lucifer_sam

If you guys hadn't cottoned on yet,

I actually AM a victim of child abuse.

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first.am

Engine

Because, now and in all of human history, there are probably vast numbers of people who suffer from congenital mental disorders. I'm not qualified to presume how many people suffer from congenital symptoms versus environmental ones. That is, I'm not a trained psychiatrist but congenital mental disorders certainly abound.

Environmental in your case, then?

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

lucifer_sam

You cowardly piece of shit. I hope I never see you in real life.

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first.am

SATCHMO

I'm sorry that you had to go through the experiences that you went through in your childhood and I hope that the tools that you spoke of earlier in the thread have helped you to deal with what must have been a very difficult trauma. I can't even imagine. I'm sorry, I sincerely am.

However, Engine did his best to take the bombshell that you dropped in the middle of the this thread and and make it relevant to what we were currently discussing. Could he have been more sensitive? Probably, but it doesn't give you the right in any way to call him a piece of shit. He did nothing to attack you whatsoever.

Scarlett O'Hara

Yeah fair call Satch. I'm really sorry to hear Sam, I hope you are okay.

At the end of the day though, not everyone knows how to react to such a serious situation. I just hope you are able to move forward and not let it rule your life.

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Guybrush

I'm sorry it happened to you, Sam.

I'm no expert on this topic, but I definetly believe that biology plays a big part in our mental health. We're differently equipped from start when it comes to handling stress, empathy and so on. I think things like empathy also need stimulation from environment, just like language skills do, so of course it's a mix of factors.

I believe when people are sick from chemical imbalance, a change in lifestyle can help most. A change in diet (quite important I think, sugar, milk, wheat and so on has shown to negatively affect mental health) and learning better ways to emotionally deal with stressful situations for example. Still, there are cases where people who feel perfectly fine on medicine believe they can stop taking them and descend back into psychosis, so I'm also open to the idea that some people just need to be medicated. Perhaps environment could be changed for them in such a way that they might not get sick had it changed sooner, but that it's too late as an adult.

Generally, I believe psychiatry helps a lot of people.

edit :

Also, when it comes to the mentally uncurable, people who don't respond to treatment and who don't function in society and at worst are likely to be harmful to others and themselves, how should society treat them?

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Something Completely Different

SATCHMO

I'm very curious about the causation of chemical imbalances as it relates to environmental and experiential stimuli and the brains ability to normalize itself, or recover on a chemical level. At what point does the brain lose it's ability to bring these imbalances back into equilibrium on its own? I'm not even sure if that's an answerable question.

Guybrush

Mental disorders in general do have strong genetic components and so inheritance is definetly important (imo). During my biology studies, I met a guy who was schizophrenic with tourettes syndrome. His life was controlled by tics and obsessive compulsive acts. He couldn't just turn a light off or walk up a flight of stairs. We spoke about his disease and he made it pretty clear that both his parents were sick the same way (probably their sickness brought them together) and that he was bound to end up the same way. He never mentioned any trauma during his life, although he could of course have kept it secret.

The last time I saw him, I noticed that he seemed much better and I asked him if he had changed his medication. He said that he had just become better on his own and that it was something his doctors had predicted would happen as well. Appearantly, he was worst during puberty (because of the hormonal/physical changes) and got better the further away he got from that point in his life.

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Something Completely Different

Stephen

Mr. Charlie

I married a Yank and moved to NYC where I lived for a time and almost, and I do mean almost, everyone I met and talked to had a shrink. Is it very common in America? As a Brit, the concept that somebody else (a shrink) knows how a person should live their life better than the person living their life is, well, it seems bordering of insane.