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Shit life syndrome

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Shit life syndrome

#221

Post by xnxjsjagzuxk »

The end of this article really rings true for me.

A while ago I was dealing with a lot of shit in my life and I wasn't coping well, so I engaged the mental healthcare system. I tried telehealth therapy and was told 'your needs are beyond what telehealth can handle, good luck'. The number of times I've been told 'good luck' by a mental healthcare provider as they're dismissing me makes me feel sick.

Psychiatrists were no better, they only want to talk about medication. There's no time for discussion of anything else.

Group therapy was a joke, no matter how much I failed at being a responsible adult I was told that I'm doing my best. Well, if doing my best means not being able to hold a job or support myself, then it's not good enough. In the animal world, individuals that are too depressed to support (feed) themselves die. Things aren't much different for a person living in the USA.

I engaged the mental healthcare system because I started failing at life and wanted help succeeding again, but instead of making me a person able to succeed I was told to reframe my failures as successes. Maybe that works if you have wealthy family to fall back on, but for the rest of us being able to earn a living doing productive work is vital to wellbeing. Telling a poor person that it's ok not to work because of their mental condition just traps them in a shitty life forever and they will never be able to be happy regardless of how many prozac they take.

The fix is as simple as looking at Maslow's pyramid. Make it so no one is worried about having a warm bed or enough to eat. Give opportunities for meaningful work that earns money and contributes positively to the world. Make it easy to become part of a social hierarchy and positively interact with other people. But all that isn't feasible, so let's give people pills to fix 'shit life syndrome' while leaving them with a shit life and no hope of improving it.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#222

Post by _8j50 »

hkt wrote: post #208
_8j50 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All thise stressed and issues boil down to money and financial security though. Your and the authors' abstractions are making the problem worse because smart people who know the problem well are saying "oh no, it's more complicated than just money" so policy makers will wait for you/them to come up with some solution instead of just solving the obvious and simple problem.

It is more than just money, though: it is about the law and how power in society is apportioned.

Law and power in society is influenced and even fueled primarily by money. Even participating in different things require you to be well off enough to have time for it. People working 16 hours on minimum wage don't vote or participate in politics much.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#223

Post by fnordpiglet »

rg111 wrote: post #187
fnordpiglet wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Buddhism and similar “self help” movements evolved over thousands of years in South Asia in an environment of of extreme poverty with literally no health care, and purposefully work in a life of poverty. The idea that only wealth and leisure provides mental health or self awareness is at complete odds with how most of the knowledge around self awareness came about, as most of our modern conception around such…

When Buddhism arose and developed, India was a rich country. Much of the area was under King Bimbisara who was a powerful and just ruler. Crime was rare. Rule of law prevailed. Economic activities such as trade were booming. It was one of the best places to be in human history. And not only Buddhism, other rich philosophical schools rose and thrived at that place. Healthcare wasn’t non-existent, as there is recorded…

This ignores the relative realities of then and now, and we are speaking of now. Then, medical care was not what we have now. It was true quackery. While doctors and hospitals existed, and were certainly some of the best in the world in that age, they still did very little compared to medical care now. While they were rich compared to much of the world (but not all of it, let’s not forget at this time Rome and China were ascendant as well, and likely superior in terms of health, science, and economic development - although South Asia had a focus on preventive health that is an envy today). However, none of this is even similar to the quality of economic, medical, scientific, educational, or other dimension in any society outside the most abject in todays world. They’re incomparable. Just antibiotics and pain medication existing alone and distributed globally to any nation no matter how impoverished is enough to make my point.

So, despite what should be abject misery by todays standard, how did people attain a lack of suffering in the age of the buddha? By the same routes we do today. Buddha just wrote down a reproducible route.

Buddhism doesn’t offer eternal happiness with magic beings absolving your wrongs and ensuring you live forever with your friends and loved ones. It only offers a way to use meditation to end your suffering, with it changing your reality or destiny. From that alone a major world religion took root. No bribery. No promises. Just a way to meditate and construe our reality. Maybe there’s something there?

Re: Shit life syndrome

#226

Post by siwatanejo »

School-Cotton wrote: post #96
siwatanejo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One day maybe TBH, I doubt it. Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with your values. Heck, I'm even called 'woke' by most people around me. Yet I understand that in this day in age, thanks to cryptocurrency, money is and will be a private matter. No government will be able to confiscate your wealth, at least to the extent that your wealth doesn't depend on assets related with the government (e.g. real estate is relate…

The state can (and does) tax cryptocurrency. Why wouldn’t they be able to?

You're talking about capital-gains tax generated from the appreciation of cryptocurrency (only if you sell it). There's no tax for sitting on your cryptocurrency alone.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#228

Post by dazc »

felurx wrote: post #207
dazc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are mostly not. Unlike most people who comment on such issues I actually know of two people who use food banks on a regular basis. One spends £20 a day on tobacco, the other drinks himself into intensive care whenever he has the opportunity. I have a friend who lives in the same building (it's like an old folk's home but with independent apartments and on-site care). The 'managers' of this council funded facilit…

First of all, that's not a representative sample. It might be that that is really how it is for everyone who uses food banks, or it might be completely different. A sample of two doesn't give enough information to know. But mostly: If there are people depending on the food banks to get food because of their addictions, isn't that a sign that (at least for these people), food banks very much are neccessary? Unless one…

Yes, you're right, if someone's addictions are so severe that they would otherwise not eat. I don't know any such people but I don't doubt they exist.

I think you know I was making a valid point initially though. I was giving an example of how readily available these schemes are to people who don't really need them. There is a perception that people have to qualify for such help when, in reality, they just need to know the system.

You may say there is always going to be minor abuse of such schemes and I will just say that I think otherwise.

Re: Shit life syndrome

#229

Post by f1refly »

justinlloyd wrote: post #197
m-i-l wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice story, thanks for sharing. My parents used to take me for our "exotic foreign holiday" in Blackpool each year (I was from Scotland). I actually have many happy memories from the time. There was the Doctor Who Exhibition we went to once - nothing even remotely like that anywhere near my home town. Then there was the Blackpool Tower. My parents used to complain about how expensive it was to get in, and I think we…

Having worked on quite a few of those claw machines that made their way in to arcades around the UK and Europe back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, there were a variety of variables we, as software developers, could control, from the ramp up and down of the motors that controlled how fast the claw moved, to how much lag was introduced when responding to your joystick/button input, to how "grippy" the claw retrac…

> These made for a more exciting game

Do you work in the ad industry now by any chance?

Re: Shit life syndrome

#230

Post by the-dude »

dazc wrote: post #228
felurx wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, that's not a representative sample. It might be that that is really how it is for everyone who uses food banks, or it might be completely different. A sample of two doesn't give enough information to know. But mostly: If there are people depending on the food banks to get food because of their addictions, isn't that a sign that (at least for these people), food banks very much are neccessary? Unless one…

Yes, you're right, if someone's addictions are so severe that they would otherwise not eat. I don't know any such people but I don't doubt they exist. I think you know I was making a valid point initially though. I was giving an example of how readily available these schemes are to people who don't really need them. There is a perception that people have to qualify for such help when, in reality, they just need to kn…

The overarching organization claims otherwise and says one is only considered when the budget for food & clothes is below € 300 :

"Ben je bijvoorbeeld alleenstaand en houd je minder dan € 300,- over voor eten en kleding? Dan kom je in aanmerking. Die € 300,- is ons normbedrag voor een alleenstaande zonder kinderen."

https://voedselbankennederland.nl/ik-zoek-hulp/rekenhulp-voe...

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