Hacker News Reader

Comment by digitalsankhara | Hacker News Reader

No. I see an increase in mental health awareness in general across most media. Which is a good thing.

Ehhh it can be a good thing to an extent. Over-indulging yourself with mental health discussion is bad though imo. There's TOO MUCH talk about it nowadays. To the point where people with normal negative thoughts and emotions are diagnosing themselves with severe mental illnesses and running to the doctor for prescription meds.

From personal experience with anxiety it's also not great to continue discussing your issues 24/7 because you get to the point where you're only forcing yourself to stay in that mindset. You need to get out and live at some point or you'll never recover.

IMO people have historically been not talking nearly enough about mental health. I think everyone should be seeing a therapist regularly, mentally ill or not. The demands of society are stressful and people are expected to just put up with it and not ever have room to be anxious or sad. Most psychologists I've spoken with also have poor views of the psychiatric approach to a lot of mental health issues. Psychologists favor actually working with you and developing internal strategies to protect yourself long term such as cognitive behavioral therapy, whereas psychiatrists have a tendency to talk little and send you home with a prescription versus leaving that as an option of last resort.

Please accept an upvote for this wonderful comment. My experience bears out your view. Whilst there is good stress - the sort that can make us feel alive, the majority is harmful to a lot of people.

I've long felt there is an epidemic of stress which I think accounts for a host of poor outcomes for many, many people and society in general. I wish I had the ability to describe it more fully myself but my thinking on this is not fully formed given it must involve sociology, culture, politics, work, family, education and philosophy etc. In fact the whole fabric on the way we live our lives and why.

I think the foundations for possible solutions have been set by many cultures. Chinese, Japanese and Greek philosophies in particular are, of course, practised by a lot of people, myself included. Ultimately, I feel human evolution will be through the mind and perhaps generations, hundreds of years in the future, will look back at this time in horror the same way we may look back to when leg amputations were carried out with no anaesthetics.

I would say that too much mis-informed talk is probably not a good idea. The balanced view would be to acknowledge those normal negative thoughts and emotions. And that is the crux of the issue. Knowing when those thoughts become abnormal is, hopefully, helped though a broader public education and acceptance of mental health.

Knowing that, if you do in fact need to seek help whether from a friend, professional or even a stranger, you will not made to feel neurotic or told to "snap out of it" is where I hope the end game for increased mental health goes.

Mental and physical health are so closely related - mind and body. It's taken decades to start to get a foothold of acceptance for this type of thinking in the mainstream.

I hear what you are saying about not overdoing it, but lives have been lost because people were too afraid to talk. I don't know what the longer impact of more social acceptance of mental health issues will be but it is my wish it leads to a more compassionate world.

Yeah I agree. I had an ex that listened to mental health podcasts 8+ hours a day. It's all she'd talk about. It became pretty clear that she was addicted to mental health in a way. Her entire life revolved around grief and trauma. It's good for us to work on ourselves, but you have to actually BE yourself at some point.

I can't speak for depression but anxiety it 100% an addiction/habit. You get stuck in a loop and you "train" yourself to stay in it.

Is that increased exposure making us healthier (ie. mindful, tolerant, understanding, patient, ...) or more neurotic (ie. ruminative, paranoid, self-absorbed, defensive, ...)?

No doubt the correct answer is "it requires research." But I guess the answer is going to be "it depends, on the individual and the circumstances"

This is a good question and one that must vex most mental health practitioners. You list both states of mind and some potential mitigations.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with the term neurotic myself as it can have dismissive connotations.

Unless it's symptomatic of a sharp increase in mental health difficulties. Most MH folks I know are completely booked months out at this point.

Those bookings could be increased willingness to seek treatment rather than increased difficulties.

Booked? What do you mean?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com