I’ve honestly thought the same thing for a number of years. If you look into the research, antidepressants are consistently only marginally better than placebo. Moods change over time in general and with different environmental factors. So obviously at some point your mood improves, aided by placebo.

Despite me not really believing in them, psych meds are have been part of my journey. I hate that people think that I am not trying things and giving them a fair shot. I desperately am and continue to do so. It’s just that my life hasn’t really changed in a positive way. I really, sincerely try. Like with my therapy, I take extensive notes and do my best to utilize the techniques they give me. I even had the opportunity to use some successfully this past Friday! But it only seems to help sometimes despite me trying so hard.

I will say that I don’t think psych meds are totally bunk in certain specific scenarios. People with severe biological/organic derangements like schizophrenia and bipolar 1 disorder do massively benefit from psychiatric medications.

But the difference is that with these conditions, we are giving very high dosages of very powerful antipsychotic medications. Outside of that, the human mind doesn’t seem to operate that way. The previous thought about depression caused by chemical deficiency in serotonin has been disproven.

My issues are episodic and intermittent, making a lot of this stuff harder to tackle and “treat”.

Thanks for ignoring what I have to say and invalidating me, friend. I hope others treat you with the same kindness you have shown to me.

I spoke at length about how I tried very hard for a very long time at the “well known cure”. You ignored me and continued to say that that was the cure all when I literally said that it did not work for me.

I am offended because you completely dismissed this and just re-stated your original post. I am offended because it looks like you didn’t even read my response.

Here is a reduced format of what this sounds like.

You: X is the cure all

Me: I tried X and did not see a benefit. Here is my experience with it.

You: Cool story, bro but X is the cure all

If you can’t see how this is unhelpful and offensive, I don’t know what to do tell you.

Thanks for ignoring and dismissing my lived experience and inensive, sustained, consistent efforts. Not sure why age matters. I’m in my 30s.

No professional has diagnosed me, but from looking at things online, I seem to have traits of BPD and CPTSD.

While I appreciate the time you took to sit here and think of a response to things, I just want to say that I honestly find this sort of “exercise cures you” stuff offensive. Again, I understand you are well meaning and not intending to hurt me. I understand that it worked for you. That’s great!

I listened to the people that said exercise improves your mental health. I gave it a shot. I didn’t just give it a shot. I fully committed.

Several years back I started running. I was surprised at how consistent I managed to be for so long. I ran every other day or every third day. I was consistent for 1.5 years somehow. I never managed to commit to something that long.

But I never saw the benefit of “improved mood”. People on the internet would say “you’re just not running fast enough” or “you’re just not running hard enough”. So I did. I ran faster and faster and farther and farther. Before I ended up dropping the whole thing, I was consistently running 8 miles every other day. The longest I ran was 10 miles a few times.

I kept going further and further and harder and harder hoping I would find the magic distance or speed that would improve my life. It never did.

Running actually did impact my emotions, but in an unhelpful way. What running actually did was magnify my current emotions. You can see how this is a problem for someone who’s issue is suffering from extreme emotions. I didn’t want them to be more extreme. The happy parts were fun, but the lows would get so much worse.

I tried so hard for so long consistently and it never helped me.

Again, I appreciate your time to read and post here. But I really don’t like when people tout it as something that helps everyone when it doesn’t. Does it help some and is worth trying? Sure! But it’s not the cure all you think it is.

Antidepressants are one that I’ve tried, but I’ve been in different classes now.

I don’t need something to “make me happy”. I’m pretty good at that when I’m not having a rough go!

When I’m having a rough go, it feels so incredibly intense and painful, like someone is boring a hole through my body with a hot iron. I want it to help with these lows because it feels so incredibly intense and painful. When I am having a hard time, I’ll either physically have a hard time walking or I’ll do the opposite where I’m amped and trying not to jump into traffic.

I just want the intensity to be lowered a bit. It hasn’t been.

Where my mind has been at in all of this is that most psych meds seem to be little more than placebo. That is…UNLESS you have a severe “derangement” in brain function as with something like schizophrenia or bipolar 1, where very high doses of psychiatric medication are needed to have a strong effect.

But for the population outside of these said conditions, I just am not “getting it”.

My providers know all of this stuff about me. This is what I tell them. I am not hiding anything or not communicating.

One was honest with me straight up said “I’m sorry but I and your therapist seem to be unable to give you sufficient care”.

I have tried different providers. It has the same result. I explain the nature of my “symptoms” to them and keep logs.

Occasionally a friend will remark that I am “doing better”, but then I go right back to where I was before. Other times when people remark that I am “doing better”, it’s simply that I am better at hiding it from others for a period of time.

My issues are very episodic in nature which my providers are very aware of.

I work a physical/tactile job in healthcare. My job won’t be in danger until robotics dramatically advance and cheapen. AI could conceptually do my job, but the physicality is missing. A lot of healthcare careers are this way. Not all of them are though, so be wise in your choice!

I do 100% feel this and do know that it often holds true.

But I’ve been dealing with a major episode of social rejection and abandonment from those who I felt fairly close to during a major life event. Happened over a span of several months last year culminating in the “climax” in early October before abruptly “ending”.

But I still struggle to move past it. I am even still friends with the people this happened with. We have a lot of good times, but things happen where it resurfaces and then it’s hard to get out of. :(

I’ve been in an intensive DBT program and while I have found it to be massively helpful for a lot of my base negative emotions, it doesn’t really touch this one much.

I’m honestly at a loss of how to begin to resolve this one. Does this part need a different type of therapy after my DBT program is done?

If it’s not the work itself causing anxiety, then what is it about the transition that does?

What specifically about work are you anxious about? What kind of work do you do?

How bizarre! Usually when I’m having a bad night, sleep helps me because the thoughts quiet down. I’ve been on a low dose of Seroquel. Bad thoughts can get to me at night but I seem to just fall asleep on the med which makes them go away and stay quiet into the next morning!

What’s the relation of this gif in your post to the static photo? It’s this an ad in the Duolingo app or something? It’s hard to make the connection to that. And this part of the gif is small and in the corner. All you need next time is a bit more of a description!

I clicked on the post instead of scrolling by and I am still incredibly confused.

Sadly mine doesn’t seem to work properly. Nothing in that region does.

Do you have a source for that? I know the issues within homelessness are complex but I haven’t seen any data to suggest that a majority of homeless people are severely disabled.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8423293/

A peer reviewed article of a meta analysis of many studies shows a whopping 76% of all homeless people have a mental illness. The majority are alcohol or other substance abuse problems followed by schizophrenia. These can all be incredibly disabling conditions. Something like social anxiety disorder, for example, while can be very disabling on the extreme end, does not cause difficulty caring for basic functioning of yourself. Alcohol/substance abuse problems and/or untreated schizophrenia are incredibly significant conditions which are severely disabling.

I have a friend with schizophrenia which has been thankfully successfully managed. I have known her for a long time and it was very scary watching her develop it and at first and for professionals to struggle to help her treat it. She would also periodically do this thing where she felt she didn’t need her medications because she felt better. So she would stop taking them periodically and go back to having severe issues before everyone managed to convince her to go back on them. It’s actually an incredibly common phenomenon and one of the reasons why it’s a difficult disorder to treat. She is one of the success stories because she has had a lot of help and support and access to very intensive mental health care. Many do not, unfortunately.

I’ll admit I only read the first several paragraphs. I do get a bit frustrated at times with the number of people nowadays that claim to have ADHD just because their house is messy or autistic because they have one thing they are passionate about.

The tricky part is that like the article states…yes, basically all mental illnesses are essentially a part of the normal human condition! So it actually really is a spectrum between “normal” and “mental illness”. So where do we draw the line? That’s the problem. It’s blurry. It’s not a binary.

Where the line is theoretically supposed to be drawn is when the issue is severe enough to have an impairment of functioning or severe distress in an area of your life. Do you have mild social anxiety where you get a little bit of butterflies in your stomach before an event but are able to attend and function just fine? You don’t have a disorder. It’s natural…some people just have more or less of this than others. Do you have anxiety so intense that you have a panic attack at the thought of ordering food at a restaurant so you never go out to eat? That is functional impairment. You have a diagnosable disorder.

But again, this line is blurry. What I will say is that even though the first example shouldn’t technically be classed as having a disorder, it is always a good idea to try to improve your happiness in life by seeking out how to cope with things like therapy! That’s always a good thing and we should strive for everyone to live their best life! But if the first person were to receive medication for that, I’d say they were overmedicated. The second person would heavily benefit from medication.

It’s just dumb to me how people go around and are like “I have trouble paying attention to boring things. I am so quirky with my ADHD, guys”! Yet they have always been able to function just fine. People often get overmedicated this way and two other things happen. 1. They are pathologizing normal human reactions and 2. They almost “cheapen” (not the word I’m looking for) people who really really struggle with “actual” ADHD because they make it look “easy” to live with the condition, while those who “actually” have the condition struggle.

I will say that a lot of this in the US at least is insurance related. Often, a provider needs to tack on a diagnosis, even if not necessarily accurate, in order for insurance to pay for anything. If they just said that a patient was seeking help for “life improvement” (which is a good idea!), insurance is going to be like “fuck no, you’re not getting any money”. So like in my case, my providers immediately diagnosed me with both of your standard “anxiety and depression” for billing purposes, when really it’s kind of innacurate.

Anyway goddamn I am always so wordy on the internet lol. Just my views is all.

tl;dr - I both agree and disagree with the artilce

🙃

literally just fix homelessness

Dude, I know everyone makes it out to be a simple thing, but it’s really absolutely not. Homelessness and mental health issues are associated…usually a combination of addiction with one or more other mental illnesses that are severely disabling…be it PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. It is absolutely not as simple as just “give everyone some money” or “give everyone a place to live”. Obviously that sort of stuff helps way a lot, but it is really not the easy fix people think it is. Many of these people even end up wandering away from housing that is given to them exactly because of their multiple overlapping severe mental illnesses.

Basically, the majority of homeless people are also severely disabled by often multiple overlapping mental illnesses which are difficult to treat even in people with stable housing. We should always always strive to find them food and shelter, but it is NOT the easy fix that people think it is. It’s a multi-layered issue that requires an insane amount of different types of resources.

It’s difficult, man. It will probably make you happier if you could just forget about it, but brains don’t work that way. Plus some people just seem to be way better at it than others.

A mildly traumatic thing happened in my workplace. I have plenty of functional days, but other days things return to my brain without my inviting them and it makes it more difficult to function. Sometimes I get transported back into time like I’m there.

One thing I read about is the concept of mental “time traveling”. When we remember these things, it’s like we are literally back in that very moment. But that is not what is happening right at this very moment. You are “safe”. You are not back in time being harmed right now.

Is it wise to not trust her anymore if she has proven herself to be untrustworthy? Absolutely.

But in order to free yourself better, you have to first notice that you are time traveling. Then look at things in your environment. Not her, but try to take in all of the sensory input around you. Remind yourself that you are here, not there. Recognize that the only time that exists is right now. Even one second in the past no longer exists and even one second in the future doesn’t exist yet. Work with what is around you now.

Idk if that is at all helpful, just something that I have read about lately. Way fucking easier said than done because I still struggle.

Wishing you well.

I swear I clicked post on a comment here, but idk wtf happened to it. Doesn’t look like it was removed in the modlog so I’m confused.

Couple of things…what type of therapy does your therapist use? Does it seem like it’s more of a “talk therapy”? Most therapists I’ve encountered are like this and I have found it not overly helpful. While they are nice for a listening ear, it’s hard to find enough substance for me to be able to help myself in practice. What has helped me was finding a therapy program with a specific therapy modality…so I have a way that I can apply it irl. I’d wager that the therapy type is probably less important than the structure. Many therapists claim to use CBT or DBT or whatever else, but when you actually get to the sessions, they don’t. In my experience, many are just talk therapists that use vague concepts for these, which I have then had difficulty figuring out ways to help myself irl. Obviously easier said than done to find a therapist with more structure, but that is probably the first direction I’d go tbh. You also have to be very specific and explicit about what you need from therapy in order for them to be able to help you…what you wrote here is great.

Another thing is…have you tried any medications for anxiety by any chance? While therapy definitely is going to be able to do the most heavy lifting, sometimes you need just a little bit more help or a little bit more of a push with psychiatric medications. It’s scary, but they are given to millions of people and are not a huge risk. You can always stop them (slowly, not cold turkey) if you feel like they are not helping you. It’s not like someone is going in and permanently altering your brain like with surgery.

Best of luck, OP.