# Mental illness is exaggerated **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 9, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522 "2013-06-09T03:18:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/261 "2013-06-15T16:11:51Z")
My SO was put on zoloff a few months ago and she is a different person. She struggled with severe alcoholism and prescription drug addiction for at least 30 years. She would be ok and then go off on a horrible binge that might last a few weeks. Since she has been on zoloff she still drinks but very moderately, something I thought was impossible for her. She has had countless therapists but for some reason she just can’t delve into certain issues. The zoloff in her case seems to be the best option. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/262 "2013-06-15T16:17:53Z")
**Zoe** - what an elegant and dignified description of clinical depression! ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/263 "2013-06-15T18:51:26Z")
> [@Among\_Liberals](#): > > I haven’t read the thread, but I will point out that you will find almost nobody who will make this argument if they haven’t experienced some form of major mental illness in their life, or if they haven’t had extensive experience with someone who has. It’s a hostile lack of perspective. I don’t think that’s entirely true, I think there’s a strong desire to say “there’s nothing wrong with me, just how people label me.” That was what the original post said: the “mental illness” concept is nothing more than pathologizing the more unusual varieties of behavior/perception. Particularly with something with such a stigma attached, there’s a strong tendency to say “there’s nothing wrong with me except that people call me sick.” ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/264 "2013-06-15T19:40:05Z")
> [@Tony](#): > > I don’t want to pry too much, but did you eventually overcome the depression or reach a point where you no longer needed to take meds? I ask this because I think it’s inspiring to know that some people might be able to need the meds only for a short time and then do well off of them completely, unlike what I’ve been generally told that you need to be on the drugs for life, no questions asked. I’m on meds to this day. But it certainly hasn’t been ‘no questions asked’. At my urging, we reduced my dosage of Paxil. More recently, my psychiatrist wanted to be sure I wasn’t being overmedicated and we agreed to reduce my Abilify. I don’t view being on meds for the rest of my life as a bad thing or a failure of psychology/psychiatry. My friend Erin will be on insulin for her diabetes for the rest of her life. I’ll need glasses to correct my near sightedness for the rest of my life. They aren’t perfect solutions. But they aren’t signs of a failure by science. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/265 "2013-06-16T10:39:02Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Each time the milder depression deepens into something worse, I don’t recognize it as depression I used to get hypothermia riding a motorcycle on cold wet days. I’d just think “I’m cold - I’ll be OK when I get home”. Then I’d get home, and actually something like an hour later, I’d be warmed up enough to think “Dam, I wasn’t thinking straight. I got hypothermia again” Prozac didn’t work for me. I was one of the people that prozac made psychotic. Improved my mood, made me effectively seek help instead of coming to a stop, helped me to clearly see the issues that were causing confusion and depression. And helped me clearly follow the issues round and round through the Klein jar/Mobious loop. dam near got me locked up. ---
**Author:** ![matt357](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@matt357](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt357)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/266 "2013-06-16T11:21:28Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > You’re quite right. This is oftentimes quite painful and frustrating for family members, who have just gone through traumatic, frightening or sometimes violent incidents with a loved one who still cannot recognize that anything is amiss. I have actually found that most people who have mental problems actually want help and the ones who refuse really are pretty mentally healthy. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/267 "2013-06-16T12:31:37Z")
> [@matt357](#): > > I have actually found that most people who have mental problems actually want help and the ones who refuse really are pretty mentally healthy. So it’s up to the schizophrenic psychiatrists to help them, right? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/268 "2013-06-16T13:34:03Z")
> [@matt357](#): > > I have actually found that most people who have mental problems actually want help and the ones who refuse really are pretty mentally healthy. Thanks! I needed a good laugh! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/269 "2013-06-16T15:44:33Z")
> [@matt357](#): > > I have actually found that most people who have mental problems actually want help and the ones who refuse really are pretty mentally healthy. Not at all. And I’m still waiting for you to explain how people with problems are supposed to get better if medication and therapy are both unacceptable. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/270 "2013-06-16T16:09:37Z")
**matt** , are you aware of how self-contradictory you are being? Schizophrenia is the only real mental illness, you say. Yet one of the cardinal symptoms of schizophrenia is not knowing you are sick. So guess who is more likely to refuse help? The anxious person? The depressed person? Or the person who thinks the CIA has implanted a microchip in their brain and that everyone in a white coat is a secret agent trying to kill them? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/271 "2013-06-16T18:35:38Z")
> [@nickak2003](#): > > coping skills are learned. medication that reduces anxiety can give someone an opportunity to learn coping skills, that would have been impossible otherwise. That depends on the medication. Studies have shown that a certain class of anti-anxiety drugs, the benzodiazepines, actually decrease ones ability to learn to coping strategies. There is no such problem with SSRIs, however. And I know from personal experience that this is true. I learned nothing about coping with anxiety while on a benzodiazepine. I learned drug-seeking behavior instead. Anxiety felt like a completely disconnected feeling, not something I could control. I was just humoring the psychologist because they said certain things would work when they didn’t. The drug worked. Remember, my withdrawal process led to me having agoraphobia–something I never had before using the drug. And something that I am slowly and surely getting rid of now that I’m off the drug. (If I could only have gotten psychological help that would come to me instead of making me go to them, I could be cured by now. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/272 "2013-06-16T18:40:00Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > I used to get hypothermia riding a motorcycle on cold wet days. I’d just think “I’m cold - I’ll be OK when I get home”. Then I’d get home, and actually something like an hour later, I’d be warmed up enough to think “Dam, I wasn’t thinking straight. I got hypothermia again” > > Prozac didn’t work for me. I was one of the people that prozac made psychotic. Improved my mood, made me effectively seek help instead of coming to a stop, helped me to clearly see the issues that were causing confusion and depression. And helped me clearly follow the issues round and round through the Klein jar/Mobious loop. dam near got me locked up. I’m not quite sure what you mean by psychotic, but it sounds similar to being manic. And becoming manic after getting depression medication is often indicative of bipolar disorder, just with a depressive focus. I know your doctors have probably considered that, but I thought I’d tell you just in case. The treatments are very different, even though the symptoms are mostly the same. And I have an online acquaintance who recently went through exactly what I described and now is doing a lot better. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/273 "2013-06-16T18:45:19Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > You are ignorant. Deeply ignorant. I’m thinking ‘‘UFOs are real’’ levels of ignorance here so I don’t think educating you is a real possibility. I must weigh this reality with the fact that there are other people out there reading this who may be corrupted by your bizarre view of things. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate you doing this. This sort of ignorance is so taxing to fight that I am glad someone else is willing to do it. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/274 "2013-06-16T18:51:19Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Reciprocally, we should indeed be locked up like anyone else if we do those illegal things. You do us no favors by saying, in essence, “How can you propose that this poor unfortunate confused nutcase be arrested and jailed? He needs HELP!” I’m okay with them being locked up, but I do question whether jail is the better place to do it, due to the dearth of psychological help that can be found there. One of the purposes of our penal system is to rehabilitate, and if we can use psychological or psychiatric intervention to affect that rehabilitation, we should do so. And it is currently nearly impossible to do this in our current jails, so a penal treatment center would be better. But, otherwise, I agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/275 "2013-06-16T21:40:14Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > . . . Each time the milder depression deepens into something worse, I don’t recognize it as depression. This has been my experience for fifty years now. I may notice that I don’t concentrate as well or have trouble sleeping, or that I’ve changed my eating habits, but I _still_ don’t recognize it as deepening clinical depression. . . . I’m a little similar: I don’t recognize my own mood changes. But my family, who are clever and observant, have learned to spot my “tells,” my giveaway changes – sometimes little things like changes in vocabulary – and will tell me, “Hey, you’re on a mood swing again, ain’t’cha?” And that wakes me right up to what I wasn’t able to become aware of on my own. The mind is notoriously self-blind. (And this applies to all sorts of entirely normal behaviors, too. The guy who always laughs too loud at parties, annoying everyone: he is simply not able to become aware of it on his own!) ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/276 "2013-06-17T00:33:18Z")
> [@matt357](#): > > I have actually found that most people who have mental problems actually want help and the ones who refuse really are pretty mentally healthy. Why do I suspect this is something akin to circular reasoning/toupee fallacy/both? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/277 "2013-06-17T01:07:54Z")
> [@Tony](#): > > There is some interesting literature I’ve been reading about depression. There’s a theory that a downward spiral kicks in when stress causes a person to brood. Brooding, obsessive thinking leads to serious depression. Take the 90 year old widower I mentioned earlier. He could sit at home and think about how much he misses his wife, hour after hour. He’s doomed. He’s going to become severely depressed. But if he occupies his mind with more healthful thinking, if he doesn’t try to extricate himself from those awful thoughts, that depression can be held at bay. > > Easier said than done but very interesting and important nonetheless. I can’t speak for other mental illnesses, since I don’t have personal experience with them, but this should be more mainstream than just whipping out the prescription book so quickly. I’m not saying meds shouldn’t be used at all but just less so than they are now. In other words, “snap out of it.” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/278 "2013-06-17T01:34:14Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > In other words, “snap out of it.” :rolleyes: I don’t think learning coping strategies is the same thing as “snap out of it.” ---
**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/279 "2013-06-17T01:34:57Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I’m a little similar: I don’t recognize my own mood changes. But my family, who are clever and observant, have learned to spot my “tells,” my giveaway changes – sometimes little things like changes in vocabulary – and will tell me, “Hey, you’re on a mood swing again, ain’t’cha?” And that wakes me right up to what I wasn’t able to become aware of on my own. > > The mind is notoriously self-blind. (And this applies to all sorts of entirely normal behaviors, too. The guy who always laughs too loud at parties, annoying everyone: he is simply not able to become aware of it on his own!) This struck me as really odd. I don’t mean to question your personal experience with your own mind, and, come to think of it, I’m not really in a position to argue that your statement for the general case is inaccurate either. For me, though, a lifetime of dealing with depression has left me, if anything, too self-conscious. I am exceedingly attuned to my own mental and emotional states. I know when I’m feeling down or upset, and why (although sometimes I take a few minutes to navigate the myriad of reasons for a particular emotional state, including the simply biological). I’m not incapable of laughing too loudly at a party, but I’m the first one to know if I am. I can think of dozens upon dozens of situations where someone has tried to “read” my emotional state, and gotten it wrong - I don’t think that I’m particularly hard to read (on the contrary), but people typically miss the mark by at least a few degrees when they attempt to tell me what I’m feeling and why. It’s frustrating, but I think it says more about the motivations of some of the people who do that sort of thing than it does about me. All of which is beside the point of the thread, I suppose, but our differing experiences with depression with regards to our self-awareness I think may illuminate somewhat the kinds of differences one might have in dealing with the broader questions of mental illness and its treatment. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522/280 "2013-06-17T01:57:56Z")
I know for me, admitting I’m sick (clinically depressed) is admitting I’m delusional. Almost by definition, a delusional person does not know they are delusional. They have an inability to see the flaws in their logic. So you can tell me over and over that I’m depressed, but I won’t believe you. I’ll only believe after the fact…after the depression has lifted and I can see out from under the curtain. But before that moment, I’m usually totally clueless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mental-illness-is-exaggerated/660522.md?page=15)