being grounded, staying in the moment, and momentary deep breathing - these aren’t life changers, but some things that are taught, and will work for people from time to time.
people see my kiddo or i tossing a yo, and say, “oooh, a yoyo. i remember those from when i was a kid.”. i generally respond, “it keeps our faces, out of the devices.”
it keeps us in the moment, grounded… i’d say the breathing is more gasps and gaaaghs!
Pro tip:
The DSM is not based in any hard science and if you’re diagnosed or prescribed anything don’t rely on these coming from a place of expertise. These are often mostly subjective judgements, and just be aware:
Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules
There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses
Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events
Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need
If you don’t feel what you’re being told by a professional matches your experience or that what you’ve been prescribed isn’t helping, you’re probably right.
I’ll also add that IMO (and this isn’t coming from someone with no experience looking down on anyone who gets mental health services, I was messed up for years after my second time through 3 years of cancer treatment) medication is best used to get you to a place where you can start adopting a new thought process and strategies to deal with your issues without medication. Most of these meds have extremely negative long term side effects either physically or mentally.
Again not saying don’t seek services, just saying you may be treated less as a person and more as another case for that professional to deal with.
I would not say autism is a mental illness anyway. Mental illnesses typically are a level of “suffering”
Depression
Ptsd
Anxiety etc
Autism is more of a social disorder.
Im not a doctor or claim to be absolutely correct on how it is defined. Maybe autism is considered a mental illness by a round about way of how its defined but I personally wouldn’t say there are no mental illnesses that suffer.
Not in most of my experiences. I’ve dealt with a couple of bad apples over the years, but for the most part I’ve been pretty lucky to have had some pretty excellent professionals on my side.
That’s great. I’m just trying to reassure people that if they think they’re not being treated properly that they probably aren’t, and given that the DSM is not a proper diagnostic tool there’s a very real possibility of being misdiagnosed.
You have a point. Even if its a proper diagnosis even the med itself is a lot of trial and error unfortunately. What works for one person may cause another person serious sides
And even if the medication works great you need to consider the long term side effects as well. There’s some scary ones depending on the given meds a person is taking.
I absolutely agree with you. It took me till I was in my early 30’s before I finally got an accurate diagnosis.
It can be very tricky…and as you said, there’s a huge amount of overlap between disorders.
Also, people/symptoms can/do change over time. I don’t blame the therapist I’d been seeing for 10+ years for having a really hard time figuring out a proper diagnosis with me.
Yea it is not like a doctor can scan you to see the pinpoint problem like an xray on a broken bone.
Its ashame the stigma that being medicated can carry. I had some friends I served with that are not around anymore and I could only guess maybe it wouldve turned out better for them if they talked to a doctor. But we could “what if” those situations all day long.
That’s why I made sure to express that my criticism of mental health diagnoses is based on the flawed tool they use and not on actually being diagnosed with anything. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being on medication, just that if you go years being on the wrong ones it can have a serious negative impact.
Given that many of these meds have side effects like severe suicidal ideation, it’s not something to take lightly.
Yea I wasnt accusing you of having negative opinions on meds themselves just sharing my 0.02. A big aspect of changing treatments if things change such as chemical imbalances and what not, relies on self awareness which I could imagine is not a trait for every patient to have.
Even if someone goes to all their followups and takes as prescribed, the psychiatrist is mostly going to just be able to ask “How do you feel?”
“Are there any changes lately?”
If there is a steady and slow decline it could not be reconized early enough to resolve. Lots of meds can absolutely have bad long term sides in just general health. I would not ever argue that. There has been practice though of certain anti depression medications though that are intended for long term use and have both their success and horror stories
I think this is a major thing you’ve just said here.
It’s part of why I’ve always wanted a proper diagnosis. I know having a name to my struggles doesn’t really change anything…
Only…yeah, it sorta kinda does actually.
It gives me an awareness I didn’t have before…it gives me something to research, something that has led me to meeting others (online) with the same issues as me (and having people that ‘get’ me has been a HUGE boost in self confidence for me).
It’s hard to know how to work around obstacles when you don’t know what those obstacles are. Having a name/diagnosis helps me figure out ways to move forward in life less blindly.
lol sorry if I’m taking this in a different direction then intended. I haven’t slept much the last few days! >.<’
Nah im glad you are sharing honestly. A big part of it indeed. you took the direction i was heading but elaborated. Thats the only way how i really began to manage myself was through research and figuring out why things were happening the way they were
For a minute I thought this was a DM. Oof. Well its out there now.
Just to be clear with ya @Durfee I’m not trying to argue against anything you’re trying to say here either. I actually agree with you mostly…I’m just sharing random thoughts I’m having.
I especially agree with these…
I’m pretty sure my previous shrink deliberately caused drama with his patients that lead to several suicides. He also was treating a high profile patient that committed suicide, but blamed his “assistant”, who got off by making a deal with the FBI. But I heard a convo in his office that made it 100% clear that he was the one actually treating the guy… I mean, it was obvious, his “assistant” wasn’t licensed to do anything. This guy was so sketchy. On multiple occasions he made it impossible for his patients to get their prescriptions filled and refused to fix his own mistakes, leaving his patients suddenly off meds for weeks at a time, once leading to a suicide. I read about all this and figured out what that conversation I overheard was about after he did that to me.
I left and found a different shrink. I asked about the guy, and new shrink just said, “yeah, we end up with a lot of his patients in here”, followed by some bad words about him and his mother.
So yeah, I have to agree with you 100%. Shrinks are just people, and sometimes they are bad people, or just incompetent.
I recently suffered with a serious bout of depression started earlier this year, I think it was a combination of things that mounted up and boiled over. I did start yoyoing just after Christmas and gained a few throws but when depression hit they just sat gathering dust for a good few months. I dug them out this week and started again. I did maintenance on them all a started to learn a couple of tricks, fair enough in still at the beginner stage still but it felt good and gave me a little boost when I finally landed them.
I really do feel for people who do suffer with mentor health issue and feel like more research is need for sure.
Much love to all.
Me, sometimes I get depression for about a week, then it goes away for a really long time (±6 months) and repeats again and again. Although, quite often do I have a little bit of OCD.
You should look into psycho therapy, you can use psychedelics in a way that causes your mind to change its perspective for the better. You hardly ever make progress just taking them to get high and party. Not saying that’s what you were doing, I don’t know. Look into Paul Stamets.
This is a victim mentality and not true. Just read any psychological paper on the victim mentality and how they blame everyone else for how they feel. Suicides in particular. It is a way to remove focus from the pain and suffering of the suicide and instead says, focus on me, see my pain and suffering, please validate me I’m still alive. It is seeking attention for yourself during a tragedy. All the while we are supposed to focus on survivors pain and forget all about the person who was actually in so much pain they would end their life. No biggie, it is natural, and a known coping mechanism. Same as masking their anger with self righteousness for being left alone.
A more accurate quote on suicide was in the documentary ‘White Light Black Rain’. It was from one of two sisters who survived the nuclear bombing of Japan. One was almost unscathed, the other had melted skin etc. Their family was killed and village destroyed. They went to jump in front of a train. One could, one couldn’t. The surviving sister said, “It takes courage to live and it takes courage to die”.
Saw this talk recently on psychedelics. The proven benefits to alcoholics and PTSD sufferers have been miraculous for decades so it’s not some hippy magic. Not to mention ‘mana’ being mushrooms, trippy ones for the others view. That and mushrooms (mana) work whether you believe in them or not.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. - Buddha
I’ve never liked people calling suicide ‘selfish’. It just rubs me the wrong way.