Surviving Mental Illness "Do Nothing"

If you enter the mental health system -YOU- are doomed to pain and suffering and experimentation and false hope etc. etc. etc., for the vast majority of people with mental illness...
Now -YOU- have many choices that -YOU- can do, I wonder if -YOU- can do -NOTHING- and be better off to yourself etc. etc. etc....

First of all I'm not sure that ALL people are "doomed to pain and suffering and experimentation and false hope."

Secondly I'm not sure that doing nothing necessarily is the right answer either. Obviously if someone is going through a difficult time, something needs to change. That could be through, diet, exercise, learning additional skills, increasing supports etc. Any number of things could change to help people feel better.

Remember Einstein:
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Do nothing is always a valid option in a situation where you are not being harmed and no-one else is being harmed. The mental health field is a labeling game that does more harm than help to too many people for your first option to be to run to these people who give harmful meds, take away your rights, and simply label you to the point that you are outkasted from society.

Just because you are going through a difficult time does not mean that you have to seek to change things. For instance, if you have someone close to you die and you end up with anxiety and panic attacks you can't change the fact that person died. That death is real and it is not just in your mind or some mental health issue. There is no rule to tell you how long you can grieve or how death should affect you, because once again everyone responds different. So, you could be simply causing yourself more harm by seeking to change a bunch of unnecessary stuff simply because you feel the need for change. We all are familiar with people overcompensating, that's when you put too much focus on one thing to try and make up for other things. In a lot of cases this method only causes further problems and that is what the mental health field does.

There are legit reasons to seek medical intervention for psychological issues. But in the US at least (am in the US so can't speak to how other countries do things) we tend to defer to authorities like medical professionals and follow whatever course of action they say is best (actually, everyone does this as shown in German post-WWII studies - medical authority by virtue of a labcoat getting participants to do things they normally wouldn't believing it's coming from a health professional et al.) So if medical courses of action is proscribed, that's how we treat mental illness. But I think since business is so intertwined with healthcare in the US, we have to consider the source more as doctors are getting much of their pay from prescribing drugs. Plus, most mentall illness may be symptomatic only, and not some serious condition requiring medical intervention. Counselling and talk therapy is better for most cases of seeming mental illness and doesn't run the risk of messing someone up far more than their intial complaint. 'Bad Drug' commercials for class action lawsuits against drugs are common including a couple I was put on Risperdal and Zoloft. Rather than risking longterm effects for some drug, talkingt hrough issues may be sufficient. Sometimes though medical solutions are advisable but those would be only when someone's completely out-of-control. A hyperactive child doesn't require medication. Just a good spanking. Similarly, many of our problems assume there's a baseline of normal behaviour we should all conform to but this is nonsense. If we treated everyone who stood apart from the herd with drugs we'd have no history to study as no one would ever have stood out and become memorable. Imagine if we treated every person who said they spoke with divinity - we'd have no religion. If we intervened and treated every person looking to dominate and subjugate others with anti-psychotics we'd have no great historical generals or leaders. Governments love to control their people so they're surely all for medical solutions to even people out while I'd think staying well clear of such things themselves. In other words, our overlords would stay clear of drugs while forcing the people onto things to make us more docile and controllable. Paranoid? No. Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale. And it's not a delusion if governments really do that sort of thing as our's has and is.

HesDeltanCaptain wrote:There are legit reasons to seek medical intervention for psychological issues. But in the US at least (am in the US so can't speak to how other countries do things) we tend to defer to authorities like medical professionals and follow whatever course of action they say is best (actually, everyone does this as shown in German post-WWII studies - medical authority by virtue of a labcoat getting participants to do things they normally wouldn't believing it's coming from a health professional et al.) So if medical courses of action is proscribed, that's how we treat mental illness. But I think since business is so intertwined with healthcare in the US, we have to consider the source more as doctors are getting much of their pay from prescribing drugs. Plus, most mentall illness may be symptomatic only, and not some serious condition requiring medical intervention. Counselling and talk therapy is better for most cases of seeming mental illness and doesn't run the risk of messing someone up far more than their intial complaint. 'Bad Drug' commercials for class action lawsuits against drugs are common including a couple I was put on Risperdal and Zoloft. Rather than risking longterm effects for some drug, talkingt hrough issues may be sufficient. Sometimes though medical solutions are advisable but those would be only when someone's completely out-of-control. A hyperactive child doesn't require medication. Just a good spanking. Similarly, many of our problems assume there's a baseline of normal behaviour we should all conform to but this is nonsense. If we treated everyone who stood apart from the herd with drugs we'd have no history to study as no one would ever have stood out and become memorable. Imagine if we treated every person who said they spoke with divinity - we'd have no religion. If we intervened and treated every person looking to dominate and subjugate others with anti-psychotics we'd have no great historical generals or leaders. Governments love to control their people so they're surely all for medical solutions to even people out while I'd think staying well clear of such things themselves. In other words, our overlords would stay clear of drugs while forcing the people onto things to make us more docile and controllable. Paranoid? No. Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale. And it's not a delusion if governments really do that sort of thing as our's has and is.

Around here we have been told to stay away from calling some mental concerns legit and others illegitimate, but since you got away with it I will take the chance to express my opinion which is based off of my life.

So-called mental health professionals can not distinguish themselves. If 2 people run around outside naked and one of them is doing it so that he or she gets taken into custody and put into some mental ward as and act to help them keep getting there "crazy check" the shrinks can't distinguish between that person and someone who is doing it because they are really "losing it".

Psychologists are a black eye to the medical field that bring the whole field into question simply because there foundation is built on a bunch of wordplay, judgements, and opinions. The wordplay being the claim that there opinions are professional. Your not a professional just because you are a doctor. You judge a professional by the amount of professionalism he or she shows. Furthermore, since they can't distinguish between a so-called legit and illegitimate concern there opinions frequently have zero value when you understand that this stuff is not based in truth or facts. So, there really is nothing such as expertise in the mental health field. It does not matter how long you have been in the field you still don't have anything to really offer to anyone other than yourself in the form of getting out of this illegitimate field

1013 victim wrote:Around here we have been told to stay away from calling some mental concerns legit and others illegitimate

This is true. Let's try not to invalidate some people's experiences.

1013 victim wrote: It does not matter how long you have been in the field you still don't have anything to really offer to anyone other than yourself in the form of getting out of this illegitimate field

I hear what you are saying about psychologists and psychiatrists in this matter, but what about the peer profession? People who have lived through their experiences to help others through their own recovery? Would not life experience be the most legitimate form of experience?

Cheze2 wrote:

1013 victim wrote:Around here we have been told to stay away from calling some mental concerns legit and others illegitimate

This is true. Let's try not to invalidate some people's experiences.

1013 victim wrote: It does not matter how long you have been in the field you still don't have anything to really offer to anyone other than yourself in the form of getting out of this illegitimate field

I hear what you are saying about psychologists and psychiatrists in this matter, but what about the peer profession? People who have lived through their experiences to help others through their own recovery? Would not life experience be the most legitimate form of experience?

I agree. We can all share our experiences and be honest. If you say that you have had psychological issues and that you are living proof I respect that. On the other hand, if I say that I never have had any psychological issue or issue that was only in my head and I still ended up dealing with the most extreme source of psychology in involuntary commitment then you should respect that. That's the major problem when they can't distinguish what's real and not so they start to play with terms like "imminent danger".

1013 victim wrote:If you say that you have had psychological issues and that you are living proof I respect that. On the other hand, if I say that I never have had any psychological issue or issue that was only in my head and I still ended up dealing with the most extreme source of psychology in involuntary commitment then you should respect that.

This is the essence of what peer work is all about. It is about mutuality, and about listening to the other person without making judgments. It is not the peer's role to use terms such as "imminent danger" or to make decisions such as that.