Rest assured Ian, farce = locked

Absolute poppycocki, it sounds like your other half is part of the problem with mental health in this country, depression and stress is quite easily treated with correct therapy, we tend to use the "crack a nut with a sedgehammer" teqnique and proscribe drugs into treatment too easily, the brain is a finely tuned instrument thet we barely understand and introducing chemicals into it on trial and error basis is asking for trouble.

Fair enough - wasn't a criticism by the way. It is an interesting subject.

An old friend of mine is deemed mental unstable. The doctors put this down to all the drugs he had taken in his early years. Now if what the doctors said was ture,then how come all my other friends who have participated in certain activities. Have not gone the same route. Surely we all must possess something in the way our brain works that if something triggers a chain reactions. The brain becomes un balanced and sends out signals which make us unstable.

correct

Manco from experience therapy doesn't work in every case and in some cases will never work.

I knew a guy who has a condition in which is body chemisty actually changes and then when that happened he would try to kill himself, he needed medicine to balance out the change.

Trust me in the majority of cases you need to elevate peoples mood before they are willing to listen and except therapy and drugs for some is the only solution.

Some people bless them don't have the mental awareness or capacity to understand cognitive therapy.

I think the problem with mental illness is that, like other issues people don't fully understand, words are used light heartedly or turned into terms of derision and ridicule. Listen to the way people talk. People under a bit of pressure say 'I'm stressed', a bit down and it's 'I'm depressed', if they are in two minds about something they are schizo. I've even heard people saying that they are 'a bit OCD'. When people really are suffering from stress or depression they are expected to pull themselves together and get on with it because what we think of as stress and depression are so far from the truth. The easy use of these terms show a complete lack of understanding to the suffering of people.

The mental health nurse may think that my musings show that I really don't know anything, but at least I am trying to understand and surely that is the start of removing the stigma of mental health?

that is an excellent point. I remember when Myspace was being used by all the youngsters (before Facebook) there was a mood option on it; to tell people how you were feeling. One of the moods was 'feeling depressed' and I always thought that weird; especially in my mindset at the time.

only something like 3% of cases are down to a physiological change, a lot of the mental health problems in this country are a direct result of previous treatments (usually drugs), trust me!

A guest on 'Something for the weekend' has just said he is a bit OCD in that the only way to deal with bad news, wars nad the bombardment of technology is to tidy his desk. That is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier - arggh!

I don't have much experience of this matter, but here's my twopenneth. It is the workshy generation who have trivialised things such as depression and stress. When they want some time off work they go to their GP and tell them some tale to get signed off work for a while. I would wager that 90% of people in the world could find something in their lives to get depressed about. There is a difference between feeling depressed and being depressed. It is a serious illness, but people just dismiss it because the chances are they know somebody who is using it to get off work. I used to work with a bloke who was off for 12 months with stress. 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay. He was so stressed that he conveniently turned up at work laughing and joking on the day his pay was about to stop.

Some of the posts on the original thread were presumably written as they were because of that particular individual.

I think some of the cynicism towards "stress" is the view that it is the 21st Century "bad back", particularly in relation to taking time off work. I think this often comes from the sort of examples quoted by Milly, i.e. people saying they feel stressed when they actually feel a little under pressure or a bit fed up.

Great minds...

There are some great posts on here as to why this country is so blase about hearing of a mental health issue, i found myself getting extremely frustrated at this:




It seems like to me that your mrs is part of the problem, and the reason the people with real mental health issues are afraid to go to the doctors, because they feel that they will be told to stop being so silly, no matter the demons going on inside their head.

No person should be passing judgement on those who have openly stated theirselves on this thread that they have struggled at some point with issues, myself, JD, Yed, manco and others have all had problems, and dealt with it in different ways. But your attitude towards it is poor, none of us are claiming to be mental health professionals, but having dealt with it first hand, not just caring for someone who has it gives us a pretty good knowledge of it.

i realise what he's said on behalf of his missus isn't inkeeping with how we're trying to keep this thread as, but please dont inflame the situation by having a pop.

likewise

Shutterman, if you are to pass any more comments or messages on from your partner, might i suggest you choose your words a bit more sensitively.

thank you.

Thats why i've let this one run, thoguh strangely the other thread got locked when ppl had stopped talking about him.

Excellent post, eloquently put.

So where did i ever mention chemicals, and i do agree with your sentiment regarding their use and so does the other half.

sorry mate, it sounded like your missus was part of the old guard in this problem, i.e the easiest method of control, medication!

I've struggled recently due to a lack of exercise, i used to find that exercise was brilliant for depression, the serotonin/endorphin levels are elevated making you feel great but an accident 2 years ago has left me unable to do that to a level i would like, instead of popping down an SSRI i turned to comedy (videos, programmes, clubs) and again that works for me.

People are unaware of the option open to them, did you know for instance a natural balanced diet can actually minimise depression and plenty of sleep, complex carbohydrates have a mild sleep-enhancing effect because they increase serotonin that promotes sleep. Milk contains tryptophan which, when converted to serotonin in the body helps you sleep too.
Lettuce is also a super food i'd recommend eating far more of.

You may wonder why i'm going on about sleep, bad sleep can be a causal factor in depression and good sleep will help you out immensely, it's only a small step but the key to eliminating stress and depression FOR ME was to eliminate little bits at a time, start with something simple and work your way up. Sorting out your sleep was the first of many little things for me and eventually like a jigsaw you become a complete person eventually.

No not at all manco.

However, you mention control which is totally another issue if youre talking physical control rather than mind control.

Sometimes physical control must be used in order to protect the patient and staff.

Perhaps i should add the other half works with a vast array of patients from the lesser depressive out patients to the manic depressives to the clinically insane and outright dangerous, not a vocation i myself could even consider not for any amount of money.

Obviously she is bound by patient confidenciality and would never discuss individual cases or mention names but she does say that it is more than suprising the amount of people she cares for that i myself know but would never ever guess had mental health issues and to the man in the street lead perfectly "normal" lives, she even cares for people she knows personally if they give permission but she would never be allowed to care directly for a family member.

Your other half wouldn't be the same Psychiatric Nurse who told my wife, who has suffered with severe depression for over 25 years, that she "needs to make more of an effort for the sake of her children". We made a complaint about her attitude and comment to the Consultant Psychiatrist and never saw her at that practise again.

I will happily admit that I would't know as much about Mental Health as a trained medical professional. But in my opinion someone who has spent years living with someone with mental health issues, or someone suffering themselves, would have greater insights on actually living with the illness than any number of years at university could provide.

The reason that a few of us came across as unsympathetic on the other thread is because stress and mental health problems are now classed as the same thing, when clearly they are not. I have ever sympathy with people who have mental problems, when they are caused by happenings they have seen or been victim of, but definately not, when they are self induced, ie, drug or alcohol etc abuse. Stress is self-pity imo, we have all suffered from it at 1 point or another in our lives, ie, money,marital, personal etc problems are root causes, it is upto the individual how he/she deals with it. Imo, it is down to ones upbringing and background.

Unfortunately, we now live in a society, where we expect everything for doing very little, effort no longer brings reward, the less we do, the more we get, so when I read about a poster's father who hid his illness, really struck a bell with me, because it all comes down to values, which have decreased over the generations. His generation simply " got on with it", they had nothing and expected nothing unless they worked for it, now, we have come full circle.

Stress IS the bad-back of the 21st century, like the bad-back, it is difficult to disprove, and that is what riles many of us, when we hear stories of people milking the system. The simple solution would be to go back full circle, and not being paid for not working, sickness rates, especially civil servants would drop dramatically.

The numbers of people suffering from mental problems seems to have catapulted in recent years. Well done to those that have come on here and admitted to having problems, it must have been very difficult to do, but should'nt we re-open asylums and large mental hospitals to take these people out of society and help them? take them out of society and help them, then put them back into society. Over the last 20 years, such places have closed, Winwick and Prestwich around here and god knows how many across the country. It seems every week there is a story in the press of someone who should be treated, being let out into society, and in some cases killing an innocent member of the public.


On a lighter note, I used to work in a steelworks with a bloke straight out of the Gorbals. A hard, angry man whose stare would stop a lion in its tracks. Through hindsight, I can see he had some sort of head problem, but at the same time he could be the funniest bloke you ever met. His party piece was to stand behind you whilst you were working, wait till you'd finish and turn around and would say, " You're never alone with schizophrenia." and walk off.

And the number of fans from other boards reading this thread and thinking Warrington is full of nutcases.

schizophrenia - split personality disorder

Two entirely different things

correct, which he prob was, very funny 1 minute, very angry the next.