Interesting Video About Diagnosises, And Lack Thereof

[chibam]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/K_lWjTkKNu4

Keep in mind these experiments were conducted in the 1970s. Do you think much has changed?

[Sugarshack]

I have a tendency to break things down into very black and white explanations, and the way I see it there is:

Medication; or

No Medication.

If you get MEDICATION the doctors etc will use all types of filters, checklists, labels, diagnoses to put medication into you and justify if you are "better" or "worse" from taking their medication.

Or you have NO MEDICATION the labels are a useless extra. 

In my 25 year journey of mental health circumstances and systems I knew one fact which was that my parents were horrible to each other and to me, my siblings. I knew we were sad and angry due to the way we had been treated as humans.

My brother couldn't control his anger he went down the psychiatric system and has been medicated for 20 of those years and he is an "angry/sad child who never grew or developed past youth" mentally he is young, immature, reliant on NDIS workers and a traumatised child mind trapped in an adult body still in a child relationship with our mother.

Myself I self medicated with substance abuse for most of my life then gradually came to knowledge/acceptance/insight about the background of abuse, mental health etc. I can't say if either of us are better or worse off. My brother is materially well and secure he owns a house has had generous family support. I own nothing I have been dismissed and shunned due to wanting to understand and resolve the neglect and abuse.

I think that a lot of the gaps in society these days are because back in the day, people were hospitalised or accomodated or otherwise somewhat looked after by institutions. I think NOW, there is no institutions looking after people. My brother has been suicidal and just sedated until he thinks its a bad idea, no one has ever asked him WHY he is suicidal, he is labelled bipolar. I can say in my life, I was angry as hell until I was 35 years old due to being mistreated, misguided, abused and neglected. I can say, people need to be given every opportunity to heal and come to terms with what happened to them.

My brother treats me in the same cruelty he was treated as a child.

I tend to be dismissive to people, or helpful.

My 2c on that video is that once upon a time people were labelled with whats wrong and encouraged to get better again. I think that these days people are labelled and thrown on the scrap heap with medication, and some people need labels and scrapheap but the true nature of people is to live within a tribe and I think that if we can resolve what separates us from the tribe, in order to be a part of the tribe, we do better off than to cast ourselves on the scrap heap and take the identity of a label.

[chibam]

I'm sorry to hear about everything you've been through, @Sugarshack  🙁.

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@Sugarshack wrote:

I think that these days people are labelled and thrown on the scrap heap with medication, and some people need labels and scrapheap but the true nature of people is to live within a tribe and I think that if we can resolve what separates us from the tribe, in order to be a part of the tribe, we do better off than to cast ourselves on the scrap heap and take the identity of a label.

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Perhaps that might work well in cases where the rift between the individual and the tribe is a trivial matter.

But overall, wouldn't a better approach be to help relocate people into the tribe that most closely aligns with them? Isn't that where the majority of our mental health system's efforts should be applied?

I can't help but think that the approach of browbeating "misfits" (for lack of a better word) into play-acting the role of a typical tribesman; teaching them all the lies that the tribe wants to hear, and see acted out, is only making people sicker, and society more unstable.

Because when your life is all about living out constant lies just to appease the people around you, you are a prisoner. And the more and more our society becomes made up of such prisoners, the more and more likely it is that the right circumstances will prompt all those fed-up prisoners to drop the masks they've been forced to adopt and start saying and acting out what they truly believe. The lies that society are built upon will fall apart, and hence, the society will fall apart.

Far better, IMHO, to help the "misfits" find their proper people, then to coerce them into play-acting the role of a member of whatever tribe they currantly find themselves in.

[Sugarshack]

Gday @chibam I believe here that you are right, and in my life it was finding/creating/rejecting/otherwise managing my own personal tribal interactions which "cured" me from permanently depressed and angry into a fairly well adjusted person who has a lot of compassion for other people but also, no tolerance for their BS and games as I have lived through both sides of that myself. 

So I think the answer, to read between your statement is to go out and find/create the tribe NOT take the answer about diagnoses etc. I have enjoyed a lot of life within alt communities, of all types and I have found compatible individuals there.

Now at the depths of my own rock bottom I was a horrible person and I took my anger out on other people. It look me many, many mistakes and nice people pointing out what I was doing in order for me to fix myself and become a better tribe member to other people, where my self defences were putting up walls with spikes I had to learn to let those walls down. I say this only because if you are finding ongoing conflict its you not other people. I dont say this to hurt your feelings just as a short-cut answer out of my own life story of being a misfit amongt misfits, is that at the end of the day humans are social beings and if you do antisocial behaviour around others they just dont like it. Shout out to all people who have had to resolve antisocial behaviour it has been 30+ years of my life to NOT be antisocial and to learn how to be prosocial, but also the best thing I ever bothered to do as it unlocked happiness in my life. Go forth and conquer, friend - Xmas /New Year is one of the few times of year its entirely normal to get round saying hello, visiting, going places, inviting people to do stuff so round up some misfits and start the new year off on a fresh routine 🙂

[chibam]

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@Sugarshack wrote:

So I think the answer, to read between your statement is to go out and find/create the tribe NOT take the answer about diagnoses etc. I have enjoyed a lot of life within alt communities, of all types and I have found compatible individuals there.

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This is no simple task, though. In fact, for some people it is essentially an impossible task to accomplish on their own. It's like trying to find a specific buried treasure without a map, or even any idea what country it's in.

For example, you say you've found connection in alt communities? I have no idea how to find any alt communities, much less one that might be aligned with my mindset & values. For example, the gay/lesbian community is a pretty big alt community, right? In all the years I spent socializing and searching for my new tribe, I think I met a grand total of 1 lesbian from said community! And you can perhaps also add to that tally one lesbian cousin I have, and one gay 3rd-cousin (something like that) I've met a couple of times.

I'm not gay, I'm just trying to prove a point.

IME, you don't just magically stumble upon new communities by "going out there and socializing"! You need help and direction for somebody who actually knows how to find these communities, and arrange an invitation into them!

This is an area where people really need proper professional help, IMHO. But the services just don't seem to exist. So government needs to create these service and start pouring adequate resources into them.

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@Sugarshack wrote:

Now at the depths of my own rock bottom I was a horrible person and I took my anger out on other people. It look me many, many mistakes and nice people pointing out what I was doing in order for me to fix myself and become a better tribe member to other people, where my self defences were putting up walls with spikes I had to learn to let those walls down. I say this only because if you are finding ongoing conflict its you not other people. I dont say this to hurt your feelings just as a short-cut answer out of my own life story of being a misfit amongt misfits, is that at the end of the day humans are social beings and if you do antisocial behaviour around others they just dont like it

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So, what? We're just supposed to spend the entirety of our lives pretending to like people, and telling them all the lies they want to hear? (Assuming we can even figure out what specific lies they want to hear; invariably they won't give you a script to read from.)

Where is the limit? How flawlessly accomodating are we expected to be? At what point can we say that perhaps the reason we're lonely isn't that we haven't been generous enough to others; perhaps the problem is that we're just hopelessly incompatable? Perhaps the problem is that their being cruel to us?

Or are we just expected to be sad, broken slaves to the people around us all our lives? Is it immoral for us to aspire to have some happiness of our own? I'm genuinely asking, because I really don't know anymore.

It feels like I have lied and pretended and politely smiled to my limit, and yet I still get decried for not lying and pretending and politely abiding enough. Maybe the problem is me. Maybe I just don't have the fortitude to pretend to like awful things as dilligently as most other people do.

Does everybody hate being alive? Does everybody go to bed every night praying that they won't wake up? Is it my weakness that I'm the only one who can't flawlessly uphold the farce that I want to be here 24/7?

Is that the nature of the rift between me and everybody else? That they're all much better liars then me? That all too often my mask slips, and my real feelings are discernable?

I guess in the end it doesn't really matter. Even if there is capability for me to improve my lying skills, I don't have the stomach for it anymore. I just want the nightmare to end.

*Disclaimer*: Don't worry, SANE staff, I'm not gonna do the dreaded s-word that you all hate so much.

[pangolin]

Hey @chibam 

It sounds like you are sitting with some incredibly heavy thoughts right now and I want to pop in to say that I hear your struggles. I understand just how challenging it can be to cope when it feels like you have to put on a fake persona and lie to appease others and find connection. 

By nature, we all want to connect with others who are like us and for people to accept us for the qualities we hold. But sometimes, it can feel like people hold expectations for how we will fit into our lives. These don't always represent an acceptance for our individual qualities, but rather what the other person is looking for to make their own life feel more fulfilled. This can make it particularly challenging to find connections. 

You are right, finding your tribe is definitely no simple task. While social connection is so valuable to our wellbeing, it can be really difficult to break into new communities and find your people. Knowing where to locate these communities, building the confidence to join, engaging with new people, and finding comfort in this - it can sure be an overwhelming and exhausting process. I understand how it can feel like a pointless task, or come with feelings of rejection that can leave us feeling worse. 

You have done really well to reach out to the forums here and share these challenging thoughts. While not a physical community to connect with, the forums are a community and you are a valuable part of this community. 

I wonder if anyone in the community might have any further ideas for how to find communities to engage with?