Does Mental Illness Really Exist?

Um, I’d say that she’s prime proof that it does exist. Stopping a complete stranger, making declarative statements about their health, and having a tenuous grasp on reality are not the actions of a sane person.

I could battle you on that. Depends on your “illness” of course. Some mental conditions are more serious than others.

For the most part, I think if you manage your memories well, you ought to be alright. My theory is that if your brain can’t access your memories in a healthy way then medication may be necessary. But as long as your memory and creativity are intact, you ought to be able to fix your own issues. But you need to know how: You can’t do anything you don’t remember how to do.

No one can really understand a true mental illness until they have it themselves. Obviously she just doesn’t understand

@syz can I make you some cookies? GA.

All you have to do is read about the human brain (or any brain) to understand how sensitive it is and how small things can affect the construction of your synapses and firing paths. The brain is what essentially controls our actions, so anything from a bang on the head as child or a mother smoking can alter your brain in someway. The simple Pavlov dog expieriment should be enough to suffice and show that anyone who says a mental illness doesn’t exist is a moron.

And By the way: ‘Lol’ at ‘Wtf’ as the category lol.

I am a Christian, and I have been through therapy, and I will tell you it does exist.
Good luck with it.

Common sense says there is. Otherwise, why would sane people set themselves on fire, crash cars into abandoned buildings and like scenarios?

Why don’t people understand? The brain is another part of the body, and if the body can be subject to illness, why not the brain as well? My aunt was much like that woman, and SHE was the one who was mentally ill!

There are 11 kinds of people: Those who know it exists, those who think it doesn’t and those who think it is demonic possession. I wonder which kind that woman was.

@filmfann
Too many subjects in that statement. I concluded that therapy does exist.

@ragingloli ??

Illness exists, mental and otherwise.

Mental illness is a matter of where you draw the line. To define an illness, you must first define what the normal state of being is. I think that mental illnesses are overdiagnosed in some cases, like when my primary school teachers tried to tell my parents that my brother had ADD. They certainly do exist, the boundaries are just a little blurry. Some people would have us believe that simple things like a lack of motivation need to be seen to, while others like the nut you met on the street think that no mental illnesses require treatment.

I would like to see this woman come to my work, and then tell me that mental illnesses do not exist. I could guarantee that with such behaviour one of my clients would bust her eardrums within minutes.

@ninjacolin um ok, how do I fix schizophrenia?

@Spinel
No that I doubt the premise of mental illness as being valid but your proof is faulty.

If people set themselves on fire then that proves mental illness exists.

Premise- All people who set themselves on fire are mentally ill.
Not a premise at all but an assumptive premise. First you would have to prove that all people who set themselves on fire have mental illness
These guys were sane and they set themselves on fire

Since there is an exception your argument is not valid.

That is crazy talk.

@ninjacolin symptoms:auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, paranoid and bizarre delusions,disorganized speech and thinking only when really tired/stressed (wile on meds, worse without)

@tyrantxseries, schizophrenia seems, to me, to be a legitimate issue of memory access. In this case, the brain doesn’t filter and call on memories in a “normal” way compared to most people. Instead it gives you various (intruding) features of “dreams” while you’re awake.

Ah, such a relief, all I’ve needed all these years was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism

@syz In her defense I was going into a mental health facility…if that makes it any better
she didn’t just stop me, everyone that went by got her speech.

@DrMC
In your case yes that’s true. :P

Of course it exists – I hope if she ever gets it, someone who isn’t like her will help her.

It definitely exists….my ex mother in law is walking proof!

Of course it exists. Some disorders and diseases are difficult to diagnose and are not obvious superficially, which makes some people skeptical of them. I’m sure there are those out there who fake or exaggerate their symptoms for attention (like I suspect my former best friend did), but then, doesn’t that make them mentally ill as well?

I believe it exists. But I think a lot of people are misdiagnosed, and don’t actually need to take the medication prescribed.
But, I don’t have a medical degree, so don’t ask me who should and shouldn’t be on medication.

@tyrantxseries i think we were expecting more of a battle, huh? let’s try to find it:

The only schizophrenic individual i’ve dealt with (at great length) never seemed to have an episode while we were hanging out for extended periods of time discussing it and hanging out. She seemed completely perfect as long as she was engaged in conversation. She only relapsed when she was on her own.

This always made me question the accuracy of her diagnosis. It was as if she could be distracted from it simply based on her activities. Also, it seemed like she caused it in herself based on her past.

To a large extent, I think people are able to unknowingly create false symptoms. Tell the doctor what they’ve experienced, and then the doctor, basing everything on what they were told, ends up giving them a bogus diagnosis based on unwittingly bogus information.

As @FireMadeFlesh said, there is a huge range of human behavior. If you measure it, you’ll find the famous bell curve. Most people will have similar behaviors and they are lumped in the center, creating the bell shape. The people who are really different, say more than three standard deviations from the mean, those are the ones who seem crazy. Just because they are so different.

Most people are really uncomfortable with people who are so different in the way they think and behave. So they say there is something wrong with us. Since our behavior can be changed with medication, it becomes accepted that the normal thing to do is to treat people who are different, and are also in pain.

One could argue that there are no shoulds in the world. Those are just cultural dictums. If the general feeling is that weird behavior and unhappiness is wrong, it becomes illness. But it doesn’t have to be that way. One could equally easily say that feeling times of great energy and times where you want to kill yourself are not things that need to be changed (unless, of course, the person wants to change).

Looked at that way, you can say there is no such thing as mental illness. There are only value judgments about different states of behavior.

There are times when it pisses me off to be diagnosed as mentally ill. But then, I’m only bipolar, which often is not as extreme as some other mental disorders. Of course, it can be pretty extreme. Not so much in my case.

So, with me, I think it does become the case of where you draw the line. I was very unhappy with the way I felt when I was diagnosed, so I was happy to be treated. Now, I wonder if I could handle it on my own. I’m living in a gray zone, I think. Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. Or maybe it’s both. In any case, I don’t think of myself as mentally ill. I think of myself as being able to take strange and sometimes frightening journeys through the outer edges of mental states. For me, those travels are quite instructive. What makes me able to take instruction from these travels? Do I take instruction? I don’t think that’s for me to say. I could be delusional. Others will judge.

Daloon, the bell curve hits home.

Some of the DSM-4 criteria objectify the point at which the trait/pattern is associated with loss of function in relationships, employement, and impact on overall health.

It’s a disease if it hurts you, and can be fixed.

This could get deep however.

Bell curve traits are considered polygenic – like height, intelligence, atheletic performance.

If you want an ethically lively debate – look up whether extremes of height are a disease state. Both extremes are associated with shorter lifespans.

Should short people, who are as short as their parents be treated with growth hormone?

@DrMC: you mean “nominalize” not “objectify”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-model_(NLP)#Nominalization

oh, and “mental illness” does not exist.

What I meant was that it sets a concrete limit that differentiates those in the catergory from the those that are not.

Sort of an operational definition of the state. “nominalize” is not part of my vocabulary, it’s interesting, but I’m unlikely to run into anyone who would use it. This in turn makes me more curious, in what setting, or personage are you using it?

Setting an arbitrary endpoint is merely pragmatic. People have complaints, they want to be fixed. Research shows objective benefit.

You have demand, and supply, hence you need to study objectively what is going on.

Any model that wants to address this demand, by patients, and society needs to step up with a statement for the ER physician when someone is brought in by the police.

“I’m sorry but the hallucinations, and violent behavior, which has been shown to be partially due to genetic causes and stress, and which will respond nicely to admission and medication because an academic somewhere things we shouldn’t What is terrifying you is actually demonic possession, or they are faking it.”

“Cheerio. Carry on. Taken them now, and if were wrong you cant sue, because the government agrees this is all a side effect of doublethink by republicans from listening to Beck. Take your hallucinating relative to the local re education camp, now, hurry-up, we have a lot of people mis-using the ER that really need to be seen for their sore throats,”

“Don’t forget to leave your 5$ donation at the door. The high school graduates working as doctors are expensive. The real ones have been moved off for reeducation long ago.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live_%28film%29

Um Ria – you missed my point I think. Also the world is clearly flat. I guarantee it.

@DrMC It’s a disease if it hurts you, and can be fixed.

Hurt, of course, is subjective. Different people have different relationships to being hurt. Some say that that which does not kill you makes you stronger. A “Fix” is also in the eye of the beholder. That’s the problem for many folks with mental illness. The benefits of the meds do not seem worth the side effects. The cure can be worse than the illness.

While, to some degree, any illness or perception of pain is subjective, I think this is even more true with mental illness. It is impossible to say if one person’s experience is the same as another’s. This is true in pain management, as well. How often to doctors not believe their patients are in pain? And how often do mental health professionals diagnose illnesses where they don’t really exist? After, even for the most ethical practitioner, where there is any doubt or borderline diagnosis, even absent the pressures of defensive medicine, couldn’t that extra payday resulting from many client visits push the diagnosis over to the “illness” side? If ethical doctors can be influenced simply by the visit of a pharmaceutical rep, then I don’t see how pecuniary concerns wouldn’t influence diagnoses.

Then there’s the whole illness model of Western medicine. We cure things, instead of trying to learn how to live with them or even harness them for whatever benefits we can make of them.

And yes, your mention of the issues raised with extremes of physical attributes and their impact on lifespan is interesting. Clearly many athletes choose a short and glorious life to a long, unnoticed life. Look at the controversy surrounding concussions that football players experience. How about basketball players?

And again, what is the cutting edge of evolution, and how wise is it to pull ourselves back from that edge? We cannot know. It all comes back to philosophy, and doctors are trained in one philosophy. “First, do no harm.” Well, who defines harm? Usually we think of harm as being different from the central tendency.

I “suffer” from mental illness. But I also gain from it. And maybe part of my “recovery” process is to reclaim whatever the hell it is to reclaim from this disorder. Like many of us, I’d prefer to learn to manage or cope with this on my own. I particularly want to get rid of the Lithium, although the lamictal sucks, too. But then, who would believe me? After all, I’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness which invalidates my opinions anyway.

Daloon, I agree the subjective nature of diagnosis is fraught with pitfalls, and is the bane of the existance of non-psychiatrist. It is dificult for the rest of us to disagree.

Example – patient told he is ADHD on ritalin – but behaving manic. A very bad blend.

I also agree an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Far be it from the current system to implement and profit.

I believe that the genes for mental illness in the right dose confer advantage, hence thier retention in the gene pool. Whoa to the person who gets too much.

This is a reason I am strongly in favor of preservation of diversity and extremely dislike mistreatment of outgroup people.

I do think it’s dangerous to abandon all the advances of the last century since freud. Too much suffering would follow.

Imagine if you could know you were at risk for bipolar from your genes, and take state of the art measures to never need expensive, dangerous meds.

Well, for the grandkids some day.

@DrMC Cold comfort, sir. Cold comfort.

And again, what is the cutting edge of evolution, and how wise is it to pull ourselves back from that edge?
This is a somewhat grandiose thought. As if somehow there is a cutting edge of evolution that those with a particular diagnosis ride. The nature of evolution is a slow and deliberate one punctuated with fits of brilliance from all corners. The brainstorm can also be simply over stimulated neurons. The habitual firing across the synapses can be nothing more than addiction to well worn neurological pathways. Take for example, the hyperactive child. It’s no coincidence that when I take Ritalin I want to climb the walls but when my friend takes it he’s completely chill. Mental Illness, imbalance, neurological condition or ailment, it’s all the same. It can be corrected. But I think that not wanting to take medication is also common to the sufferer. This can be likened I think to simply acquiring new habits which look at life from the perspective of one who experiences life differently than what they thought was normal before.

Is grandiose bad? How does it reflect on the thinker?

I’m saying that if we eliminate our diversity, it could be dangerous. Why do we put seeds in a seed bank? We never know when we might need a particular seed because it can survive in the current environment, whereas others seeds we were relying on now die.

Maybe different mental tendencies are valuable under specific kinds of circumstances. If we dull the edge of those tendencies, we may stop them from being useful when circumstances would make them quite valuable. Sure, it is a long shot, but weird people feel bad enough as it is. Why not let them have this delusion? Does grandiosity hurt you so much?

And pardon me if I don’t want to think of myself as a sufferer. It is very easy to think that way, and I find that when I think that way, I tend to become the sufferer. I’m just trying to find a way to value that which is insufferable because that seems to make it more bearable. That’s all. You don’t have to take it as if it makes a difference. Maybe it will work for me. Does that harm you in any way? And if it works for me, might not it work for others who are similar to me?

I think without a few grandiose Mozarts it could get boring. We need to care for our Britney Spears, and others, while we still have them.

Grandiosity is functional – a fire that consumes the vessel. It is a great loss to lose some of these individuals.

I don’t know you personally but from what you’ve said countless times, drugs have been helpful and there was a time that you realized that they improved your functioning and were vital. Personally, I am an addict/alcoholic in remission. I have been free of all substances for over 21 years but it’s always only a drink away. Addiction is a form of mental illness as well so you can say I also suffer. The only difference is that I need to avoid substances. But the similarity between the two is uncanny.

I have a disease that even with all evidence to the contrary continually wants to tell me I don’t have a disease and should be able to have a drink, a joint, whatever. And 90% of sobriety is just continually letting go of this thought and accepting the fact that recovery is possible with a daily reprieve of surrendering to my condition. And when I do that, pace myself, don’t take on too much and listen to my body, life is good.

Now likewise it seems to me that with the process of diagnosed and medicated illness there is also this idea that one should be capable, strong enough or brave enough to deal with life like a normal person. But there is no more normalcy in persons not afflicted nor any nobility in stoic suffering. But there is a similar idea among many people I know with various mental illnesses to get off the drugs that have helped them. It sounds like you’re going to great lengths to try to justify something, but if it proves to be to your detriment it will be a bittersweet victory. You need to look at your history alone to see what has been your experience when doing these “experiments”. Just be honest. It has been difficult for me at times in my life accepting I have a handicap of sorts but I’ve fully accepted it at this point. I have a sickness, illness, handicap and it will always be part of my experience and there’s no shame in that. But I need to take my medicine(surrender to recovery) daily if I expect a reprieve.
And this may actually surprise you but I care about you as a human being and fellow traveler on the road.
@DrMC
Grandiosity is also the cornerstone of personality disorder especially narcissism. I know because I have narcissistic tendencies. I imagine I’m not alone among many here on Fluther.

narcissists are actually defending against a fear of inner weakness, from my understanding.

Bipolars are quite different, that’s what I’m referring to.

narcissists are a pain in the ass sometimes.

I am so glad I don’t have to fight off addiction urges. Food is enough of a problem.

@DrMC
There isn’t a clear agreed upon definition of any of these disorders and I’m not saying I’m a full blown narcissist or I could not acknowledge personal weakness or fallibility at all. That would be my mother.:) Neither do I have anything more than the most basic knowledge of others diagnosis and I certainly don’t claim to. Nor would I wish to overstep my boundaries. Where personal matters are raised it’s impossible to not raise a few hackles though.

The bipolar also has moments of hyper-inflated grandiosity when they are in a manic phase which of course is the opposing aspect of the depression. I had a bipolar friend who committed suicide so I do have some personal knowledge of the condition. I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through that.

Narcissism is complex, and beyond the scope of my expertise, in general I have to pussyfoot around them. The best N person is one who understands this. It greatly eases the pain. Bipolars are fun, up until the point they get violent.

A person with insight can be forgiven 1000 times. The rest we just have to work around. Everyone is struggling with dysfunctional variations in personality to some degree. The most sane will actually benefit from therapy.

I think the problem comes from labeling a personality trait. (usually negatively) and then assuming that person is like other (bad people) – out group homogeneity.

Physician’s to their best ability, match features to a best fit for a diagnosis, and then see if it meets diagnostic criteria. The DSM-4 is not perferct. The whole thing is a product of debate.

Grandiosity is just a symptom, you need several others before you meet any criteria.

DSM-4 narcissism

versus a hypomanic episode

To understand bipolar it’s best to start with a discussion of mood disorders.

I think society does a stinky job of tolerating and helping people with the above “situations”. Were it not for therapeutic benifit (particularly for bipolar 1, and major depressive episodes – both which can be as lethal as cancer if untreated – very high suicide risk) I’d forgo labeling anyone.

Back to the question, I would say that the scientific community has come to an agreed upon idea that there is a number of medical conditions that are classified as mental illness. So in that regard mental illnesses do exist. Where I believe they err is in classifying alternative thinking processes as mental illness when in fact they may just be outside the norm. Some of the greatest poetry and art I have seen has come from mental institutions. This can’t be purely coincidence. So I suppose I agree with some of the spirit of what daloon said with prejudice.

For example, Vincent Van Gogh was a great artist and clearly mentally ill. The havoc he wreaked on others and ultimately himself may have been avoided had he had access to the simple treatment available today. Genius does not preclude mental illness or vice versa.

no – it’s a term invented to explain things that did not fit into the scientific method

@candide What do you base that statement upon?

knowing people in the field

@DrMC
The problem is that people don’t necessarily always fit into such neat classifications but I concur there must be a starting point. The problem with some conditions is that often not even professionals want/or are able to give a clear prognosis

just to add to my previous… I do not believe that it has anything to do with religion, imho, I just think that the people in the field could do a better job, a lot better job, because this term is often used as a blanket expression to something people cannot treat by traditional means, and don’t care to look outside the box, and I’m not talking about bible thumping

@candide “no – it’s a term invented to explain things that did not fit into the scientific method”

How do you figure that? The scientific method is a process by which we may explain our observations. It is not a mould that something can fit into or not, it is a process that may be applied to every possible observation.