There Is No Such Thing as Mental Illness

-edited- What I said was kinda mean, so, nevermind. The short, nice version: I think at least some people who are "so sad they can't/don't get out of bed" could be feeling just as sad as any "normal" person and just makes poorer decisions; like staying in bed all day, for example. Does it still count as a mental illness if the person is choosing all their own poison & there's nothing physically wrong with their brain?

(I didn't watch the video.)

Cheze2 wrote:P0ci, please try to be respectful.

P0ci wrote:Now even being sad is considered a mentall illness.

Christa stated that it wasn't just being sad, it was how it impacts your functioning.

ChristaAngel wrote:when they lead to dysfunctional behavior

Sure someone can be sad but able to get up out of bed, go to work and function like any other good society member. It's a lot different when a person is so sad that they literally do not get out of bed, even to go to the bathroom. There is a big difference there and one cannot deny that.

Actually the new DMS will consider sadness a mental illness....

The term "mental illness" should be consigned to the conceptual junk heap of human history. My objection to it is two-pronged.

Firstly I object to it on moral grounds. It is often used to lay the conceptual groundwork for all manner of atrocities justified on the pretext of treating diseases that, by virtue of their having no frim footing in observable fact, are impossible to disprove, unlike something like cancer, which is a concept whose referent is susceptible of observation.

Under the aspect of history institutional psychiatry will rightly be seen as merely another front upon which society's war against difference was waged, inter alia, and its theories little more than another dialect of the language of oppression. For its services rendered in the dehumanization and destruction of man, and its use as an instrument to chip away at a man's dignity, and in justifying the unequal, discriminatory distribution of rights and responsibilites, I reject it.

Nevertheless, most discourse about psychiatry implicitly postulates that amongst the motives that animate psychiatric theory and practice, the desire to improve the lot of the victim assumes something of a magisterial seat. This is the same kind of belief that has been used to sustain chattel slavery, imperialism, colonialism, as well as the Inquisition, albeit in the latter case to improve their lot in heaven. Predators often confound their own interests with that of the prey, and the herd buys into it hook, line, and sinker.

As well as that I object to it on intellectual grounds. Strictly speaking, a mind cannot literally be "ill" or "diseased", as those very concepts presuppose organic involvement. Saying a mind is diseased merely distorts the concept beyond all recognition. One corollary of this is diagnotic creep, whereby the lack of empirical proof of disease, this being the touchstone for ascertaining the truth of a diagnosis for most real diseases of the body, gives license to disease-mongerers to define the concept broadly enough to include what ever they fancy, be it for economic or political reasons.

I don't know rather mental illness exists or not but I do know that they can not prove that mental illness exist.

The next thing I know is that anytime you get into a back and forth with someone trying to argue for this stuff you end up dealing with some extremely ignorant human beings. You have people arguing that staying in the bed too long now constitutes mental illness. Who decides what's too long? There are no facts that represent what is too long, that is your opinion so to say that you can't argue against your opinion shows a huge level of ignorance. Sure if someone is so sad that they will not get out of bed to go to the bathroom and they start using the bathroom on themselves and just letting it sit there could be a problem, but that is not the criteria for mental illness. The criteria for mental illness is simply it being said that someone has a mental illness by a so-called professional. So, you don't really have a point that is factual, you are simply coming up with some scenario in your mind that constitutes mental illness and labeling it as such.

Lastly, I don't have a problem with people studying the mind or psychology. I don't have a problem that people think mental illness exist even though they can't prove it. My problem is with the amount of power and control that is given to a field that has yet to prove its legitimacy. They should not be able to lock people up against there wills, they should not be allowed to force people to be medicated or anything else until they can prove without a doubt that the person has a mental illness that can be helped by such methods.

Cledwyn Bulbs wrote:The term "mental illness" should be consigned to the conceptual junk heap of human history. My objection to it is two-pronged.

Firstly I object to it on moral grounds. It is often used to lay the conceptual groundwork for all manner of atrocities justified on the pretext of treating diseases that, by virtue of their having no frim footing in observable fact, are impossible to disprove, unlike something like cancer, which is a concept whose referent is susceptible of observation.

Under the aspect of history institutional psychiatry will rightly be seen as merely another front upon which society's war against difference was waged, inter alia, and its theories little more than another dialect of the language of oppression. For its services rendered in the dehumanization and destruction of man, and its use as an instrument to chip away at a man's dignity, and in justifying the unequal, discriminatory distribution of rights and responsibilites, I reject it.

Nevertheless, most discourse about psychiatry implicitly postulates that amongst the motives that animate psychiatric theory and practice, the desire to improve the lot of the victim assumes something of a magisterial seat. This is the same kind of belief that has been used to sustain chattel slavery, imperialism, colonialism, as well as the Inquisition, albeit in the latter case to improve their lot in heaven. Predators often confound their own interests with that of the prey, and the herd buys into it hook, line, and sinker.

As well as that I object to it on intellectual grounds. Strictly speaking, a mind cannot literally be "ill" or "diseased", as those very concepts presuppose organic involvement. Saying a mind is diseased merely distorts the concept beyond all recognition. One corollary of this is diagnotic creep, whereby the lack of empirical proof of disease, this being the touchstone for ascertaining the truth of a diagnosis for most real diseases of the body, gives license to disease-mongerers to define the concept broadly enough to include what ever they fancy, be it for economic or political reasons.

Clap Clap clap, bravo, im impressed.

And as for you 1013 whats even worst is getting locked up by your own family who lie, exaggerate and in fact exaberate and irritate you on purpose to fulfill their agenda which is getting you institutionalized.

That should be "whereby the lack of empirical proof of disease and total reliance on expert opinion, empirical proof of disease being the touchstone for ascertaining the validity of a diagnosis for a physical disease", in the last paragraph."

I hate how when reading something you've written over, especially a first time, you miss so many of the mistakes you make, perhaps because instead of reading what's on the page, you sometimes, in a lapse of concentration, read what's in your head, as if it were on the page. It's so annoying. These bloody drugs don't help.

ChristaAngel wrote:

P0ci wrote:Horseshit, the video guy clearly states people go through troubles and distress and trauma. Which does not equate to mentall illness

Trauma has been proven or shown to cause temporary organic brain damage.

Who told you that your shrink? Laugh

Tell your shrink to show you actuall evidence. If anything causes organic brain damage its the meds they dish out like candy.

P0ci wrote:

ChristaAngel wrote:

P0ci wrote:Horseshit, the video guy clearly states people go through troubles and distress and trauma. Which does not equate to mentall illness

Trauma has been proven or shown to cause temporary organic brain damage.

Who told you that your shrink? Laugh

Tell your shrink to show you actuall evidence. If anything causes organic brain damage its the meds they dish out like candy.

These people are laughable. I guess any traumatic situation you go through is now a mental illness. Lastly, how can you prove brain damage without giving a test? Giving a test or proving brain damage is not a requirement to prove mental illness within the mental health field because they don't need proof, they just label people.

Mental illness exists.

That psychiatry is fundamentally prone to many mistakes due to the inability to diagnose through more "physical" means (as say, a broken leg in an x-ray), it's true. That the APA might be pushing a DSM that can make psychiatrists diagnose anything with any ammount of data, it's also true.

The DSM 4 was by far the best. DSM 5 is really a political and financial move. And not only psychiatry is hit by that. Actually, mention one thing done in the last 10 years that isn't blatantly aiming for profit and/or to just be accessible to more people?

Maybe the DSM 5 is just trying to make it easy for clinicians to help their patients, IF THEY'RE WELL MEANING, COMPETENT CLINICIANS.

Don't bash entire psychiatry because a few doctors are assholes. Trust me, I know how bad psychiatry can be. Specially to those diagnosed with schizophrenia and being treated as such. I actually have C-PTSD now due to psychiatry. And the funny thing is, I never had a mental illness.
Psychiatry carries a stigma. Crazy = dangerous, annoying, ugly, disgusting creature who should just disappear, in the eye's of society.

Bad people choose psychiatry and psychology because it's easy to exploit or just do incompetent work to crazy people. It's easy because no one cares, and crazy people are easily dismissed as wrong, lying, delusional, etc..

That many diagnosed people inherently do not accept treatment doesn't help, either. Bipolars and Cluster B folk are notorious for not accepting being mentally ill and thinking everyone else is wrong. They take it as humiliation. You have to put yourself in the place of a psychiatrist who is so fed up with these people bashing them all the time and calling them cwacks for trying to help. When they lash out on the people who are just unhappy with the treatment they're getting, it's due to stress. They're only human.

Though you do know that the DSM isn't the only source for diagnosis? Here in Brazil psychiatrists follow different references, as psychiatrical treatment is MAINLY SYMPTOMATICAL.
It's not iike "hey, I see his schizophrenia. Let me give this medication specifically desgined to treat schizophrenia". No. It's more like "he seems to be having hallucinations with no history of recent drug use. He belives in this and that, and it all doesn't seem real. Maybe I should try medication approved for hallucinations and dellusions, albeit the reasons medication works for that is as good of a guess as to what causes these symptoms in the first place.".

Psychiatry is rudimentary as ###$. It's research is very, VERY underfunded.
In practice, it's filled with completely EVIL people who ruins lives due to their lack of respect and care for human life. Many are plain sadistical. Actually, many psychologists and psychiatrists are ######6 mentally ill. And many mental illnesses are being called as such because it makes people destructive to other people.

But it's based on the work of intelligent, good, well meaning people who mostly just want to find out what is going on and help people - of course, for money. Who can afford not to work for money?
Not many. A little more profit doesn't hurt either. But regardless of that, psychiatry, when it's good, helps people.

Mentall illnesses are real. I've gotten "ill" due to trauma and use of completely unnecessary medication, which was poorly administered. Now I have chronic anxiety, depression, cognitive problems, not mania but agitation... And medication from a good, caring, knowledgeble psychiatrist helped me. My own knowledge now of how medication works is even better, SINCE IT'S VERY HARD FOR ONE SINGLE DOCTOR TO KNOW EVERYTHING THAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR BRAIN AND LIFE.

Honestly, if I didn't study psychiatry by myself, I would be in way worse shape than I am now.

And I can most definetely agree with the efficiency of the diagnoses in existance, to label people and treat them accordingly.
I also can see the aberrant mistakes other psychiatrists did when I was younger, and that fuels a rage you can't imagine. But incompetent people are abundant.


Anyways, mentall illnesses are real. No diagnose is clear-cut. Actually, when something goes wrong and you're showing a few symptoms from a specific set on a diagnose, you will also show many symptoms of many other diagnoses, most likely. basically, something is wrong with the endocrinal system, central nervous system and others. That's what mental illness is. It isn't just in the brain. It's usually a multi-system, vastly complex, VERY TINY infinite number of reasons that work together to manifest the illness.

Be patient with psychiatry, treat yourself if you think you could feel better, do better, etc..

If you think you feel good, but others are hurt by your actions, you'll most likely be forced treatment. As any person that hurts others in a society, they usually face consequences.

If you're fine with your mania, depression, anxiety, hallucinations, beliefs based on delusions, or what have you, you're not forced to anything. Not here in Brazil, at least. But beware that many illnesses tend to aggravate when left untreated. It's more than proven (and testifed by me personally observing my mother) that mania, each time that happens, really destroys something in the person's body enough to make her far worse in a gigantic number of aspects. Mania is hard on the brain, as is schizophrenia. It creates many tiny microdamages that hurt overall performance and harmony of the person's organism and mind, creating much more suffering, difficulties and illnesses.

It's all well documented.

Mentall illness is real. Psychiatry can help, but it's hard and psychiatrists and therapists are mostly horrible assholes and cwacks. Medications help you with one thing, hurt ten other things. Finding one that works well enough and doesn't hurt you bad enough is really hard and you'll have to switch between different ones constantly.

Mentall illness stigma is real. People treat the mentally ill worse than animals as if said animals could be criminals. A inherently criminal animal is what a mentally ill person is in my country, and is shameful to discuss it.

But when you get over all that, and you find the right life style, environment and medication for you, everything else changes. Medication does help.

Unless you have what's called a personality disorder (borderline, schizotypal), or your other symptoms that are far beyond what medication can do to help. But there are people with AIDS and cancer not being able to be helped due to limitations on knowledge of the disease, as well. Some people are just too far afflicted for any treatment in existance to be effective.


I think I made my point, sorry to hijack your thread with my opinions.

twistednerve wrote:Mental illness exists.

That psychiatry is fundamentally prone to many mistakes due to the inability to diagnose through more "physical" means (as say, a broken leg in an x-ray), it's true. That the APA might be pushing a DSM that can make psychiatrists diagnose anything with any ammount of data, it's also true.

The DSM 4 was by far the best. DSM 5 is really a political and financial move. And not only psychiatry is hit by that. Actually, mention one thing done in the last 10 years that isn't blatantly aiming for profit and/or to just be accessible to more people?

Maybe the DSM 5 is just trying to make it easy for clinicians to help their patients, IF THEY'RE WELL MEANING, COMPETENT CLINICIANS.

Don't bash entire psychiatry because a few doctors are assholes. Trust me, I know how bad psychiatry can be. Specially to those diagnosed with schizophrenia and being treated as such. I actually have C-PTSD now due to psychiatry. And the funny thing is, I never had a mental illness.
Psychiatry carries a stigma. Crazy = dangerous, annoying, ugly, disgusting creature who should just disappear, in the eye's of society.

Bad people choose psychiatry and psychology because it's easy to exploit or just do incompetent work to crazy people. It's easy because no one cares, and crazy people are easily dismissed as wrong, lying, delusional, etc..

That many diagnosed people inherently do not accept treatment doesn't help, either. Bipolars and Cluster B folk are notorious for not accepting being mentally ill and thinking everyone else is wrong. They take it as humiliation. You have to put yourself in the place of a psychiatrist who is so fed up with these people bashing them all the time and calling them cwacks for trying to help. When they lash out on the people who are just unhappy with the treatment they're getting, it's due to stress. They're only human.

Though you do know that the DSM isn't the only source for diagnosis? Here in Brazil psychiatrists follow different references, as psychiatrical treatment is MAINLY SYMPTOMATICAL.
It's not iike "hey, I see his schizophrenia. Let me give this medication specifically desgined to treat schizophrenia". No. It's more like "he seems to be having hallucinations with no history of recent drug use. He belives in this and that, and it all doesn't seem real. Maybe I should try medication approved for hallucinations and dellusions, albeit the reasons medication works for that is as good of a guess as to what causes these symptoms in the first place.".

Psychiatry is rudimentary as ###$. It's research is very, VERY underfunded.
In practice, it's filled with completely EVIL people who ruins lives due to their lack of respect and care for human life. Many are plain sadistical. Actually, many psychologists and psychiatrists are ######6 mentally ill. And many mental illnesses are being called as such because it makes people destructive to other people.

But it's based on the work of intelligent, good, well meaning people who mostly just want to find out what is going on and help people - of course, for money. Who can afford not to work for money?
Not many. A little more profit doesn't hurt either. But regardless of that, psychiatry, when it's good, helps people.

Mentall illnesses are real. I've gotten "ill" due to trauma and use of completely unnecessary medication, which was poorly administered. Now I have chronic anxiety, depression, cognitive problems, not mania but agitation... And medication from a good, caring, knowledgeble psychiatrist helped me. My own knowledge now of how medication works is even better, SINCE IT'S VERY HARD FOR ONE SINGLE DOCTOR TO KNOW EVERYTHING THAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR BRAIN AND LIFE.

Honestly, if I didn't study psychiatry by myself, I would be in way worse shape than I am now.

And I can most definetely agree with the efficiency of the diagnoses in existance, to label people and treat them accordingly.
I also can see the aberrant mistakes other psychiatrists did when I was younger, and that fuels a rage you can't imagine. But incompetent people are abundant.


Anyways, mentall illnesses are real. No diagnose is clear-cut. Actually, when something goes wrong and you're showing a few symptoms from a specific set on a diagnose, you will also show many symptoms of many other diagnoses, most likely. basically, something is wrong with the endocrinal system, central nervous system and others. That's what mental illness is. It isn't just in the brain. It's usually a multi-system, vastly complex, VERY TINY infinite number of reasons that work together to manifest the illness.

Be patient with psychiatry, treat yourself if you think you could feel better, do better, etc..

If you think you feel good, but others are hurt by your actions, you'll most likely be forced treatment. As any person that hurts others in a society, they usually face consequences.

If you're fine with your mania, depression, anxiety, hallucinations, beliefs based on delusions, or what have you, you're not forced to anything. Not here in Brazil, at least. But beware that many illnesses tend to aggravate when left untreated. It's more than proven (and testifed by me personally observing my mother) that mania, each time that happens, really destroys something in the person's body enough to make her far worse in a gigantic number of aspects. Mania is hard on the brain, as is schizophrenia. It creates many tiny microdamages that hurt overall performance and harmony of the person's organism and mind, creating much more suffering, difficulties and illnesses.

It's all well documented.

Mentall illness is real. Psychiatry can help, but it's hard and psychiatrists and therapists are mostly horrible assholes and cwacks. Medications help you with one thing, hurt ten other things. Finding one that works well enough and doesn't hurt you bad enough is really hard and you'll have to switch between different ones constantly.

Mentall illness stigma is real. People treat the mentally ill worse than animals as if said animals could be criminals. A inherently criminal animal is what a mentally ill person is in my country, and is shameful to discuss it.

But when you get over all that, and you find the right life style, environment and medication for you, everything else changes. Medication does help.

Unless you have what's called a personality disorder (borderline, schizotypal), or your other symptoms that are far beyond what medication can do to help. But there are people with AIDS and cancer not being able to be helped due to limitations on knowledge of the disease, as well. Some people are just too far afflicted for any treatment in existance to be effective.


I think I made my point, sorry to hijack your thread with my opinions.

I just woke up and don't feel very well I im not really going to bother responding to each of your claims.

Just one thing, you say "Well documented"... In brazil do you realize these well documented sources are all paid for and OVER funded not under funded like you claim by big pharma that use you a a pawn to make money?