Here's a personal anecdote of the moment when I realized that perhaps mental disorders are not disorders at all:
A few years ago I had a job that made me deeply unhappy. The unhappiness came about gradually, but in my last year there it was overwhelming. In my last year on the job I spent a good chunk of my working hours holding back feelings of deep frustration and anger over how things were progressing and over how I was being treated by my boss and by a few coworkers. At times I considered going to see a therapist, but in the end I opted for a more direct solution - I spontaneously quit the job.
Even though my financial situation became a lot less secure, my state of mind improved greatly. I started sleeping better, some stress related physical symptoms went away, I started working on personal projects that I had been neglecting etc.
I'm pretty sure that, had I gone to the therapist, I would have been diagnosed with some sort of depressive disorder and probably would have been prescribed some sort of medication. I probably would have still been in the job I actually hated and I wouldn't have made as much progress in understanding what I actually wanted from my life.
> I probably would have still been in the job I actually hated
If modern psychology has any goals, they are 1) to keep you at work with minimal days off and high productivity, and 2) to keep you from annoying your family. You would have been a success story.
> I'm pretty sure that, had I gone to the therapist, I would have been diagnosed with some sort of depressive disorder and probably would have been prescribed some sort of medication
100%, everything is a nail to them. Diagnosis is really not that rigorous.
It's amazing to me that the very first course of action suggested is not lifestyle changes, but medication. But money talks and here we are with over-medicated nations.
I had a similar situation, although I had already been diagnosed with anxiety and depression multiple times. Medication never had a positive impact other than temporary fixes for anxiety so I reject any daily antidepressents.
Last year I was in a similar work situation but did decide to go to therapy as a kind of check to see if my feelings seemed warranted or if it was maybe something else.Ultimately decided to leave that job. It took 8 months for me to figure out what I wanted to do and actually start working again.
Extremely happy I made those decisions as I've doubled my salary, left an industry that was wrecked by COVID and got into one that has had accelerated growth for the same reason. I think it's good to trust your instincts, even though we both made different decisions they seem to have been the right ones for our particular situations.
I think people just need to realise that depression is going to come from when the stressors in our environment overwhelm our ability to cope. It's not just something that arises from out of nowhere for most people. For instance I bet a great swathe of the unemployed would not be depressed if they had a job.
Sounds like you were able to adapt and start doing things that would reduce your stressors.
However I don't think its a 100% correct to equate therapy with medication. If you visited a clinical psychologist they would have probably worked on increasing your awareness of stressors, thoughts and how to increase your ability to cope with them.
Edit: And I just realised you may not have actually had a disorder of any type. A psychologist would have been able to assess you and see if you were just in an acute situation or not.
I suppose I am speaking from experience. I feel no financial pressure but am greatly unhappy after being made redundant. Work gave me purpose that is hard to replace.
It seems you're equating the requirement for a job with hard and rewarding work. What makes you think people won't do hard or rewarding work without the forced incentive of housing? What makes you think most people are doing "hard" and "rewarding" work at their jobs?
incentives drive outcomes- incentives to work cause people people to work [paid or unpaid, for pleasure or profit]. I wasn't making judgements on the reasons we need to work, only taking issue with the idea that working was causing depression.
> You did have a metal disorder. You were just lucky to find the cause. The cause was job stress.
You could phrase it that way, but the fact remains that for me, I feel, there was an objective external cause to my unhappiness. It wasn't a spontaneous and inexplicable 'chemical imbalance in the brain'. It was a reasonable reaction to a shitty life experience.
> I have a mental disorder that was harder to find the cause. But I did as well.
Indeed I may have stated my conclusion too broadly. I'm sure there are problems out there that can't be fixed by changing your lifestyle/job etc. and that may require serious effort, therapy, medication.
But you see, I was hospitalized several times for my mood disorder. I have come to find out that there was an objective external cause of that as well.
The problem is not with the psychiatric "cures", the problem is the psychiatrists. It took a test to LOOK at my brain chemistry form them to see what was going on with me. It took 25 years of convincing them to give me the test. THAt is the disorder.
Shitty life experiences, and almost every environmental input, will affect chemicals in our brain and body. I mean, how do you think saddness happens? It just appears out of no where? NOPE.
>Shitty life experiences, and almost every environmental input, will affect chemicals in our brain and body.
I think that is a key point many people fail to see. Our present moment (including our thoughts and beliefs in the present moment) determine what chemicals get released in the brain.
Calling something a chemical disorder is overlooking correlation is not causation. (That does not imply pills can not be helpful and should not be considered.)
Did you end up finding a cure on your end? What was it?
I was recently diagnosed with a genetic condition, GCH1 deficiency, which lowers the amount of serotonin and dopamine I make and increases the amount of trace amines. (Trace amines are similar to methamphetamines.)
Heart disease means presence of plaque in arteries, it is physically verifiable, the plaque is physically stuck to the artery walls and is much harder to get rid of. If you are doing something that makes you unhappy because you really need the money and then as soon as you stop doing it you are happy again, I really don't see how you can define this period of unhappiness as a mental disease.
The sad fact about anti-depressants is they prolong depression for the average person who takes them. Yes, the average person recovers from depression without anti-depressants, but taking anti-depressants stifles that.
I can only theorize, so grain of salt, but I've noticed people who are on anti-depressants are less likely to work on their issues, improving and growing. Many get satisfied in that semi-depressed state. This might be why taking an anti-depressant can prolong depression.
I've had something similar, not depression or whatever, just not feeling in the right place at work. I was offered an (external) career coach to help with it, also because I didn't really want to quit because it was a fairly cushy job with high potential to be challenging. But it hadn't been challenging or gratifying for two+ years at that point.
The tldr with the career coach was to do more about it myself (very generic I know), eventually last year I looked for jobs critically and found one that ticked a lot of boxes. I'm pretty content right now.
Sorry man, the therapist can't prescribe. You are free to read "The body keeps the score" to understand why everything you wrote is wrong/false.
To the downvoters:
Things in life are in different levels. Your knee may hurt a little, you may tear 1 ACL in your knee, you tear all ligaments in your knee, your knee got chopped off, etc etc.
Going to the doctor, doesn't 100% mean your knee will go into surgery. Sometimes, you may just need a professional consult, etc etc.
Here's a personal anecdote when I realized that perhaps "knee medical issues" are not "medical issues" at all:
I was once running and my knee started hurting. I kept running and it kept hurting.
I then saw that the reason my knee kept hurting was because I was using the wrong shoe, or was running not at the right form. After I changed these, the knee didn't hurt no more.
Had I gone to a physiotherapist or an orthopedist, they would've put me into surgery for ACL/MLC reconstruction and 6+ months of therapy so my knee worked again.
I would still be running after the surgery, not understanding why my knee would hurt. I wouldn't have made as much progress in understanding what I actually wanted from my knee.
The reason your assumption doesn't ring true while leto_ii's assumption does is that we have a much, much better understanding of the knee than we do of the human mind, and much more objective tests for knee injuries than for depressive disorders.
So your assumption that you would have been given surgery seems extremely unlikely, while the assumption that a person with depressive symptoms would be prescribed psychiatric treatment rather than being recommended to leave their job seems possible.
For your anecdote, I would expect that you would be given a physical exam and then some kind of imaging investigation before proceeding to surgery. Even if the doctor you went to was incompetent during the physical scan, the imaging would very quickly show whether there is a need for some kind of surgery. Unfortunately, we don't have any equivalent tests for psychiatric problems. If your psychiatrist is incompetent, you may well be prescribed medication that other psychiatrists may have found unnecessary, and your only recourse is to trust your own judgement above theirs (which has its own problems, if you already suspect you have a mental disorder).
Of course, per their story, leto_ii didn't seek professional help, so we can't know what the professional conclusion would have been. Have you ever heard though of psychiatrists recommending job changes to their patients? More so, recommending they leave their job on the spot, without securing another job before hand?
Well now, this is a bit too harsh. I presented my anecdote as such, not as some universal conclusion that applies to everybody and every life situation.
> Going to the doctor, doesn't 100% mean your knee will go into surgery.
You are right. I do however feel that psychiatry is not exactly as much of a science as other medical fields. I'm not convinced that what is considered a disorder according to the DSM is exactly as much a disorder as, let's say, a vision defect. I'm also really reluctant to try out medication that will alter my mood and mental acuity in unpredictable ways. As much as possible I would prefer to not take things for years and to not end up depending on them for good functioning in the world.
A few years ago I had a job that made me deeply unhappy. The unhappiness came about gradually, but in my last year there it was overwhelming. In my last year on the job I spent a good chunk of my working hours holding back feelings of deep frustration and anger over how things were progressing and over how I was being treated by my boss and by a few coworkers. At times I considered going to see a therapist, but in the end I opted for a more direct solution - I spontaneously quit the job.
Even though my financial situation became a lot less secure, my state of mind improved greatly. I started sleeping better, some stress related physical symptoms went away, I started working on personal projects that I had been neglecting etc.
I'm pretty sure that, had I gone to the therapist, I would have been diagnosed with some sort of depressive disorder and probably would have been prescribed some sort of medication. I probably would have still been in the job I actually hated and I wouldn't have made as much progress in understanding what I actually wanted from my life.