[MotownJohnny]

It's actually a serious question - I really NEED to hear that it's not an automatic thing - and all of the people I ask that question to actually do a fine job of NOT actually answering it.

It usually goes something like this:

Me - Does being mentally ill make you a bad person? Is it a character flaw or moral failing?

Them (Pdoc, T, whoever) - It's a disease like anything else. Like diabetes. It can be treated and managed.

I guess I was raised to believe that being mentally ill was "shameful" or "disgraceful" and that people afflicted with it were somehow "lesser" than "good people of the world" or "weak" or "immoral" or whatever.

I think one of the reasons I have struggled SO MUCH with this is because I took in that message - which I think is all a part of the whole WASP philsophy that ran this society for 300 plus years, the whole Puritan thing - and believed it myself to a great extent. I mean, sure, it's the 21st century, and I believe I'm pretty enlightened about a LOT of things, and I know a LOT of the other crap that came out of that old WASP/Puritan mindset was total crap, but this belief about mental illness and the mentally ill "stuck".

I know that being African American or Asian or Hispanic or whatever is ... just that, nothing more. It has no reflection on intelligence, ability, or anything. It's about as significant as eye color.

I know that being gay is ... being gay. It's an innate state, not a lifestyle choice or a sign of mental illness or any of the other crap that was once dumped on gay people.

I know that there is nothing inherently superior about White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Males. Despite what the "good old boys" used to think and say back in the bad old days.

So, when I myself was confronted with suddenly being "some crazy guy" with not only a mental illness diagnosis, but a pretty significant one, bipolar, it really threw me into a total crisis of identity, of self-worth, of self-image.

It almost killed me - well, it got me to about a second away, literally, from suicide - because I couldn't live with being "some crazy guy". It was too much for me to bear. It made me so profoundly sad that I can't even now really verbalize the way it made me feel in my core - I guess the best words I can come up with are "damned" and "lost".

All of this toxic brew about the mentally ill that I just kind of absorbed as background in my life, and also reinforced because of my own hatred of my father and grandmother for THEIR crazy really came back to bite me in the ***.

Was there ever an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits where some racist, say a Klansman about to lynch a black guy in 1950s Mississippi, was suddenly tranformed into said black guy and hunted down by the rest of his Klan group? A parable of comeuppance and new understanding? If there wasn't, there should have been.

Because, it's a lot like, well, kinda like, anyway, that for me. I wasn't ACTIVELY biggotted or anything, I just carried with me a lot of the stigma that the "general public" feels towards the mentally ill.

Suddenly, I WAS the "crazy guy" -shoe on other foot, and I freaked out.

I NEED to hear confirmation of what I so desperately WANT to be true - that being "mentally ill" doesn't do what I feard it did: It doesn't change who you are in your core, it doesn't change your morality, it doesn't change your self-worth, it doesn't change your value as a person, it doesn't make you no longer be you.

I guess, actually, it almost does come full circle - "they" may not state it expliticitly, but the "it's an illness" answer does kind of answer, without answering, my question - it's an illness, like diabetes. Diabetes doesn't change or alter people's sense of self about who they are, nor what others think of them.

Why should it be any different with MI?

[venusss]

The diabetes **** is a ****ing simplification. I mean, maybe being stupid and simple is also just like diabetes.............

I think MI is connected almost in every case to lived experience. And everybody is bound to break under certain amount of pressure. That doesn't make you bad or weak, it just makes you are a person who has scars on their soul.

Being troubled has nothign to do with morality or whom you are. The most important things is how you deal with that. That is what matters. Everybody has some dark stuff in them.

There is nothing wrong with being crazy, see my signature. In fact, I think being depressed, traumatized and bit out of it... is perfectly normal reaction to the world we live in. I feel more worried about people who can handle it fine. Must be somehting sinnister about them.

[MotownJohnny]

I agree, it is an oversimplification - but I've literally been told that, verbatim, by several MH professionals, including the quack who misdiagnosed me as bipolar and sent me to the psych ward - "now, don't feel bad, it's a disease, like diabetes, a medical condition, nothing to feel bad about, nothing to be ashamed of"

and

"oh, by the way, I'm gonna lock you up because you have a medical condition that's nothing to feel bad about or be ashamed of"

OK, she ACTUALLY said the first part. The second part was just implicit, but that's pretty much the gist of it.

[venusss]

the diabetes comparision makes it seems it's something easily diagnosable, realively well treatable.... and it somehow skews the view of our value in regards of our med compliance.

which would make me one horrible, horrible person.

[MotownJohnny]

I think there needs to be a radical new understanding of "crazy".

There first off, needs to be acceptance, tolerance, and the understanding that "crazy" ISN'T any different in many ways than said physical medical conditions - that you can still have a good life even though you have mental illness X.

Second, I think there is a whole lot of "good" crazy in many of us. By which I mean, sure, we struggle, but we don't do anything that is out of our normal moral character or harmful to anyone else. I myself, for example, spent a whole lot of money, more than I have, on "fixing myself" - in the process, I spent a lot on bikes, clothes, etc. It wasn't a great choice financially, but, it did serve a purpose - it was about self-preservation, about having hope, about improving myself, about being better than I thought I was at the time. So yeah, in one sense, I'll pay a negative price, but in another, I'm NOT sorry I did it - I was willing to pay ANY price to "fix myself" and actually, in a lot of ways, I've gone pretty far down that road.

There was a time when just asking the quesition I asked and saying "I want to hear people tell me being MI doesn't make you a bad person" would have been utterly unthinkable to - because I was completely convinced having a MI did make me a horrible person, scum of the earth and worthy of execution, and I applied a lesser but still stigmatizing standard to others - I didn't feel it made other people with MI bad, but I felt "sorry for the poor devils who were so afflicted" and I honestly did think, with perhaps a few exceptions, that people with any kind of significant MI were "beyond hope" and that all of the talk of "management" was pretty much just "feel good talk" to mask the truth, that it was hopeless.

[A Red Panda]

If someone was to tell me that simply by having a mental health issue that it made me a bad person... I would be SO incredibly pissed off.

Having something that is a part of you that you were born with does NOT make anyone a bad person. Just like having certain skin colours doesn't make someone a bad person. Or having a certain sexuality doesn't make someone a bad person.

It's something that is a part of you. It doesn't change you, because it was always there. In your case, with PTSD, it's something that developed over a long period of time, so while you were changed, you're still YOU inside.

You really, really, need to learn to release all the stigma that you hold against mental illness. It's so easy to see in this community that everything you believe is completely wrong.

[MotownJohnny]

Originally Posted by venusss

the diabetes comparision makes it seems it's something easily diagnosable, realively well treatable.... and it somehow skews the view of our value in regards of our med compliance.

which would make me one horrible, horrible person.

Sorry, I'm trying NOT to do that, just the opposite. I think you're pretty cool, actually, I've read a lot of your posts.

Any who states "almost in Putin's back yard" is pretty cool.

Yes, and actually, one of my beefs with the MH industry - the lack of objective diagnostic tests, quantifiable things, measurable things leaves it all up to the "opinion" of "experts" - and those opinions seem to shift like the sands in the Sahara with every new DSM edition. The emporer's new clothes a lot of the time.

Hope I didn't offend you.

[venusss]

all is okay. I know it's not your belief.

Originally Posted by venusss

There is nothing wrong with being crazy, see my signature. In fact, I think being depressed, traumatized and bit out of it... is perfectly normal reaction to the world we live in. I feel more worried about people who can handle it fine. Must be somehting sinnister about them.

Debatable if depression is actually a disease. I think though, and this is just my opinion, that a lot of people can make themselves depressed by focusing to much on materialism and vanity.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by MotownJohnny

it's an illness, like diabetes. Diabetes doesn't change or alter people's sense of self about who they are, nor what others think of them.

first of all, diabetes does alter somebody's sense of self. Imagine that you went from eating whatever you liked and WHENEVER you liked, having sex, traveling light and carefree, and feeling your tootsies just fine --> to eating on a strict regiment, on a strict timetable, having sexual problems, and having to take blood tests all the time and worry about how you would be able to stick to the strict eating regiment and schedule while traveling across Atlantic, as well as having no sensation in your tootsies? Would that not affect your sense of self?

Besides the many shortcomings of the comparison with diabetes that have been noted on the thread, the "parallel" is a gross oversimplification, because mental illnesses are varied and complex. Combat PTSD and autism are both mental illnesses, as are many, many others - just look at the LOOOONG list for forums on this site. Can they all be compared to diabetes? I do wonder how PTSD and autism are similar to diabetes...

[Birds of a Feather]

I do not feel at all that having a mental illness makes you any "less than" of a person.-- I don't even like calling it an "illness", as that term sounds so negative; and why there are many "not so good" things about having a psychological disorder, you CAN make the best out of it and it doesn't have to control your life.

A lot of people feel the way you do about having a psychological disorder and that is spurred by the stigma other people put onto it, in which is fueled by ignorance. People fear what they do not understand, in turn making the person who is "different" the "bad guy".... when IN FACT, the person who are spreading the stigma and judging people for their struggles should be the "bad guy".

Having a psychological disorder may alter who you are as a person in SOME aspects (that depends on the amount of stigma you are exposed to, events in your life, etc.), but just merely having a psychological disorder does not alter your values and morals. For example, I have always had anxiety (OCD when I was younger and now GAD). I am not "less than" a person because I had/have these diagnoses, but I DO have different struggles than those who do not have these diagnoses. Also, in experiencing what I have, I am better equip to empathize with others who have anxiety issues and other psychological disorders as well. I don't have depression, an eating disorder, or autism, but my struggles with anxiety have allowed me to better understand the struggles they may go through; struggles both internally (dealing with the disorder) and external (handling the stigma and how ignorant people may react to them and their diagnoses).

My therapist used the diabetes example with me, but he said that diabetes (being a medical condition) is basically a cut and dry diagnosis, as there are tests to show that either "yes, you have it" or "no, you don't". With psychological disorders, it is less cut and dry and a diagnosis depends on a list of criteria. On another note, the DSMs are supposed to be backed with empirical research.

I hope this helps a little. I think that most of it is you needing to find a way to change how you think about it (posting here is a good start), as you are falling into believing that the ignorant people who create and spread stigma are correct in their thinking. Stigma on mental health is different than from physical illnesses, especially in the media. People would be appalled if a TV show poked fun at somebody with cancer, but when it comes to somebody with Bipolar Disorder ignorant people accept it as less appalling to poke fun at and feed into the stigma that such people are "crazy" and switch their mood/emotions like a light switch, being friendly one moment and ripping your head off the next. I think it has to do with psychological disorders having a behavior aspect to them that other people find funny and easy to make fun of. Not all physical illnesses show behavioral symptoms (though obviously some do.... cancer and chemo with hair loss, etc., etc.).

On a last note, I would never classify or call anybody with a psychological disorder as being crazy because of their diagnosis. Anybody can be called "crazy" in other aspects of their life, but simply having a psychological disorder does not make you "crazy" (i.e. I have an anxiety disorder and I am not "crazy", but I go hiking/rock climbing and sometimes do "crazy"-- more like stupid-- things such as just lunging at the next rock just assuming I will make it). I agree that I am crazy in that aspect, but not because I have anxiety basically on a daily basis and worry about stupid little things, and am afraid of driving on the freeway, etc.

[hamster-bamster]

In response to the question itself - why, this is straightforward.

"Tell me why having a mental illness DOESN'T make one a bad person?"

HAVING mental illness or any kind of illness cannot make you a bad person because HAVING something does not automatically translate into DOING anything. A person is good or bad based on his or her DEEDS, and HAVING XYZ is not DOING ABC.

[Frankbtl]

Hi Johnny, I'd say that having an MI doesn't define you. No "label" alone defines who you are, who you are as a person. It isn't your identity, that isn't ever all you are.
Sure it can effect you, sometimes severely, but there is still a person underneath there. And why on earth shouldn't that person be a good person. It might not be easy (even possible) to explicitly show that at times, it might not be recognized by some others at times, but that doesn't need to mean that they aren't still a good person.
And **** plenty of people battle with the hardest effects of MI and still try to be/do or think of others as much as they can (however much they're actually able too/when they are able to) so even if they "appear" to be not a "good person" then they can still be a much better person than a lot of the people who actually aren't facing that battle.
And **** if you're having a anxiety attack, if you're depressed, if you're manic, if you're feeling/seeing flashbacks/there in the moment or living the effects of..........how is that you choosing that???? How is that "just" who you are???? It's not!!!

And that's my view , hope I've gone a way to convincing you!!!!



Alison

[lizardlady]

With all due respect folks, I believe using diabetes is a good example. As hamster-bamster pointed out, a person diagnosed with diabetes has to make changes in the way they think and act. IMHO, having a mental illness does the same thing. Some folks with diabetes can manage the problem with diet and exercise. Some folks need insulin. Some folks with mental illness can manage the problem with changes in thinking and actin, others need meds.

As for whether mental illness is biologically caused or the result of life events, there's a growing body of evidence that indicates it's the interaction of both. That's why two people can live through the same event one becomes ill, the other does not.

Johnny, you mentioned tests to diagnose mental illnesses. I saw a news article a couple of weeks ago that researchers have developed a blood test to diagnose depression. I believe the day will come, likely not in my lifetime, but eventually, that there will be medical tests available for mental illnesses.

[SnakeCharmer]

I agree with LizardLady ... I think diabetes is an excellent comparison, specificially type II diabetes. But that's not what MotownJohnny wanted to hear.

In answer to the question about why having a mental illness DOESN'T make one a bad person, I can offer one small example of the kind of every day decency I have witnessed regularly in people who have been diagnosed with severe mental illnesses.

In the course of my job, I had to take a patient to the state mental hospital, back in the days when the state hospital offered decent treatment for voluntary patients. The guy I was escorting ... he'd had a psychotic break and busted up a school event, making quite a scene and the police handed him over to me to do something with rather than sending him to jail. So I rounded up another escort -- never do that kind of thing alone -- and off we went to the state hospital to deliver this fellow. He was willing, even eager, because he'd embarrassed his kids at school and he felt terrible about it.

As we entered the ward, the heavy metal fire door slammed on my hand. I squealed. Loudly. It took two orderlies to release me from the door. The pain was unbelievable. I was pressing my hand to my chest and doing a little dance making some groaning noises for a minute or two. It was bad.

The patient I was delivering gave me his only clean handkerchief to wrap around my hand, which was scratched, swelling fast and turning purple. As we were checking into the open ward, I asked the supervising therapist, a woman I'd met before, if there was ice available to put on my hand to stop the swelling.

Her response: "We don't reward acting out."

I was flabbergasted. He tone, body language and facial expression were so cold, I could have used that as an ice pack. I showed her my blackening hand and she went back to filling out paperwork, without saying a word.

A bundle of rags lifted itself up off the ward floor and slowly assembled itself into human form. He shuffled across the room without saying a word, knocked on a window, whispered, and gave someone inside a dollar bill from his pocket. In exchange, he received a paper cup full of ice. He shambled over and offered it to me wordlessly, not looking at me, but he made eye contact with the patient I was escorting.

The two mental patients fashioned an ice pack for my now black and purple hand out of the ice and handkerchief and gave it to me. When I offered to replace the dollar, the bundle of rags shook his head and shambled off to a corner where he sat facing the wall. The therapist huffed and asked if it had really been necessary for me to upset the patients.

I told the guy I'd taken there that we could find some other place. I didn't want to leave him at the mercy of that therapist. He said, no, he wanted to stay. He was sure he'd be all right and he nodded in the direction of the rags. He said, "The right people are here."

As far as I could see, the mental patients showed compassion and acted to help me without fuss or bother. They saw pain and they acted with decency and kindness. They did the right thing. The allegedly mentally well person didn't. That Nurse Rachet-type therapist couldn't take the decency or goodness out of those mentally ill patients with her coldness and lack of caring. It was in them. It came out of them normally and naturally as soon as it was needed.

I've experienced the same kind of decency and kindness over and over again while working with the mentally ill and undiagnosed street people. I've been protected by a group of street crazies forming a circle around me when three guys in a van decided to take me for ride against my will. The street people saw danger, they saw my vulnerability and they chose to keep me safe.

That was proof enough for me that having a mental illness does not make someone a bad person, not if they already have some kindness and caring and compassion for the suffering of others inside them. It doesn't always show, but that goodness keeps coming out instinctively, often when it's least expected. It's saved me more than once.

Dr. Martin Luther King, 1963

"Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well‐adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities.

But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good‐will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self‐defeating effects of physical violence…

In other words, I’m about convinced now that there is need for a new organization in our world. The International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment‐‐men and women who will be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos. Who in the midst of the injustices of his day could cry out in words that echo across the centuries, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

[ChipperMonkey]

I hate to say it, but perhaps karma is coming to bite you in the arse for your passive acceptance of the stigma of mental illness? Just a thought..... As in, don't eff with karma, she can be a real b****.

I see a lot of your posts and they seem to border on obsessive, perhaps just very repetitive. The same sorts of ideas going round and round and round in your head. Its exhausting to read it all, so It must also be exhausting to live in your head. Are you doing any sort of therapy which addresses these thoughts? CBT perhaps? Throw in a sprinkle of radical acceptance? (OK, in this case throw in the whole dang bottle of radical acceptance...)

[venusss]

Originally Posted by ChipperMonkey

I hate to say it, but perhaps karma is coming to bite you in the arse for your passive acceptance of the stigma of mental illness? Just a thought..... As in, don't eff with karma, she can be a real b****.

I see a lot of your posts and they seem to border on obsessive, perhaps just very repetitive. The same sorts of ideas going round and round and round in your head. Its exhausting to read it all, so It must also be exhausting to live in your head. Are you doing any sort of therapy which addresses these thoughts? CBT perhaps? Throw in a sprinkle of radical acceptance? (OK, in this case throw in the whole dang bottle of radical acceptance...)

I have few questions for you:

how do you think this is supportive?

are you going to tell everybody who is stuck on certain ideas something simmilar? Than get busy to reply to 80% of the forum. Yes, we are whiny bunch and we tend to rumminate. There are nicer ways to express it.

Maybe if I went through your posts I would find repetitive patterns too. It's what we crazies do. Hold onto ideas that harm us. Again, there is better ways to help person who does that than being blunt bordering on rude.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by MotownJohnny

I agree, it is an oversimplification - but I've literally been told that, verbatim, by several MH professionals, including the quack who misdiagnosed me as bipolar and sent me to the psych ward - "now, don't feel bad, it's a disease, like diabetes, a medical condition, nothing to feel bad about, nothing to be ashamed of"

There really are a LOT of mistakes (to be charitable) made by members of the mental health profession, by drug makers, and so on -- LOTS of misinformation, lots of misleading ideas of what mental illness is and what its causes are and how best to treat it. We are still in the Middle Ages as far as understanding of "mental illness" is concerned, for most people.

I was struck a few days ago seeing a TV ad for Abilify -- a woman comes to her doctor saying that the medication she is on is not helping her enough with her depression, and the solution is to add Abilify to her prescription. She takes it and lives happily ever after (as does everyone around her). This is one example of how this kind of psychiatry nowadays pays attention to only one side of the disorder -- brain mechanisms -- and ignores almost entirely the other side, which is the influences of our entire society on the person and their brain. Much easier (and more profitable) for the drug company, but worse (depressing!) for the onlooker (like me) who believes that this approach is just plain deceptive.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by MotownJohnny

all of the talk of "management" was pretty much just "feel good talk" to mask the truth, that it was hopeless.

Because that is what they believe. And they fear it will be true for them too, if they "catch" it.

They can be wrong.

[venusss]

Originally Posted by pachyderm

There really are a LOT of mistakes (to be charitable) made by members of the mental health profession, by drug makers, and so on -- LOTS of misinformation, lots of misleading ideas of what mental illness is and what its causes are and how best to treat it. We are still in the Middle Ages as far as understanding of "mental illness" is concerned, for most people.

I was struck a few days ago seeing a TV ad for Abilify -- a woman comes to her doctor saying that the medication she is on is not helping her enough with her depression, and the solution is to add Abilify to her prescription. She takes it and lives happily ever after (as does everyone around her). This is one example of how this kind of psychiatry nowadays pays attention to only one side of the disorder -- brain mechanisms, and ignores almost entirely the other side, which is the influences of our entire society on the person and their brain. Much easier (and more profitable) for the drug company, but worse (depressing!) for the onlooker (like me) who believes that this approach is just plain deceptive.

Yeah, I am afraid that instead of the relalible blood test, we should see every decades now (honestly, we will sooner see peace in Middle East than such test), we'll see a commercial that goes like this: "I was depressed so I went on anti-depresant and it didn't work, so doc added Abilify, but it didn't work, so they added augmenter to the Abilify that is supposed to augment my anti-depressant. It still didn't work, so they added an augmeter to the augmeter of the first augmenter!" (five minutes of segment containing side effects follows).

Sorry to hijack, but problem with psychiatry is it care more about being viewed as "hard" science than about the people. If your doctor admits they don't know something.... value them. These are rare. The rest in meantime might harm you, unknowingly and unwilling, while yakking of chemical imbalances, diabetes and lack of insight (what an irony, lol).

[Altered Moment]

However you view it, disease, characteristic, part of your nature, unhealed wounds, whatever, a huge part of it is self acceptance. I am who I am. If you don't agree with WASP views of it you can choose to discard them. A HUGE part of recovery and life is letting go of shame. Shame and fear eat us up.

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[Altered Moment]

I have a hard time understanding why some people can't believe mental illness is something you can be born with. I have a pretty decent IQ but it was nothing I earned it came naturally. Intelligence is part of my mental make up that I was born with. Some people are born with learning disabilities. Some people are missing a chromosome and have Down's syndrome. Why is it such a stretch to think mood and emotional regulation doesn't have a biological basis. Genetics and environment affect each other both ways. Some things environment may never change like the color of my eyes or Down's syndrome. And other things such as mood regulation environment may very well change both ways or sometimes not. That is what is meant in the simplistic example of diabetes. Diabetes could be caused by a genetically whacked pancreas or by life style.

I understand heated debate about what to do about it. This is also similar to diabetes. You could sit on the couch all day and eat twinkies and shoot insulin or you could change your diet and exercise and take insulin or glucophage.

Isn't a holistic approach to mental illness including medicine and biology the best one.

Christian scientist believe that all dis-ease is a spiritual malady and needs spiritual healing and changes in thinking. That's a little extreme. Try it on your pancreas that no longer produces insulin. Many in AA believe the twelve steps will cure any mental illness. Well I tried for many years on my depression and it didn't dent it.

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[Swabbingred]

The diabetes comparison is redundant. Anyone who raises the similarity should stick it in their pipe and smoke it. Psychiatric disorders are not medical diseases.There are no lab tests, brain scans, X-rays or chemical imbalance tests that can verify any mental disorder is a physical condition. This is not to say that people do not get depressed, or that people cannot experience mental or emotional duress, but psychiatrists have repackaged these emotions and behaviors as "disease" in order to sell drugs. Brilliant marketing campaign? Yes, but it is not science.

To answer your question, mental illness isn't something that should generalize or define your intrinsic rhyme in life. Psychiatry has been reputed and renowned for its quackery and loopholes but to sit here and to think mental illness is anything more than a pervasive byproduct of certain elements in life is also, redundant.

[Altered Moment]

Originally Posted by Swabbingred

The diabetes comparison is redundant. Anyone who raises the similarity should stick it in their pipe and smoke it. Psychiatric disorders are not medical diseases.There are no lab tests, brain scans, X-rays or chemical imbalance tests that can verify any mental disorder is a physical condition. This is not to say that people do not get depressed, or that people cannot experience mental or emotional duress, but psychiatrists have repackaged these emotions and behaviors as "disease" in order to sell drugs. Brilliant marketing campaign? Yes, but it is not science.

To answer your question, mental illness isn't something that should generalize or define your intrinsic rhyme in life. Psychiatry has been reputed and renowned for its quackery and loopholes but to sit here and to think mental illness is anything more than a pervasive byproduct of certain elements in life is also, redundant.

Some of your posts are contradictory it seems to me. There is actually a pretty big body of scientific evidence that suggests that psychiatric disorders have a biological and genetic basis. At least some of them for some people.

Swabbingred;
Clinical depression is not like the sadness experienced by neurotypical people, and is distinct from it in characteristics, duration and intractability. Any person implying that all depressive episodes are treatable without medication are fools babbling about ***** they don't understand and haven't studied seriously, because there is an enormous body of evidence showing not only that a number of medications are effective in treating depression, but also that many such cases - particularly recurring episodes - are unlikely to improve without such treatment regardless of what other interventions are tried.

Swabbingred;
Re: Going On Abilify
It worked wonders for me. It placated the positive symptoms of schizophrenia and quelled my underlying depressive symptoms. I did the same thing as you did, searched up on it and we probably watched the same clips on it and they all had an adversion towards it and it makes us a little queasy, doesn't it? But I did some further scoping and saw that many people benefited from it. They called Abilify the working-wonder-miracle-drug and that it did amazing things for them. (Un)fortunately, Abilify affects everyone differently. I got told by my pdoc that Abilify has stimulating properties and that it should be taken in the morning. 2 hours prior to taking it I was so lethargic and tired I couldn't focus on anything and was too fatigued to get through the day. I'd crash at 7pm and wake up 14 hours later still unrefreshed. That was the reason I weaned off of it. Don't feel pressured into taking anything you don't wish to take but there's only one way to find out if this could be your type of medication that suits compatibility. 2-5mg are relatively low doses, you might experience a tommy ache and other minor side-effects but this is just your body adjusting to it. Good luck.

If medications are effective doesn't that suggest some physical or biological cause?