Mental Health Awareness Thread

[Deleted68316]

Also, we are all so naive.

Can't you see how many people throughout history did great things thanks to drugs?

I don't say you have to take drugs (I don't besides red bull and coffee), I just tell you that a lot of people in the past and in the present achieved amazing results, possibly, thanks to drugs.

Alcohol: Edgar Alan Poe, Bukowski, and so many other (just quote the most famous ones)

Cocaine: Freud (is that the reason why he is the father of psychoanalysis?)

Heroin: jazz musician especially come to my mind

Psychedelics: Steve Jobs

The list, as you know, is much longer.

Do you know how many wealthy people out there take drugs on a daily basis? They don't tell you. They are great people, and they use drugs to improve the quality of their life.

You can read the following if interested:

- Drugs for grown ups

Again, I don't take any drugs besides coffee, redbull, and weed. I just consider helpful to open our mind on certain topics.

The solution to our problems is easier than you think. To quote a paragraph of Lost Paradise by John Milton:

To be the inventor missed; so easy it seemed,
Once found, which yet unfound most would have thought Impossible!

 

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[ahti92]

It's sad that in our society we treat mental illness different than say physical illness.

If your leg is broken people can clearly see and understand and give you break but if you are mentally ill somehow your are lazy, dumb or crazy.

If your mind is broken and you feel and behave dysfunctionally then obviously something is wrong.

And not to mention that our health system thinks a pill is the solution. If you stop taking prozac and you are depressed all over then was that really the solution?

I have found that non-judgmental awareness and writing about my self has helped me tremendously in keeping a healthy mind.

I have found that our minds operate very similarly to our body. A mental illness is basically a psychological infection that has grown out of control much how like a bacterial infection can overwhelm your body and potentially kill you. The same way our bodies immune system attacks the infection is the same way I think non-judgmental awareness is our mind's own immune system.

Cause think about it, this has to be true, what is our mind's equivalent of an immune system? How can we strengthen it?

Nobody is born wanting to kill themselves. Something changed in you. The same way nobody is born wanting to go to college and be an employee, school and your socialization changed you.

Thanks for making this excellent point about non-judgemental awareness being a cure for the mind! Obsession starts with judgement, so weeding out these dangerous judgements early saves a lot of "fan cleaning" later.

 

[Deleted68316]

RED BULL and ENERGY DRINKS

There is a reason why energy drinks have all 5 stars on Amazon (file attached).

You may say they are bad for you, and I agree.

But in the end, what's bad in that shit, are things like sugar, aspartame, and the quality of the ingredients itself.

Despite that, those drinks are useful. I started taking them about 1 month ago (never drank them before) and I noticed a huge effect (drink those without sugar).

Then I discovered Taurine. You can simply get those supplements without drinking that shit. They are much cheaper as well.

The great thing is that actually Taurine relaxes you. It alleviates anxiety. And at the same time gives you energy. Similar to L-theanine with the difference that L-theanine, at least on me, doesn't have any effect.

Honestly, I have been without red bull for two days and I feel the difference.

Now I understand why so many people are addicted to it.
Just ordered the supplement today.

Please, read the reviews for taurine supplements, it may be something helpful.

It may also be placebo. Let's see.

 

[missinfinity98]

If you convince yourself strong enough that water is giving your whatever - it will. Most of the "energy" gained from drinking energy drinks comes from how convincing yourself that this is a fact in your reality.
Apart: What is confidence? Like normal human confidence? Simply believing - that you are worthy of respect, attention, space, etc. What is being insecure - believing stuff like "I am stupid, all I do is not good, I should be ashamed of myself" etc. It is all in your head, yet the whole world answers to it. Boom.

Also, most people buy into the PR of energy drinks also. Seeing you drinking it, they start to think about you as a person gaining more focus, higher endurance, etc. It is called projection. And what follows they act on the thoughts. With body language, thinking about you. It is mostly subconscious. It is subtle. Yet - it is true. They help make it reality. It is the same as when you assume someone is awful, so you treat them cold, and with distance, they finally start really acting negative towards you - and here your assumption is reality! Or you assume someone is a cool/nice/positive person - you smile, are welcoming - the person smiles back, opens up more, shares the more cheerful side of herself. Perhaps throws in a joke! Oh, you were right, she is cool/nice/positive

That being said.
I don't say caffeine or taurine or whatever doesn't work.

 

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[Supa]

Haven't updated this thread in a looong time.

There have been several times when I started to write a new post in here. Especially the one on depression, that I wanted to write for quite some time. But I didn't.

A lot of my thinking on these topics changed since writing the first post. Even how I view OCD, the very first post in here and the disorder I suffer from myself, has changed completely since then. Most of what I wrote in that post (concerning how to treat it) changed. Some of it slightly, some significantly.

Don't get me wrong, the insights in there are still valid and reflect one way of viewing and treating OCD. But it only reflects one way of viewing it. Namely that of CBT.

Over the last few years I spent a lot of time educating myself on various ways of approaching what goes on inside of us. This includes OCD and depression, since I struggle with the first one for most of my life and felt the absorbing cold darkness of the latter one from time to time as well.

But I didn't stop there.

The more I read and watched and listened to, the more I liked the idea of studying various schools of thought and picking what helps you the most. So you may pick something from CBT here, something from Psychotherapy there and an idea from ACT, a metapher from mindfulness, etc. and put all of this together that creates something uniquely fitting your needs and helping you.

I thought when it helps me, maybe it also helps others, so I started to write articles about these topics. Keeping the writing in a way that it poses what if? questions instead of telling readers what to think. Thereby hopefully being able to provide useful tidbits from all kinds of different schools of thought for the readers to pick what helps them.

In the hope that it can be helpful to someone, I want to post the articles that fit this thread in here as well.

 

[Supa]

Rumination – what if we could clear the fog in our minds?

There are moments in life when our mind is like a bright blue sky. When there are no dark clouds far and wide that could push in front of the sun and the sun’s rays warm us from within.

Moments when the sun shines in our head.

But for many of us, such moments are anything but the rule.

We barely enjoy this warmth when something comes along that has the power to plunge an otherwise cloudless day into cold darkness in no time at all.

A dense fog that fills our head and covers everything that was previously lovingly touched by the sun’s rays, suffocating any warmth.

To many of us it may even seem as if this fog is the normal state and the warm moments in the sunshine the exception.

An exception that we long for, but which, when it occurs, is often short-lived. Before the fog settles over our inner life again.

But the fog itself is only one half of the problem. The other is what is hidden in the fog.

While for some, fear creates a persistent sense of threat in the fog, for others there are thoughts and images hiding in it that tell them they are not good enough. Still others find reasons for worry in their fog, no matter where they look. For some, the fog is bathed in dark red color and pulses with anger and irritation. While others’ fog settles so thick and dark that they can’t seem to find anything in it that reminds them of joy and happiness.

But how can we get rid of this fog? Regardless of its type, or combination of types.

To find an answer to this, we need to look at what causes the fog to rise in the first place. A key question can help us do this:

What if this fog is not something that happens to us, but rather something that we create ourselves?

What if the fog were a direct result of something that we do? And the more we do this action, the more fog rises?

Our mental processes can be divided, roughly speaking, into two groups: those over which we have control, and those over which we do not.

We all have thoughts, images and feelings that come to mind throughout the day. Sometimes for no apparent reason, sometimes with. Sometimes we are more aware of them, sometimes less. Over all this we have no control. It just happens.

Any form of reaction to these thoughts, any mental engagement with them, however, is not something that happens to us, but something that we do.

Let us imagine these thoughts, images or feelings as colored, filled bubbles.

When these bubbles pop in our minds, an aura buzzes around them that, depending on the color of the bubble, gives off a sense of threat, worry, hopelessness, or something else. Which can be very uncomfortable for us.

If we do not occupy ourselves further with these bubbles, they fade away quite quickly. After a few moments they have completely dissolved. Often we don’t even know what it was all about a few minutes later.

However, if we engage with these bubbles and their contents, for example by paying attention to them, by trying to “solve” them, or by engaging with them in some other way, we not only prevent the bubbles from fading, but also cause them to burst.

And before we know it, we have released their contents – a dense fog infused with swaths of color – which now emanates into our minds.

Once this fog is in our minds, we often feel there is not much we can do about it, and thus our fears, worries, feelings of worthlessness, and other distressing emotional experiences that are hidden within it.

But what if we were to see these experiences as a product of our rumination – our mental preoccupation – and rumination as something we do, rather than something that happens to us? Then a path to a solution opens up for us.

If controllable thinking creates the fog in our minds, that also means that no fog rises as long as we are not doing that form of thinking. If, on the other hand, we are already ruminating, we can allow the fog to fade by stopping the ruminating. Until the fog finally dissipates completely.

And what if we see rumination as just another, ordinary, action? As something we do? Yes, mentally, and yes, often charged with hard-to-process emotions, but despite all that, something we do?

Then we would realize that we have a choice.

A choice that may not always be easy, but that we can make nonetheless.

There are enough reasons beyond our control that can push dark clouds in front of the sun.

So why not enjoy the warming sunshine in the midst of a bright blue sky whenever possible?

 

[Black_Dragon43]

But how can we get rid of this fog?

You can't. Stop worrying about that fog and get after it.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5TVX7zxEzo&ab_channel=WisdomDistilled

 

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[heavy_industry]

Latest and most comprehensive mental health theory is that all mental disorders are all metabolic diseases.

If the brain is starved of nutrients or gets inflamed, you start having mental health symptoms.

If the theory is correct, and I strongly believe that it is, it means that Depression, Anxiety, OCD, Schizophrenia etc. are all different symptoms of the same underlying issue.

The first step to fixing your mental health is not F*cking therapy.
It's fixing your sleep, diet and exercise regime, in order to fix your brain metabolism.

And on the psychological front, the best thing you can do is start making progress in life and start being proud of your hard work. Slow but consistent progress.

Every day will be brighter and you will slowly start to understand that the life you are living is nothing less than a miracle.
You were just blind and could not see it.

 

[Supa]

Latest and most comprehensive mental health theory is that all mental disorders are all metabolic diseases.

If the brain is starved of nutrients or gets inflamed, you start having mental health symptoms.

If the theory is correct, and I strongly believe that it is, it means that Depression, Anxiety, OCD, Schizophrenia etc. are all different symptoms of the same underlying issue.

The first step to fixing your mental health is not F*cking therapy.
It's fixing your sleep, diet and exercise regime, in order to fix your brain metabolism.

And on the psychological front, the best thing you can do is start making progress in life and start being proud of your hard work. Slow but consistent progress.

Every day will be brighter and you will slowly start to understand that the life you are living is nothing less than a miracle.
You were just blind and could not see it.

Haven't heard of that theory yet, but it sounds interesting! Will look into it. Thanks!

Edit to add:
A quick Google search brought me to this article:
Brain Energy: The Metabolic Theory of Mental Illness by Christopher M Palmer M.D.
as well as the book of the same name (Brain Energy). Will take a look, as this sounds promising.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Latest and most comprehensive mental health theory is that all mental disorders are all metabolic diseases.

If the brain is starved of nutrients or gets inflamed, you start having mental health symptoms.

If the theory is correct, and I strongly believe that it is, it means that Depression, Anxiety, OCD, Schizophrenia etc. are all different symptoms of the same underlying issue.

The first step to fixing your mental health is not F*cking therapy.
It's fixing your sleep, diet and exercise regime, in order to fix your brain metabolism.

And on the psychological front, the best thing you can do is start making progress in life and start being proud of your hard work. Slow but consistent progress.

Every day will be brighter and you will slowly start to understand that the life you are living is nothing less than a miracle.
You were just blind and could not see it.

I look at it in simpler terms.

We don’t want to admit that we’re physical beings, and therefore we attribute to our minds much greater power to control how we feel and what thoughts we have than to our environment.

The truth is that our environment simply controls most of the thoughts and moods that we have. It’s not lack of mental strength that causes you to feel like shit when you’re in a shitty environment (and that includes eating crap, not sleeping, etc). And there’s no “mindset shift” that can change how you feel in the long run without you changing your environment.

Once you begin to think along physicalist principles, this becomes quite clear. I am in agreement with Nietzsche over one thing: that today’s psychologists have for the most part inverted cause and effect.

They think that bad thoughts and bad moods are the CAUSE of the bad environment. This guy is depressed, that’s why he drinks all the time. This other guy is traumatized, that’s why he doesn’t leave the house.

And the truth is exactly the opposite. The first guy is depressed because he drinks. And the second is traumatized because he doesn’t leave the house.

When you have the causality a$$ backwards, the problems become impossible to solve which is how the current mindfulness-backed third wave CBT has backed itself into a corner.

Fixation on the effect will not change the cause. The fixation has to be around the cause, because that’s what has potential to change the effect.

If you get stuck ignoring your drinking habit because you’re trying to work on your negative thoughts and lack of self-esteem, you’re unlikely to succeed in changing the latter… because they’re simply an accurate reflection of who you are at that point in time… you don’t have any self-esteem and no reason for your thoughts to be positive. You’re a drunk! So first you have to fix yourself up, then you’ll feel better.

 

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[Supa]

I look at it in simpler terms.

We don’t want to admit that we’re physical beings, and therefore we attribute to our minds much greater power to control how we feel and what thoughts we have than to our environment.

The truth is that our environment simply controls most of the thoughts and moods that we have. It’s not lack of mental strength that causes you to feel like shit when you’re in a shitty environment (and that includes eating crap, not sleeping, etc). And there’s no “mindset shift” that can change how you feel in the long run without you changing your environment.

Once you begin to think along physicalist principles, this becomes quite clear. I am in agreement with Nietzsche over one thing: that today’s psychologists have for the most part inverted cause and effect.

They think that bad thoughts and bad moods are the CAUSE of the bad environment. This guy is depressed, that’s why he drinks all the time. This other guy is traumatized, that’s why he doesn’t leave the house.

And the truth is exactly the opposite. The first guy is depressed because he drinks. And the second is traumatized because he doesn’t leave the house.

When you have the causality a$$ backwards, the problems become impossible to solve which is how the current mindfulness-backed third wave CBT has backed itself into a corner.

Fixation on the effect will not change the cause. The fixation has to be around the cause, because that’s what has potential to change the effect.

If you get stuck ignoring your drinking habit because you’re trying to work on your negative thoughts and lack of self-esteem, you’re unlikely to succeed in changing the latter… because they’re simply an accurate reflection of who you are at that point in time… you don’t have any self-esteem and no reason for your thoughts to be positive. You’re a drunk! So first you have to fix yourself up, then you’ll feel better.

What you say is to some extent similar to the philosophy of Alfred Adler. I don't know if you're familiar with him or his work.

I still like the idea of understanding the why, in order to treat the what.

So, let's use your example of the drunk person. Yes, they have not many reasons for high self-esteem as long as they are drunks. And changing that should be pretty high up on their list of priorities.

Why, though, did this person become a drunk in the first place?

Let's say this person, from early on, was never shown proper love. They were never treated kindly as a child and no one ever made an effort to get to know them properly. So this person grows into someone, who has no clear sense of self-worth, no image of themselves as someone capable of being good enough to be loved.

When younger they may bury their feelings of worthlessness in candies and enjoy the quick rush of happy feelings the provide. Later, when they get older, they may turn to alcohol to fill that empty void.

And before you know it, they end up where you described them to be.

Now, of course knowing all of this will not turn them from a drunk into a sober, high self-esteem person. Knowing this may not fix their alcoholism, sure, but once they are no longer in that drunk state, figuring out what got them there in the first place may give them ways to not land there ever again. More than that, it may help to get rid of a lof of unhealthy and unhelpful beliefs about themselves, making it easier for them to do things that help create a good environment to keep them in that good place.

So yeah. I do think this is not an either-or situation. Rather, this may be a case of different things influencing each other.

Environment - past experiences - beliefs and self-image - actions - self-esteem - diet and exercise - and more

All of them, rather than being the cause for another one of this list, being parts of a whole that influence each other in numerous ways.

 

[heavy_industry]

@Black_Dragon43 I agree with everything that you've said except this:

The truth is that our environment simply controls most of the thoughts and moods that we have.

I refuse to be a victim of my circumstances, good or bad.

I may not always have control of what is happening around me, but what I think, how I feel, how I am, and what I do are my fundamental human freedoms.

This idea is discussed at length in the stoic philosophy, Yoga, and the book "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.

---

It's true that most people don't exercise this freedom and they end up being the product of their environment, because they react instinctively to whatever is happening, like animals do.

I am not interested in doing what most people are doing.

The environment will not change me. I will change the environment.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I refuse to be a victim of my circumstances, good or bad.

I agree with this. But I don’t see this as being in disagreement with what I said above.

If your environment controls most of your thoughts and feelings, that doesn’t mean you don’t have power to choose your actions.

You absolutely do. You can be depressed and choose to do something to better your environment or yourself. Or choose to wallow in your depression.

The point being that whether you feel depressed or not, whether you have depressive thoughts or not is largely a matter of your environment.

On the other hand how you deal with your thoughts and emotions - that’s your freedom.

Most people are too concerned with their thoughts and feelings precisely because they want to have control over them, and don’t understand the fundamental fact that this is impossible. It’s much like wanting to have control over your leg when someone hits your knee with a hammer like a doctor. It’s a reflex for a reason - it’s involuntary.

Same with most thoughts and feelings - they just happen to you.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

What you say is to some extent similar to the philosophy of Alfred Adler. I don't know if you're familiar with him or his work.

I am somewhat familiar, but I see what I say as more in line with the BEHAVIORISTS than with any of the psychotherapists or cognitivists.

So I have major disagreements with both Jung and Adler, they are too cognitive.

Let's say this person, from early on, was never shown proper love. They were never treated kindly as a child and no one ever made an effort to get to know them properly. So this person grows into someone, who has no clear sense of self-worth, no image of themselves as someone capable of being good enough to be loved.

When younger they may bury their feelings of worthlessness in candies and enjoy the quick rush of happy feelings the provide. Later, when they get older, they may turn to alcohol to fill that empty void.

And before you know it, they end up where you described them to be.

See this is the problem with cognitivism. It creates false stories, and then replaces reality with the story. Exactly as Nietzsche said… if you read The Genealogy of Morals, you will see this same sort of development.

Intellectual explanations are made to replace the underlying reality. That is the inversion of values that Nietzsche spoke about.

The reason why it’s a false story is because you can have another person in the exact same circumstances, and yet they never become drunks. There were cases of twins where one becomes a serial killer, and the other an upstanding citizen, despite growing up in the same environment.

The real reason why they became a drunk and developed that habit is because of their own choices. Which were FREE - they could have acted otherwise but chose not to. Blaming it on the environment is just an excuse…

And actually, they will keep being drunks so long as they can blame it on the environment and their parents. That becomes the excuse not to do anything. The perfect excuse for why they need help - their parents F*cked them up!

The truth is that they are drunks because they WANT to be drunks.

They want to suffer by being drunks, because they perceive the other suffering, changing their ways, having to be sober, to confront reality, to deal with their loneliness, to go out there and be awkward trying to meet new people - they conceive that as horrible and unbearable.

This phenomenon is called resistance. That’s why most patients can’t be helped. They don’t want to be helped. If they did, they wouldn’t need a therapist. They’d just do it.

Of course you can’t tell it to their face that they’re drunks because they want to be drunks, they’ll just stop seeing you. But that’s the truth.

And all you can do is hypnotize them so they’ll open up, and accept the challenge of behaving and acting differently. That’s the only thing that will create real change for them. New experiences and a new environment. Getting out of their comfort zone.

I remain convinced that if there was a way to take one of these very depressed people, and FORCE them to behave differently, their depression would end.

“Uhhh I am depressed I wanna stay in bed” — BAM cold water on their face, up we go for a run.

Unfortunately these methods are uncivilized and may trigger resistance from snowflakes who feel entitled. And would be very hard to put in practice due to our respect for the individual.

 

[Kevin88660]

One key thing to avoid unnecessary stress is to calculate your cashflow properly, on your personal lifestyle needs, family liability and business expense.

Always have a buffer. Always be very willing to lose some money on inflation every year to have a war chest of cash in your bank account. Don’t try to “invest” in everything to fight inflation.

Just for example having fuked up boss and unreasonable customers is one sort of work stress. But the impact is always limited if you know if they push too far you gonna quit it, take 2-3 weeks break and then find another job.

If you lose your job and immediately you risk being evicted by your landlord you will be very stressed.

The whole thing actually begins in streamlining your liability and keep your ego in check. I have seen too much where too much personality liability hits with an external event leads to great financial stress. Financial stress leads to psychological and physiological symptoms and health issues.

 

[hyperreal]

Latest and most comprehensive mental health theory is that all mental disorders are all metabolic diseases.

If the brain is starved of nutrients or gets inflamed, you start having mental health symptoms.

If the theory is correct, and I strongly believe that it is, it means that Depression, Anxiety, OCD, Schizophrenia etc. are all different symptoms of the same underlying issue.

The first step to fixing your mental health is not F*cking therapy.
It's fixing your sleep, diet and exercise regime, in order to fix your brain metabolism.

And on the psychological front, the best thing you can do is start making progress in life and start being proud of your hard work. Slow but consistent progress.

Every day will be brighter and you will slowly start to understand that the life you are living is nothing less than a miracle.
You were just blind and could not see it.

100% agree. Too many people try to disconnect body and mind as if they were independent, when in reality, you need a functional brain to have a healthy mind. The brain is a part of our body in the end. Bad metabolic health can lead to imbalances in hormones in the endocrine system, and have negative impact on our brain.

Healthy body is a good base for healthy mind, but here is my theory on the mental side:

Feeling sad or depressed, as well as prolonged state of those feeling called depression, is not really a malfunction of our system but it is a feature equivalent to pain in our nervous system.

When we put our hand in fire, we feel immediate pain and remove the hand as an unconditional reflex. For mechanical damage we need an immediate response and the action is corrected without our consciousness. But what about cases when our body and external life is not aligned with what we really want? There must be some kind of feedback to get it sorted out. So you receive a signal in a form of feeling sad or depressed. It disappears when you correct your action course, align your reality with mind and you progress in a right direction.

With this being said, would you rather take a pill to damage your feedback system and painlessly lose your hand burned in fire, or rather have it functioning as it is and use it to stay complete physically and mentally?

 

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[mr4ffe]

I remain convinced that if there was a way to take one of these very depressed people, and FORCE them to behave differently, their depression would end.

“Uhhh I am depressed I wanna stay in bed” — BAM cold water on their face, up we go for a run.

Unfortunately these methods are uncivilized and may trigger resistance from snowflakes who feel entitled. And would be very hard to put in practice due to our respect for the individual.

That doesn't help. I've done that for more than 10 years. At best, you'll be productive but still as hollow inside until you hit another wall. What actually helps is developing drive and ambition. That is way easier said than done, though.

 

[Xeon]

Wonder if anyone here is in the mental health niche.

 

[heavy_industry]

I remain convinced that if there was a way to take one of these very depressed people, and FORCE them to behave differently, their depression would end.

“Uhhh I am depressed I wanna stay in bed” — BAM cold water on their face, up we go for a run.

I couldn't agree more.
Action is the antidote to suffering.

Move forward in life. Step by step, things will get better.

Taking care of your physical health is also a solid platform to build on (see previous comment on brain metabolism). This means sleeping well, training hard, and avoiding foods that cause you brain inflammation.

 

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[Supa]

I couldn't agree more.
Action is the antidote to suffering.

Move forward in life. Step by step, things will get better.

Taking care of your physical health is also a solid platform to build on (see previous comment on brain metabolism). This means sleeping well, training hard, and avoiding foods that cause you brain inflammation.

I agree to some extent. I think for many people this is true.

Others, though, some of them who may have felt a kind of hole inside of them for most of their life, could do as much exercise and eat as clean and would still feel empty once the good chemicals from exercising wane off.

There are athletes who do all these things, and on a professional level, who still get sucked into depression.

So yeah, these things help tremendously and for many they may be all they need to feel good inside. But for many others, though, helpful, they may just not be enough. As they do not target the root of their emptiness but only fill it up for a while.

I mean who can really claim that our childhoods do not leave a mark on us? Just watch the still face experiment on YouTube and imagine those children to be exposed to a still faced parent for more than a decade.

So, trying to understand where many of our troubles arose from, in order to change course and our perception is never a bad thing to do in my opinion. Add to that a purpose in life, a good exercise regimen, good sleep and a healthy diet and your inner world should look a lot sunnier.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

feel good inside

Why should you feel good inside?

I think you should feel in a way that’s adjusted to your environment and sometimes that is precisely not good.

hollow inside

How do you know you’re hollow inside?

As they do not target the root of their emptiness but only fill it up for a while.

The root cause of our emptiness is the nature of existence. What good is understanding that?

You feel undeserving because your parents ignored you, let’s say. Or you feel paranoid and can’t trust men because your uncle raped you. So what? Understanding doesn’t change it.

It’s NORMAL to feel paranoid because your mind is aware of the danger and doing its best to protect you. So the only way you can stop feeling paranoid is to literarily attempt to brainwash yourself that the danger isn’t real. Which is false, and why it’s so hard to change those thought patterns.

Instead it’s much better to train in self-defense and to come to terms with your vulnerability all the while doing your best to protect yourself. You can train your hardest, but ultimately you’ll still be vulnerable and have to come to terms with it.

 

[Xeon]

I agree to some extent. I think for many people this is true.

Others, though, some of them who may have felt a kind of hole inside of them for most of their life, could do as much exercise and eat as clean and would still feel empty once the good chemicals from exercising wane off.

There are athletes who do all these things, and on a professional level, who still get sucked into depression.

So yeah, these things help tremendously and for many they may be all they need to feel good inside. But for many others, though, helpful, they may just not be enough. As they do not target the root of their emptiness but only fill it up for a while.

I mean who can really claim that our childhoods do not leave a mark on us? Just watch the still face experiment on YouTube and imagine those children to be exposed to a still faced parent for more than a decade.

So, trying to understand where many of our troubles arose from, in order to change course and our perception is never a bad thing to do in my opinion. Add to that a purpose in life, a good exercise regimen, good sleep and a healthy diet and your inner world should look a lot sunnier.

What these guys are saying, at least what I'm getting, is that depression is "all in your mind" and it doesn't exist, and that one can overcome various mental health issues by "being strong". Mental health doesn't matter and mental issues are all a hoax, like Covid. That's their gist basically.

 

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[heavy_industry]

What these guys are saying, at least what I'm getting, is that depression is "all in your mind" and it doesn't exist, and that one can overcome various mental health issues by "being strong".

Not at all lol
Depression is a neurological disorder that can be measured by a number of objective physiological markers. We can test depression in a lab.

Is it all in your head?
Your mind has a very strong influence on your neurology. So yes, with enough effort you can use you mind to induce brain inflammation, excessive cortisol release, and finally you will end up in a depressed state.

Unfortunately things don't work the other way around as well.
Once you are depressed, it's very difficult to use the mind to change the mind. Because the mind has been shut off.

At that point your best bet is using medication, hard exercise, or prolonged fasting to enter deep ketosis and change the biochemistry of the brain. Therapy might help, but I wouldn't use it as the first line of defense.

Depression is a horrible ailment and I wish that all fastlaners that are suffering from it will conquer it, and start living an awesome life.

 

[fridge]

I agree to some extent. I think for many people this is true.

Others, though, some of them who may have felt a kind of hole inside of them for most of their life, could do as much exercise and eat as clean and would still feel empty once the good chemicals from exercising wane off.

There are athletes who do all these things, and on a professional level, who still get sucked into depression.

So yeah, these things help tremendously and for many they may be all they need to feel good inside. But for many others, though, helpful, they may just not be enough. As they do not target the root of their emptiness but only fill it up for a while.

I mean who can really claim that our childhoods do not leave a mark on us? Just watch the still face experiment on YouTube and imagine those children to be exposed to a still faced parent for more than a decade.

So, trying to understand where many of our troubles arose from, in order to change course and our perception is never a bad thing to do in my opinion. Add to that a purpose in life, a good exercise regimen, good sleep and a healthy diet and your inner world should look a lot sunnier.

You should check out the book "the body keeps the score". The book goes into deep detail on how the brain holds on to and continues to (incorrectly) respond to threats long after they've passed. It starts out with war experiences from veterans, but also includes childhood abuse and sexual assault. I think you'd enjoy it and get a good amount of information out of it.

I agree, there is a case to be made for understanding how childhood/previous events plays a role in the way someone feels now if they're doing everything "right" yet still feel like shit all the time. Mainly in people who have had extremely rough childhoods or one off extreme events, not so much with people who have had your average upbringing or normal cozy life.

 

[Supa]

So what? Understanding doesn’t change it.

Yes, it does not change anything that happened. And knowing alone won‘t change much either.

I’m a big fan of illuminating the why and its connections to the present.

Without understanding the why it‘s like there are strings attached to you that lead into the dark. Strings that influence a lot of your thinking and behavior.

Fighting only in the present won‘t cut those strings. It may losen their grip, often only for some time, but it won‘t cut them off.

Now, illuminating where these strings lead to (or come from) won‘t cut them off either. It can be tremendously helpful in loosening the hold they have over you.

Depending on every person it may be enough to fight in the present. Maybe because there are not many strings coming out of the darkness or maybe because their grip isn‘t that strong.

Others, though, may be struggling more with these strings and what‘s in the darkness behind them. For some it may be wreaking havoc on many aspects of their life. Often without them even being aware of it. So illuminating where these strings are coming from can be quite life changing for many people.

Especially when it has the capacity to change one’s beliefs about oneself and one’s self-image.

So, understanding the why may not directly lead to a better you in the present. It can lead to changes inside of you, though, that can be incredibly valuable and helpful in creating a better you moving forward.

 

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[Supa]

To add to the topic of how our childhoods influence our adult lives, a video from The School of Life.