Should we be less open about mental illness?

[Mrs Paul]

Well, there are some things that I take issue with. The first, being that openness is the wrong word. I think people should be less public about it. It requires a certain degree of openness for treatment to be possible, as jumping into someone's head isn't exactly possible.
Another thing is that nobody seems to understand that there's a threshold between "mental illnesses", and "personal problems". Many people treat responding negatively to negative stimuli as a mental illness, because socially, it is expected that you shrug off every bad thing that happens to you, and put on a face for the world, lest you make someone else upset with your misery. For instance, I don't think that depression is a mental illness, unless you've got absolutely no reason to feel sad. It's the most overdiagnosed, overtreated thing that the medical world has ever seen, and I think that sometimes, people deserve to be unhappy.

That and PTSD is a fandom unless you've been in war. Cyberbullying didn't give you PTSD.

Yes and no. Keep in mind, depression isn't just "being sad or unhappy". If you've ever been depressed trust me, you can tell the difference!

Depression can indeed result from major tragedies in person's life -- the death of a loved one, a serious illness, losing your job, etc. Better to go and seek help than to try and manage on your own and end up going postal. I've known people who could probably have benefited from therapy after suffering from a major loss. I don't think my grandmother ever got over my aunt's death, and I think talking to a therapist could have done her a lot of good, for example.

Or if someone suffers from a mental illness, depression, anxiety, etc -- it can become much worse.

And PTSD can indeed result from things other than war. Child abuse, domestic violence, serious accidents, etc. If someone grew up being molested by one of their parents, I don't think PTSD would be out of line. Surviving a plane crash, nearly dying and suffering severe injuries? Yeah, that sounds completely reasonable.

Finally, there's still a lot we don't know about how the brain works. There can be physical causes of mental illness, such as strokes, or major head trauma. It's only recently we discovered that just how serious the problem of multiple head injuries in sports, that it's NOT just a case of "getting your bell rung."

Psychology and psychiatry are really still in their infancy, you know. How long has it been since the Catholic church actually stopped automatically condemning people to hell for committing suicide, for example? We still don't know all of the causes of mental illness.


Now, that all being said, cyber-bullying will generally NOT give you PTSD. Unless it spills over into real life, and you're being out and out stalked, turn off the computer.


I highly reccomend the book, "A Matter of Inches", by Clint Malarchuk. Malarchuk is a former NHL goalie who is famous for the time he accidentally had his throat slashed wide open by another player's skate blade, and almost bled out right there on the ice. It's probably one of the worst accidents in sports history (it's definitely one of the most gruesome) He had suffered from OCD since he was a child, and the accident only made it that much worst. He developed a serious drinking problem and was later diagnosed with PTSD. (Here's an article he wrote for The Players Tribune)


And here's the video -- might not wanna watch while you're eating.

Spoiler: Just to be on the safe side

 

[StarkRavingMad]

Yes, we should be less open about it.

I mean, I absolutely encourage people to seek help from professionals, family, and close friends ... But nobody should be encouraged to talk about it all of the time in the manner in which so many people do these days. People are making their mental illnesses their full identities, and it's obviously making everyone more miserable.

It's one thing to get things off your chest. It's another thing to be obsessive about it. If your mental illness is all you ever talk or think about, then guess what? You're not liberated, you're letting the mental illness take full control of your life.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

As with anything in life, it is good that people are being more open to the fact that this exist, but it's something you disclose to your employer, partner, family, not something you discuss online or with a wider "community" unless it can be avoided.

There will always be a portion of the population who either through "self diagnosis" or official diagnosis use it as an excuse to be and act like trash.

Just like how having high functioning autism is not an excuse for peculiar behavior, or glandular disease is no excuse for shitty eating habits, you know you will find a subset of people who think they can do no wrong because they have whatever quirky medical malady that enables then.

 

[Ellesse_warrior]

That's what it comes down to, it's simply not an excuse for bad behavior.

I have a cousin who is bipolar who I haven't spoken to in coming up on 8 years due to mistreatment of me and from what I've learned from speaking with another cousin who's interacted with them after I did they still remain a toxic, malicious person and there's simply no excuse for that.

This is fairly typical with bipolar. I don't have bipolar but have a lot of experience with it. People who have it are difficult to deal with for family and friends. They can be particularly manipulative and malicious seemingly over nothing but that's part of being bipolar and to a certain extent they can't help it only manage it with meds and therapy.
IME cutting them off only justifies their shitty behaviour to themselves but I wouldn't blame you for cutting ties either because it is a really difficult situation for everyone involved.

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

The idea that 'more openness is needed about mental illness' is a con to convince people in socially and economically alienating societies that it is normal to be depressed because they have few really close friends, vastly less family ties to people further and further away, and less and less ties to local social and religious organizations than ever before.

Obviously, it is normal to be depressed when your life is depressing, but the solution has to be to try and find ways to reconnect despite the deliberate engineering of an alienating society, and if possible try to find ways to fight back against it.

 

[tasty humane burger]

As other commentators have said, I think there is a time and a place. Being more open about mental health is vital to decrease stigma and better understanding. It also allows for people to know they're not alone and take a step back and say 'wait this isn't normal' and seek the help they need.

I think 'influencers' and celebs who are open about their mental health are great at normalising mental health issues and again, allow more people to speak up. But yeah, this also leads to much more clout chasing and using your MH condition to be a shitty person. Especially with the exceptional people we mock on here. It also opens up the gates for people to think every single thing is a quirk of their mental illness. Or that they indeed have a mental illness for feeling stressed during their finals or sad when they experience a breakup. Whilst these incidents can trigger a MH crisis, it's often not the case. People will talk about their 'anxiety' and 'mini panic attacks' in everyday conversation when they're really just talking about trivial stress.

There is also now a culture of indie artists and companies using being open about mental health to sell products and ultimately profit off of people who are suffering. I know someone who spent £150+ on a website ran by a 'mental health advocate' essentially on cutesy stationary and lavender soaps in the name of 'self care'.

Adding from this, we spend a lot of time being open about depression and anxiety, which is great because a lot of people suffer from these or may experience them during lows in their lives and they can absolutely cripple you. These can be normally be helped without great professional input. But, equally, there is no shame in reaching out for more help and managing if you truly are struggling to cope. But, we don't speak enough about the more 'scary' mental health problems - psychosis, bipolar, etc. And we leave people with a much more challenging and complex illness still relatively isolated and possibly even more stigmatised because the rhetoric is very much so 'you can function super normally with a mental illness'.

 

[Dom Cruise]

This is fairly typical with bipolar. I don't have bipolar but have a lot of experience with it. People who have it are difficult to deal with for family and friends. They can be particularly manipulative and malicious seemingly over nothing but that's part of being bipolar and to a certain extent they can't help it only manage it with meds and therapy.
IME cutting them off only justifies their shitty behaviour to themselves but I wouldn't blame you for cutting ties either because it is a really difficult situation for everyone involved.

To be fair part of the reason we haven't interacted in so long is simply because she has lived very far away from me.

I have made some efforts though recently to reach out to her though because I'm not one to hold a lifelong grudge.

 

[Ellesse_warrior]

To be fair part of the reason we haven't interacted in so long is simply because she has lived very far away from me.

I have made some efforts though recently to reach out to her though because I'm not one to hold a lifelong grudge.

Sorry, I misunderstood your post then

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

There's a lot of young people these days who can't handle even minor stressors. Go on to any forum discussing college and you'll see so many people talking about having mental breakdowns. Being a nutcase has been normalized to the point where Gen Z has developed a culture-bound anxiety disorder.

It's because of lawnmower parenting. You see people saying 'I coasted through high school getting As for showing up and now that I'm in college I don't know what to do!' A high school diploma shouldn't be a participation trophy, but because parents whined that their little snowflake was failing, now it is.

The idea that 'more openness is needed about mental illness' is a con to convince people in socially and economically alienating societies that it is normal to be depressed because they have few really close friends, vastly less family ties to people further and further away, and less and less ties to local social and religious organizations than ever before.

Obviously, it is normal to be depressed when your life is depressing, but the solution has to be to try and find ways to reconnect despite the deliberate engineering of an alienating society, and if possible try to find ways to fight back against it.

You are absolutely correct, but a lot of people also purposely isolate themselves because they can't handle social interaction. Do you think there's anywhere in America that doesn't have a church or two or ten? There's the cult of the 'introvert', the 'I'm too cool for small talk and partying', and it's a cope for anxiety. People like the comfort of the online world where you can deliberate over your conversation choices for hours and where you can easily switch from the KiwiFarms tab back to the massively addictive video games whenever you want.

 

[No Nuts No Glory]

I typed out a long reply but people already stated most of my points so I'll cut down to a point I don't think was brought up already:

People who feel the need to coddle those they know (or assume) have mental illness. I'm not talking about pity parties (those suck too) but rather people who think they need to "save" me because I have mental illness.

I don't like to be open about my problems partially for that but mostly because of other issues people have posted already.

 

[I was a Teenage “JA”-man]

I really have no place to put this but I really thought you guys were being hyperbolic about the whole mental health is my personality uwu people. Fuck I’m sorry