11–20 of 70 posts
However, I am at a loss as to how to approach her to help her. Trying to convey this to her would sound more like an accusation of hypochondria.
A friend of mine is affected by this, combined with her innate hypochondriac tendencies it makes her life very difficult and her sense of self-worth and confidence very low. However, I am at a loss as to how to approach her to help her. Trying to convey this to her would sound more like an accusation of hypochondria.
We can be much harder on ourselves than we would ever be on a friend, and if you can get her to think about her own set of problems as if they were yours, what sort of advice would she offer you?
We get wrapped up in a set of outcomes and every setback feels like a harbinger of doom. I saw a retweet recently from someone with chronic fatigue who wished they could go back in time and use their dwindling energy to set themselves up for the future instead of spending everything on trying to 'get back to normal so they could start their life again'.
Look at where you are. What could you do this week or month to get to something you could live with or even enjoy? Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
He says, realizing he needs to follow the same advice...
I wonder about this as well. I see lists of anxiety symptoms shared and I meet every one of them, but I don't consider myself to have anxiety. Isn't it normal to be anxious in stressful situations or to be depressed when things are going poorly. Then I do some reading about it and I wonder maybe its not normal, maybe I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm sure there are people with mental health conditions that do ne…
Well, first of all, only certain professionals are licensed to administer those tests, and for good reason, because otherwise people would self-diagnose too much or too little. > […] I don't consider myself to have anxiety. Everyone has anxiety. Some people have anxiety disorders. > Isn't it normal to be anxious in stressful situations […] People with anxiety disorders are anxious in normal, non-stressful situations.…
That last statement is rather asinine and seems at odds with the rest of the article. I think it's fair to say negative emotions aren't the same as mental illness, but ignoring those negative emotions and keeping a "stiff upper lip" can lead to much bigger emotional problems down the road. There's a middle ground that involves accepting & experiencing the lows along with the highs as a part of life.
I wonder about this as well. I see lists of anxiety symptoms shared and I meet every one of them, but I don't consider myself to have anxiety. Isn't it normal to be anxious in stressful situations or to be depressed when things are going poorly. Then I do some reading about it and I wonder maybe its not normal, maybe I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm sure there are people with mental health conditions that do ne…
I don’t think anyone really knows if other people experience anything that is similar. I go back and forth on that a lot. But in terms of medicalizing things, who cares if it’s normal. It’s not about being normal, it’s about being better. I get prescribed a lot more medication than I need. I don’t take it often, but I like the options having anti-depressants, sleeping pills, stimulants, and anti-anxiety medication pr…
My mind takes the wide application of this to a scary dystopian conclusion, but perhaps it doesn't have to be this way. Or conversely perhaps we are already there.
I wonder about this as well. I see lists of anxiety symptoms shared and I meet every one of them, but I don't consider myself to have anxiety. Isn't it normal to be anxious in stressful situations or to be depressed when things are going poorly. Then I do some reading about it and I wonder maybe its not normal, maybe I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm sure there are people with mental health conditions that do ne…
I think you're right to question. The rule of thumb I've heard, which seems sensible to me, is is the condition/symptom negatively affecting your ability to go about your day-to-day life . If not, then whatever you're experiencing is probably "normal enough". There's no great mass of people with completely by-the-book mental processes; everyone's a little "weird" in some way. On the other hand, I suppose you may not…
I wonder though, is this even too broad? Perhaps people need to overcome some of this adversity. Not everything is painless in life nor should it be.
I didn't care if it was placebo (although why it would be placebo at 8 weeks but deemed not a placebo at 12 weeks I struggle to understand), I felt I needed it more often and eventually found a doctor willing to try it. For me, it works.
What got to me though, is while the doctor wasn't willing to try a vitamin slightly more frequently, he offered anti-depressants at the drop of a hat. He couldn't have been more forwards in offering them and didn't take the hint when I told him I didn't really want them - I had to give him a firm no in the end!
> One of the things that is most protective to mental health is not to spend too much of our lives consciously obsessing about it. That last statement is rather asinine and seems at odds with the rest of the article. I think it's fair to say negative emotions aren't the same as mental illness, but ignoring those negative emotions and keeping a "stiff upper lip" can lead to much bigger emotional problems down the road…
To me, keeping a "stiff upper lip" isn't so much about ignoring negative emotions, but more about behaving in the right way even when emotions pull you the wrong way. In my experience, exercising that skill doesn't create emotional problems, but solves them.
> One of the things that is most protective to mental health is not to spend too much of our lives consciously obsessing about it. That last statement is rather asinine and seems at odds with the rest of the article. I think it's fair to say negative emotions aren't the same as mental illness, but ignoring those negative emotions and keeping a "stiff upper lip" can lead to much bigger emotional problems down the road…
The real thing that's happening with mental health in the US and probably the UK is that people aren't so much deciding that their personal problems are diagnosable psychiatric conditions as they are deciding that they would like to become mentally healthier and are seeking help. And the medical profession, being ill-equipped to actually provide a means to change, is turning to psychiatric medicines to control what are essentially patterns of thinking and being. At the gym it would be like people seeking to become better and instead of receiving personal training they would be given steroids.
I was one of those people who wanted to change how I thought about things and how I acted. And so I sought therapy not necessarily because I had a clinical disorder, but because there were a lot of probably sub-clinical issues I was having with my thinking, and having someone rational and well-trained helped me change my thinking and my behavior so it was no longer causing problems for me. Frankly I was nearing a meltdown of some sort.
It's not the same as needing psychiatric care for a personality disorder or for Schizophrenia or for any number of treatable, identifiable psychiatric disorders. But he's standing up this straw man that people like me are just wimps and they just need to suck it up and have a cup of tea or something. It's pretty patronizing.
> One of the things that is most protective to mental health is not to spend too much of our lives consciously obsessing about it. That last statement is rather asinine and seems at odds with the rest of the article. I think it's fair to say negative emotions aren't the same as mental illness, but ignoring those negative emotions and keeping a "stiff upper lip" can lead to much bigger emotional problems down the road…