#the nature of bipolar

[girlcalledwhatsername]

One of those "is it worth it" debates i find myself having with myself is about mental health related posts that may make good points otherwise but subscribe heavily to and reference and frame mental illness through the biomedical model and the widespread (but false) idea that a chemical imbalance causes these issues. Comprehensive explanation for this + resources here. (Also worth looking into this activist's work where she describes what paychiatric gaslighting looks like)

The thing is I do not want to spread that misinformation anymore. It was presented to me as fact despite there being little proof of it, for a long time in my life from psychology teachers to therapists to psychiatrists of course. Just treated as a natural fact when it was literally pseudoscience on the same level as most rudimentary psychoanalysis.

So I have to make the decision to either simply not reblog it and therefore not engage with the wider mental health discourse and let people be mistaken from what is possibly just an honest mistake as something that has been taught to us all so so largely, they very well might just honestly not know it not be true, and then by leaving it alone I am letting that myth perpetuate from well-meaning people...

Or...

I actually correct the person, get a bunch of people who find their worldview so suddenly challenged being angry about it and calling me anti science as often happens and get retraumatised over my experiences with Psychiatric abuse at large.

And although I mostly choose the former and simply don't engage it leaves me feeling uneasy because I know I was that person once who didn't think to question the validity of chemical imbalance theories and if someone had told me about it honestly it would have saved me a world of pain. But too many people are progressive only on the surface and hate to have to consider abolitionist approaches to oppressive systems, too many people genuinely believe a host of more stigmatised symptoms and disorders to be deserving of incarceration or erasure, and i have no way of knowing who these people would be. And this is why pop psychology and liberal mental health advocates have run the anti-psych movement into the shadows - a movement to which we owe every step of our liberation as mentally ill people.

So how do you make this a bigger conversation again?

Like. Tell me this isn't blatantly a mass misinformation campaign at this point

[linked here]

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

silly vampire costumes and their added benefits™️ (directly based on this)

[ace-of-d1am0nds]

i wrote this instead of doing work for finals week. dw abt it

prompt: habit

@galladrabbles @spacerockwriting

read pt.14

Relapse pt. 15

“I shouldn’t need to tell everyone my every habit every time I fuck up. It’s bound to happen. We’ve all got shit. Fuckin’ trauma or whatever. But I’m on top of it. You didn’t have to come all the way over here, Fi. I saw Lip a couple’a weeks ago, and got the weekly thing with Deb and Fran. It’s really. I’m fine. Go home. No, not go home. It’s nice that you’re here. Happy Thanksgiving. Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m fine. Let’s eat. Come on.”

Ian kept rambling. He walked over to the table. Nobody stopped him. They all knew…

[shespillsherself]

each day trying to get out of this bubble of sadness thats around me and how hard i try to ignore the fact that everything ends someday but oh despite everything there’s still me and i fighting to survive a day.

-life

[empty-fucking-abyss]

pretty flower

[tiredflowercrown]

The only thing stopping m3 from thinking this is a manic episode is that I feel the slightest bit tired

[corvigae]

Me: Not all of my OCs have to be autistic and/or ADHD. Some could have other mental health struggles - for example, Ori has severe social anxiety.

Also me: Hm. Okay, but have you considered - he has severe social anxiety because he's autistic?

[inkintheinternet]

The Dark Street of Psychosis and Schizophrenia

By Arjuwan Lakkdawala

Ink in the Internet

Recently I did extensive research on the Internet about one particular subject, it was because I could see its tsunami like effect rippling through the entire world. The subject is 'Mental Health or Psychology.'

The results of the search were most disheartening. Official statistics from the World Health Organization to every other scientific institute were saying the same thing: "worldwide rise in mental health crisis." What this translates into is that the world is collectively going crazy.

The questions that arise from such statistics, is what is causing this alarming mental decline or disturbance? How should we deal with sufferers or treat them? And what are the risks of us devoloping a mental disorder or our children, and how can we protect our sanity?

Now to have the best understanding about the human psyche, so that we can have acute awareness, and make informed beneficial decisions, should we have to deal with the mental health crisis in anyway.

We have to go back in the history of psychology.

We know this much that Neanderthals and Denisovans were innovative thinkers from the primitive tools they made to the cave paintings.

Discoveries have revealed that we are still learning about the cognitive abilities of pre-historic humans, for example a new book 'The Language Puzzle' by archealogist Dr. Steven Mithen, states that language may have been developed 8 times sooner than was previously thought. That is 1.6 million years ago, rather than 200,000 years ago.

The point of this is that we can be certain man was always cognitive and not an ape.

So now let's fastforward from pre-historic times to the time when philosophy was first recorded in ancient Greece.

Greek philosophy is said to be the very early prototype of mental wanderings that were not based on needs of the day.

In the 17th century the idea of dualism was introduced by French Philosopher Rene Descartes, it is significant as it separates the behavior and actions of a person based on stimulations from the body or environment, from the thinking of the mind that stems from consciousness.

These two aspects are the toughest challenge of psychology to this day. Because of how the effects of environment and society could influence a person's thinking as opposed to internal biological causes. Which is causing the mental disorder, and which has a greater affect on the patient's psyche at any given phase.

In the centuries that followed and even after psychology had emerged as a science apart from physiology and philosophy in the mid-1800s.

There was debate about what constituted a mental disorder, what was the pathogenesis (origin of the mental problem)

What form of treatment would be effective, and how to avoid causing the patient unnecessary suffering by trial and error.

It turns out and not surprisingly that the "pathogenesis - Greek: patho 'suffering' genesis 'origin'" of mental health disorders are one of the most elusive to trace, and hence, the proper treatment very difficult to define.

The first time that a mental condition was recorded to have a biological pathogenesis, was in the curious case of the "general paralysis of the insane." The 1897 discovery was made by the neurologist Richard von Kraftt-Ebing and his assistant Josef Adolf Hirschl.

The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1885 had reported a great surge in the insane. It is said that so much as 1 in 5 patients entering asylums had "general paralysis of the insane."

What the neurologist and his assistant had discovered was that this was the later stages of syphilis. A biological ailment that could manifest in dementia and delusions as untreated syphilis can damage the brain.

While this was a formidable stamp on the connection of a mental disorder and a biological cause. It was generally misleading, as it solidified to a great extent the belief that a mental ailment would be the result of physical defects in the brain. Many scientists of the time would examine brains in autopsies and search for imprints of the mental problem the deceased had, but there were none in most of the cases.

As I explained from ancient times up to the mid-1800s scientists were still having so much difficulty in fully distinguishing consciousness from the physical brain. Needless to say this had delayed the progress in the field of psychology.

Sigmund Freud founded the theory of psychoanalysis. Freud and his colleague Pierre Janet were studying patients with hysteria, seizures, and other physical symptoms with mental disorders.

Psychoanalysis was considered the first major step towards the complex study of the human consciousness and as Freud pioneered the 'unconsciousness.' He theorised that the unconsciousness could manifest into dreams and mental disorders, and was the root cause of conscious psychological problems, the dilemmas in the unconscious mind would have to be brought to the conscious mind in order to treat the patient.

In 1904 Sigmund Freud published 'The Psychopathology of Everyday Life' exploring minuscule details of human behavior, which he thought were symptoms of the workings of the psyche.

While this may have been true, but not every detail could be the result of an unhealthy mental condition.

Sigmund Freud's theory had established the study of psychology as a whole new branch of science. We would think brain autopsies and procedures would be considered irrelevant after such dramatic progress in psychology.

It wasn't.

Unfortunately mental disorder patients were going to face their worst era of great torture and downright mutilation of the brain.

The lobotomy was introduced in the late 1800s and picked up pace in 1935 up to the start of the 1950s. It is a grotesque procedure were nerves in parts of the brain believed to be carrying the thoughts causing the mental disorder are severed.

The intention of the procedure was not to restore sanity, but to put patients in a state of calm. Patients that were violent or had symptoms of schizophrenia were the ones mostly subjected to lobotomy.

It had mixed results with some patients becoming calm, but losing interest in life or having any energy. To other patients dying or relapsing.

An invasive approach is still taken in the case of patients with severe mental disorders, and where other treatments failed. The procedure is called 'Psychosurgery'.

Electric Shock Therapy or Electric Convulsive Therapy (ECT) was first developed in the late 1930s, like the lobotomy it was a severe approach to vulnerable patients who had lost their sanity partially or completely. ECT causes an induced controlled seizure.

I read reports that there were cases where ECT was administered to patients without their consent because they were considered unable to give consent.

Prior to ECT induced seizures for treating mental disorders were caused by oral administration of medication.

Scientists don't know exactly how ECT works, but it is believed to give relief to patients suffering from psychosis, mania, catatonia, schizophrenia, and is still in practice.

A new study published on 27 March in the Nature journal, states that a very strong electrical current in the brain hits the cells and their DNA snaps, and is then repaired, this according to the study is observed when long term memories are made. It could be that when the DNA are repaired, the process encodes information about the electrical current and this forms the memory.

So perhaps the ECT causes relief by damaging DNA in the brain that stores the memory responsible for the mental disorder.

As researchers made discoveries scientists learned about brain chemistry, and then medications were developed to treat mental disorders by pharmaceuticals

There is talk therapy which is what psychologists are qualified for, and then there is psychiatry in which medication could be prescribed. Prevention is better than cure in either case.

We as adults that have had a good, cultured, ethical, and educational upbringing usually are mentally stable, even if we suffer emotional distress or anxiety.

The risks could be to adolescents and teenagers who are still developing and get exposed to negative influence or traumatic experiences at home, school, or social media. OCD (impulsive-compulsive disorder) and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) along with intrusive thoughts could be the lethal triggers of psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (maniac depression.)

Intrusive thoughts are common and happen almost to everyone. People who don't have mental disorders know to dismiss these thoughts and not focuse on them. Sufferers of OCD and PTSD or patients with dementia, Parkinson's disease, or Alzheimer's may not be able to avoid the Intrusive thoughts that could amplify their trauma, anxiety, fears, phobias, eventually leading to complete detachment from reality and the various severe manifestations of mental disorders. In cases like these talk therapy would probably fail, and medication, ECT, and invasive treatments like psychsurgery could be required.

So the influence the next generation gets could entirely define their mental health and their future. The news and statistics I'm reading are not encouraging as mental crisis is on the rise like never before.

I have a podcast Mind Supply, if you liked this article then you might like the podcasts as I talk about social issues.

Copyright ©️ Arjuwan Lakkdawala 2024

Arjuwan Lakkdawala is an author and independent science researcher.

Twitter-X/Instagram: Spellrainia Email: arjuwan.writer@gmail.com

Sources:

Verywellmind: The Origins of Psychology

From Philosophical Beginnings to the Modern Day

By 

Kendra Cherry, MSEd 

Updated on November 29, 2022

 Fact checked by 

Adah Chung

The New Yorker: The Troubled History of Psychiatry

Challenges to the legitimacy of the profession have forced it to examine itself, including the fundamental question of what constitutes a mental disorder.

By Jerome Groopman

Medical News Today: What is electroshock therapy?

Mass General Brigham McLean: ECT Treatment: A History of Helping Patients

Medically reviewed by Heidi Moawad, M.D. — By Lauren Martin on June 30, 2021

Nature.com - Memories are made by breaking DNA — and fixing it

Nerve cells form long-term memories with the help of an inflammatory response, study in mice finds.

By 

Max Kozlov

National Institute of Mental Health: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Healthline: Intrusive Thoughts: Why We Have Them and How to Stop Them

Medically reviewed by Bethany Juby, PsyD — By Kimberly Holland — Updated on May 20, 2022

NHS: Overview - Psychosis

Britannica: Sigmund Freud

Austrian psychoanalyst

Actions

Written by 

Martin Evan Jay

Fact-checked by the editors of encyclopaedia Britannica

Britannica: lobotomy

surgery

Actions

Also known as: frontal lobotomy, leucotomy, prefrontal leukotomy

Written and fact-checked by the editors of encyclopaedia Britannica

Ancient Origins: Language Developed 8 Times Earlier Than Previously Thought, Says New Book

National Institute of Mental Health: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

[weallfallfromgrace2]

[detentiontrack]

I’m at work rn and I kept hallucinating the sound of the front door opening and going to check 50 times while I was in the back (my coworkers gave me a weird look)

[summonthekrakenismyoriginstory]

writer's block

so in 2023, i tried writing fanfiction. i was able to write some paragraphs but i couldn't continue. at that time, i compared myself to my 2020 self where i was thriving in writing. my concern was, i might not be as amazing as my former self in 2020.

and now in january 5, 2024, i'm still having writer's block but for a different reason and for a different fandom. i am now comparing myself to other writers. the funny thing is i'm regressing. this was a topic i had in therapy last year. i was the one who told my therapist that i should stop comparing myself to others. and this made me feel free and happy and somehow it feels like there is a distance from my trauma. and still, i do not compare myself to my inner circle. but i guess there is insecurity that burns me in terms of writing. i do wonder if my bipolar meds are stopping me from being creative and confident though i need the meds to lower my anger, my intensity that i have had since i was a child.

tho maybe the reason why is, before, i was part of small fandoms or fandoms that were just starting so i was confident and hungry for content that i wanted to write fics myself. meanwhile, the fandom i'm in now is big enough. there are many writers who i'm thankful for. so it's fine if i don't contribute. i want to but i'm scared. it's also true that i'm not the same person i used to be. recent emotional abuse in 2021 and my journey in processing the child/teenage abuse i had and all the others, has zapped the confidence that i once had pre-2021. or i'll try to see if i can write poetry fanfiction. i used to do that too.

probably someday i will return to writing fanfiction. and hopefully my original poetry can find a home that pays.

[feehippielove]

I'm very proud of myself 🫶🏿 I did wonderful today 🌻

💚I hope y'all remember to take the time to congratulate yourselves when you do well 💚

[dabislittlemouse]

Eros is also trying to blame their behavior on ADHD which is disgusting. I have adhd and I don’t act like an asshole to people like this

People who blame their toxic shitty behavior on mental disorders are 🚩🚩🚩

[shespillsherself]

I want to go back to anytime, like the wide arms of the most cherished and trusted being.

.

.

.

.

*I am losing myself from me

[empty-fucking-abyss]

the golden hour

[yardsards]