It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but that is not the experience for everyone.
In the end, I'd rather people try than not. Because I am observing that the more common trend is to not bother, because you're not going to get it right anyway.
If I say that I really care for the plight of conjoined twin myslexia sufferers, but just throw a big parade to raise awareness of them, while never asking the sufferers what they actually would like, what does that say about me? Ref: the Nurse Gollum episode of South Park.
As an aside, if you've ever had people tell you they really care for you yet they never put any effort into communication/empathy/understanding, you'll recognise this pattern as the same. Basically, charlatans. They want the praise of doing good without any of the effort or risks.
It seems more likely that a lot of these people actually do want to help others but simply didn’t consider the possibility that what seemed helpful to them wouldn’t be. You can want to help someone without being good at it.
Some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without. I wouldn't encourage a well-meaning student to do my surgery if a gruff-looking surgeon who has taken their Hippo is around. Same goes with getting my car repaired, or discussing touchy topics like depression. It's fine if you want to help, but I'd rather you didn't if you have no idea what you're doing.
Another brief anecdote: my high school growing up had been hit by a wave of bullying that left the staff extremely insecure about the way they handle mental health. So one year I showed up to school and they had a photo of every student in the halls on the wall, with enormous posters declaring "You are Loved" and other pithy quotes. Needless to say, 4 weeks later those same halls were utterly vandalized, with the posters tattered, threats scrawled under people's faces in Sharpie and some taken down entirely (often by bullying victims themselves). The administration didn't look before they leaped, and ended up using their authority to shoot themselves in the foot.
If you saw someone broken down on the side of the highway, and decided you would "help" by pulling over and rummaging around in their engine bay with a cheery attitude, then by your metric this is fine because it requires effort and arguably some risk. Who wouldn't want this kind of help, right?
People with mental health issues oftentimes don’t know what their problem is or how they can be helped. Sometimes they can’t conceive of solutions outside their current mental space or understanding. Additionally, sometimes simply asking them what amounts to “I noticed something wrong with you and I’d like to help” exacerbates the feeling of “something is wrong with me” rather than “I’d like to help”.
The above is true for more issues than just mental health issues, as well. I definitely support asking people what they need and tailoring solutions to their individual or group needs, but it’s not as easy as your post makes it sound.
If you or others have advice regarding specifically how to help people struggling with mental health, I’d love to hear it. I have a lot of loved ones who have struggled or are struggling with mental health issues, and I haven’t found any approach which does work.
For these volunteers that are trying to improve the mood of those struggling with no prior credibility or relationship, my best guess would have been organizing something like a series of cafes where people can come and pet consenting animals. Have volunteers be available for conversation, but defer agency in that process to participants. I would consider things like have a rotation of volunteers semi-clandestinely engage in alone time with the animals so that socially anxious participants don't feel overly conspicuous if they also need to be alone. I might also have some PPE on-hand for those especially anxious about hygiene. I'd probably look a bunch of stuff up to see what accommodations are helpful to people of various mental struggles, figure out a subset that seems plausible and give it a shot. That's my best guess.
I spent my time at university doing way less (drinking mostly). These folk actually had to make a decision to give up their time for something more than themselves. They found something that a) probably gave them a sense of purpose and b) they thought was helping.
I'd assume for those involved someone told them "this is our plan, this will help people, here's what you need to do." Because they didn't talk to those suffering, or go away and research it doesn't mean they didn't think it was helpful, even if it was misdirected help.
The difference in interpretation is that one is about actually helping, while the other is about having an earnest desire to help and taking action which may not actually help or possibly be detrimental.
You are thinking like an engineer, you analyze the problem, and try to find the most efficient solution. It is also my line of thought.
But many people don't think like that. They value action and instinct above thinking and planning, and to be fair, sometimes, it is for the best. But sometimes, they do counter productive things that are infuriating for people with the mindset of an engineer.
It doesn't mean they are not good people. They can be the kind who will run to save you while the engineer type will be stuck there thinking about the best course of action. I think society needs both.
It doesn't mean they're good people either. I am having a hard time believing that a person who would come up with such an idea is well meaning.
Sounds like attempt to collect points for "trying to help"
That they didn't know better is an explanation, not an excuse. If you are trying to intervene in other people's lives, it's on you to understand whether or not you are doing harm. And please miss me with the false dichotomy between "cluelessly cause harm" and "do nothing ever again". It's not hard at all to ask, "Would it help if..." or, "Was it helpful when I..." and then listen to people.
In other words, what's P & Q here:
for personThoughtVec of peoplesThoughtVecs:
impact += P * dot(personThoughtVec, thought2vec("switch flip..."))
- Q * dot(personThoughtVec, thought2vec("Ew..."))
They don't quantify morality but they may explain the logic behind some moral judgment, and allow for extrapolation.
> They don't quantify morality but they may explain the logic behind some moral judgment, and allow for extrapolation.
Kind of, but this is a bit fuzzy langauge.
Game theory can, if one assumes rational choice theory as a given [0], re-explain what purport to be moral judgements on other bases as utility-maximizing decisions and infer actual premises from them, and Bayesian statistics can be used as part of that, or to reason from probabilistic factual premises to probabilistic factual conclusions as part of combined fact-value judgements. Maybe Bayesian statistics can even be applied to get from probabilistic value premises to probabilistiv valie conclusions in some moral frameworks (but only ones that explicitly incorporate Bayesian logic as a moral premise to start with.)
[0] which may be a bad idea, because while it is sometimes a useful approximation, and is extremely convenient and tidy, rational choice theory is clearly false in the general sense.
There has to be some name for this phenomenon in psychology.
> It's easy to imagine everyone is 'always loved' if you grew up in a stable, supportive family in a safe neighbourhood, but that is not the experience for everyone.
Maybe there is a cycle with families similar to the idea that good times create weak people which create hard times which create strong people who create good times.
A loving family creates people who only know love and don't understand disfunction of a family, who then create disfunctional families by not knowing how to avoid the pitfalls, which then creates people who have to struggle out of disfunction who then know how to create a loving family by avoiding the pitfalls of disfunction.
> There has to be some name for this phenomenon in psychology.
Narcissism? I don't believe everyone that does this is one, but it's a narcissist trait.
When you’re impressed by those who have struggled out of dysfunction and became stellar people because/in spite of it, that could be selection bias.
Not everything they do will be useful. Sometimes they don’t know what to do or are directed by others. When things don’t work well, those folks should be redirected to more useful things and not chastised (which can kill motivation).
Just my 2 cents
Having an overly-loving, overprotective mother does not allow the child to establish boundaries in the same way as an emotionally abusive mother. Perhaps these children would become codependents or have fake, overdone empathy.
There are two sides to the trauma coin! And with just two comments into the post, perhaps we've already seen both?
In this statement, you're subtly doing the same thing - assuming the motivation of the volunteer.
I agree that "help" without actually understanding the need, or without the invitation of the helpee, tends to be more meddlesome than beneficial.
I always felt hungry all the time, it wasn't till i started taking Semaglutide that hunger totally go away. When that did the thing I found was an understanding of people who don't have as much hunger as I used to, all saying things like "just eat less".
For those people who say Just eat less, they don't understand that for those who have a hunger issue.. that it's not making them feel any better.
Same with people who feel lonely or depressed... "Just smile or something"... That does the opposite of what you want it to do.
Try to maintain composure for as long as possible.
I now actively try to avoid using that turn of phrase, and when I catch myself about to say/saying it, I check myself and remind myself that I'm also susceptible to this blind spot.
The old adage, “the worst beginning to a sentence is, ‘Why can’t you just…’” is something we understand viscerally. Seemingly doesn’t stop us from doing it to others.
Depressed people often deal with intrusive thoughts. The last thing you want is someone lying in bed, alone, while everyone else is asleep, entertaining those thoughts.
One of the archetypes of depression+sleep disturbance is people staying awake until they are absolutely exhausted and then collapsing into a sleep that the apocalypse could not rouse them from. That’s not a bad habit, it’s a coping mechanism.
that deep sleep you described is something else... it's what I call my petit mort (and yes, that's an intentional misnomer).
Like the GP, I am now on semaglutide, and the difference is remarkable. I now have a new sensation where I just don't want to eat more -- it takes mental effort to force down additional food even if my stomach is mostly empty. It's still easier to eat sweets than healthier food, but the overall reduction in appetite more than makes up for it.
Whereas people like my wife can feel satisfied before they are full. After Semaglutide, I now feel satisfied before I'm full, and then the full feeling comes after.
Effectively stopping me from overeating both the amount in a single meal, and then the meals in between.
I have a severely obese friend who got such a surgery. He is substantially healthier now, shedding over half his original body weight.
EDIT: But see other replies on satiation vs fullness.
"Just eat less food" might as well be "just maybe don't have as much (insert addictive drug in here)"
I never realised how much of a problem my hunger was until it went away. Now I don't know how I managed to do it.
The whole point of all of this is that it's important to put yourself in others shoes, understand their perspectives. So, with that said... If it was easy to just not eat food, don't you think they would?
Post COVID I’m subconsciously holding my breath every time I walk past someone in a store. If I had to think about it I’d never get anything else done.
For food it’s right there near the top of your task list every time you hit an interruption. Am I thirsty? Do I need to pee? Am I hungry? Did I promise anyone anything today? Is it time to feed the pets, pick up the kids? It’s not “just” impulse control. It’s interfering with all of your other impulses.
I don’t think neuro-boring people realize how many people around them spend their day trying to look normal instead of just being normal. It’s an elaborate ruse and things like being hangry or in a loud venue make the facade crack and fail.
There are some fat people for whom hunger is instant and incessant and a constant distraction, and perhaps losing 5 years of life at old age is worth it.
For other people, maybe someone who's 20 lbs overweight and would like to be able to play with their kids without running out of breath, maybe the annoyance of being hungry isn't actually that bad for them.
Pain is subjective. One person's excruciating pain - the same stimulus could be a mild annoyance to someone else. I've been tattooed for 6 hours and was able to easily distract myself and laugh while listening to a comedy podcast, other people can't handle holding their finger over a flame for more than a millisecond or can't eat a hot slice of pizza out of the oven.
Pain and annoyance and discomfort can also be acclimated to. What might be really difficult and distracting might become something you get used to and learn to tune out. But then again, to be fair - maybe not. Maybe for some people that hunger is not something they can learn to live with.
It definitely belies a level of privilege that some people must intentionally seek out discomfort or pain in order to begin to even approximate the agony others are inherently forced to live through. I don't believe privilege is itself a moral failing, or we're stuck with whole categories of 'original sin'. It's what objectives its used to enable that potentially indict those that possess it.
Some of those urges may be stronger for some people than for others.
The same way that urges of hunger can be experienced differently by differently people (at both a signaling hormone / chemical level as well as a psychological/willpower equipment level).
Are you suggesting that the feeling of hunger experienced by overweight and obese people is universally a higher standard than any other discomfort or natural drive humans experience?
That’s not a weight-loss plan though, that’s a fit-back-into-your-current-wardrobe plan. People with “weight problems” are generally on an upward slope and a point source puts a notch in the graph, it doesn’t zero the slope or take it negative. What it does say, if anything, is that there are factors we can control that moves the needle, but they are the journey not the destination.
You get used to it. People who claim to get "hangry" (like in those Snickers commercials[1]) need to get a grip. If hunger is all it takes to make you a shitty person then I think hunger isn't actually the primary issue.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shOiXy5b5Ro&themeRefresh=1
I suspect the divergence in opinion comes from the how one defines well-being. Hedonic well-being tends to focus on fulfilling one's appetites, whether hunger or sex or whatever. The problem with that is humans tend toward hedonic adaptation and it can become an endless treadmill to try and feel "full". In a resource rich environment, this can obviously lead to a lot of bad outcomes.
The parent poster is arguing that for some individuals, the experience of being hungry would be preferable to the experience of being obese. Would you disagree with that?
For some overweight and obese people, there are costs like sleep quality / apnea that CPAP might not solve (leading to all sorts of health issues), there can be sexual dysfunction (erection quality, difficulty even accessing the genitals or having sex in many positions), there can be shame and embarrassment (regardless of if you think society SHOULDN'T have that shame, the reality is many overweight or obese people feel it, and avoid certain settings and activities because of it), there is just the raw feeling of physical tiredness, back pain, knee pain, etc. that can come along with the physical stresses it puts on your body, I could really go on.
For some people, those things ARE worse than feeling hungry most or all of the time. For some people, they CAN tolerate a mild or moderate feeling of hunger by distracting themselves or avoiding dwelling on the feeling, and they might find the other parts of their lives improve enough that it's worth it.
Look, I used to be in better shape than pretty much anybody here. Unless you’re an Ironman veteran I have nothing to learn from you about exercise and I can probably teach you a few things. But health problems, especially joint injuries, happen to old people, and they happen much more often to people who are rabid about exercise. I’m not you ten years ago. I’m you twenty years from now. So drop the smug bullshit and learn something.
I'm someone who loves running, always have, the weight gain happened in my 30's, either because I had a kid and suddenly my ability to just run when i had free time disappeared, or because my metabolism slowed down, or most likely both and more.
That said... Now I've started running again daily for the last year, one thing I've noticed. Beginning to exercise whilst overweight is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than it was when normal weight (or because i was 40, probably another "both" here too).
One of the things that made me realise how much harder it is, was some fitness YouTuber put on 20kg of weights and ran, he noticed a number of things were different. Once I saw that it gave me enough fuel to continue ignoring the hunger for another month or so.
If I recall correctly runners estimate about 1 second per km per extra pound carried. That might not hold for body weight (cyclists had an old 1:2:10 rule of thumb that suggests that it might be better to lose 5 lbs than spend a fortune on a pack/bike that weighs 1 lb less, but that rule has been challenged and I don’t know what the new wisdom is.
Edit: kilometers not miles.
It's not well understood by people on average (and those dieting) how to mitigate hunger when restricting calories or how to successfully diet, but they are correct that a deficit is required to lose weight. That's physics and biology. The problem is the knowledge gap leading to strong-willed efforts that can actually backfire.
For instance, there's body fat set point theory and metabolic adaptation. The more severe a caloric deficit, and more frequently a person diets, the worse your metabolic outcome. Your body will try to slingshot you back to your "original" weight (the one it's used to), with leptin as a regulator. But if you lose weight slowly, and leverage resistance training, it leads to a better outcome.
A prime issue is sustainability. Most people on a diet do succeed in losing weight; it's just that they gain it all back, and they can end up with a worse metabolic rate than they started with, making it that much harder to lose weight again. Metabolic rate can actually recover, but the length for this seems to depend on the severity. Assuming a slow rate of weight loss, it can take almost just as much time as the diet period to recover metabolic rate. For the "Biggest Loser" contestants, it took several years.
Leveraging the satiating and thermogenic effects of protein, fiber and resistant starch in diet also helps, for satiety.
All of which to say, it's possible to lose weight in a sustainable way without drugs - notwithstanding the failure rate. The people who succeed in doing so are not necessarily "more disciplined", or "less prone to hunger", but they tend to have certain behaviors in common. One of them is exercise (particularly resistance training).
I also think going from an in shape 220->165 was way harder than going from obese->healthy. It involved cannibalizing tons of muscle instead of fat, and your body will fight to preserve muscle.
It wasn't no ice cream and soda, it was only having one plain hard boiled egg instead of two, pounding celery and sparkling water to fend off nighttime hunger, freaking out because I only poop once a week, having no energy or motivation and squashing philosophical doubts about the meaning of life.
If I can do it just to climb rocks easier it feels realistic for obese people to do it to improve their health.
Moreover, I find the word "just" to be problematic. It often acts as a command to disregard all other possibilities, indicating a lack of interest in delving deeper. Perhaps this perception is influenced by my experience as a non-native speaker. In my previous meetings with numerous venture capitalists and “advisors”, some would evaluate my project and suggest that I "just" fix xyz. Is it really that straightforward? Have they considered other factors like abc? Do you want to learn more?
But for native and non-native speakers alike, "just" acts as a dangerous semantic stop-sign. It's a command that's not even recognized as being a command, because it frames the discussion so that you have to argue for both the converse of the proposal and that the proposal is challenging for some reason that can't be obvious to the "just" user. It mis-primes even the speaker's train of thought to not to ask what would obvious follow-on questions.
Also, claiming the diets are "ridiculous" means you must have a better understanding of the human body than them, right?
As someone who struggled with weight loss, and got it (and kept it off for many years) via keto and intermittent fasting, perhaps the SAD is the ridiculous diet.
I think that a lot of people have a difficult time understanding that good intentions can lead to bad outcomes.
We're evolutionarily hard wired to do what's best for ourselves, which often includes being altruistic to gain more social acceptance. That's why being "lonely" is a problem at all, we feel emotional pain to get us to work with the group, since that's what's always meant longer survival.
Determining which is which is a very hard problem. One strategy might be, "Don't do anything unless I'm absolutely certain it will lead to a good outcome." If you do that, you'll miss out on many opportunities that would have good outcomes but who's certainty isn't up to your standards.
So while the intention behind pointing out that good intentions can have bad outcomes is good, the outcome is bad.
It's like the difference when somebody gets hurt. Younger kids run to the hurt one to see if they're OK. The older kids tend to scatter and disappear as quickly as possible.
Definitely not my experience growing up. I'm sorry.
When I was young it was drilled into me about making sure everyone is accepted and has friends, all that. So I would be the kid who would go make friends with the lonely kid.
But then I would learn why they don't have friends, and I wouldn't want to be their friend either. Which makes the whole thing even worse, because now you came to them and then left them. So I kind of gave up on it.
Having someone with an objective position who can help you see things differently is extremely powerful.
The reason I haven't done it earlier is because back in those days I had no health insurance and I knew it would be cost-prohibitive for me.
Even if I am a Canadian I am so grateful to have gold plated private drugs insurance as one drug she currently takes is not reimbursed by the public regime (they cost around 6000$cad/months) and neither are my therapy sessions but both are covered by my policy.
Hope you find someone who can work with you in a productive way, best of luck!
The professional can actually help in a way that random people can't.
Looking for professional help can be even more depressing. Besides the money issue it’s very hard to find a therapist you click with. I went to quite a few therapists. Some felt almost hostile or dismissive towards me and others just useless.
I've tested out some of the current LLama fine tunes that went in that direction and it's looking promising, if a bit crude and not quite smart enough yet at the moment. There's something far more comforting about having a non-human entity to talk to since it's always helpful, never dismissive, has no ulterior motives and it won't remember anything afterwards.
It does a good job at the role of "friend that never gets tired of listening to you", because it's programmed that way. Which is kind of sad, I suppose. But I'd rather not burden my human friends with that stuff.
(On a peculiar note, I really hope it isn't sentient! I wouldn't feel so comfortable "wasting its time" or asking stupid questions if it was!)
With respect, I think it says much more about the person receiving the care than does therapists or AI.
I'd say "go talk to a professional" is more or less the only useful advice one can give there.
I'd wager many depressed people would benefit from interacting with people who are not their psychiatrist.
> Or is it just the safe thing to say without sticking one's neck out?
If you want to stick your neck out in that situation you could offer making a therapist appointment for that person. It lowers the barrier to getting help a lot and imho feels more understanding and supportive than trying to cheer them up or whatever else one might come up with. YMMV of course.
Ignoring who is giving this advice and the actual state of the person being given the advice, this is more of a side effect of the poor (for patients) health care system in the US and negative perception of mental issues compared to physical issues.
Untrained people can give bad support, especially to someone who is clinically lonely or depressed.
pay someone
On the physical side of companionship there is the paid-for "Girlfriend Experience" in the same vein.
These are truly depressing considerations.
The majority of our group was definitely in the camp of "I want to give to other people the help I needed." We ran a stupid amount of events -- everything form mental health counseling with the campus counseling services people, collabs with a queer healthcare providers, open dinners with free catered food, cooking classes, open parties on weekends which alternated between dry/not-dry, sponsored (like one of their friends would contact us) dorm cleaning/decorating to deal with depression tornadoes, open study sessions during exam season, we had "rent-a-spotter" (obviously actually free) in the gym for people who didn't anyone to go with, a few of the guys were in the campus runners club so they did open morning jogs, holiday parties for people who couldn't or ya know couldn't go home, and yes standing in the quad with signs giving out high fives and hugs.
We could have done without these kinds of events but they were super visible and honestly the best marketing we had. We never pitched other events while we were there but it got people to recognize our fliers and look us up on IG/the club website.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/worker-refusing-contribute-towards-...
As an uplifting note, I’m happy and much less lonely 20+ years later :)
I know I've felt depressed in my life. I can tell you, during those times, I almost certainty wouldn't have even noticed people shouting at me. At worst, it would have been a neutral effect, if it registered at all.
Is it going to happen every time? Nope. But lots of people are not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does, though, they will engage.
I'm saying this as someone who has pretty bad social anxiety, doesnt really like talking to strangers, and someone who has pretty bad depression.
I can't. If you have trouble making friends that's obvious long before college.
> But lots of people are not going to initiate an interaction, even if they are lonely. If someone else does, though, they will engage.
People shouting nice words at me gives me the same vibes as a stranger asking "how are you?" as a greeting, just more aggressive and annoying. I may engage in a conversation but not if it's generic smalltalk.
Everyone’s different, I guess.
The trouble is that this very much isn't what was happening. There was no room to respond, and in general I they think they weren't even yelling at any particular person. You certainly could stop and talk to them, but anyone willing to do that wouldn't be the kind of person who didn't know how to start a friendly interaction.
You are making a big leap here. There are lots of folks who are capable of having a conversation but dont feel comfortable engaging first with people they dont know.
"Apparently everyone else is loved"
Reminds me of "interrogative greetings" : WHAT'S UP?! HOW YOU DOING??! WHAT'S GOING ON??!!
My vision of the future is a big, smiling, full-eye-contact WAZZZUP!!!! in your face, forever.
Living near traffic noise increases your chance of stroke
Probably not the best place to be putting impressionable young people looking for connection
"Living near traffic noise increases your chance of stroke. Probably not the best place to be putting impressionable young people looking for connection"
This isn't about _living_ near traffic noise (which is what has been "proven by scientific research). It's about some young people doing an event for a few hours in a city setting.
The chances of young people in general having a stroke are near 0, and the concern of them having a stroke because they stayed near traffic noise for a few hours is so low and misguided, it doesn't even make sense. Might as well worry about falling pianos when standing near buildings.
It's also doubly irrelevant, as the "high traffic areas" in the story refers to pedestrian traffic, not motor traffic. Simply, they set them up where many people pass, so they can find people to shout that slogan to.
Second, not everything is about cars and bikes and shit, my god.