Which's another way of saying 'it is nice to meet people who are really good at what they do and can happen to help you'.
The flip-side is what you're describing - that most people are not that good at what they do and ultimately - it is usually a frustrating and tedious process of poking in the dark until something works.
For psychological issues it's often a slew of things and having one person make a significant difference in your life is a little miracle.
The thing I like that you mentioned is that you trained yourself out of behaviours that you found to be counter-productive. Which's largely my point - until one takes responsibility for the problems they're facing and stops hoping for an easy fix, it is unlikely to work out in the longterm and I don't know that a psychologist is capable of making somebody a life-long learner if you're not one to begin with.
'When a student is ready, a teacher appears' :)
> until one takes responsibility for the problems they're facing and stops hoping for an easy fix...
You have just delivered a more eloquently articulated version of the "be a man and suck it up" mentality that does way more harm than good. This sort of reductionist hand waving does not result in useful or practical advice. I suspect it is coming from your limited experience with these issues.
EDIT: I also find it gross that you consider getting help from a psychologist an attempt to find a "easy fix". As if sufferers don't put in A LOT of additional effort themselves...
You took my message of how dealing with psychological issues is like poking at random in the dark, which's my way of saying these things are very tricky, and turned it into how I'm marginalizing people with difficulties.
I don't know if you yourself are aware but I'll point it out for others - some people will hear 10 paragraphs of encouragement, find 1 sentence that they have a mild reaction to and only focus on that.
I've done it myself when I was younger (and nowadays too every now and again :)) - I'd come into a discussion emotionally charged and sure enough, whatever mild version of not seeing eye to eye popped up, I was there to get upset about it.
I was perpetually upset with how 'everyone else is dumb' at the time. In reality, I was just young and lacked perspective, which made me quite annoying to be around, which resulted in difficulties with making friends, and on and on.
Which's my way of saying hey, I'm actually well versed in difficulties or else I wouldn't be talking about them.
One tip I'd give that I wish someone gave me (they probably did and I didn't listen :)) is to cease thinking others ought to act a certain way. They don't have to anything and they won't. You have to adjust if you don't want to live the rest of your life getting upset at others. The world isn't going to adjust for you, unless you can isolate yourself into a bubble where people act a way you deem acceptable and never leave.
That's usually people just being alone, which sucks if you're being honest with yourself.
...followed by a 4 paragraph ad hominem (I'm young and lonely is your implication?) explaining why you think this.
Wouldn't it have been more productive to reiterate what you think I missed? Because I still have no clue what you're talking about.
As someone who struggled with a lot of mental illness growing up, and had many friends who did as well, I disagree with your interpretation of this phrase.
I've frequently said to some of my friends who are caught in a vicious cycle of depression or dependence: You can't help someone who doesn't want help.
Mental illness finds mental illness. Especially with kids. This is good and bad. It helps you to find support, but it also encourages a vicious cycle where each person is enabling each other. Tumblr is a great example of this. But when one person is trying so desperately to help someone in a bad spot, that refuses help, there's nothing you can do. And beating your head against a brick wall has never helped anyone.
Addiction has long been known to work the same way: You can't stop an addict from getting drugs, you can only try to help them stay clean when they make the choice to.
What I take offense at is when "seeking medical treatment" is so tightly coupled with "seeking an easy fix". The two concepts are orthogonal.
Anecdotal, but the amount of courage it took to finally seek medical treatment made it the toughest fix I ever sought out. The pressure to try do anything else BUT THAT made it difficult to think critically about the issue. I was also very real concern about embarrassing my parents.
For me, seeing a doctor was ultimate last line of treatment after years of shitty self-help books and introspection; never truly knowing what exactly was wrong. Luckily, it has bee most effective.
Right... like I said, it takes A LOT of effort on the suffers part. It's none of you business, but I take an SSRI and do cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD. The behavioral therapy is for learning and developing good habits and the medication helps prevent intrusive and obsessive thoughts. Nobody is "thinking for me" (It saddens me that this is the prejudice you have). These professionals help me help myself, by giving me tools, information, and guidelines I would not have access to otherwise.
A college-level course on object oriented programming isn't going to magically make you a good Java developer, but it may help you learn in a more sophisticated way than a self-taught curriculum. Either way, you wouldn't shame someone for "not helping themselves" or "taking the easy way out" by enrolling in such a course.
As I said, I don't think that is possible.
I only meant to counter-point your point:
>it's not as simple as "training yourself" out of it.
In some sense, it is that simple, as that is really the only base tool that one can access (probably why CBT is so helpful). That is, no one else can 'train you out of it'; they might be able to show you the door, but you have to walk through it.
> (probably why CBT is so helpful)
I'd say the medication is more helpful, to be honest. BTW, "that's probably why CBT is so helpful" does not follow from "training yourself is the only base tool that one can access". CBT is not at all training yourself. It's almost literally the opposite.
Before that I was poking in the dark alone (no pun intended) and it felt like going in circles. I kept daily journals sporadically in Evernote over a few years and after going through them recently I realized how I kept facing the same seemingly unsolvable problems.
I'm sorry about what happened to you. That being said, I don't think your anecdote is representative of the typical result of mental health care. Surely we would have less school shootings and smaller prison populations if we ended the fear mongering and stigmas associated with mental health and had more routine psychological evaluations.
For the record, 2nd grade is, IMO, way too young to start any kind of stimulant. I don't have ADD, but I do know "ADD/ADHD denial" can be the gateway drug for thinking other mental health acronyms are bullshit too.
It is like saying if we gave each homeless person money, we'd fix homelessness.
Now just replace homelessness with psychological issues and money with psychologist.
No, the underlying reasons I gave are factual.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21582535-costly-...
You are not acting in good faith.
In no way did it address the issue.
Stop poisoning the discussion with unrelated sources that in no way support your points.
People that read your comment might be under the impression that the article had any relevance. It didn't in any way.
Pointing that your sources in no way support your views is not trolling. You're just using ad hominem again in order to not be challenged.
It won't work. Give it up.
This is a basic rebuttal from people like you.
It's not bad practitioners, the field is inherently subjective and without scientific merit while pretending to be otherwise.
You feel it helped you. Great, happy for you! Some people think astrology is a very good and positive influence in their lives. Great for them too.
Regardless of that, my life shouldn't be ruled by pseudo-science and I really resent that these people get to strip anyone of their civil rights based on simply their opinions and nothing else.
Thankfully I've never had any (positive or negative) encounter with psychiatry and neither has anyone I like so unlike you, I'm not biased.
Your comment is a very common technique which consists in dismissing reasonable criticism by implying that the commenter is somewhat broken.
In reality you are the one that is broken by your own admission. You're incapable of living your life without resorting to pseudo-scientific fields.
100 or 200 years ago you would be here defending your exorcist and how without his benevolent influence you would be unable to live a decent life.
wow.
> pseudo-scientific
It's a young scientific field that has been hurt by cultural distrust and misinformation. It hasn't helped that people like you have been spreading FUD. The efficacy for SSRI's treating OCD is about 50%. There is on going research for better second line treatments. I'm lucky in that it's been very effective for me.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181958/
EDIT: You lost all legitimacy when you called me "broken". You're disgusting and I'm done responding to you.
It has been hurt by its own history of systemic and deliberate abuse. No need for misinformation unlike what you're engaging with your proselytizing here.
In other words, it's very easy to develop psychological hypochondria. Perhaps it's because of the lack of visibility of the condition.
I would be TERRIFIED if psychological checkups became routine, and see that as near-dystopian as some aspects of brave new world. For so many people (I say this now being married to a psychologist of my own) including myself are diagnosed with disorders of extremely variable diagnostic validity at extremely young ages (beyond even what the DSM, with its already spotty contents, would recommend) and then medicated past functionality and/or told we have something wrong with us.
What would have helped me? If instead of being told "you need these pills to fix you" someone told me that "normal is a spectrum", and people even with behaviors we love to tag with fancy names and try and treat can learn to control them and live perfectly normal lives without drastic intervention.
Don't take this as a "we should ignore psychological disorders", it's not the intent at all. Take it as a, I've seen the culture that arises out of LOOKING for mental issues rather than encouraging growth and maturation, and I'd rather resort to a psychological approach as we do with antibiotics, _when needed and after extensive exploration of other options_, lest we unconsciously do ourselves further disservice. Although I have a different takeaway than you though, I'd echo the same guiding thought, "don't assume he or she is lazy or doesn't want to succeed" but would append "or assume they are broken."