research shows that medication + therapy produces the best outcomes, most of the time. Meds and therapy work on different parts of the brain which then come together to produce a greater change. I cannot argue that there is a genetic and biological component to mental illness. I just think that the correlation is overstated. Also its good to know that changes made in therapy do lead to change sin brain chemistry. Genetics produce a biological vulnerability to certain illness which usually require some life event to begin the chain, though not always. Often times life events become most pronounced during teenage years or early adulthood, which is why the onset of many disorders begin at that time. I like to think of medications as allowing someone to become stable enough to do the work of therapy and produce lasting change. Lets not forget that meds cure nothing, but therapy can if used properly. The problem with therapy is that it only works if the person is willing to make some changes. Meds require no change except to take a pill each day. And thats fine if thats what the person wants to do.

Please believe me when I say that I have seen therapy dramatically reduce symptoms of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and pretty much any other disorder out there. If there is motivation to work on oneself, hope, a skilled therapist, and a supportive social network, profound things can happen.

I've enjoyed this debate so far, as evidenced by my long and frequent posts in my own thread. Its great to hear what people from all different backgrounds think. I think I was too hasty in making such a bold claim that mental illness doesn't exist without providing plenty of facts to back it up. I wanted to spark some controversy because there are others like me who will argue that the concept of mental illness in the traditionally western understanding of it needs to be looked at again.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

3. I'm sorry but I'll simply have to disagree with you. If mental illness is not caused by genetics, then why do I come from a long line of people with mental illness? My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my mom, my aunt, my uncle, my cousins, etc, everyone in my immediate family has bipolar disorder.

I am throwing in some anecdotal evidence to back up Mr (or Ms) Ammadessi here. My family is rife with mental illnesses and my own neurotic tendancies are an almost carbon copy of my fathers troubles.

 

[Ammadessi]

3. I'm sorry but I'll simply have to disagree with you. If mental illness is not caused by genetics, then why do I come from a long line of people with mental illness? My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my mom, my aunt, my uncle, my cousins, etc, everyone in my immediate family has bipolar disorder.

I am throwing in some anecdotal evidence to back up Mr (or Ms) Ammadessi here. My family is rife with mental illnesses and my own neurotic tendancies are an almost carbon copy of my fathers troubles.

Miss, just for the future

 

[MiracleOfSound]

If the brain is producing too much or too little of certain chemicals then it is a mental illness.

Of course, thatis only one example. It is a very difficult thing to even recognise, let alone treat.

One thing is for certain though... doctors can fuck up. Bad.

Be very, very careful before going on meds, they very often make things worse.

 

[IronDuke]

The over-diagnosis of ADHD and bipolar disorder as well as turning every single personality quirk into a diagnostic criteria has made it a lot harder for those of us who actually suffer from mental illnesses.

Is by bi-polar overdiagnosed? My girlfriend was diagnosed with it, however she seems pretty damn consistent and normal to me, and she doesnt take any meds for it, only depression. That seems like a wrong diagnosis to me. When I'm off my meds, and my mood changes some time after, she doesn't seem to understand that that is what bi-polar disorder does. Anyway, wrong diagnosis if you ask me.

Now, I was also diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, except I can be found completely out of my mind for weeks at a time. When I had my first manic episode I had no idea what was happening, all I know is that a week or two later, I had barely slept, barely left the house, written pages and pages of indecipherable gibberish that seemed amazing at the time, and apparently missed end of year exams. Being unaware of quite important things like your end of year exams... I think that's sufficiently debilitating to call an illness; I know that my grades are important to me, moreso than most other things during exam week, however my mind was simply not there to let me know this stuff was happening.

 

[infernal_tuba]

Insanity is knowing that you're fuckin' nuts and denying it.

I used to work with a man who has asperger's. Legit asperger's, not just a thing for collecting anime shit.

I could make really weird faces at him WHILE HE WAS SPEAKING and he didn't seem to notice. If I tried to interrupt him mid-sentence...I couldn't. It was impossible. He was a freight train of speaking, not conversation, mind you, because CONVERSATION IS A TWO WAY THING. He was very, very socially awkward. I was going to provide a good example, but it's been a long time and I can't think of anything specific. Sorry. But yeah, he was batshit insane but in his heart of hearts didn't believe he was.

 

[Ammadessi]

The over-diagnosis of ADHD and bipolar disorder as well as turning every single personality quirk into a diagnostic criteria has made it a lot harder for those of us who actually suffer from mental illnesses.

Is by bi-polar overdiagnosed? My girlfriend was diagnosed with it, however she seems pretty damn consistent and normal to me, and she doesnt take any meds for it, only depression. That seems like a wrong diagnosis to me. When I'm off my meds, and my mood changes some time after, she doesn't seem to understand that that is what bi-polar disorder does. Anyway, wrong diagnosis if you ask me.

Now, I was also diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, except I can be found completely out of my mind for weeks at a time. When I had my first manic episode I had no idea what was happening, all I know is that a week or two later, I had barely slept, barely left the house, written pages and pages of indecipherable gibberish that seemed amazing at the time, and apparently missed end of year exams. Being unaware of quite important things like your end of year exams... I think that's sufficiently debilitating to call an illness; I know that my grades are important to me, moreso than most other things during exam week, however my mind was simply not there to let me know this stuff was happening.

It's overdiagnosed in the same way that ADD is, and it seems to be the celebrity disease du jour lately, but that doesn't mean that real cases of it don't exist or that they should be marginalized because of it.

To me, and this is anecdotal of course, it sounds like you and your girlfriend experience the disease differently. I'm like your girlfriend, I rarely have manic episodes. Instead I get what's known as hypomania, where I have racing thoughts, can't sleep, can't relax, etc. My mom is more like you, severe manic episodes.

Bipolar is a funny thing, some people don't show all the classic symptoms and some people rapid-cycle, where they go from depressed to manic within a week or days or even hours. If a psychiatrist diagnosed your girlfriend I'm sure he/she diagnosed her with bipolar for a reason, but if she really thinks they're wrong there's nothing wrong with getting a second opinion.

I'm not sure if I what I just said had anything to do with your statement, sorry, I tend to ramble on.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

or purely mental (such as depression).

Even purely mental forms of mental illness (such as mine) can produce very severe physiological symptoms. Panic attacks are extremely distressing and debilitating for instance, as well as headaches and nausea.

 

[SmartIdiot]

Mental Illness - The most popular fad to try and fake amongst disaffected teenagers who don't actually realise just how lucky they are.

 

[IronDuke]

Bipolar is a funny thing, some people don't show all the classic symptoms and some people rapid-cycle, where they go from depressed to manic within a week or days or even hours. If a psychiatrist diagnosed your girlfriend I'm sure he/she diagnosed her with bipolar for a reason, but if she really thinks they're wrong there's nothing wrong with getting a second opinion.

I don't always show classic symptoms, say if I get some weird events happening in my life. For instance recently I was hypomanic, and then a couple of really bad things happened to me. I didn't go straight to depression or something, instead I got mixed symptoms.

Heaps of energy, depression, restlessness, paranoia, so much anger, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. I hate mixed symptoms, it is the worst, but luckily it only lasted about a week.

 

[Inverse Skies]

Mental illness does indeed exist. My sister suffers from atypical depression and is on lithium and clamiporide in order to try and combat that. I've seen her put into a psychiatric clinic three times, one of them when she had to detox from another drug, sodium valporate because it was shooting her liver to pieces. She had heaps of anxiety issues when she was coming off valporate, and at least now she can function somewhat on the drugs she's currently taking. Mental illness does indeed exist, the very fact it has a definitive set of diagnostic criteria and can be treated with drug therapy proves those guidelines.

 

[IncindiaryPickle]

Charles Manson. Need I say more? If anyone is a good example of psychotsism, it's him. And I'm sure he can answer all of your questions on the matter.
But really, I'm not good at defining things OR psycology.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

With all due respect, as a sufferer of depression (and genralised anxiety and panic disorder, both of which are technically disorders of the nervous system), I have no time for the opinion that mental illness does not exist. Try explaining that to the scizophrenic who's driven half mad by the audio and visual hallucinations that just won't stop no matter what they do. Try telling someone who has become convinced that they're under surveillence or that their brain is frying in their head (all things I've known people to experience) that they just need to pull themselves together.

Sorry to be agressive, but people who dismiss mental illness make me sick and deserve to experience it for themselves, just so they know what it's like. After all, you don't go up to people who have ancer or aids and tell them they're just making it up, and mental illness can be just as debilitating (and contrary to some beliefs, is a measurable proven thing).

In fact, if you don't believe that mental illness exists, why are you a therapist?

I hear what you are gettign at think I need to clarify what I mean. I didn't do the best job of condensing a dissertation into a paragraph. I will not argue that suffering does not exist. Or that psychologcial probelms do not exist. I simply have trouble viewing it as a disease in the same way that physical disorders are. I also have diffiuclty with the utiliity of daignosis or labeling. If mental illness were on the same par as phsycial ilness talk therapy would do nothing. We can heal ourselevs and cure ourselves of all mental ilness through lifestyle changes. Cancer does not work that way.

Here are some facts for you.
1. Therapy is equally effective as medications for all mental illness except for schizophrenia. Plus it has no side effects
2. Anxiety is not a nervous system disorder. The medications work on tht system, but it is not the cause.
3. I've experienced depression first hand in my own life and know exactly what it feels like.
4. There is no known physical difference in the brians of people with most mental disorders. There is still no evidence of a biologcial component to ADHD for example. We dont know why most of the psych meds work, they just do for some people.

1.) I'd like to see some evidence of that one, as I have seen little to no positive effect from therapy (over a £1000 down for the privilege though), but hav had success with medication in the past, only stopping due to side effects caused by an unrelated heart defect.

2.)Well, technically, anxiety is directly linked to the amygdala functioning at a higher base level semi-independently of input from the rest of the brain. Yes, it is usually thought process that triggers the problem, mostly trauma, but it is still the nervous system that develops the problem.

3.) I do have genuine sympathy, but just because I have a heart problem doesn't make me a cardiologist.

In terms of 4), considering that there are physical differences in the brain from person to person it's impossible to say that there are no physical differences involved in mental illness, especially as neurological scans show definite differences in brain function.

Oh, and for the record, people are thought to cure themselves of cancer tens to hundreds of times within a lifetime, and the placebo effect has been shown to be highly effective on a variety of physical illnesses. ot to mention the nocebo effect has actually been shown to cause fatalities. One study showed a guy who was misdiagnosed and told he was dying. Sure enough he died before they could tell him that it was a misdiagnosis and he was actually in perfect health. I'm sorry to be offensive, but for a therapist you seem remarkably ill informed, and I think if you genuinely care about your clients you need to do research beyond just that which validates your profession. Sorry if that seems harsh, but I'm afraid it needed saying.