64 karma · joined March 27, 2016
Usually, any disagreement is seen as either contrarian or ignorant, and you end up building an over engineered monstrosity because that's what they want.
It's almost a truism at this point, to say that a look large infrastructure project is going to go over time and over budget. But when nuclear is in the picture, this seems to be wheeled out like its somehow a fault of nuclear alone.
Drugs can certainly mess up someone's life (see my earlier post). But untreated mental illness can literally end your life (either directly, via suicide, or indirectly, via medical complications from body dysmorphic conditions)
I've been misdiagnosed as bipolar in the past, and the medication regime I was put on lead to schizoid delusions and incredibly unstable emotional state that only resolved once I stopped taking the medication (under the monitoring of the psychiatrist who initially prescribed them).
My mother was also misdiagnosed as bipolar, leading to her actual condition of Borderline Personality Disorder going untreated until she attempted suicide (she died 6 months after because of complications relating to the attempt).
A friend of mine who is schizophrenic was also misdiagnosed as bipolar, because his delusions and paranoia were fairly minimal. In his case, the misdiagnosis was probably more helpful than not, as the medications were helpful in stabilising his mood.
My point here isn't that the medical establishment is bad or that doctors are stupid. It's that disorders related to mental illness are very, very difficult to diagnose and treat, even for incredibly intelligent trained professionals. Many disorders have significant overlap with other disorders. An effect whose impact is only made worse by the fact that a bunch of these disorders are highly co-morbid. Mix in the fact that the borders between healthy and unhealthy are not especially well defined, and it's easy to see where a lot of the contention comes from
Given police officers are in fact a part of the same society as the people protesting against them, it seems likely that the issues with brutality, and racial prejudice, are not endemic to police themselves, but indicative of problems of the overall society at large.
If people are protesting the symptoms of these broader cultural issues, and not the underlying cause, it seems an inescapable conclusion that any change will largely be ineffectual.
I feel that the difficulty with this, is that noone likes to admit that there are systemic issues in the way their society functions. From a sociological perspective, most people don't want to be beating a drum that runs counter to popular opinion.
Similarly, most people are reluctant to engage in confrontation on an individual level, when encountering behaviour that ultimately leads to these type of outcomes.
Just as importantly, most people are awful at taking responsibility for their role in a problem. People prefer to create a false dichotomy, and position their impact on problems as meaningless, and view solutions as outside their locus of control.
This effectively leads to a kind of tragedy of the commons, where responsibility belongs to everyone and is taken by noone - similar to what we see with climate issues.
To effect meaningful change, it's usually required that both individuals and groups make their voice heard and actually do something. Yet most people go about their lives, and only take action when the collective does, in response to some climax of conditions. This is better than the inverse - of individuals taking action while groups do nothing - yet usually results in neglibile change, if any.
I suspect a part of the problem is that a sizable demographic cares, but only insofar as they care to signal their virtues. Yet when it comes to doing something themselves, the it's a much lower priority. I also suspect most people in this situation engage in a cognitive dissonance that's almost automatic too - and probably aren't even aware that they're doing it.
You're right, they're not a dichotomy - so why bring them up?
Animal rights aren't dichotomous to the problem of the American prison establishment either. They're also irrelevant to the discussion except as a diversionary tactic too
Pretty much no one (under normal circumstances) wants to be killed or die. I'm not sure why you even mentioned it?
The fact that there are issues in European prisons doesn't change the situation in US ones. You also also say no other country is close - which is just an indirect way of affirming the parent post (that Europeans find the American system hard to understand). They're hardly going to agree and understand with the American prison system if their own is equally as bad?
Getting out of bed, and putting on my pants, was harder than running a half marathon. In a very literal sense. It felt like I was overcoming physical burdens to just function. Routine helped, but I've never "tried" so hard.
Emotionally, I was so numb. I got a huge promotion at work. I did not care. My great grandfather died. I did not care. A horrible thing to say, but I had lost the capacity, 90% of the time, to feel meaningful emotions. They were the only things I missed. But when I had them, they were torment.
I would lie on the floor, crying. For four, maybe five hours each time. But I yearned for that pain, because I felt alive. Ironic, that I wanted to be alive until I died. I was still seeing a psychologist, but was not on medication. I was always honest with her, except for "the plan".
I began to drink a lot. I think I hoped I'd get drunk enough to have the courage to do it right. Death is still intimidating for me, even when I want it. It didn't help though. I'd drink 30 or 40 standard drinks, and waste the day in the shower covered in vomit. I never got to the point I would be while drunk, so I would just do it sober. I gave it up.
I took a "goodbye trip". To see family and friends. It was the first time they ever knew something was up. But to them, it was so subtle. Just a quietness of character. A dimming of the bulb.
Through coincidence, I was back home on a flight on New Years Eve. I was so certain I'd do it. No plans for elaborate, painless, ways. Just in the shower, with a kitchen knife and warm water. Hard to mess up too badly, since no-one would come looking for weeks.
I wrote my letter. I apologised. I asked if people could one day forgive me. I told them it's not their fault. Got naked, got in the shower, and I had just begun to cut myself, only shallow, when my phone rang with my dads call tone. I'm not sure why, but my determination went to dust. I thought of him, and the pain it would hurt. I told myself, I'd try even harder. I would do anything short of ECT. I'd go to hospital. I'd take medication. Anything.
My psychologist was going to have me hospitalised, but she said she trusted me, and was giving me a chance, referred me on to a prominent psychiatrist. She was against drugs too, but thought I wouldn't get better without them.
I fought for a year and a half. I went through a number of drugs, of different classes. One looked promising, but the affects went away at lower doses, and I was hyper aggressive at the higher dose. Eventually though, escitalopram "worked" best. But I started to feel again. My anxiety slowly got better.
I remember the first time I actually felt "hope". I felt like God. Invincible. Indestructible. How could I fail with hope? The drug made me "physically" tired. I had to take a dump every 3 hours. I put on a few kg. But motivation wise, it made up for it.
I got out of it... I thought. Looking back, I told myself I would never become like that again. Sound plan...
I met a new lover. She was a pretty nice girl. Didn't work out. Unfortunately, she said and did some really terrible things at the end. The break-up was a bit messy, but not extreme. A series of events really triggered off my anxiety. I lost 5kg in a week because I wasn't eating and stopped running. I stopped talking to people. I couldn't sleep more than two hours a night, on a good night. I started getting mouth ulcers.
Then came the inevitable old friend. A lot of my friends who I had told the first time around, have started getting concerned. It puts burden on them. It is not something they can just "know about and forget". They make a lot of effort too, which makes me feel bad, because I just don't care enough a lot of the time.
I saw myself slipping into a nuclear episode again. I've tried to stave it off. I'm looking for a new doctor, since I've moved since the previous event. I'm making myself eat more. I'm making myself talk to people. I'm going to the gym and running. I'm practicing and applying the techniques I learned in ACT therapy (And CBT to a lesser extent).
I'm not sure at this stage if I've stopped it. It's too early to tell. I feel like I'm on the edge of the abyss. It's easy to say it will be ok from the edge. It's a different world when you're in it.
I've spoken to my sister. To my dad. To friends. For help, for support. Because I know it's the personally responsible thing to do. But the burden on them is huge. How guilty would anyone feel, or responsible, if someone decided to give up on life, despite someone coming to them for help? Cognitively they would understand, but emotionally it's very different.
Depression is an uncomfortable companion for me. I've suffered with it for a long time. I was first diagnosed when I was 20, but the consensus (from my obviously fallible memory) is that it began between 12-14. I still have memories of sitting in my room, singing a song about how no-one loves me, when I was 10. I am "only" 28 now. I remember feeling confused. I knew mum and dad loved me; but why did I feel like no-one did? It took me a long time, to overcome that disconnect. It's maddening. To know, intellectually, that something is true, but your mind screams at you that it's not.
My mum was diagnosed as being depressed at the age of 25. Was an alcoholic since the age of 17. She still has it. For her, there is no end in site. She's had ECT several years ago. It helped, mildly, with the depression. She was never the same after, and had severe memory problems for a year.
She has cut herself hundreds of times. She is ashamed of it, and doesn't go outside. She does it because she just wants some expression of how bad she feels on the inside. A release, an outlet. She takes 5-6 different anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety medications. She has tried to kill herself 3 times. Each time I've saved her life. The first two, she had cut her wrists open. The last time, she overdosed on her medication with rum. The last time was the time she almost succeeded.
I haven't heard from her in two weeks. Which worries me, because it is Easter, and she hasn't answered all day. No-one else in my family looks out for her. She did a lot of shit wrong, as a mother, and as a partner. But I know she is struggling. I'd check up on her physically, but she moved into new government housing, and didn't give me the address, because she was upset that I called an ambulance the last three times she cut herself, and didn't want "the drama of dealing with it again". I tell her things will get better, but I honestly don't believe they will. I want them too. I hope they do. I try to help as much as I can. But it's hard to see things getting much better.
It scares me, because I don't want that future. My marriage failed at 24. Three friends, my parents, and my sister. Those are the only people I've ever told. Way after the fact. To this day, they all believe I became depressed after the marriage. It makes sense after all.
The truth is, that I was depressed before I met my then-wife. I used to cry myself to sleep a lot. I used to feel angry a lot. Tired a lot. But for me, it was "just life". I just thought that's how things were. It wasn't until I saw the pain it inflicted on my partner that I sought help. There's a lot of reasons I am this way, supposedly. Rough upbringing. Bullying, social isolation, broken marriage of my parents, etc.
My partner found it extremely hard to deal with my need for approval, for reassurance, to be told I was loved. I eventually got help. She was hostile at first; she thought the psychologist would blame her. Three months of therapy, and things got a bit better.
After the relationship began to break down, my depression and anxiety went absolutely nuclear. Not just sad little moments at home, or a tear here and there. I would be at work, and start crying, and need to run the toilet to hide. I would have "episodes". I would just lie on the floor, curled up, sobbing. Sometimes, if the emotional pain was too much, it was this kind of horrible combination of screaming, and sobbing.
I normally have a pretty good memory of my internal monologue. When I have those episodes, there isn't any sense of self. I "remember" my wife kneeling there, holding me, and moving her mouth, with a strange look on her face. I still don't know why I was in so much emotional pain that I screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
I managed to get in check, with some anti-depressants, and psychology appointments three times a week. I think I was worse. I was so numb. Nothing was real. Work. Home. Sleep. Cry. Argue. Like some kind of strange, opaque opaque film, representing my life.
That's when I decided I would kill myself. I still loved my wife dearly, but I knew we wouldn't work. I knew she wouldn't leave me while I was in such a bad way. I acted like I was normal, and told her I just didn't love her anymore. I told her we needed some space. I promised myself I'd do it when she was far enough removed that she would feel no guilt. I told myself I'd keep the therapy up, but that was always there. Like a goal.
I actually lost 50kg, from exercising. I was running 10-15km an evening on weeknights, and 25km every Saturday. I was going to the gym four nights a week. My diet was better, the house was less of a mess. I was more in touch with my feelings.