Mental Disorder?

[Apotheosis]

I read the Wikipedia entry for 'mental disorder' the other day -

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

Along with a load of other stuff about different views on these areas. All part of an ongoing quest to try & work things out a bit more.

Psychiatry/the biomedical model - Primarily equates Madness [mental & emotional distress] with a brain disorder/illness/disease. There is no proof or evidence that any 'functional' MH condition is based primarily on a biologic/physical brain pathology/condition - But that is in general primarily how things are seen & treated - with a diagnosis/label (of a brain condition) & a drug prescription.

How much is it all a major part & fact of things, that for whatever the reasons - biologic/psychological/social/spiritual (&/or a mixture of these aspects) We really are primarily suffering with mental disorder/unwellness. I know that many people have no problem accepting all that. I have personally found all that very hard to accept & cope with. But is it the same as any other serious difficulty in life?

All this searching; trying to find reasons, causes, explanations, & solutions. Maybe it's just the way it is? Same as if someone got cancer, or any other dis-ease.

I don't see where I go any further with all this? I've looked at & explored as much as I can; every angle/perspective/theory & understanding going. & although I do lean very much towards the more psychological, social & spiritual angles to what I have experienced - I don't really have any more of an idea of why I've gone through what I have done. Modern psychiatry says that mental disorders are mediated by biological/psychological & social factors - & that is where their aetiology lays. The weighting of course is still very much towards, & in favour of biological theories; & label & drug.

Of course there are those that fully recover - but with severe MH disorders that appears to be the minority (for whatever reasons & the same with any major/severe disease/condition).

I suppose that I still have some of the thinking; that with the right social & psychological help & support that I can more fully address & resolve things? But can I? I've suffered with severe mental health difficulties for over 20 years now. & I'm still no closer to really knowing or understanding if the main problem is biological, or psychological, or social, or spiritual - or a mixture of these things? How do I/am I meant to sort it all out & resolve it all? & is that even possible? Is it best to just accept taking medications? Is there other approaches that can viably sort all this out?

I really do feel that I've done my best & tried everything possible that I can to try & resolve & deal with all this [including reading hundreds of books, thousands of hours of research, working closely with alternative healers, mindfulness & meditation, supplements/nutrition, talking at depth with people, utilising as much therapy as possible, thousands of 12 step meetings/approach; countless things]. & I'm still unwell. There hasn't so far been any miraculous healing or resolution to everything. In certain ways I've got a bit better at dealing & coping with certain things; & have been able to live as independently as possible; but a lot of that has really come from adapting to & accepting the fact that I'm ill; & have a severe stress related condition. I've not been in severe psychosis/crisis/hospitalisation for 7 years - which is very good. But I'm not well. I'm still very effected with everything, & with everything that has gone on.

Is it a case of just accepting that I'm not well (& everything that goes with that), & that's the way it is? Accept the diagnosis; accept what is; & more importantly what isn't known, & just keep taking the tablets & plodding on...Accept that it's all just the way it is.

In a way I'm slightly envious of the majority of people that seem able to go with all the orthodox views; I'm mentally ill, I have *insert diagnosis*, the best thing is psychiatric drugs, & can accept the diagnosis, treatments, & prognosis without too much trouble or questioning. I can't do/accept that. I'm still searching for meaning & answers the same as when I first went mad; & is that all a part of this condition as well? There doesn't seem to be any categorical answers to it all. I'm really sick of; depressed about, & done in with it all.

[Apotheosis]

The Wikipedia 'Recovery approach' page is also interesting -

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

[Han2403]

When my husband became ill, I found it rather bizarre that the mental health team told me to stop dwelling on trying to find out why he'd become the way he was and that the focus should be on treating the symptoms and getting him out of that state.

I found it bizarre as surely by finding out as much as possible about why the 'illness' had started, it would help with the treatment of it. I've never got any answers to my questions about 'why'.

With regards to comparisons to how people react when they have other illness such as cancer, I think that also depends on the person. Some people will accept the 'normal' methods of treatment and not feel the need to explore other avenues whilst some will.

My stepdaughter was very ill a couple of years ago with a brain tumour, she received the usual medical treatment, meanwhile I was on a mission to find any alternative ways of helping her from a more natural and also spiritual point of view (in addition to the hospital treatment).

I think it just depends on the individual really.

Sorry that is all a bit garbled & jumbled, my head is broken today!

[Apotheosis]

I think it just depends on the individual really.

Thanks for the reply; it makes sense.

It seems bizarre to me as well that there is no real concern or question as to why people end up with 'mental disorders'? Or what is really causing these conditions.

But this society/culture/civilisation, & the majority of people; all appear very bizarre to me in many ways anyway.

[Scruffaluff]

But this society/culture/civilisation, & the majority of people; all appear very bizarre to me in many ways anyway.

I think you are not alone in that, Apothesis

You clearly spend a lot of time reflecting on things and questioning things - and I think that sometimes that can create enough of a difference in attitude/outlook and ways of being, thinking and interacting that can separate a person out a bit. It can be alienating, by putting you into a minority of sorts. Which can make the rest of the world seem bizarre.

I've had a couple of friends over the years who had no mental health problems, and successful and normal-fairly-contented lives, who had similar struggles and issues with thinking our society/culture was peculiar and a bit mad. So I don't think it's necessarily a feature of mental illness!
But is a feature of a somewhat different way of experiencing the world, and thinking about things.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it, in itself. For the most part I think critical and independent thinking is something to be encouraged and there isn't enough of it. But I also think that going down that road comes with a price-tag (as do most things, and anything worthwhile.) It isn't an easy or comfortable path to take. It is frequently lonely when you find yourself stood on the other side of the room from the majority, too many times.
I don't support rebellion just for the sake of always being contrary to everyone and everything, like a teenage nihilism.
But I do think it is difficult to keep questioning and pondering things rather than jumping in with a majority (whatever that may be, for any topic, time, place) and trusting that there is safety in numbers and that the majority are more likely to be correct just because most people agree with something.

I might be talking rubbish here, but I often wonder about the consequences of living in a society where you don't believe in or adhere to the predominant culture.
It's usually talked about with respect to immigrants moving into a new country and culture, and what happens then. But I often wonder why they assume that people who were born here would automatically adopt and agree with the culture around them. Especially relevant when it comes to psychiatry and the interpretation of beliefs (re:delusions) when there are provisos in the diagnostic criteria that unusual beliefs are not to be regarded as delusional if they are in keeping with the cultural beliefs of the person. How do they determine a person's culture? By default of being born somewhere? By choice? What about sub-cultures? Is it madness for a person to almost entirely reject their own culture?
I guess as long as you have no other difficulties or problems in functioning, you would never come to the attention of MHS and happily go on your way. If you do have problems, it can become an issue.
In any case, I think it can cause a person difficulty to live outside of their own culture or social trends, even when it is for all the right sorts of reasons. It can feel strange and make it even harder to relate to people around you.
I'd imagine there are far more people in the same boat than it seems, but scattered around so you don't get that sense of community and belonging as much.

As for the causes of mental disorders?
These days I am leaning towards thinking the human brain and mind and experience is far too complex for us to ever understand very well. We may, as a species, admire our higher cognitive thingimajigs, but even human cognition has its limit. I sometimes think we may be chasing an unattainable goal in trying to understand the mind. There's no reason (a priori) to assume that the human intellect has the capacity to understand that level of complexity.... even at the extreme end of the bell-curve. We might, but we also might not. It's worth pursuing, to understand as much as we can just as long as we remain aware that we only have a partial and potentially inaccurate understanding of things and don't start believing that we really do understand it. (I fear psychiatry, overall as a profession, fell into that trap a long time ago.)

My personal opinion (as I've rambled before) is that there are an array of causes and it varies from person to person, but psychiatry hasn't yet found reliable ways of determining which causes is at work in which person. They jump from generalisation to generalisation instead. Even if they came up with reliable tests to determine if there are awry brain processes or chemical imbalances in a person, or rule them out... how they would then determine what is going on in the people whose problems aren't caused by that sort of thing, I cannot imagine. It would all still be mostly educated guesswork, an art.

Is it a case of just accepting that I'm not well (& everything that goes with that), & that's the way it is? Accept the diagnosis; accept what is; & more importantly what isn't known, & just keep taking the tablets & plodding on...Accept that it's all just the way it is.

I think maybe, perhaps, to some extent. Though that's a tall order and something I am unable to do, myself, most of the time.
The key words that jump out at me there Apothesis, are "accept what is; & more importantly what isn't known"
We humans are inclined to want to know, and have some certainty. In my experience most people will trust authorities and accept answers without much explanation or questioning because most people are looking for a definite answer and security around things. It's extremely hard to sit with not knowing. There is a sense of order and safety to believing in an explanation for things, even if it isn't a good explanation. Endless questioning leads to a sort of madness in itself, I think. But I don't know how you stop questioning and go back to pretending that the generally-accepted answers aren't riddled with holes and flaws in logic or contradictions or loose ends.
Some people seem able to accept things. Others don't. I think one is probably fairly misguided but results in more functional and happier people and is probably a better bet for a healthy, contented, productive life. The other is utterly crazy-making but perhaps more intellectually honest but that once you cross over to that, it's hard to go back and undo what you have learned/seen/understood.

Yes I think part of acceptance is accepting what (how much) we don't know. And bearing in mind how much the professionals don't really know (despite the over-confidence of some of them.)

Medication is a tricky issue. I know that it causes some people great damage and pain and is part of an often abusive system (a system with a very dodgy history.) But I also know people who have benefited from it hugely. And then a lot of people somewhere in between.
I think that is part of the not-knowing.
Treatment is still a lottery, they don't understand enough about it all yet. It's like throwing darts at a board... in poor lighting... from a distance.
Sometimes they will hit a bullseye. Sometimes they will just hit someone in the eye.
If you have a choice about matters, it's a question of weighing up risks and potential benefits, with how bearable or sustainable your life is without psychiatric intervention.
Of course it gets much more complicated when you don't have a choice (and that is a whole other topic.)

I feel constantly under pressure (external and internal) to get better. That there should or must be a way of sorting all this out and fixing it. But when I'm in a less-stressed and more philosophical mood I think there is no absolute, no law-of-physics or rule-of-logic that there must be a way to fix things. There are many things in the world that we have no control over and events we cannot prevent or change and damages we cannot repair. Every problem does not have a solution. But I spend every day crucifying myself under the pressure of the idea that there is, there must be, and I am obligated to find that solution and turn myself into something other than what I am because what I am is not good enough.

My re-engagement with Services over the last year has been a very mixed bag, and I am gearing up to trying medication again, mostly because the self-help, therapy, people-support etc just haven't helped me enough to get me anywhere near functioning enough or safe with myself. On a shaky day I pin too much hope on treatment (given my previous poor and adverse responses to medications) but on a better day I can view it as an experiment, a gamble, and keep in mind that psychiatry is not yet much like a science at this point, and accept that I am venturing into unknowns again.. in the hope that this time a dart might hit the board rather than the floor. I can't afford not to try.

At risk of going even more off-topic... I do wonder if for those of us with longer-term problems who do not recover (or have intermittent episodes with recovery in between) whether a considerable part of the problem in functioning and getting on with some sort of life, is bound up in the notion that we should be able to recover. I feel that there is little provision for those who don't fit in or function very well. Society is becoming increasingly homogenised, one size fits all. Oh they superficially seem to support individuality and choice, but only within the confines of a particular set of choices and ways of being. If you fall outside of that, there are fewer and fewer niche activities and places to fit into. These days everything feels tainted by the belief that we should be capable of being the same, and living up to a certain standard of productivity, and able to fit in and make our appearance, conversation and behaviour match up. It feels like the little nooks and bolt holes that eccentrics and others who couldn't iron out the more extreme kinks, could find a way of making life and living in have all but disappeared. (But I'm not meaning to imply there was a golden time when things were fine if you were different/ill/eccentric... but that there was perhaps somewhat more opportunity for some people to find a niche.)
That's not to say that some problems/symptoms don't desperately need dealing with and resolving in some way because they can be very destructive and unbearable to suffer or be around. But some of the non-crisis aspects of mental illness, seem to be a problem just by being a poor fit with ordinary society and few roles/places to go and "be weird" without bothering people.

It's all geared towards the majority and if you fall more than 2 sigmas beyond that mean in any way and cannot change yourself enough to fit into it, then you are stuck.
Similarly so much of MHS seems geared towards trying to somehow bulldoze people into being "normal" so they can churn them back out into a society that now only caters for the average/normal. There seems to be no contingency for being unable to normalise someone. They just keep trying to bang the corners off the square pegs to make them fit in the round hole, dammit! Rather than keeping aside or creating some squarer-shaped holes.

But at present the onus is on us to adapt to society, which only works if you are close enough to the norm to be able to reach it. A poor, vague analogy here: If you are 2 yards from the norm you might be able to squash yourself up enough to fit in . If you are starting out 6 yards away, and can only squash up 2 yards, you are still going to be 4 yards away from it even though you have tried as hard and done as much as the other person. People are not all born the same. We are on a distribution, a curve, in all sorts of ways and functions or aspects. I think it is unfair and unrealistic to expect everyone to be able to contort themselves enough to fit into the middle portion.
I think that the more pointy the corners and harder the material, the more redundant it is to keep trying to re-shape people to fit into an accepted and expected average. They will never solve the problem that way.

Maybe aside from the episodes of severe psychosis and crisis... you are also a square-peg person in a round-hole society, Apo.

I'm may have missed the point of your post a little, or gone off topic?
But 'tis my response to it anyway.

[Scruffaluff]

Oh fuck me, I wrote a lot there.
Sorry.
Ermmm..... feel free to skip it. I can't get my head focussed enough to edit it and know what to take out.
Take it or leave it!!

[Apotheosis]

Hi Scruff - Thank you very much for the intelligent reply. I always enjoy reading your posts. You have obviously considered & pondered things at depth as well; & you make a lot of important & interesting points.

just as long as we remain aware that we only have a partial and potentially inaccurate understanding of things and don't start believing that we really do understand it. (I fear psychiatry, overall as a profession, fell into that trap a long time ago.)

Yes - This is the fact that I'm very aware of as well. A lot of the problems around all these areas seems to be people thinking that they 'know' what it's all about; when really they don't have a clue.

It does all seem to be very much an art - like you say.

Endless questioning leads to a sort of madness in itself

It does indeed - But as you say; how do you put the gene back in the bottle? My thinking the past while has been back on the universe(s)/origins/source/god - infinite regression/infinity line of thinking recently - & it is crazy making.

Medication is a tricky issue. I know that it causes some people great damage and pain and is part of an often abusive system (a system with a very dodgy history.) But I also know people who have benefited from it hugely. And then a lot of people somewhere in between.........

Of course it gets much more complicated when you don't have a choice (and that is a whole other topic.)

I have very mixed views on it all. I think that I could have originally been far better helped. & that there could be far more in the way of access to more comprehensive approaches of help & support - but it goes back to such is life/how things are.

I hope that your own re-engagement with services/medication works out better this time for you.

I feel constantly under pressure (external and internal) to get better. That there should or must be a way of sorting all this out and fixing it. But when I'm in a less-stressed and more philosophical mood I think there is no absolute, no law-of-physics or rule-of-logic that there must be a way to fix things. There are many things in the world that we have no control over and events we cannot prevent or change and damages we cannot repair. Every problem does not have a solution. But I spend every day crucifying myself under the pressure of the idea that there is, there must be, and I am obligated to find that solution and turn myself into something other than what I am because what I am is not good enough.

Yes - I can relate to all that as well.

At risk of going even more off-topic... I do wonder if for those of us with longer-term problems who do not recover (or have intermittent episodes with recovery in between) whether a considerable part of the problem in functioning and getting on with some sort of life, is bound up in the notion that we should be able to recover. I feel that there is little provision for those who don't fit in or function very well. Society is becoming increasingly homogenised, one size fits all. Oh they superficially seem to support individuality and choice, but only within the confines of a particular set of choices and ways of being. If you fall outside of that, there are fewer and fewer niche activities and places to fit into.

Yes, I think that this is a very important point. As hard as I've tried - I always end up 'Mad' - I find it all incredibly difficult to function & cope in this culture/society/country/World. A lot of my efforts; especially over the past 7 years have been in adapting my life to cope with all this.

But some of the non-crisis aspects of mental illness, seem to be a problem just by being a poor fit with ordinary society and few roles/places to go and "be weird" without bothering people.

Exactly - there is no time or place for madness any more.

Maybe aside from the episodes of severe psychosis and crisis... you are also a square-peg person in a round-hole society, Apo.

Yes - I think that your right. Thanks again for taking the time to respond with such an in depth reply.