Students commit suicide

Started by killer-curry November 25th, 2015 4:29 AM
  • 2765 views
  • 26 replies

killer-curry

Oro.........?

Age 24
Male
Malaysia
Seen February 26th, 2021
Posted November 1st, 2020
2,521 posts
7.8 Years
Well I am having SPM test ( Sijil Penilaian Malaysia - which is my final term exam for high school)

So, when I was revising my chemistry, my mom came to me and said that a student commited suicide because of the yesterday's Additional Mathematics paper.

When I heard about it, I was like " What? " Why you want to end your live just becasue of the paper? The questions are indeed hard ( because it is additional math) and you still have few more subjects to go and you are free!

Life is not worth the test so you gotta continue and stop giving up even you fail countless times.

Well, there are lots of cases happening similiar to this situation so it is a great concern that more teenages are thinking that thier lives are not important anymore once they failed thier exams.

So I just want to hear your opinion about these issues. Thank you!

Besides I am sorry if my grammars are bad :s

Mawa

The typo Queen

Age 30
Female
Canada
Seen August 13th, 2020
Posted March 1st, 2020
I don't think he did kill himself over a paper. He must have other issues, we don't know his life. Maybe the feeling of failing was too much to take after everything he had to live with. Maybe he had depression or stuff like that. We don't know. We can't judge. But it wasn't just for a paper I think.
I miiiiight be back?
And why am I not a supporter anymore >.<

King Elizabello

Male
Providence Kingdom
Seen July 28th, 2016
Posted March 14th, 2016
303 posts
7.5 Years
Not always people have an illness that want to suicide unfortunately. There are other people who are feeling well but sometimes the environment may make you take decisions which you would normally won't take for example a misfortune can lead you to suicide or some more things. It's like why young people drink tons of alcohol while they know that it is bad and you have a whole life to drink in your life it's like a suicide. They drink because of the people who may make fun of them around them or their friends e.t.c. Generally, a suicide is a very bad idea but it's also very hard to flip the table nowadays. I mean that it's hard to turn a situation and help a person who is like that (even some doctors are bad when giving tips i have real proof for this :( ). What we should try is to try to be more humane when we are doing anything and not put money over our heads, have focus and calm behaviour and maybe that will help a little< my opinion. Good luck brothers. Remember the hard part is when you change your inside and not your outside if you understand what i mean :) and we need to be together and not selfish. Continue and fight with pride!


By my friend Master Snowy an honorary masterpiece :). Thanks a ton!

Pinkie-Dawn

Vampire Waifu

Age 30
Male
California
Seen February 16th, 2021
Posted May 16th, 2019
9,528 posts
10.5 Years
This is the type of suicide news I've been waiting for after hearing numerous stories of people killing themselves due to being bullied, having a break up, or losing someone important. It's a story I could relate to, because I always felt life's not worth it whenever I fail a certain task, whether it's doing the laundry, completing a test, or picking something up, but I'm too much of a coward to do it, because there's so many things I want to see in my life.

Lunaturret

The Forgotten

Age 38
Female
Sky Island (uk)
Seen April 14th, 2018
Posted March 30th, 2016
253 posts
9.5 Years
I really wished their was more support in the world for people that are suffering but many people really don't put their feet in that other person shoes and relate to them in a way that's needed leaving these people without the help they need and that's a real shame. Sometimes all these people have is themselves as the world around them doesn't even understand them its very painful to here about these kinda things and sometimes people really don't the understanding at a young age to be able to deal with certain issue or bullying and result in them ending their lifes way to short leaving the monster in life to live on and cause more pain. I hope the world gets better in time.
You stole my heart! Give it back!
To be perfectly fair, schooling these days can be stressful and we're increasingly giving students the impression that a paper determines your entire future; some people think if you fail, then your life is meaningless.

Some people think if they won't pass, might as well end it now. I can understand the feeling. I've contemplated ending it all after doing poorly on a test before and STEM fields are pretty tough.

Lunaturret

The Forgotten

Age 38
Female
Sky Island (uk)
Seen April 14th, 2018
Posted March 30th, 2016
253 posts
9.5 Years
To be perfectly fair, schooling these days can be stressful and we're increasingly giving students the impression that a paper determines your entire future; some people think if you fail, then your life is meaningless.

Some people think if they won't pass, might as well end it now. I can understand the feeling. I've contemplated ending it all after doing poorly on a test before and STEM fields are pretty tough.
But from what you have said your seem to do alot of reflecting and have realise life is somewhat important even if alittle dull and hard at times and always remember that people do care just sometimes very hard to come by but when you meet these people they hopefully stick around for life lol. Some of them and if you ever feel like contemplating anythink bad please send me a message i love to talk about alot games world issues sports watever i like to be a friend to the community that i love very much, more so because the people are really nice. Have a really good day.
You stole my heart! Give it back!

maccrash

foggy notion

Age 24
Male
Massachusetts
Seen October 7th, 2021
Posted April 17th, 2017
3,583 posts
9.2 Years
I don't know why you would want to end your life over something as stupid and meaningless as a paper. I just hate people who feel the need to do things like this.
please do not have this attitude, or perpetuate this line of thinking in any way, shape, or form. as others have said, it's more than likely that this paper was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. a psychologically healthy person would not get assigned a tough paper and then just kill themselves. it doesn't work that way, and it's foolish and reductive to think it does. & "hating people who feel the need to do things like this" is also really, really not okay.

I'm not taking a shot at you personally, it's just hard for me to see people write things like this, I guess. sorry.
you're the poet in my heart
Age 36
Seen 14 Hours Ago
Posted 2 Days Ago
Part of it might just be the culture that the student was in and how important getting good grades was stressed. I know that there are some cultures where students are expected to put in a lot of hours studying so they can get into a particular college that will give them the best success in life. If they don't get the grades necessary to get into that college, it can be treated as if their entire life is a failure.

Combining the stress of studying that much and not getting the grade to match the time put into it with having that much pressure put onto someone, it's a small wonder that a student could commit suicide just from something "as stupid and meaningless as a paper." Because to them, from what they grew up hearing (either from parents, teachers, or just how the culture around them acts), that stupid and meaningless paper could be the one thing that gets them into the best college around that they've spent their entire life working towards.

Melody

Banned

Female
Cuddling those close to me
Seen March 4th, 2018
Posted March 2nd, 2018
6,459 posts
18.6 Years
Personally I feel like not only western culture, but especially eastern cultures put WAAAY too much weight and emphasis on academic success. I understand the need, but the means are too extreme if someone is driven to end their life.

I'm not saying we should we should care less about education, but educators must RETHINK HOW they do it. I think sometimes that education needs to be even more spread out over time and kids should be getting like 4 more years of primary/secondary education before college.

Bay

She/They
Dani California
Seen 3 Hours Ago
Posted 4 Hours Ago
6,347 posts
17 Years
I can relate to those that also mentioned feeling under pressure over academics. I was the same myself, being upset/depressed whenever I wasn't able to get the test results I wanted during high school and college. As others said, depending on the environment it does happen and pretty tragic someone so young felt so stressed they actually went through with ending their life.
Miles Edgeworth
Foul Play [On Hiatus]
That's not even getting into the fact that we place too much effort into preparing for BS standardized testing. While I'm not going to claim I have a better idea for testing material retention in public schools, I still need to point out the biggest flaw with these tests: the way people take tests varies wildly from person to person.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the term "test anxiety." No matter how well a person studies, psychological factors can play a role in performance. When I saw this clip on Metalocalypse, it really struck a chord with me (pun absolutely intended):

Psychic

Really and truly

Female
Seen April 10th, 2018
Posted March 11th, 2018
387 posts
15.5 Years
As has been stated, to say that someone committed suicide merely because of a test is simply wrong, and demonizing people under that misconception is not helping the problem. Depression is a serious issue that a lot of people are frankly insensitive about and don't understand (ex "can't you just pull yourself out of it?" "you're doing this to yourself" "think positive, it's just a phase"). A lot of people attribute one single thing to a suicide - "he did it because he couldn't get over the break-up" or "she couldn't stand losing her job," but there's never one single thing to blame. Depression is not that simple.

We need more awareness around mental health, and easier access to treatment, especially for the more vulnerable members of society (such as people of lower socioeconomic classes). It's also something we need to demystify so it's no longer such a taboo subject, which will also make it easier for people to get help.

~Psychic

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Kanzler

naughty biscotti

Male
Toronto
Seen April 22nd, 2022
Posted March 11th, 2022
5,957 posts
14.8 Years
As has been stated, to say that someone committed suicide merely because of a test is simply wrong, and demonizing people under that misconception is not helping the problem. Depression is a serious issue that a lot of people are frankly insensitive about and don't understand (ex "can't you just pull yourself out of it?" "you're doing this to yourself" "think positive, it's just a phase"). A lot of people attribute one single thing to a suicide - "he did it because he couldn't get over the break-up" or "she couldn't stand losing her job," but there's never one single thing to blame. Depression is not that simple.

We need more awareness around mental health, and easier access to treatment, especially for the more vulnerable members of society (such as people of lower socioeconomic classes). It's also something we need to demystify so it's no longer such a taboo subject, which will also make it easier for people to get help.

~Psychic
I wonder now if increasing awareness around mental health comes with some costs in spite of the benefits.

1) With increasing awareness, I feel there is a real drive to medicalize mental health. I think there are definite negatives to this. I think most people are aware that putting people through the "medical system" can be an alienating and not the most effective experience, but treating mental disorders as diseases will increase the association between mental disorders and traditional medical interventions - i.e. see a professional, heed their advice, take medication - to the detriment of a more holistic approach that includes engaging and creating social bonds. Going through the medical system and shoring up your "social healing network", so to speak, are by no means mutually exclusive, but I fear that people will increasingly see mental health as something that you exclusively have to go through the medical system to fix because that's the association they make.

2) I also fear how this awareness might affect people's sense of agency. I fear that people might come to see it as just a disease, as something that "happens" to you, that because it has a physiological basis, they'll treat it as if it was 100% physiological and there's nothing they can personally do except seek professional advice. I fear how this might impact those who already have weakened senses of agency and push them closer to mental disorder.

This is of course not to say that we should not increase awareness and society's readiness to improve mental health. But every action that an individual or a society takes has the potential for negative and unintended consequences. Even though it's insensitive for people to say "can't you just pull yourself out of it?", "you're doing this to yourself", "think positive, it's just a phase", each of those phrases are true in a very fundamental way. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you have in some way pulled yourself out of it. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you will look back and realize that it was just a phase. If you're currently going through a mental disorder - I don't enjoy saying this, but - it's plausible that some of your actions and thoughts contribute to the problem.

Mental health is already a complex issue in itself, and addressing and fixing it on a individual or societal level is more complex still. I think this demonstrates how important it is to be mindful of everything: not just of individuals and their lived experience, but also of the potential harms that our approaches and solutions might create and as well those nuggets of truth, even in things we don't like to hear. If there's anything I can say that we must do, it's that in our efforts to "demystify" and increase awareness and most importantly understanding, that we don't oversimplify and boil down what needs to be understood to the point that "increasing awareness" becomes counter-productive.

inspirASIAN

Age 29
Male
Seen July 16th, 2019
Posted July 1st, 2018
80 posts
10.6 Years
It's always upsetting to see people judging the reason behind someone's suicide. There are even those who thinks the problem of the victim wasn't that huge to begin therefore marking the suicide meaningless. But the thing is these problems are theirs alone and no one else will solve them. People have different capacities to cope with a problem and no one can understand how severe the pain is for the individual. You losing something like a heirloom—or in this case, failing an exam—could physically and mentally be as devastating as someone losing their home. The common connection here is that both are painful to the respective individuals due to various underlying reasons and worst thing one can do is to tell that person to grow up.

For someone to make light of another's problem while comparing it to others—who might happen to have it worse in your eyes—doesn't help anyone. Depression stems from many different factors and not a single one of them is inferior to the other.

But yes, I've heard of students committing suicide over school matters usually from failing expectations and thinking it's the end of the line for them. Academics is a big deal in certain parts of the world and it's starting to become an increasing problem over the years. It's almost like if you don't become a doctor or attorney you're immediately branded as a failure, and worse some parents actually supports this kind of mentality. These kids are raised to think academics trumps all others; take that one important thing away from them and the world around them basically turns into shambles.

Caite-chan

Seen March 20th, 2023
Posted March 24th, 2022
11,679 posts
19.5 Years
please do not have this attitude, or perpetuate this line of thinking in any way, shape, or form. as others have said, it's more than likely that this paper was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. a psychologically healthy person would not get assigned a tough paper and then just kill themselves. it doesn't work that way, and it's foolish and reductive to think it does. & "hating people who feel the need to do things like this" is also really, really not okay.

I'm not taking a shot at you personally, it's just hard for me to see people write things like this, I guess. sorry.
No need to worry. I guess the way I wrote it made it sounds worse than I was thinking.

I hate it in a way because the person who takes their own life may think well if I die I won't have to disappoint/worry/bother anyone else. When in reality you taking your own life is just as unfair to everyone else as everything you were dealing with was to you. You may think you are doing everyone a favor by taking your own life but really you're not and could possibly be making it just as bad on someone else because you're not the one that has to deal with the emotional toll or the funeral.

You might just have that one person who could have helped you but you decided not to ask for help when you really needed it. So now you leave people with that..."If only I would have known I could have helped" guilt feeling.

While it may be impossible to see there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and while it may be hard at first there is always help if you ask for it.

So I hope that explains better on what I mean by I hate it when people do things like this. :D

ElCabron

Su Cabronito!

Age 27
Male
Brasil, São Paulo
Seen August 19th, 2016
Posted December 29th, 2015
69 posts
7.6 Years
I don't get how you judge someone's reason to commit suicide. It may sound idiot, but if the enviroment is calling for it after multiple events have taken place and said person is already having issues with his life, you're in no position to judge whether he had or not his reasons.
That's something I don't like nowadays; People always feel the need to throw their own experiences onto others. If someone, let's say, is having a problem with the end of a relationship, and he is really depressed over this, it's not you that'll help by telling him your life story and how his problems aren't that big compared to someone else or yours. When you are depressed, you need someone to understand and agree with you on how that is a hard journey. Your experiences are your of own and we aren't you to deal with the same experience the same way you did. Life is all about difference.
We react different to many matters, as much as you do. You feel commiting a suicide over a piece of paper is idiot, but you're in no position to judge him. You don't know his reasons and if he had some other background that might have helped on his reasoning. If anything, people should learn to shut up and not get into matters they don't fully understand.

PS: This post wasn't directed at anyone else. It was just a rant.

Bounsweet

Fruit Pokémon

Seen September 17th, 2018
Posted October 11th, 2017
2,102 posts
15.6 Years
What is scary and very sad with suicide in high school is that it can sometimes cause a chain reaction. When I was in high school a few years ago one of the schools in my area had a bit of an epidemic with it when almost a dozen students killed themselves within a couple years. That school was rumored to have really serious issues with bullying, but I wasn't a student so I didn't know exactly what was going on.

A lot of people just plain and simple, do not understand mental illness at all. It's not just the feeling of, "Oh, this paper is too hard, I don't want to do it," the amount of pressure put on this generation to succeed academically and in all other aspects of life peaks stress levels like no other.

No need to worry. I guess the way I wrote it made it sounds worse than I was thinking.

I hate it in a way because the person who takes their own life may think well if I die I won't have to disappoint/worry/bother anyone else. When in reality you taking your own life is just as unfair to everyone else as everything you were dealing with was to you. You may think you are doing everyone a favor by taking your own life but really you're not and could possibly be making it just as bad on someone else because you're not the one that has to deal with the emotional toll or the funeral.

You might just have that one person who could have helped you but you decided not to ask for help when you really needed it. So now you leave people with that..."If only I would have known I could have helped" guilt feeling.

While it may be impossible to see there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and while it may be hard at first there is always help if you ask for it.

So I hope that explains better on what I mean by I hate it when people do things like this. :D
That's an extremely callous statement. A lot of people who contemplate, attempt, or even do commit suicide do not ask for help because of the mental health issues they are struggling with that makes them want to consider suicide in the first place. Sometimes when people even do manage to ask for help, they are ignored or dismissed as a result of ignorance about mental illness. Yeah, it sucks to know people who have committed suicide, but I've never felt as much pain as they have to go so far as to commit suicide or even attempt it, so I am in no position to judge them for what they did. It would be very selfish of me to do so.

Psychic

Really and truly

Female
Seen April 10th, 2018
Posted March 11th, 2018
387 posts
15.5 Years
I wonder now if increasing awareness around mental health comes with some costs in spite of the benefits.

1) With increasing awareness, I feel there is a real drive to medicalize mental health. I think there are definite negatives to this. I think most people are aware that putting people through the "medical system" can be an alienating and not the most effective experience, but treating mental disorders as diseases will increase the association between mental disorders and traditional medical interventions - i.e. see a professional, heed their advice, take medication - to the detriment of a more holistic approach that includes engaging and creating social bonds. Going through the medical system and shoring up your "social healing network", so to speak, are by no means mutually exclusive, but I fear that people will increasingly see mental health as something that you exclusively have to go through the medical system to fix because that's the association they make.

2) I also fear how this awareness might affect people's sense of agency. I fear that people might come to see it as just a disease, as something that "happens" to you, that because it has a physiological basis, they'll treat it as if it was 100% physiological and there's nothing they can personally do except seek professional advice. I fear how this might impact those who already have weakened senses of agency and push them closer to mental disorder.

This is of course not to say that we should not increase awareness and society's readiness to improve mental health. But every action that an individual or a society takes has the potential for negative and unintended consequences. Even though it's insensitive for people to say "can't you just pull yourself out of it?", "you're doing this to yourself", "think positive, it's just a phase", each of those phrases are true in a very fundamental way. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you have in some way pulled yourself out of it. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you will look back and realize that it was just a phase. If you're currently going through a mental disorder - I don't enjoy saying this, but - it's plausible that some of your actions and thoughts contribute to the problem.

Mental health is already a complex issue in itself, and addressing and fixing it on a individual or societal level is more complex still. I think this demonstrates how important it is to be mindful of everything: not just of individuals and their lived experience, but also of the potential harms that our approaches and solutions might create and as well those nuggets of truth, even in things we don't like to hear. If there's anything I can say that we must do, it's that in our efforts to "demystify" and increase awareness and most importantly understanding, that we don't oversimplify and boil down what needs to be understood to the point that "increasing awareness" becomes counter-productive.
I might be misinterpreting your stance, but it sounds like you're saying that mental illness is something that can be controlled and even prevented by individuals, which is literally the kind of stigma I propose we must fight against. Based on my understanding, mental illness is physiologic, and there is concrete evidence showing that individuals with mental illness manifests biologically, such as brain scans. We also know that some mental illnesses, including depression, are hereditary, the same way other diseases are hereditary. So no, mental illness is not just "in your head," and that kind of thinking only contributes to the problem.

To address your points:
1) We need to medicalize mental health because mental illness are diseases and need to be treated as such. A great deal of the medical approach to mental illness includes seeing a therapist, psychiatrist and GP, and going on medications as necessary. Many therapists will emphasize non-medical aspects of mental health, such as creating strong social bonds and support network, and self-care. But schizophrenia cannot be managed with self-care alone, and to avoid getting help from trained professionals in dealing with it will only make things worse.

2) If you suffer from any ailment, seeing a professional who specializes in said ailment is literally the best way to help yourself. if you break your leg, then getting it treated must be your top priority - after all, once it's healed you will have far more agency than you did before. Your mental illness won't get worse by seeing a licensed professional. I do not see what this has to do with "agency."

If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you have in some way pulled yourself out of it. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you will look back and realize that it was just a phase.
This is factually incorrect. Some people have phases of depression, that is true, this must be differentiated from people who struggle with depression daily for their entire lives. No amount of "positive thinking" can cure that. Depression comes in many forms, and it sounds like you believe that all depression is the former. Depression can be a lifelong illness just like schizophrenia.


This entire post pretty much proves the point I set out to make. There are so many misconceptions about mental illness, what causes it and how to "fix" it. We need to treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness, and understand just how complex it can be.

~Psychic

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Kanzler

naughty biscotti

Male
Toronto
Seen April 22nd, 2022
Posted March 11th, 2022
5,957 posts
14.8 Years
I might be misinterpreting your stance, but it sounds like you're saying that mental illness is something that can be controlled and even prevented by individuals, which is literally the kind of stigma I propose we must fight against. Based on my understanding, mental illness is physiologic, and there is concrete evidence showing that individuals with mental illness manifests biologically, such as brain scans. We also know that some mental illnesses, including depression, are hereditary, the same way other diseases are hereditary. So no, mental illness is not just "in your head," and that kind of thinking only contributes to the problem.

To address your points:
1) We need to medicalize mental health because mental illness are diseases and need to be treated as such. A great deal of the medical approach to mental illness includes seeing a therapist, psychiatrist and GP, and going on medications as necessary. Many therapists will emphasize non-medical aspects of mental health, such as creating strong social bonds and support network, and self-care. But schizophrenia cannot be managed with self-care alone, and to avoid getting help from trained professionals in dealing with it will only make things worse.

2) If you suffer from any ailment, seeing a professional who specializes in said ailment is literally the best way to help yourself. if you break your leg, then getting it treated must be your top priority - after all, once it's healed you will have far more agency than you did before. Your mental illness won't get worse by seeing a licensed professional. I do not see what this has to do with "agency."


This is factually incorrect. Some people have phases of depression, that is true, this must be differentiated from people who struggle with depression daily for their entire lives. No amount of "positive thinking" can cure that. Depression comes in many forms, and it sounds like you believe that all depression is the former. Depression can be a lifelong illness just like schizophrenia.


This entire post pretty much proves the point I set out to make. There are so many misconceptions about mental illness, what causes it and how to "fix" it. We need to treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness, and understand just how complex it can be.

~Psychic
1) I don't disagree with you.

A great deal of the medical approach to mental illness includes seeing a therapist, psychiatrist and GP, and going on medications as necessary. Many therapists will emphasize non-medical aspects of mental health, such as creating strong social bonds and support network, and self-care.
... is what I said.

But schizophrenia cannot be managed with self-care alone, and to avoid getting help from trained professionals in dealing with it will only make things worse.
... responds to something I neither said nor meant.

We need to medicalize mental health because mental illness are diseases and need to be treated as such.
... is missing the point, if you meant this as a rebuttal of my position. The process of medicalization comes with drawbacks. Personally, I aspire to a career in medicine. But I can recognize the weaknesses and failings of such a system. There is great emphasis in medicine on the science, the mechanisms, on treating the body as an object. But peoples' minds should not simply be treated as objects. I think it's a dangerous path to think about mental illness as any other diseases, because they are so deeply entangled with our identities and sense of self. There are features of the modern medical system that can make it alienating and dehumanizing. Physicians and patients are aware of this in general. The increased reliance on high science and high technology can present a barrier to empathy which is important in healthcare in general but doubly so for mental health. Mental illnesses are going to be medicalized whether we like it or not, and there are good reasons for doing so. But to boldly medicalize mental illnesses without being cautious and mindful of the uniqueness of mental health is to risk projecting onto it values and expectations that ultimately undermine the well-being of those who suffer.

2) Again, missing the point. I don't disagree that seeing a professional is one of the best things you can do concerning a mental illness. But there's so much more than just seeing a professional. Although I do not have personal experience, it is my understanding that psychotherapy involves personal work. There is a deeper level of engagement that goes past simply following a doctor's order to take certain drugs or avoiding certain activities to recover from an injury. That's why I want to emphasize how important one's sense of agency is with respect to mental health. I don't want people to think that, just because there's a physiological basis for mental health, their ability engage in and improve their own treatment is diminished. I don't want, in the effort to increase public understanding of mental health, to draw inappropriate parallels between mental disorder and more physiological disorders, and leading people to approach mental health with the same relative passiveness that you approach many other illnesses.

At this point I am really unsure whether you actually read my post or only read what you wanted to read. What I said was:

If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you have in some way pulled yourself out of it. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you will look back and realize that it was just a phase.
You responded by saying:

This is factually incorrect. Some people have phases of depression, that is true, this must be differentiated from people who struggle with depression daily for their entire lives. No amount of "positive thinking" can cure that. Depression comes in many forms, and it sounds like you believe that all depression is the former. Depression can be a lifelong illness just like schizophrenia.
But why? I'm sure we both know that treatments for many mental disorders involve psychotherapy which involve personal work and effort. If you participate in that therapy and it works out for you, then haven't you pulled yourself out of it? Haven't you, by your own will and effort, contributed to your own recovery? That's why I keep saying that one's sense of agency vis a vis mental health is so important - because you can affect your mind more deeply than you can affect your body and because that's what many therapies call for!

If you overcome a mental disorder, then won't you realize that mental disorders don't have to be enduring? That if your therapies are successful, there is the chance of taking back a normal life? That it would ultimately be a phase of your life and not a permanent mark on your identity? Again, we can see why agency is so important in all this. One's will and faith in the improvement of their mental condition is crucial to improving their quality of life, whether they fully recover from their illness or not. Positive thinking may not cure every case, but any amount of positive thinking is conducive to one's treatment and recovery. It's one of things that cognitive behavioural therapy asks for.

My original post was not a rebuttal to your first post, but rather to express caution at the prospect that we might oversimplify some of the complexity and neglect the humanity that is at the core of mental health in our zeal to bring further awareness to it. This post is a rebuttal to your second post because it did not seem to recognize the core idea of my previous post: that the patient's sense of agency, their perception of whether their thoughts and actions matter, should be one of the most important things to consider in mental health, and that we should be mindful that our solutions don't create any further unnecessary harm, not just to the sense of agency but in general. Instead you looked for misconceptions and debunked them, even though I daresay that there were no misconceptions to begin with. You don't know what I think about depression. What you do know is that I believe that if a person overcomes their illness, they will recognize that it was transient - impermanent - and hence not a worthy description of their identity.

You say that "we need to treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness, and understand just how complex it can be". I respond that in order to fully appreciate just how complex it can be, we cannot treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness.

Psychic

Really and truly

Female
Seen April 10th, 2018
Posted March 11th, 2018
387 posts
15.5 Years
Fair enough, that's why I began my post saying I might have been misinterpreting you. I apologize.

1) I don't disagree with you.
... is missing the point, if you meant this as a rebuttal of my position. The process of medicalization comes with drawbacks. Personally, I aspire to a career in medicine. But I can recognize the weaknesses and failings of such a system. There is great emphasis in medicine on the science, the mechanisms, on treating the body as an object. But peoples' minds should not simply be treated as objects. I think it's a dangerous path to think about mental illness as any other diseases, because they are so deeply entangled with our identities and sense of self. There are features of the modern medical system that can make it alienating and dehumanizing. Physicians and patients are aware of this in general. The increased reliance on high science and high technology can present a barrier to empathy which is important in healthcare in general but doubly so for mental health. Mental illnesses are going to be medicalized whether we like it or not, and there are good reasons for doing so. But to boldly medicalize mental illnesses without being cautious and mindful of the uniqueness of mental health is to risk projecting onto it values and expectations that ultimately undermine the well-being of those who suffer.
I acknowledge that I come from a place of privilege in that the aspects of the health system I've seen here in Canada have been fairly positive, and a lot of treatments I have seen go beyond simply throwing drugs at the problem. I currently work in a cardiologist office, and the doctor often prescribes exercise programs and dietary recommendations to patients, and he emphasizes that only they can take responsibility for those aspects of their health. Patients can be referred to other doctors who would better serve their particular issues (such as being unable to exercise due to back pain). This is why I am fairly optimistic about the medicalization of mental illness - the approach I have seen thus far has been fairly healthy (excuse the pun). if the medical system doesn't push for the other means of treating mental illness that I mentioned previously, then that's something that needs to be addressed within the medical community.

2) Again, missing the point. I don't disagree that seeing a professional is one of the best things you can do concerning a mental illness. But there's so much more than just seeing a professional. Although I do not have personal experience, it is my understanding that psychotherapy involves personal work. There is a deeper level of engagement that goes past simply following a doctor's order to take certain drugs or avoiding certain activities to recover from an injury. That's why I want to emphasize how important one's sense of agency is with respect to mental health. I don't want people to think that, just because there's a physiological basis for mental health, their ability engage in and improve their own treatment is diminished. I don't want, in the effort to increase public understanding of mental health, to draw inappropriate parallels between mental disorder and more physiological disorders, and leading people to approach mental health with the same relative passiveness that you approach many other illnesses.
This goes without saying to me - again, the cardiologist tells patients they have to do the (physical/dietary) work on their own time, and they're the only ones who can motivate themselves to do better. Therapists typically encourage patients to do certain work on their own time, and the benefit of having that professional help is that it gives patients a better idea of what direction to go in. Again, I realize my optimism comes from a place of privilege, and that not all doctors have such a mindset, but that is what I have seen.

But why? I'm sure we both know that treatments for many mental disorders involve psychotherapy which involve personal work and effort. If you participate in that therapy and it works out for you, then haven't you pulled yourself out of it? Haven't you, by your own will and effort, contributed to your own recovery? That's why I keep saying that one's sense of agency vis a vis mental health is so important - because you can affect your mind more deeply than you can affect your body and because that's what many therapies call for!

If you overcome a mental disorder, then won't you realize that mental disorders don't have to be enduring? That if your therapies are successful, there is the chance of taking back a normal life? That it would ultimately be a phase of your life and not a permanent mark on your identity? Again, we can see why agency is so important in all this. One's will and faith in the improvement of their mental condition is crucial to improving their quality of life, whether they fully recover from their illness or not. Positive thinking may not cure every case, but any amount of positive thinking is conducive to one's treatment and recovery. It's one of things that cognitive behavioural therapy asks for.
But many patients never entirely "pull themselves out of it." For instance, some people with depression or OCD struggle with it their entire lives, but find ways to make it more manageable. Some people consider their mental illness to play a large part in their identity, and I see no problem with this - it is only when your illness rule your identity that it can be a problem. Identity is a funny thing; we can't always divorce ourselves entirely from certain aspects of ourselves, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

~Psychic

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Mana

Age 31
Male
UK
Seen March 25th, 2023
Posted August 18th, 2021
10,075 posts
14.3 Years
The amount of children I see with anxiety issues due to their parents applying pressure at home is huge. And most of the times the parents don't even realise they're applying pressure when they keep casually mentioning that their child will become a doctor and get straight A*s... ;-;