Mental illness

[Dave H]

Its a taboo subject lets face it but this week on BBC1 they have had a mental illness week.

I had a stretch of PTSD and I can only describe it as pure 'HELL' and was quite prepared on many occasions to end it all. It was so horrific that I couldn't take it and if it not for my wife I would not be here now. Some people say it 'selfish' to take your own life but I can tell you that when you are in this state of mind you are not thinking rationally as you are in another world completely

 

I volunteered for many years for MIND 10 years back and back then the increase of mental illness was staggering and now I dread to think

Something has to be done about the huge increase of youngsters falling prey to this scourge and like many have said 1 billion is not enough.

 

Fair play to Stephen Fry and some other celebrities who are helping to bring this more into the limelight

 

 

[Bigfishy]

One of the main problems with mental illness is the fact that most people will never understand what it is no matter how evident the symptoms are, indeed the more evident the symptoms,the less understandable it is to the onlooker.

 

The only people who have any hope of truly understanding mental illness are those who suffer from it,but given it's destructive nature many sufferers succumb to suicide long before they gain insight into their condition.

[ayjay]

I think I'm turning into a pair of curtains.

[Clifftop]

I think I'm turning into a pair of curtains.

Pull yourself together man

[Ken L]

Almost one in three people will experience mental illness at some point in their lives and even if they do not suffer it themselves, most people will have to deal with a family member or loved one who is ill. It's no fun but it's also no reason not to have fun.

 

Mate of mine suffered delusions. He started off thinking he was a tepee and progressed to thinking he was a marquee.

His doctor said he was two tents..

 

 

 

 

That's "too thence" for anyone who is slow this morning...

[chesters1]

Two tense

[Vagabond]

I think I'm turning into a pair of curtains.

A good illustration of the difficulty of understanding the condition. I remember my schoolmaster, in attempting to enlighten us, defining mental illness as someone imagining himself as "anything from Jesus Christ to a piece of cheese".

 

Inadvertently, he may have given me an insight into one form of mental illness - ie what Richard Dawkins calls "the god delusion"

 

Having had both parents fall victim to this disease, I was in a unique position to note the progressive nature of the disease and the fact that it is contagious (not liike measles or ebola contagion, but through a process not even vaguely understood - words like "brainwashing" or more recently "radicalisation" hint at the nature of delusional spread) In case you think my view was itself biased, eventually the medical profession had no option but to section my mother as her religious ravings were becoming a huge problem to the local community. My father died before reaching that state, having caught the disease a few years later than my mother. I had an unexplained immunity, which is why I am able to report rationally on what occurred.

 

When visited by itinerant hedge-priests, I do my best to urge them to seek psychiatric treatment - usually, I fear, without result.

 

Anyone who confesses to believing in fairies, elves, goblins, gnomes, gremlins, and the like is immediately suspect as to "compos mentis"

 

Why then is not a "god delusion" an immediate cause for concern ? There is a spectrum of effects, ranging from a relatively harmless vague belief in an "invisible friend", through hearing "voices" instructing the victim to "preach the gospel" (and thus spread the disease) to what we euphemistically call "extremism", in which the voices might tell the recipient to invest in a sharp sword and behead the "forces of evil" - such "forces of evil" might be interpreted to include you, who are reading this, so the condition is not without risk to you personally. Suicide bombers and their like have had their counterparts before today's problems - anyone remember the kamikaze pilots ?

 

 

 

Possibly, in a few hundred year's time, should the human race survive that long, the faintest belief in anything supernatural will result in the patient receiving early psychiatric treatment Good luck with that

[Phone]

Vagabond,

 

Not likely, regardless of culture or mental state religion develops to fill the human need for security, Primal or sophisticated religions are motivated by the idea that people are invested in maintaining beliefs in order and structure to prevent beliefs in chaos and randomness. It is the "purpose of life" question that will never be answered - thus religion has always and will always exist.

 

Phone

(IMO)

 

PS - unashamedly I have spent my fair share of time institutionalized with mental illness. I now take a double handful of drugs to maintain a modest level of comfort.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Phone

[corydoras]

A good illustration of the difficulty of understanding the condition. I remember my schoolmaster, in attempting to enlighten us, defining mental illness as someone imagining himself as "anything from Jesus Christ to a piece of cheese".

 

Inadvertently, he may have given me an insight into one form of mental illness - ie what Richard Dawkins calls "the god delusion"

 

Having had both parents fall victim to this disease, I was in a unique position to note the progressive nature of the disease and the fact that it is contagious (not liike measles or ebola contagion, but through a process not even vaguely understood - words like "brainwashing" or more recently "radicalisation" hint at the nature of delusional spread) In case you think my view was itself biased, eventually the medical profession had no option but to section my mother as her religious ravings were becoming a huge problem to the local community. My father died before reaching that state, having caught the disease a few years later than my mother. I had an unexplained immunity, which is why I am able to report rationally on what occurred.

 

When visited by itinerant hedge-priests, I do my best to urge them to seek psychiatric treatment - usually, I fear, without result.

 

Anyone who confesses to believing in fairies, elves, goblins, gnomes, gremlins, and the like is immediately suspect as to "compos mentis"

 

Why then is not a "god delusion" an immediate cause for concern ? There is a spectrum of effects, ranging from a relatively harmless vague belief in an "invisible friend", through hearing "voices" instructing the victim to "preach the gospel" (and thus spread the disease) to what we euphemistically call "extremism", in which the voices might tell the recipient to invest in a sharp sword and behead the "forces of evil" - such "forces of evil" might be interpreted to include you, who are reading this, so the condition is not without risk to you personally. Suicide bombers and their like have had their counterparts before today's problems - anyone remember the kamikaze pilots ?

 

 

 

Possibly, in a few hundred year's time, should the human race survive that long, the faintest belief in anything supernatural will result in the patient receiving early psychiatric treatment Good luck with that

I think you might be able to relate to this Dave.

 

[Vagabond]

I think you might be able to relate to this Dave.

 

Well, I might if I could hear it. Thanks for trying, but the sound through my hearing aid from internet sound bites is indistinguishable from that of a flock of wigeon Anas penelope - quacking heads ! Can guess the gist though.

 

Phone I understand where you are coming from, and given how widespread religion is, cannot really be bothered to argue.

 

However, unless mankind undergoes a gestalt switch soon, and recognises religion for the mental aberration that it is, we are on course for an eventual scenario where one set of religious fanatics with nuclear capability are arguing with a different set of religious fanatics, also with nuclear capability - what price "deterrents" then ?

 

I'm not afraid of gods, any more than I'm afraid of the tooth fairy. What I do fear is the capability of those suffering from a god delusion to cause me and mine harm.