
A Mental Disease by Any Other Name - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/a-mental-disease-by-any-other-name
======
chris_wot
The very best thing anyone with any mental illness can do in western society
is to ensure that medical professionals do not find out about it. Three months
ago I had suicidal thoughts, and even after they had subsided and I came home
to rest and recuperate I was literally forced to get out of bed (I had been
dozing) from where my loving family wanted me to remain, and was forced into a
small, filthy locked room in the ED ward of Liverpool hospital.

I had been awake for over 14 hours. I desperately needed sleep. Instead, I was
stuck in a hospital with almost no contact with any staff member (except the
occasional nurse or doctor that checked my vitals) for the next five and a
half hours. Thank goodness my friend Andy arrived 15 minutes after I was in
that locked room, I would have gone barmy - there was literally nothing to do,
I was tired but had bright lights constantly shone upon me and I was extremely
stressed that I was being held against my will, even though I wasn't in any
danger of harming myself or anyone else.

In Australia, at least in NSW, a drug dealer growing Cannabis or producing
meth in a drug house gets more rights than a mentally ill person: under the
Crimes Act, the police must get a warrant from a magistrate before they can
enter a drug house. But if you are deemed by an ambulance officer to be in
danger of harming yourself then the police can enter into your house with no
warrant and forcibly take you into the nearest mental health facility - even
if you aren't unwell! If that happens, then they can make you wait there for
up to 12 hours before you are allowed to go home. And there is nothing you can
do about it.

------
omarchowdhury
From one point of view, schizophrenia seems like an impingement on individual
realities by other realities, as from the individual's standpoint the unseen
seepage into the consensus realities are stark enough to bewilder the sufferer
from determining what is real and what is not.

It is interesting that a step towards the remedy in Buddhism to the suffering
of the consensus reality (samsara) is seeing that the attributes of that
reality are self or mind arisen and have no substantial basis.

And yet, we take our individual realities to be quite solid and real. Might
schizophrenics be those who have a perceptual filter inadvertently opened? An
eye unbound able to sense beyond the individual? It would seem to an outsider
the only difference between a schizophrenic and a sage is composure.

~~~
wyager
Schizophrenics do not seem to be able to make more accurate predictions about
anything than non-schizophrenic people. This suggests that schizophrenics do
not have any particular additional "senses".

~~~
ap22213
Is that speculation, or do you have evidence? I'm genuinely curious, for
personal reasons.

Schizophrenia and mood disorders run on both sides of my family. The
schizophrenia is rare - the mood disorder not so rare. But, we are all kind of
eccentric and artistic and driven to be creative.

Anyway, one thing that we often talk about is this sense of being able to
subconsciously and intuitively 'feel' what others are thinking and feeling. It
can be a painful experience because it acts like a sixth sense in a way. That
is, it's physically painful to be around people with underlying anxiety or
anger or tension, even if they're suppressing it enough that others don't
notice. People have said that I'm able to predict what they are thinking and
feeling before they even know that they're they're thinking and feeling it.

~~~
Fr0styMatt88
You may find this interesting:

[http://www.medicaldaily.com/monkey-see-monkey-do-emotions-
ar...](http://www.medicaldaily.com/monkey-see-monkey-do-emotions-are-
contagious-because-mirror-neurons-brain-318692)

------
benevol
The Swiss medium Hannes Jacob (based in Neuchâtel) actually works on exactly
this question [0], calling it the "Hannes Jacob Syndrome", which states the
following:

A certain percentage of people diagnosed with "schizophrenia" are
misdiagnosed. They are in fact people whose sensitivity is such that they have
spontaneous contact with what we usually call "the other side", "beyond",
etc., not constructs produced by mental illness.

And yes, he collaborates with licensed Swiss psychiatrists. What's more, he
actively searches for scientists who are willing to put his various
discoveries to the test, as it was already done at the University of
Tübingen/Germany (if you know any such scientists, please establish contact).

He has just finished his book "Au-delà d'un défunt" [1] which is a pretty
incredible read.

[0] [http://blog.hannesjacob.ch/2016/01/12/syndrom-hannes-
jacob/](http://blog.hannesjacob.ch/2016/01/12/syndrom-hannes-jacob/) [1]
[https://www.payot.ch/Detail/au_dela_dun_defunt-
mahan_hannes_...](https://www.payot.ch/Detail/au_dela_dun_defunt-
mahan_hannes_jacob-9782882562043)

------
tcj_phx
The mental health profession "diagnoses" someone with a set of symptoms, then
treats them with drugs that suppress the problem-symptom without addressing
its cause.

My friend needed sobriety to recover from her "mental disease". Alcohol,
cocaine, and methamphetamine are good for throwing the body's chemical energy
flows (glucose -> ATP, etc) out of balance. B-vitamins are sometimes
appropriate...

~~~
stirner
Mental health diagnoses are mostly based on vague symptoms that could
described a number of "disorders" and are all firmly based in the values of
the patient's society. Psychiatry is more or less a pseudo-science [1].

I don't mean to imply that unhinged delusions should be entertained, or for
the deluded to be received as enlightened as this article seems to suggest. I
do think we need a least a modicum of empiricism in psychiatry before the
field can be taken seriously.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_surrounding_psyc...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_surrounding_psychiatry)

~~~
ap22213
Many of the things described in that reference could be applied to medicine,
in general. And, probably other sciences where Human-crafted models cannot
possibly account for all influential variables (i.e. Economics, etc.)

These days, when one is diagnosed with a major mental disease (in contrast to
a minor one that's managable with physical or mental exercise e.g. CBT), the
treatment process is very experimental. The doctor presents a long list of
chemicals that are known to alter different chemical pathways. Then they
choose one or more with the fewest negative side-effects. Then, it's a process
of trial and error until the right mixture is found.

If the doctor is competent and ethical, which many are, then at each step they
weigh the risks against the benefits.

Many, but not all, patients eventually find the right mixture that allows them
to live a relatively 'normal' life. The side effects are tolerated because the
alternatives are stark - usually dissociation or early death.

I'm certain that many of these diseases are aggravated by our self-imposed
habits, rituals, and culture. But, to be a Human unfortunately means
tolerating pain for potential future gain.

~~~
stirner
One big difference between psychiatry and other areas of medicine is that
other areas of medicine do not base every diagnosis on a single manual (the
DSM).

------
proksoup
Let's glamourize schizophrenia the same way we've glamourized asperger's (and
partially autism as well).

Totally serious.

I self identify as being at least somewhere on both spectrums.

~~~
mmagin
I don't think the larger society has glamorized Asperger's at all.

~~~
booleandilemma
I agree that we haven't glamorized Asperger's.

However, I believe schizophrenia is certainly more stigmatized.

