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Comment by davidn20 | Hacker News Reader

Let's define mental illness better. We don't lump all bumps, bruises, and broken bones into physical illness.

Yea, it's out of touch to tell someone with broken legs to walk it off. But, if someone got the wind knock out of them. That's perfectly fine advice.

In fact, I hope and believe the majority of mental illness cases are not serious. Like, most physical cases. It's just harder to see, so people have a harder time properly categorizing it. Which is damaging to a person psyche. If someone has a sprain ankle, but thinks they have cancer. Imagine the unnecessary trauma and hopelessness the person is experiencing.

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The study talks about mental illnesses that require "secondary care", i.e. the general practitioner is out of options and needs to refer the patient to a specialist. So not just "bumps and bruises".

Roughly 25% of these disorders are "broadly defined schizophrenia." Should we change that diagnosis so we can blame those suffering for their own failures?

Personally, I'd rather hope and strive to reduce the amount of people suffering from mental disorders rather then redefine them so they aren't "serious." Everyone should be entitled to the "resources and advantages" that prevent illness, not just the rich.

I don't understand why people think I'm against helping people. I'm not. I'm not trying to shame anyone.

I'm simply saying, no matter your situation, do the best you can because that's what you have control over. Also, it's easier to change yourself, than to change the world. I mean if you're fighting to change the world, more power to you. I hope you succeed and make the world a fairer place.

>I'm simply saying, no matter your situation, do the best you can because that's what you have control over. Also, it's easier to change yourself, than to change the world

Again, you're telling this to people with mental disorders like schizophrenia. They don't necessarily have control over their disorder, and are unable to change themselves alone.

This is why it seems like you're shaming people. You both belittled their issues and are telling them to just get over them, like they haven't been trying all along.

> They don't necessarily have control over their disorder, and are unable to change themselves alone.

As someone who has dealt with serious, chronic health issues for a decade, I truly hate this attitude.

I don't necessarily have full control over my health issues, but I'll be damned if you tell me I am unable to take actions to change myself and my situation.

Yes, I much prefer messages that emphasize my personal agency, which your well-intentioned message actively denies.

This is a tight-rope to walk: sick people have limitations and one should acknowledge them, but repeatedly asserting their utter helplessness is also a form of shaming and encourages them to stop trying.

>As someone who has dealt with serious, chronic health issues for a decade, I truly hate this attitude

Do your chronic health issues alter the way your mind operates? If you believe that some external agent is inserting thoughts into your mind, how do you take control of such a situation?

That's an extreme example, but such issues are common with mental disorders. When your mind itself is ill, willpower alone doesn't necessarily cut it.

My health issues came along with significant cognitive effects, ones that significantly affected my career.

I can't speak towards schizophrenia specifically, but you work through mental health like any other obstacle: if it turns out to be an impassable mountain, then go around it.

This is what I hear in GGP's message, and it strongly resonates with my own experience.

First, GGP?

Can you imagine your situation being a little worse, so that no matter how hard you tried you couldn't find a path around it? Some people will end up in untenable situations, if you want a clearcut example consider a coma patient.

Great-grand-parent, to whom you were responding.

A couple of thoughts: of course some people will be in a hole so deep they cannot dig themselves out. But I suspect that is rarer than you expect (look at how we went from mental illness in general, to schizophrenia, now to coma patients).

Unless you’re intimately familiar with someone’s situation, how can you judge?

I’ve found it more helpful to focus on how one can succeed, whether for myself or loved ones.

>But I suspect that is rarer than you expect (look at how we went from mental illness in general, to schizophrenia, now to coma patients).

I think it's relatively common for people with mental illness to end up in a situation they themselves can't recover from, and my examples were hyperbolic as you seemed to deny the very existence of such people. They generally recover with help from those close to them, medical experts, and government support.

>Unless you’re intimately familiar with someone’s situation, how can you judge?

I don't need intimacy with anyone's situation, all I said was that some portion of the 30,000 incidents of mental illness could not control their disorders and would need help.

>I’ve found it more helpful to focus on how one can succeed, whether for myself or loved ones

I'm guessing my post was misunderstood, as here you seem to be trying to help others rather than forcing them to accomplish it by willpower alone.

One problem is some mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, can cause the victim to believe they are not ill under any circumstance, and because of that they will refuse treatment.

What can be done to work around self-deception?

No one is encouraging sick people to stop trying.

They're trying to explain to relatively healthy and privileged people that blaming sick people for trying and failing is extremely unlikely to help them.

The first post was using an article about mental illness to brag about their rags to riches story incidentally implying that mental disorders were a result of not trying hard enough.

This one is offering the much more woke opinion that life is like a patronizing disability porn hollywood movie that disordered people just can't change themselves alone. They need the help of the audience self-insert to unlock their special disabled potential.

You and the original article seem to be making two arguments that sound good in isolation but are incompatible.

You are saying that it's no good to advice people with severe mental health issues to do better if they are poor (fair), whereas the article says early poverty increases the chances of having these disorders (also fair). The causation in two arguments is reversed, however (poor -> mental disorder, mental disorder -> poor), and this is where the OP's argument fits, I think... you become more likely to develop mental disorders because of certain aspects of poverty (malnutrition? bad habits/lifestyle? etc.), however for someone who believes in personal responsibility, that may be to a significant degree because you "didn't do better".

> I'm not trying to shame anyone.

Yes, you are. “Most mental disorders are not that serious” is passive-aggressively stating that those suffering from something you consider to “not be serious” just aren’t working hard enough; that they’re lazy, not disabled.

The truth is, you can work as hard as you want, but if you’re not lucky as well, that work won’t propel you forward.

https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I <- Veritasium on luck vs hard work

Yeah, I hear and sympathize with you, but it's a bit of a truism and misses the point. If this was about lead poisoning, and not parental income, that leads to mental illness, wouldn't you want to fix the problem, rather than just say buck up?

So, hospital for bumps and bruises, because they're just as serious as broken bones?

No, provide all the children with the safety equipment that limits both bruises and broken bones rather than only give it to the wealthy children.

>In fact, I hope and believe the majority of mental illness cases are not serious.

Who are you to decide the seriousness of a mental illness?

> "In fact, I hope and believe the majority of mental illness cases are not serious."

Then your understanding of mental illness is very poor. For example, from Wikipedia, "In 2015, ... [suicide] was the second leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 34 and the third leading cause of death for those between the ages of 10 and 14." And, in comparison to treatments for common cancers, the successful treatment rate for many common mental illnesses is often quite low.

>I hope and believe

Why write all this when you clearly don't know much about psychiatry and mental illness? This is some high lvl Dunning–Kruger posting.

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