The mental health crisis in America

[Long Dark Blues]

Therapy works. I needed it while I was watching my mom die from cancer every day right in front of my eyes during the pandemic.

Indeed, I didn't feel fully healed from my weightlifting injury that I sustained at the beginning of 2019 until I started talking to a therapist about my mom.

If you've talked to a professional and still don't think therapy works, you either didn't take it seriously or had an absolutely retarded dunce for a therapist.

 

[kahiljabroni]

I think it's the other way around. Mental health is talked about so much that people think there is something wrong with them if they don't have mental health problems

 

[-Magua-]

Mental health awareness is much better in US than most countries in SEA, ime.
I dunno about nordic, baltic regions, or countries in Europe though, which will vary.

I think there is a pervading meaning crisis world wide in conjunction with mental disorders, (isolation/polarization: & lack of shared worldviews) pretty much spot on what Nietzsche, Jung, Dostovesky, Schopenhauer, & quite a few others saw prophetically unfolding in time.

That said, it's a transition time period & hopefully things will get better, but we won't see it.
I am fascinated though with the strides made in biotech & studies/new viewpoints & focus on consciousness, & crumbling worldview on materialism.
Crazy ass times we live in, though.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Should the looney bin be reintroduced?

Look, Ronald Reagan was a shit president. But I can’t exactly say that his decision to close the “loony bins” was a bad decision. People were abused there. Many didn’t even belong.

This is a problem that universal healthcare could contribute to solving. That, and stopping the ultra-wealthy from siphoning all the money from the lower classes into their savings accounts. People are struggling. So of course their mental health is precarious.

There was some research done not too long ago that showed the massive increase in homelessness we’ve seen over the past 10 - 15 years is directly related to the 2008 housing crisis. And I’m sure the opioid epidemic didn’t help.

 

[Contempt]

So... is this talking about the complete mental breakdown by many leftists after the bad orange man just put a brutal, electroral beatdown on the Democrats?

 

[Fluffernutter]

I don't think America is ignoring mental health at all. Americans openly talk about mental health and it seems like every other person has a therapist or takes medication. There isn't as much of a taboo about it like it used to for sure. But I sometimes wonder if there is a tendency to over diagnose everything nowadays. Everybody has some sort of disorder. Do you really have ADHD or do you just need to focus a bit more? Do you need depression meds or do you need to go outside and get some sunlight? Or are things so bad that people are genuinely mentally ill more than ever before? I don't know.

I've been concerned that we are so focused on mental health that we may be creating a sense of self fulfilling prophecy.

In my school, we have fliers in classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms, (and of course councilors' office doors) in regards to mental health issues.

Are we planting the seed in kids that they are broken?

 

[Señor Dudu Bird]

A large portion of it, is the coping mechanism of the victim mentality. It's much easier to pretend you're oppressed or have some kind of disability/mental issue than to admit your shortcomings and failures in life.

It's a lot easier to say, "I'm oppressed" rather than, "I really should have applied myself more in school so I'd have a better job at 30".


It's also absolutely fucking pathetic when you consider how difficult real mental illness like schizophrenia must be.

 

[Fluffernutter]

I know the bulk of this video is a particular critique of Better Help. But, the journalist has an interesting point regarding therapy.

His comment is that therapy has become a life milestone for the managerial class.

College, grad school, family, promotion, second house, therapy, car for your kid's birthday, etc.

 

[MassDistortion]

Long read sorry guys. I spent my entire life in a totally normal state of mind. No stress, no worry, no anxiety, it was great. Until I was in a car accident. I wasn't physically injured but I was rattled really badly. For months after the accident I was numb. I had no interest in anything, didn't want to eat, have sex, listen to music, watch sports. I found joy in nothing. I went to a doctor and after 20 minutes they prescribed me Prozac. They rattled off all the side effects and it gave me even more anxiety worrying about the side effects so I didn't take it. Not long after I tried a different Dr and the same thing happened; they just wanted to pump me full of pills. It was frustrating because they wouldn't listen to me and they weren't interested in any other approach. Finally I went to a third Dr and we had a long conversation about alternative ways to beating depression without PILLS. She gave me a list of things to do everyday and I followed all her instructions to the T. After a few weeks my depression started to go away. It was a miracle. I have no idea how to fix the mental health crisis in this country and obviously there are varying degrees of mental illness but maybe we could start with avoiding pharmaceuticals.

 

[Popsaregood230]

American food supply is poison. American Pharmaceuticals are band-aids and not root cause fixes.

People are what they eat. When their food is full of fake "nutrients", their body and mind will both suffer. Ignoring this root cause will render all other attempts to fix this as obsolete.

 

[Mike]

They just ignore them until they end up one of the shambling zombies downtown. The. They become part of the homeless problem and nobody has to care about them anymore.

 

[Mike]

many reasons, the pure inhumanity of how we all live is the biggest one in my opinion. Humans are not evolved to live like this, meaning, just a pursuit for material things and status and sacrifice of human relationships. I am constantly telling immigrants that what is told to you when you were living over wherever may have looked good but it's just a con. With them, they often bring solid family structures with them so they can't look 5 generations down when they've been used and abused, to see how it will end. Hell, that's why we con them to come and it works.

For us that have been hollowed out in any way possible for generations there isn't anything left so of course we are left in an existential wasteland where the old answers do not work, aren't worth working for and it all adds up to a lot of mental problems.

Yeah when I talk about my mental health struggles and mention my day to day life, people usually say something like well yeah your life sounds unpleasant.

There's a lot of people here struggling with mental health, while also living a brutal existence in poverty always racing one step ahead of homelessness.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

and don't forget, a lot of them make people's lives worse. Like doctors, they are just people and might molest, sexually harass, mislead or whatever. That's what happens whenever you place people on some pedestal.

I'm not placing people on a pedestal.

Tbh it sounds like the American therapy system is completely different from the UK one and it probably comes down to not having free healthcare so your therapists might be incentivised to keep people coming to make more money whereas ours want to get people going again and get their waiting list down .

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Also when reading this thread it's kinda obvious why men have way higher suicide rates than women.

 

[Nizam al-Mulk]

Therapy works. I needed it while I was watching my mom die from cancer every day right in front of my eyes during the pandemic.

Indeed, I didn't feel fully healed from my weightlifting injury that I sustained at the beginning of 2019 until I started talking to a therapist about my mom.

If you've talked to a professional and still don't think therapy works, you either didn't take it seriously or had an absolutely retarded dunce for a therapist.

In the olden days, there was the local hooker or the priest. Sometimes, it worked.

 

[mozfonky]

I'm not placing people on a pedestal.

Tbh it sounds like the American therapy system is completely different from the UK one and it probably comes down to not having free healthcare so your therapists might be incentivised to keep people coming to make more money whereas ours want to get people going again and get their waiting list down .

I'm sure it's different, don't know where you live but I'm sure you're right about that.

My exp with counseling are so personal and traumatic I wouldn't even want to share it in a public forum.

I can see how having someone to talk to when you're in a place that feels like hell on earth could help, I've been there, many times. I could see just having ears to bend could help. Outside of that? I don't know.

It's a trope at this point, "get help" or if someone did something fucked up, "he needs counseling" not realizing that that's most likely not going to change anything. People in trouble need tangible help. What that is? I don't know but just sitting down and talking about tragedies that you've been through doesn't do much. I came to believe that if it had any real value, the people giving me an hour a week would be giving a lot more. They don't, they can't, they have to make money. And, it can't be easy for anyone to change behavior, most people don't change at all, ever really.

 

[mozfonky]

Also when reading this thread it's kinda obvious why men have way higher suicide rates than women.

speaking of suicide rates, when my parents took me to a shrink when I was a teen, my uncle told me those guys didn't know what they were talking about and that they had the highest suicide rates of all professions. He told me, the reason they got into that line of work was to try and figure out why they were so messed up. My uncle was a smart, smart man.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

I'm sure it's different, don't know where you live but I'm sure you're right about that.

My exp with counseling are so personal and traumatic I wouldn't even want to share it in a public forum.

I can see how having someone to talk to when you're in a place that feels like hell on earth could help, I've been there, many times. I could see just having ears to bend could help. Outside of that? I don't know.

It's a trope at this point, "get help" or if someone did something fucked up, "he needs counseling" not realizing that that's most likely not going to change anything. People in trouble need tangible help. What that is? I don't know but just sitting down and talking about tragedies that you've been through doesn't do much. I came to believe that if it had any real value, the people giving me an hour a week would be giving a lot more. They don't, they can't, they have to make money. And, it can't be easy for anyone to change behavior, most people don't change at all, ever really.

I'm in the UK. Over here you'll have a discussion first to ascertain which type of therapy is best for you (CBT, talking therapy, exposure therapy, EMDR, group therapy etc) then you get prescribed a certain number of sessions. At the end of the sessions they'll check progress, sometimes extend, sometimes end the therapy if it's no longer needed, sometimes move to a different type of therapy, sometimes move to a more intense course of therapy).

I think the bottom line is the therapist doesn't have an incentive to keep someone in therapy who doesn't need therapy and doesn't have an incentive to drag it out for as long as possible.

I work in welfare and my primary focus is disability support and I've seen first hand people go from not leaving the house to functional, employed members of society.

 

[mozfonky]

Long read sorry guys. I spent my entire life in a totally normal state of mind. No stress, no worry, no anxiety, it was great. Until I was in a car accident. I wasn't physically injured but I was rattled really badly. For months after the accident I was numb. I had no interest in anything, didn't want to eat, have sex, listen to music, watch sports. I found joy in nothing. I went to a doctor and after 20 minutes they prescribed me Prozac. They rattled off all the side effects and it gave me even more anxiety worrying about the side effects so I didn't take it. Not long after I tried a different Dr and the same thing happened; they just wanted to pump me full of pills. It was frustrating because they wouldn't listen to me and they weren't interested in any other approach. Finally I went to a third Dr and we had a long conversation about alternative ways to beating depression without PILLS. She gave me a list of things to do everyday and I followed all her instructions to the T. After a few weeks my depression started to go away. It was a miracle. I have no idea how to fix the mental health crisis in this country and obviously there are varying degrees of mental illness but maybe we could start with avoiding pharmaceuticals.

I can sorta relate, I had a very close call last summer, I mean, probably within just a few feet, a couple moments, of being hit on the drivers side by an idiot running a red light. I've also been depressed all summer, probably more than I have been since anytime since i was maybe a teen, some 40 years ago.

I don't think the crash had anything to do with it but it certainly rattled me, made me not want to do my job (delivery) . I'm still doing it though.

Anyway, I was just going to say, it's got to be frustrating for doctors who when people come to them, won't listen and then say, "the doc won't listen to me". I've got a brother, over 400 pounds, only 5-7 and his body is going out on him and the doctors try to get him physical therapy which he claims makes him tired the next day, he wants drugs instead of doing some hard work, and after what the medical field went through with opioids, they aren't too eager to prescribe pain pills right now. The idiot won't listen, to anyone, I tell him to lose weight if he wants his back to feel better and he gets overexcited and agitated saying "that has nothing to do with it" .

You can't just hear what you want to hear all the time. Not saying this is the case with you but I know my brother does it and I've done it too. It's not easy to control your weight, or your moods or your chemistry.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

speaking of suicide rates, when my parents took me to a shrink when I was a teen, my uncle told me those guys didn't know what they were talking about and that they had the highest suicide rates of all professions. He told me, the reason they got into that line of work was to try and figure out why they were so messed up. My uncle was a smart, smart man.

They definitely don't have the highest suicide rates of all professions. It is true that people who've had mental health issues themselves in the past might be attracted to wanting to help others going through mental health problems though.