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Mental Health, Depression, ADD Discussion Thread

Late Bloomer

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I'm really glad to see this topic. I've wanted to share an essay along these lines for a while, but didn't see a good way to open the door to the conversation. Thank you, Supa.

To put it bluntly, the whole area of psychology is something MJ is strong on, but too many forum members are weak on — yet, ignorantly and angrily, are full of criticism about it anyway. So much so, that it almost drove me away when I first started here.

There are some times that someone knows what would be good to do. They have all the resources to safely give it a try. It will bring out the best in them. There is nothing more to learn or figure out. And yet they don't do it, for only one reason: they're being stubborn jerks. Scolding them for their stubbornness might break through that self-imposed pointless wall. It might be all it takes to get them moving, onward to their succcess.

Drill seargents do this. So do institutions like MIT. But you're not a drill seargent. Even if you are one in your day job, your fellow forum members are not recruits under your command. And just after one of MIT's top leaders took over at South Korea's most prestigious university, under his hard-nosed leadership there were multiple suicides of academic community members who cracked under that pressure.

The very same attitudes have led to the extreme gender bias and exclusive hostility we see throughout the software industry, especially from technically talented interpersonal jerks like Linus Torvalds. Hoping to coordinate a big, successful technical project as brilliantly as Linus does, too many young geeks mistake his appallingly bad social skills as a crucial ingredient to his success. When Linus tells people they should commit suicide rather than submit more buggy code, they see that cruelty as something that created his success. They don't see the truth that his technical strengths led to his success despite his callously cruel "pep talks." He's just one of many examples of these destructive attitudes in business these days, and in American software business in particular.

Most forum members here don't need a drill seargant, but could benefit from a respectful, sympathetic friend who can sometimes give a challenge...WITH humanity, courtesy, friendliness, sincerity. Not with unwarranted assumptions against the character of those they attack.

There are some times that someone has fear, worry, dread, anxiety. Sometimes those feelings come only from inner fantasies that have nothing to do with real life. Entrepreneurship can be different enough from past experiences and conditioned responses. Sometimes, needless fears block a harmless, obvious next step. A simple pep talk can get a person past those baseless worries.

Sometimes those feelings come from personal experiences that really did happen (as they did in my life, for example) of physical brutality, deprivation, destitution, phyiscal pain, grief, loss, destruction, death of loved ones, death's door for oneself. Cautiously wanting to not physically experience that again, is not from vague fantasies that will go away if someone shouts at me at enough.

Some people have been through genuinely traumatic incidents leading to PTSD or other major psychological challenges. Experience, feelings and mental states for which trained, empathetic active listening and wise, informed counsel are appropriate. Sometimes, psychological states are involved for which medical intervention is appropriate, wise, helpful.

And instead of honoring that this might be the truth, all too often too many forum members take it upon themselves to play the self-assumed role of Righteously Indignant Dad Telling Off The Brat.

Most of us are not lacking in success, just because we haven't had someone tell us off enough. So cool it, Fake Upset Dads Of The Internet. (Especialy if you're literally half my age, and have NEVER tried to study the psychology lessons I've already worked through, very deeply, with very well qualified professionals... a personal journey I started as an adult, before some self-appointed Fake Dads were out of high school.)

MJ wrote the books of guidance he wished he would've had when he was younger. Once he saw that his life wasn't going as the script predicted, it took some years to turn himself around and find success. While people of any age and gender are welcome to learn from him, he'd especially like to save other young guys those years of trial, by passing along what he leanned. Hooray!

MJ sometimes delivers the a$$-kicking that would have woken himself up earlier. BUT he does it based on an adult perspective on psychology. He does it based on some very profound introspection and thought that went into writing those books.

MJ's books feel breezy and flow easily. It actually takes a hell of a lot of work to package challenging, interlocking, life-changing, conditioning-busting ideas into something that reads so well. That's why he hasn't cranked out a book a month for 99 cents on Kindle. This type of quality thinking and writing takes time, reflection, revision, maturity.

Misunderstanding what MJ did with his writing and how he did it, too many forum members take it upon themselves to be the self-righteously self-appointed a$$-kickers of each other, in an ignorant, naive and hostile manner.

Being given unsolicited, bad psychology advice that comes a hostile mindset, is NOT a necessary part of an entrepreneurial self-help community. It is, by far, the single worst part of this forum, for myself and I've seen that also for some other members.

People with astigmatism do not need to be yelled at so they'll squint harder. People with heart attacks don't need to be yelled at until they just choose by sheer willpower to have clear arteries. People with broken legs don't need to be yelled at that the stairs should be easy for everyone. Yet this is what is way too often done to people with an invisible challenge in their psychology. "Challenge" here is not a code word for "something that goes away if you get upset enough about it."

There are some wise, considerate, caring, genuinely helpful people here with good psychological advice. And there are most of the users who are neutral on the topic, neither helpful nor hurtful. But there is that destructive tendency among a minority of members, to mistake their own ignorant hostility for valid mental health guidance.

That's an extremely toxic weed in this garden of ideas. I hope that this thread helps people stop watering that weed. I hope this thread helps bring some understanding and compassion that will lead to more kindness, more thoughtfully and gently given good advice. And less of the "bad cop, upset Dad, toxic psychologist, yellin' to you fix yerself Bro" kind of attitude. An attitude that doesn't really help anyone, no matter how much of a thrill it is to tell someone off, for what you imagine is the cause of anything that's gone wrong in their life.

Thanks Supa and all in this thread so far. I hope this thread will be a turning point. I'd love if if this forum can become known as an online haven not just for business ideas and social contrarianism. But also, for truly compassionate, cooperative learning about the thoughts and feelings that can help us reach towards peace and wisdom inside ourselves, along with that external success.
 
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YoungPadawan

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention it's the 10th leading cause of death in America, and every 12 minutes if this is accurate information. This is sad. This is my "Why" and of course, studied all my life because back in 1993, two people close to me months apart passed away. And I just happen to have had relatives involved with the Mental Health Systems, and Substance Abuse/Addictions, and of course even though it's not spoken about, Generation X lost a portion of our generation to suicide from 1970-1995.

And I'm sure there was some of the Baby Boomers in this mix, because at the time it was the ending of the Vietnam War, Divorce, Separation, the "Revolution" of free drugs, alcohol, sex, the hippie cults, and we were the first generation to experience this on magnified level than previous generations. While some were lucky to have families that stayed together, this wasn't always healthy either. We're just seeing it being repeated at the present time, and of course, the addictive culture is expanded and magnified compared to our generation in different ways.

When it comes to Mental Disorders, this makes it 10 times more difficult to navigate depending on what the impairment may be. If you already have navigation issues, it's kind of like trying to fly a plane with a broken wing. I watched this movie back in one of my courses in college, but does talk about in great detail the issues of what happens with those withe severe depression, manic and bi-polar. The Bridge.

Warning: The movie gets kind of deep into things, so if you're triggered easily probably not a good idea to watch it. The objective of sharing the video is to bring awareness and education.
I'm sorry you had to go through that. I personally struggle with Bipolar disorder and I find it incredible how many people struggle with mental health these days.
So many people struggle in silence, and a lot don't get help until it's too late
 

Mattie

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I'm sorry you had to go through that. I personally struggle with Bipolar disorder and I find it incredible how many people struggle with mental health these days.
So many people struggle in silence, and a lot don't get help until it's too late
Yes, I have helped a lot of people online the last ten years. I try my best to help others get out of the negative mindset. It takes a lot of discipline and it's quite a lot of inner work. Some people manage to lift themselves out of it, while others may never manage too. It depends on the person. Also the type of depression.
 

ChrisV

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I have a hard time turning my brain off.

There is usually one more task, one more thing to do, and once that is done there is always one more improvement I can make to x,y,z.

There is so much that I want to do.
Have you tried Meditation? Also Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now and A New Earth is all about this.

Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.

The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being "at one" and therefore at peace.

Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance. For example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and multiplying in the body, but when this process continues in disregard of the total organism, cells proliferate and we have disease.

Note: The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over
 
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ChrisV

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention it's the 10th leading cause of death in America, and every 12 minutes if this is accurate information. This is sad. This is my "Why" and of course, studied all my life because back in 1993, two people close to me months apart passed away. And I just happen to have had relatives involved with the Mental Health Systems, and Substance Abuse/Addictions, and of course even though it's not spoken about, Generation X lost a portion of our generation to suicide from 1970-1995.

And I'm sure there was some of the Baby Boomers in this mix, because at the time it was the ending of the Vietnam War, Divorce, Separation, the "Revolution" of free drugs, alcohol, sex, the hippie cults, and we were the first generation to experience this on magnified level than previous generations. While some were lucky to have families that stayed together, this wasn't always healthy either. We're just seeing it being repeated at the present time, and of course, the addictive culture is expanded and magnified compared to our generation in different ways.

When it comes to Mental Disorders, this makes it 10 times more difficult to navigate depending on what the impairment may be. If you already have navigation issues, it's kind of like trying to fly a plane with a broken wing. I watched this movie back in one of my courses in college, but does talk about in great detail the issues of what happens with those withe severe depression, manic and bi-polar. The Bridge.

Warning: The movie gets kind of deep into things, so if you're triggered easily probably not a good idea to watch it. The objective of sharing the video is to bring awareness and education.


I think loneliness is one of the biggest factors.

1*VVzKPGs_BZWJU5x-PpmlXg.jpeg

I posted on Medium about this while back.

People are social creatures. Bonds are essential to what it means to be human. Imo, without them we become like a leaf cut off from the roots.

Even Depression doesn’t correlate as closely as that:

Screen Shot 2018-09-14 at 1.50.55 PM.png
(Source: CDC)
 
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Ayanle Farah

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I think loneliness is one of the biggest factors.

View attachment 21578

I posted on Medium about this while back.

People are social creatures. Bonds are essential to what it means to be human. Imo, without them we become like a leaf cut off from the roots.

Even Depression doesn’t correlate as closely as that:

View attachment 21579
(Source: CDC)
The thing about loneliness is you can be in the company of others and still feel lonely but it's definitely a big factor.
 
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ApparentHorizon

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The thing about loneliness is you can be in the company of others and still feel lonely but it's definitely a big factor.

I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone. - Robin Williams
 
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Mattie

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I think loneliness is one of the biggest factors.
I think this is a huge issue in our society. There are no cultural barriers, or social status barriers. Individualistic societies tend to be more focused on self. When everything becomes about self, this tends to rub off in society, were we tend to be more self-absorbed. Loneliness can be managed to a certain extent, but still people need human interaction with others, and build reliable friendships, marriage partners, and relationships in a work environment. When you lack support in life from others, is when people kind of drop down in low arousal. The unpredictable relationships which remain for a short-time, and have no emotional and mental investment in your life.

Suicide can be quite deeper than loneliness. Usually catastrophic thinking, black and white thinking, over thinking, and some kind of traumatic experience that one is dwelling on to a certain extent. Perhaps how one perceives events. Helplessness. Feeling trapped. No way out. Usually lack problem solving skills or coping skills. although you have some people who do have those skills, and they may have made a bad choice. It's kind of hard to get inside the mind of everyone to know exactly what their personal pain and suffering is in the moment when they get that deep and dark in their psyche.
 

AdamUK

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Hi I'm new here, but not new to mental health!
My 2 cents is..

I think we all have the potential to suffer with mental illness. It just takes the wrong combination of factors including stress, illicit substances, loss, bullying, abuse to set us on a downward spiral that might end with suffering from a severe mental illness.

Building awareness will help people realise when they are heading towards a mental illness and they can seek treatment before it's too late,
so this thread is very important for building awareness. Great work!
 

Andreas Thiel

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Very good thread. Depression will still be covered, right? I have not missed anything!?

My family is really messed up, genetically speaking. It is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of the issues by just reading about them in articles, but some people have a way with words. I think Supa is doing an awesome job so far. Love the format.

Fortunately, my mother eventually found the right mix of medication to become a "normal person". Needless to say ... there were some problematic aspects to my childhood.
I struggled with depression from the end of the German high school equivalent through most of the time at the Academy where I studied.
Worlds lie between a) full blown depressions where you cannot move the needle on the hopelessness that you feel and b) just being inconsolably depressed, wanting some alone time.
At some point, the depressions started fading but a lack of energy grew. The feeling that there is a physical issue and you need to find a solution for it, again, is worlds apart from being in a depression, but both can trouble you at the same time. That can be confusing.

Both my brother and my sister are unable to work full time. My brother is a genius in many areas, but just keeps getting crushed by health issues, mentally and physically. It is a blend of different things, anxienty disorders seem to be chief among them.

Fortunately, these days the true depressions are mostly absent from my life. My family tries to attack the issues as intellectual challenges and we hope for medical advances.

Of course I get triggered when the picture-of-health-Joe-Rogans of this world talk about what other people could do differently that would make all their problems go away - when all they can do is assume.
Fortunately there are many people who get it as the comments show, like:
Think of all the lives joe could have saved from suicide if they only knew to do some jumping jacks. Damnit
 
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G

GuestUser4aMPs1

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@Supa

I was wondering if you could cover Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), especially since some studies have suggested that the disorder may be more common among businessmen and leaders in general.

Have you've ever experienced someone with NPD?
Also if you're diagnosed, does it ever go away?

The main reason for asking is I've never been diagnosed, but there was a period of time 2-6 years ago that it checked all the boxes on the DSM-5, about 90% of the time:

  1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from other people
  2. Fixation on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.
  3. Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions
  4. Need for continual admiration from others
  5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others
  6. Exploitation of others to achieve personal gain
  7. Unwillingness to empathize with the feelings, wishes, and needs of other people
  8. Intense envy of others, and the belief that others are equally envious of them
  9. Pompous and arrogant demeanor
Needless to say, you didn't want to be around me :)

It was only after I hit a real, real low that my head was screwed back on right.

Now I'm much more humble, open, can listen better, have more empathy...

Just not sure if it was a result of just "growing up,"
or if there's still some underlying condition.

Would appreciate a write-up!
Cheers.
 

Supa

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@Andreas Thiel the next post is going to be on Depression and after that I'd be glad to cover NPD, @UnrealCreative.

I'm glad you find this thread useful and wanted to thank everyone for their contributions on it so far.
I'm sorry for being so freaking slow with those upcoming posts, but my mind's not always making things easy.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Bump, in light of the recent swath of mass shootings...
 
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Supa

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Just two quick additions to the post on OCD.

I'd like to share one incredible, and free, resource for everyone who is suffering from OCD or pretty much everyone who wants to have a deeper understanding of it.

The OCD Stories Podcast

It's, well, a podcast and has already 192 episodes, and counting. You can listen to it through the website or on pretty much every podcast app. So far I listened to a few of them and can wholeheartedly recommend those with Dr Steven Phillipson and Dr Jonathan Grayson.

Speaking of Dr Jonathan Grayson, I also want to share his book with you.

Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty by Jonathan Grayson

There are no words I could use to paint a picture of how good this book is in my opinion, but the Look Inside! excerpt on Amazon is pretty long, that will probably give you a pretty good feel of the book.


I also wanted to apologize for not continueing with the posts yet. I'm hoping to do the one on Depression soon, as well as being more active on here again.
 

LuckyPup

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Boy, this hits home. First, I'm glad y'all are discussing mental health here in the forum - kudos to you all for contributing to this thread. It's hard for people to discuss mental health, but it's especially hard in a forum like this, where people aspire to success, but compare themselves to more successful members, fear ridicule and judgement, and experience all the negative emotions that go along with unrealized aspirations and unmet expectations. Second, I won't go into full confession mode here, but I've dealt with depression my entire adult life. If anyone here is struggling I'll be glad to offer some resources that have helped me. Note: I'm not a medical professional or offering medical advice. I'm just a layperson who knows the terrain pretty well.
 

LuckyPup

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@Supa

I was wondering if you could cover Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), especially since some studies have suggested that the disorder may be more common among businessmen and leaders in general.

Have you've ever experienced someone with NPD?
Also if you're diagnosed, does it ever go away?

The main reason for asking is I've never been diagnosed, but there was a period of time 2-6 years ago that it checked all the boxes on the DSM-5, about 90% of the time:

  1. Grandiosity with expectations of superior treatment from other people
  2. Fixation on fantasies of power, success, intelligence, attractiveness, etc.
  3. Self-perception of being unique, superior, and associated with high-status people and institutions
  4. Need for continual admiration from others
  5. Sense of entitlement to special treatment and to obedience from others
  6. Exploitation of others to achieve personal gain
  7. Unwillingness to empathize with the feelings, wishes, and needs of other people
  8. Intense envy of others, and the belief that others are equally envious of them
  9. Pompous and arrogant demeanor
Needless to say, you didn't want to be around me :)

It was only after I hit a real, real low that my head was screwed back on right.

Now I'm much more humble, open, can listen better, have more empathy...

Just not sure if it was a result of just "growing up,"
or if there's still some underlying condition.

Would appreciate a write-up!
Cheers.
I think most young people are narcissistic to some degree, at least in the US. Some, certainly more than others. Most, but not all, grow out of it when they get into the real world, have kids or realize that there are more important things than them in the universe.

NPD, like many conditions that have gained attention of late, begs the question: Is this condition on the rise, due to (fill in the blank with helicopter parents, snowflake kids, social media, etc.), or are we just more aware of it now that it's become part of the lexicon? I don't have the answer, but here's my layman's guess - NPD seems to fall on the same spectrum as sociopathy and psychopathy, just not as far to the right, where you would find the Hitlers and Pol Pots of the world (and many corporate CEO's, apparently). To the left are the more "selfless" people, with saints and the Mother Theresas of the world being at the far left end.

I've always felt humanity could all be plotted on this spectrum / bell curve, with 5% of humanity being saintly, 5% being truly evil and the rest of us falling somewhere in between. I've also felt like most the harm in the world on a day- to-day basis isn't done by evil people, but by normal people who have slid toward the right of the curve.

Unfortunately, I do think technology, poor parenting and other factors have moved the overall population to the right, though.
 
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LuckyPup

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I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone. - Robin Williams
Wow, I never knew he said that. Very sad.
 

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I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone. - Robin Williams

Often, when I feel that way, when I m with business friends or similar as Robin says, I ejoy leaving
quietly and seek some old friends not even sucessfull, but when I m with them, I feel free and good! Not high society or anything like that, but drinking a beer, talking about dayly problems and fine!
 

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Hmm I've never studied OCD much. Pretty much every time I pass a sink I will imagine something with the garbage disposal. Every time I get in a car I imagine accidents.

I just note it and carry on. It annoys me that I put energy into such thoughts by them existing at all but, it is what it is. It used to bother me more I suppose. Basically used DBT to get past it more or less. Silly mind doing silly things.

I find in a way many people's minds make a big deal of things that need not be. Just acknowledging something and carrying on is often enough for the mind to move on to something else.

@Supa @LuckyPup NPD like ASPD can be overcome. NPD is a set of traits. Addressing each trait until few or none are exhibited effectively makes NPD no longer a condition being experienced.

There are many theories as to why it's caused. It's on the rise imo because of rampant nihilism and ignorance.

And 5% evil people? I sure hope not. Probably more like 2% or less.
 
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Hmm I've never studied OCD much. Pretty much every time I pass a sink I will imagine something with the garbage disposal. Every time I get in a car I imagine accidents.

I just note it and carry on. It annoys me that I put energy into such thoughts by them existing at all but, it is what it is. It used to bother me more I suppose. Basically used DBT to get past it more or less. Silly mind doing silly things.

I find in a way many people's minds make a big deal of things that need not be. Just acknowledging something and carrying on is often enough for the mind to move on to something else.

@Supa @LuckyPup NPD like ASPD can be overcome. NPD is a set of traits. Addressing each trait until few or none are exhibited effectively makes NPD no longer a condition being experienced.

There are many theories as to why it's caused. It's on the rise imo because of rampant nihilism and ignorance.

And 5% evil people? I sure hope not. Probably more like 2% or less.
Hope not also, but we are trending in the wrong direction.
 

Tourmaline

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@LuckyPup lol I love your avatar.

Do you really think so?

I think more people are waking up than ever before, and there is more accountability too.
 

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@LuckyPup lol I love your avatar.

Do you really think so?

I think more people are waking up than ever before, and there is more accountability too.
Thanks re. the avatar. Maybe you're right. Depends on the benchmarks you're tracking. The older I get, the more cynical I get, and I've been here over 50 yrs.
 
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Games247

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Mental health?

Yes.

An awareness thread?

Mhm.

But... why?

I know. We‘re here to talk and discuss about entrepreneurship. The Fastlane. The Unscripted life.
Beneath all that, underlying like a red thread binding everything together, in my opinion, is one thing: value.

It‘s value, that we are trying to create. To build our entrepreneurial efforts upon.

So, what‘s valuable about an awareness thread on mental health?

Probably everyone suffering from a mental health disorder wants to just live a happy life. A happy life without the disorder(s).

What would be more valuable for this person, to lessen his or her symptoms? To alleviate the pain he or she is feeling within.

So, all right. What is this thread about?

It can‘t take away that inner pain. But maybe it can give people a little bit more insight into specific mental disorders.
To be able to get on a journey to alleviate that pain, to better understand the illness and/or to seek help, one needs to know about it first.

That‘s my goal with this thread.

Giving you insights, that may help you to better understand a mental disorder. If it‘s one that you may suffer from yourself, a loved one suffers from or if you‘re just interested in that topic.

So, yes. What I‘d like to do in this thread is to depict specific mental disorders. Not from a pure scientific perspective, but rather one that looks at it from the inside. Aswell as looking into resources to help someone who suffers from it.

Some of the disorders and illnesses I want to look at are depression, OCD and other anxiety disorders, PTSD, bipolar disorder, shizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.

This is going to take some time and work, mostly in research and putting everything together.

Therefore I‘d like to make sure, such a thread is ok from an admin‘s perspective. @Vigilante

If it is, I plan to start on monday with the first post on OCD.
I just finished writing a book about my brother who has schizophrenia, I'm trying to get approved for an amazon sellers account now.
 

Supa

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Wanted to share this here real quick:

It's a huge thread on an OCD forum with quotes and advice from patients of Steven Phillipson. As the one who started the thread says in one of his posts:

All this stuff is the "Holy Grail" of OCD.

If you suffer from OCD, READ IT.
 

TheFitVegan

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I have been in depression for a year (about a year and half back). I didn't realize until my physical health started deteriorating. So many tests on physical health front but had no results. It took a while for me and people around me to understand it was depression. Later we consulted an expert, took sessions, medicines and a number of things to relax and come back to the normal life.

This episode thought me 2 things:
1. Having a goal in your life is good but impulsively moving in only that direction can take away everything from you. We need to understand the path and then move towards it
2. Even once you are out of all this, the brain takes longer to accustom and come out of the zone, so you must give it sometime.

Quite a difficult phase I won't ever forget all my life. I haven't talked about it to anyway after the incident. But this thread made me feel that I was and am strong enough to deal and everyone can and must do it. Thanks for the thread!
 
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j0elsuf

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Just joined the community and this is my very first post, but I have a theory that there is a connection between mental health and wealth in that people who struggle with mental health act out at the expense of their wealth and other areas of their lives.

I'm a great example. Preventing myself from ending my own life has been a lifelong "career" for me starting in high school and it was performed at the expense of my financial life and most other areas of my life. And now here I am, 38 and 1/2 years old with over $100k in debt with an overdrawn bank account from a job offer scam to show for it.

So yeah, talking about mental health is important. And most who have mental health issues feel like me, trapped with no way out, looking frantically for answers while taking zero action because they never know if they are doing anything right. This is how I feel currently. The job offer scam was just the icing on the cake.

And it isn't like these "counselors" that I see help much. Most of the ones who I've seen are just interns who just prescribe antidepressants (which often make things worse; I was at such a low point about a decade ago that I was prescribed wellbutrin and I was getting seizures from double-dosing).

Let this be a message to anyone who is thinking of taking antidepressants: Just say no. I'm serious, antidepressants should be outlawed.

This kind of created an idea for a business called "underground counseling" that gets rid of all the jargon we see in mental health and just plain helps people who don't feel good mentally. Some of us just want the pain to go away and want good strategies to help the pain go away forever because to people like me, managing mental health is a 128 hour a week job with no vacation.

To put things in perspective, I have no diagnosed mental disorders but I have dealt with heaps of trauma: Sexually assaulted twice (and I'm a dude too, good luck finding sexual assault resources/support if you are a dude), raised in a broken home, witnessed my dad die of cancer before my very eyes about a year before turning 25. Used to cut in high school, acted out my suicidal and homicidal ideation by being on incel communities (before they became incel communities)

It's no wonder I am still stuck on the sidewalk pushing 40. I'm just lucky that I'm alive because I think about death and ending my own life way more than I would like. Granted I don't think about it daily like in my 20s, but it still comes up from time to time.

The thoughts "I just want one thing to go right today" and "I just want to make the pain stop" are pretty common for me even now, although again it isn't as bad as when I was in my 20s and early 30s.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Just joined the community and this is my very first post, but I have a theory that there is a connection between mental health and wealth in that people who struggle with mental health act out at the expense of their wealth and other areas of their lives.

I'm a great example. Preventing myself from ending my own life has been a lifelong "career" for me starting in high school and it was performed at the expense of my financial life and most other areas of my life. And now here I am, 38 and 1/2 years old with over $100k in debt with an overdrawn bank account from a job offer scam to show for it.

So yeah, talking about mental health is important. And most who have mental health issues feel like me, trapped with no way out, looking frantically for answers while taking zero action because they never know if they are doing anything right. This is how I feel currently. The job offer scam was just the icing on the cake.

And it isn't like these "counselors" that I see help much. Most of the ones who I've seen are just interns who just prescribe antidepressants (which often make things worse; I was at such a low point about a decade ago that I was prescribed wellbutrin and I was getting seizures from double-dosing).

Let this be a message to anyone who is thinking of taking antidepressants: Just say no. I'm serious, antidepressants should be outlawed.

This kind of created an idea for a business called "underground counseling" that gets rid of all the jargon we see in mental health and just plain helps people who don't feel good mentally. Some of us just want the pain to go away and want good strategies to help the pain go away forever because to people like me, managing mental health is a 128 hour a week job with no vacation.

To put things in perspective, I have no diagnosed mental disorders but I have dealt with heaps of trauma: Sexually assaulted twice (and I'm a dude too, good luck finding sexual assault resources/support if you are a dude), raised in a broken home, witnessed my dad die of cancer before my very eyes about a year before turning 25. Used to cut in high school, acted out my suicidal and homicidal ideation by being on incel communities (before they became incel communities)

It's no wonder I am still stuck on the sidewalk pushing 40. I'm just lucky that I'm alive because I think about death and ending my own life way more than I would like. Granted I don't think about it daily like in my 20s, but it still comes up from time to time.

The thoughts "I just want one thing to go right today" and "I just want to make the pain stop" are pretty common for me even now, although again it isn't as bad as when I was in my 20s and early 30s.

Sorry to hear about your struggles as I hope you are finding some ways of managing it.

There's a lot of discussion around here lately about meditation and mindfulness -- and it's for good reason. This stuff can be effective at taming our overactive, overthinking headspaces.

Please check out Eckhart Tolle's or Michael Singer's work (books), a lot of our problems and suffering is caused by mental processes that can be managed, and ultimately, changed. I can say these works have changed my life and I wish I had them 20 years ago.

Thank you for sharing your story my friend.
 

j0elsuf

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Sorry to hear about your struggles as I hope you are finding some ways of managing it.
No worries. Thank you for your support too.

Not only am I finding some ways to manage it, I'm going to use it as leverage to succeed in business.

I'm a fan of Tolle and Singer but a lot of their materials can cause action faking. Same with the Law of Attraction and other kinds of stuff. Good stuff, but you gotta take action on it

One of my goals is to take their materials and make them actionable.

I also want to change how mental health as a whole is approached because there were only a couple times where I was impressed with it. ESPECIALLY when it came to victim advocacy.

Across the 20+ different mental health counselors that I have seen throughout my life, most were just interns aka former sorority chicks who are now pursuing Masters Degrees in social work because it was just as easy as the party majors they had in their undergrad career lol. Nothing against them, but they weren't too effective besides being eye candy lol.

So yeah, the stuff I write in my blogs (which I want to share here but don't know if I can) is me channeling that kind of frustration.
 
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Deleted68316

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Great thread, thank you.

The best book that changed my view about the so-called "mental problems", is a book that talks, instead, about brain problems.

It's called The End Of Mental Illness by Daniel Amen.

It talks about how mental problems are actually, most of the time, brain problems.
How the psychiatrist is the only doctor that treats the organ without actually looking at it.

He looks at your brain through BRAIN SPECT. He gets imaging of your brain in order to see its activity. Where it is too much and where it is too little.

There are too many stories from real people in the book, to tell in this post.
One is the following, where Chase had numerous "mental" problems, caused by a car accident with related head trauma that he had several years before he found Daniel Amen:

1610836800192.png


And below, the picture of Chase himself, before and after the treatment:

1610836706535.png


Dr. Amen sometimes cures people with drugs. But first of all, he outlines what has to be done before arriving at that stage (diet, exercise, and supplements). He has a database that is available to other clinics that do brain spect, and that contains thousands of brain SPECT with the related issue and how it has been treated.

I haven't done it yet, but it's on my list. First of all for a member of my family that suffered from strokes and heart surgeries.

To conclude, a random sentence from the book:
"I have come to hate the terms mental illness and psychiatric disorders, and you should too. They place emphasis in the wrong domain (the mind or the psyche), when our imaging work teaches us that we must first focus on the brain. “Mental illness” and “psychiatric disorders” conjure up stigmatizing images of lunacy in people who are mad, disturbed, unbalanced, or unstable, even though these adjectives apply to an extremely small percentage of people who struggle with brain health/mental health issues."
 
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j0elsuf

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"I have come to hate the terms mental illness and psychiatric disorders, and you should too. They place emphasis in the wrong domain (the mind or the psyche), when our imaging work teaches us that we must first focus on the brain. “Mental illness” and “psychiatric disorders” conjure up stigmatizing images of lunacy in people who are mad, disturbed, unbalanced, or unstable, even though these adjectives apply to an extremely small percentage of people who struggle with brain health/mental health issues."
So true. Gonna quote this in the stuff I write.
 

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