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pachyderm said:
> if it "DOES NOT EXIST" then what is it?

What I am trying to say is that I think that Szasz and the others who have written about the "myth of mental illness" and who have been dismissed by the bulk of the psychiatric community, have a great deal of truth in what they say. That is, what we have been taught to believe about "mental illness" and what causes it, is full of errors and misrepresentations. What the real thing is, I tried to say. It is the destabilization and mental confusion that is generated in susceptible people (most of us, particularly as children) by the discrepancies between our actual feelings and thoughts and what we are taught is acceptable. That suffering and deprivation of normal affectional connections to (mostly) caregivers leads to horrible frustrations and lashing out at other people in trying to make sense of our distress. And thus produces more like us.

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What have you been "told" causes mental illness?

And how is "discrepancies between our actual feelings and thoughts and what we are taugt is acceptable" so much different than some of those "causes" that you don't believe in?

How do you explain the genetic link of mental illness, which has been shown even in family members who were raised in seperate homes? There are studies. There are NUMEROUS studies that show there is an actual, genetic, medical factor for many types of mental illness. It's got nothing to do with what we think is "acceptable"

How do you explain the fact that medications DO work for most patients. If it's all about how we think...then why would a chemical make us better? And no, it's not all placebo effect.

Just because YOU disagree with YOUR diagnosis (or lack thereof) does NOT mean that the rest of us are just making it all up and we really aren't mentally ill.

Mental illness is REAL and the sooner you accept that fact the quicker you can move on and heal.

The only one here continuing the stigma is yourself.