Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dbg31415 | Hacker News Reader

We think of doctors and medications as being scientific and precise. But it's more like just throwing some food coloring into a black garbage bag full of all sorts of stuff and shaking it up in hopes of getting it to get to a specific color... but not really being able to see the color through the bag.

The drugs all have side-effects, different for each person who takes them. And often those side-effects are as bad as the original ailment. But you trust your doctor, and you're in a bad spot... and you figure, "Fuck it, maybe it'll work and I'm willing to try anything at this point..." And ugh, it just all sucks.

It's so hard to fix once you start down the medication path. Testing drugs, trying to find the right dose... deciding if the side-effects are worth the gains... withdrawal from drugs... drugs to help with the side-effects... drugs to help with the withdrawal... (often a few loops)... all of this can fundamentally change your personality and motivations, or have just no impact on you what-so-ever and leave you beyond frustrated.

If you had cancer, everyone would be there to support you. If you have a mental illness, there's not much chance of getting support from peers... or friends -- it's tough, it's not their job to support you -- sure... but a lot of times mental health issues are exacerbated by feeling of isolation... which leads to medical treatment because you don't have other options... and the doctors all seem confident that drugs will help...

Anyway, anything you can do to avoid mental health issues in the first place... do that. And if you don't have mental health issues, be thankful and humbly accept you're one concussion, bad breakup, car accident, death in the family, death of a pet, loss of job, or bad decision away from it if you aren't careful.

In Australia (or at least NSW), the health system doesn't know what to do with you. About 7 months ago I had a mental breakdown and experienced thoughts of suicide. When the health system found out, I had finished having the thoughts, and was at home trying to sleep, being supported by my loving family having been awake at the time for over 14 hours.

I was ripped out of my bed by ambulance officers with police present, despite my protests and my wife's - eventually agreeing to go voluntarily with them in their ambulance. Then after I got into the ED itself I discovered I'd been sectioned and not allowed to leave. After I realised this was what had happened I got placed in an isolation room, with no explanation as to why, and there I sat quietly rotting for the next 5.5 hours. In other words, I got no care, had my rights stripped and was treated like a criminal because after a sustained period of incredible stress I had a breakdown. I was then sent back home as they decided I shouldn't have been there in the first place.

I was then sent a bill for $600.

The system sucks.

> After I realised this was what had happened I got placed in an isolation room, with no explanation as to why, and there I sat quietly rotting for the next 5.5 hours. In other words, I got no care, had my rights stripped and was treated like a criminal because after a sustained period of incredible stress I had a breakdown

That sounds like enough to _cause_ a breakdown!

I have been living with sustained emotional stress for the last six months. There are days I go to work and as I'm driving in my car at a certain point I scream from the trauma. It's the only place I can do it, I don't dare do it around my family, friends or work colleagues.

And I absolutely cannot talk to anyone involved in medicine, because their treatment for suicidal ideation from a mental breakdown has the unique side effect of making me feel like I want to die to escape the disrespect and indignity of being treated like a criminal who must be locked away.

How did they find out?

Vice Magazine.

Your tax dollars at work. This sounds a lot like the movie "Brazil".

It's good that you had your family around you. The system is too big to understand you on a timely and personal level.

> If you had cancer, everyone would be there to support you. If you have a mental illness, there's not much chance of getting support from peers

Because most people have no clue what to do about psychological illness, are afraid of doing more harm than good (not wrongly) and have pathology of their own that they're having trouble dealing with. And if mental illness as tied to family dysfunction as I think, then the people who would most want to help you are those you should trust the least to do so.

Having formally studied mental illness and also suffering from mild clinical depression myself, I'm of the opinion that unless you have studied it, have it, or have a close friend or relative with it, the average person just won't understand mental illness at all. It's so counter-intuitive in so many ways.

Then how do the masses get educated on something that has a hipster mentality of, "you won't understand" ?

Generally curious. The only solution I see is some empathy machine that allows you empirically experience someone else's experiences (VR perhaps?) along with understanding their feelings while going through those experiences.

I guess I'm asking for the ability to read minds...

I genuinely don't know. There's no motivation for the masses to educate themselves about it. And to complicate matters, there are also the occasional faker or malingerer. It's a difficult field for even an expert, let alone someone who doesn't even have a casual interest.

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