Let’s avoid talk of ‘chemical imbalance’: it’s people in distress

Hyperfocus is a symptom of ADHD, ASD, and schizophrenia [1]. So a person who experiences hyperfocus may be experiencing one or more of those conditions. (Although, when I say "symptom", not necessarily a diagnostic one – conditions can have both diagnostic symptoms, which form part of the diagnostic criteria, and non-diagnostic symptoms, which don't, but nonetheless have been commonly observed clinically and/or in research in those formally diagnosed.)

Since it is possible to have subclinical manifestations of psychiatric diagnoses, a person who experiences hyperfocus without meeting the diagnostic criteria for any of these diagnoses may have such a subclinical manifestation of one or more of them. The formal name for subclinical ASD is "Broad Autism Phenotype" (BAP) [2]; I don't think subclinical ADHD [3] or subclinical schizophrenia [4] have distinctive names, but both have been researched. (A lot of people who incorrectly self-diagnose themselves as having X despite not actually meeting the diagnostic criteria, may in fact be correctly identifying the existence of subclinical traits of X in themselves.)

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31541305/

[2] e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949081/

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2547346/

> It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

It has always disturbed me greatly that pharmaceutical companies can go around claiming disorders in the DSM based on tons of research, but where is the pathway testing done? Why don't we see that happening with regular patients? There is a very strong disconnect between how these diseases are agreed upon AND treated VS the Hippocratic oath, objectivity, scientific, methodological reasoning.

What's even more disturbing is how completely normal mental health issues are then twisted in main stream culture, and used to control or hurt people, rather than help them. Mental health virtue signaling amongst psychiatrists is at an all time high with people bragging about how wonderful their disorder is and how proud they are. Does nobody else see something wrong with that? These doctors are convincing people they are permanently damaged (DNA/hereditary) and then pumping them full of drugs that don't quite do the trick. And this is happening in MASS. Mutagenic drugs fed to children and industry insiders have been blowing the whistle on overdiagnosis and overmedication for decades. And people wonder why our country is going crazy... wow.

Just. wow.

Mental health professionals in our society are failing us hard as a group and as individuals. I would cry myself to sleep, tears of sweet joy if I knew this was getting fixed and regulated and that psychiatrists had to undergo psychiatric evaluations themselves because I know several who are downright sociopaths and think that it's their right to tell other people they're permanently damaged and therefor wrong about . It's honestly scary as hell because psychiatrists have made my life a living nightmare and nobody seems to want to listen or help, or the ones that do can't or don't know how. I even talked to Monica W. of proxy project and she is only putting money she gets into research or legal testimony. MSbP victims aren't being helped on a big scale and this is an issue serious enough that if left unchecked is going to (and already is) cause untold damage to our culture and society, shit I'd wager our ability to survive even.

I do blame fakes like Dr. Phil for making everyone afraid of MSbP victims. He sensationalized the case about the girl and her boyfriend who killed her mom. Then he just makes it seem like some horrifying rare condition. No other cases to go over, no suggestions about how we can tackle this problem. Just straight up fear mongering. he's a real big piece of . While in fact this is happening all the time everywhere in front of our noses, but we somehow went from blindly trusting in Pastors who rape boys to Psychiatrists who convince everyone they need to pay them the rest of their life and take pills that will permanently alter their body chemistry in unintended ways.

Find out more about medical abuse at proxy project.

It lends the impression that you're saying something like: "Brains of well-adjusted humans have a dopamine to seratonin ratio of X, but my brain puts out X + epsilon. So, I take this pill, and it moves the dopamine amounts down to normal, and leaves everything else the same."

But, as everyone cringing right now at that statement knows, not only do we laymen not understand how the brain works well enough to make any such statement, but no one can make any such statement. There are multiple levels of problems involved:

1. Determine with certainty that a given psychological problem to one that is purely solved by altering brain chemicals in principle (vs. neuronal structure or environment, etc)

2. Determine that this living individual, whom you cannot crack open the brain of, is suffering from this psychological disorder because of a brain chemical imbalance.

3. Synthesize a drug that alters this chemical imbalance, leaving everything else the same. This would involve understanding both the immediate effect of the drug, and the eventual ramifications as the brain reacts and compensates for the drug's presence, such that the final steady state of the drug is the desired brain chemical balance.

The state of our science is such that we really can't do any of these with the precision the "chemical imbalance" framing implies. Compared with this unrealistic standard, we're barely better than alchemists. We know that in principle, some psychological problems are caused at least in part by brain chemical imbalances. But I agree with the article that we should stop giving the impression that this awareness implies an ability to diagnose and solve these imbalances.

That said, some people do have genuine chemical imbalances. I've had bipolar disorder all my life. My cocktail of medications has allowed the last 11 years of my life to be the most productive, stable and happiest. There are of course side effects - and I can understand why some people find them intolerable. I have tremendous difficulty ejaculating, for example. But on balance it's worth it as a) I'm alive and b) my quality of life has improved.

Likewise for my grandmother, my mother, my aunt and my cousin. Bipolar disorder ravaged our families at various points and medication has improved our lives immeasurably in various ways. I just feel for earlier generations that didn't have an explanation (let alone cure) for their woes.