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[Grovette]

It only recently occurred to me that depression is a form of mental illness. I get depressed. Therefore I am mentally ill.

AM I MENTALLY ILL? Really?

[Dingadilly]

Under the right criteria, yep.

You're apparent surprise should be testament to the idea of increasing awareness.

[Grovette]

Increasing awareness is the opposite of blissful ignorance - not that I was blissful before!

It's just such a scary realization. I've always thought of mentally ill people as "those people". Now I look back at my entire life from this new perspective and things are clicking.

It makes me sad that my parents didn't recognize it, but they have their problems as well.

[Dingadilly]

Scary realization that mentally ill people are actually people like you and me eh? :)

It can be very difficult for people to recognize, admit or distinguish, especially in those that thought they would never encounter it.

Good news it, help is available, not always easy to find, but deffo available

[Muggles]

I made this discovery not do long ago and it was strange. I still have trouble accepting it.

[Grovette]

Muggles, in some ways isn't it almost a relief? Mental illness, as much as I hate that term, explains so much about my life-long feelings of "different-ness", insecurity, moodiness, inexplicable anger, sadness, etc etc etc. I would not have chosen to be mentally ill, that's for sure, but accepting that I am, or trying to, is easier than trying to be someone I am not. It does take a load off the pressure to be "normal".

[Seabeach]

I admire your realization. I take meds, see a psychiatrist and a therapist and have often crippling anxity and depression and yet I still find myself not wanting to be "mentally ill". I often tell myself these are transient problems that will disappear on their own. A lifetime later they are still here. I am most definitey mentally ill.

[Grovette]

I hear you Seabeach. Was just having a similar conversation with my husband. I do all the right things a human being can do - Zoloft, therapist, sunshine, exercise, enough sleep, low-stress life. . . yet the slightest criticism, bad news, or even no apparent trigger at all can send me sliding way down that horrible slope. And just like that, it's like I have terminal cancer - a virtual death sentence if I choose to act on those feelings. I've done a lot of teeth-gritting and getting-through-it in my time. Sounds like you have too.

[Hope4theBest]

You know, years ago in NY the state used to call it the "office of mental hygiene" and changed the wording because the it sounded like a hospital administration out of 1850's Bedlam/ and asylums.
Look up Dorothea Dix and what asylums were in the 1800's. Hopefully we have progressed from those days.

I prefer mental /emotional disorder. A good dr I went to years ago said depression is treatable, its common, and shame from others is one of the worst stigmas American society still puts on people.

[Denninmi]

A question I'm wrestling with myself. I don't doubt the disgnosis, it actually explains a lot.

I just live in fear this will irrevocably break me.

[Lisa15]

After my first two bouts with depression, I was adamant that I was not mentally ill, but was "having emotional problems" instead. I'm now on bout number 4, and I'm ready to admit that I have a mental illness. The recurrence of it seems to confirm that. I agree with people who don't like the term because of the stigma, and because it lumps those who are depressed with those who are sociopathic under the same term. But right now, I really don't care anymore. I'm just so tired of feeling this way that I don't really care what they call it.

[Hope4theBest]

After surviving a nervous breakdown (15 yrs ago) the upside is I know what Im in for, know this wont **** me, and that I am not ashamed that I have depression. Id rather have depression than stomach cancer.

It also reaches a point where you dont care what others think, just take care of yourself, however you need to, to feel a little better each day.

[Grovette]

It has to be called something, doesn't it. No matter how we word it, it's not a fun thing to live with dark moods that drag you around like a fish on a hook. And people who don't have depression just don't 'get it'. Stigmatising it enables them to stomach it I suppose. I'm getting better at not caring what others think, but I'm also having to accept that I don't have family support. That's a whole other post!

[beachgirl]

I prefer to call myself bats*** crazy. I mean, why not just go for it? Please forgive the profanity...just trying to lighten the mood. :) Hope I don't get in trouble for swearing...

[Jayco]

I remember when I made this realization. I was in the hospital and received paperwork that referred to me as "mentally defective". I was like "no, I that can't possibly be me!"

[ellemint]

I'm somewhere on the middle with this. I think psychiatry differs from other areas of medicine in that it is much more socially determined. Even now there is no diagnostic test for depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, ADD --- only a shopping list of symptoms, symptoms that are sometimes rather vague and arbitrary. I mean right now the psychiatric profession is busy revising and creating the criteria for mental disorders in its latest version of the DSM. How? - by committee. What other area of medicine determines diagnoses by committee?

Psychiatric diagnoses are almost too simplistic: they don't capture the spiritual /emotional /physical /social /economic factors that influence a person's mental and emotional well-being. The mechanistic/ biological view that dominates medicine is in my opinion too limited a way to view depression.

I don't believe that we should ever define ourselves in terms of any medical diagnosis, whether it is cancer or depression. The closest I would come is to say "I suffer from depression" which is a constellation of behavioral & mood problems that may or may not have a biological correlate. I have depression but I also have resiliency, strength, intelligence, determination. The depression is one aspect of me, one that usually varies over time, and that at times is not even present. So to think of myself as permanently mentally ill --- maybe it's denial but it's not the way I choose to view myself.

As psychiatrist Peter Breggin says in the linked article, psychiatric diagnoses have their disadvantages and limitations:

"Psychiatric diagnoses are not genuinely medical; they are not based on biological defects or disorders. There are no objective tests. They are not about the body; they are about the mind and spirit. The medical aura that surrounds psychiatric diagnoses give them a false validity. Psychiatric diagnoses are not rooted in science but in opinion."

http://www.huffingto...s_b_618507.html

Edited by ellemint, 10 September 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[Lisa15]

I remember when I made this realization. I was in the hospital and received paperwork that referred to me as "mentally defective". I was like "no, I that can't possibly be me!"

Defective????? That's TERRIBLE! We are not defective, any more than a cancer patient is.

[Grovette]

"Mentally defective"?!?! That's a truly awful phrase. And anyway, who ISN'T mentally perfect?

I snuck a peak at one doctor's notes and saw that she described me as "disjointed". Nice.

[Grovette]

Interesting stuff, Ellemint, thanks for the article and comments.

Look, I have brown hair. I have strong legs. I like chocolate. I get depressed. Does that make me a "Brown-Haired, Strong-Legged, Chocolate-Eating Depressive"? I guess, but whatever. Whatever it's called or whatever the diagnosis du jour may be - mentally ill, mood disordered, mentally defective, disjointed, bat-s*** crazy - doesn't change the fact that I was born with these genes and dispositions. What really interests me is finding relief for the symptoms, and finding other people who understand the symptoms. Which I am doing!

[ellemint]

Grovette, that's how I feel ! Call it whatever----- a syndrome, a condition, an illness, a disorder, an imbalance, a genetic predisposition, a locus of problems--- but primarily I want to feel better and function better using whatever tools/treatment/ support or resources available to me, including my own inner resources.

:)

Edited by ellemint, 11 September 2012 - 05:41 PM.