fellow_human

It's funny your term "vortexing" has an actual name in the world of psychology, it's called dissociation. Anyway well done for realizing these things, it's taken me years of continued therapy to keep making progress on mental health. I only brought it up because I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. :)

The "Chemical Imbalance" hypothesis is extremely simplistic and seems very appealing to believe amongst the HN crowd. Unfortunately the evidence for it has been sorely lacking and within the past couple of decades more psychologists have been advocating for a wholistic understanding of mental illness. That is it has causes which are complex. It is a mix of childhood experiences, relationships, maladapted development and many other individual circumstances.

Read more here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/why-we-...

Try psychodynamic therapy, it works to treat the root causes of depression, not offerring a magic chemical imbalance pill that makes you dissassociate from the root causes of sufferring.

The golden standard of depression treatment is long term talk therapy to actually work with the qualitative nature of ones depressive thoughts and sufferring and resolve those feelings, not magic chemical imbalance pills that don't actually work much better than a placebo and cause disassociation from ones real life problems.

Your appeal to reductio ad absurdum here fails because it's not established that SSRIs work by restoring an imbalance. SSRIs are only little more effective than a placebo, suggesting there's something deeper at play with regards to depression. Yes they may be an effective measure in serious cases of depression but they certainly are not a cure and many people do not just turn "normal functioning" after SSRI treatments like you're suggesting. The disease model of depression simply is not true.

Glucosamine is taken a lot by runners as its promoted as a suppliment that helps cartilidge in the knees. Runners are unlikely to be current smokers and more likely to be working their lungs in a healhty way.

With all the common sense replies explaining why, I guess this was not the real question at all.

I think "social construct" is the term you're looking for and yes every culture on earth relies on social constructs to navigate reality.

I'm not saying porn should be banned, I'm just think people are misinformed that there are no consequences to it, or that it's harmless.

Just like the solution to drug addiction isn't making drug usage illegal, neither is banning porn.

> Stats are showing that women are consuming lots of porn now too.

And that somehow makes porn nice and healthy does it?

> Personally I'd do away with 'mainstream' porn, my inner voyeur likes the homemade stuff too much.

I'm not sure I understand your argument, nor confident you understand mine. Just because a couple make homemade videos together and post them up, it doesn't mean the viewer who is getting sexual gratification has any sort of real connection to the performers. It's complete fantasy, dependant on the human body as solely as means of sexual gratification rather than any wholistic context. Now take that mindset to to the real world as see how maladapted it leaves you. Here in the UK there's an epidemic of highscool aged girls being pressured into sending nude images by boys. Of course porn can't be to blame for all of this, but I'm sure it plays a big part.

I'd also like to point out nothing I'm talking about is related to morality (since you mentioned it). Whatever people want to spend their time doing is up to them. I'm simply making the argument that porn can be harmful and lots of mainstream porn is really focused around turning women into sex objects and outlets for dealing with displaced emotions. I've no doubt that there's something deeper that drives your voyeurism too, maybe inquiring about that might make you pursue something more fulfilling than images on the internet.

Let's stop pretending there are no consequences to porn.

> A lot of people don't (and in my opinion, shouldn't) conflate such a primal activity as "sacred". Is it really a good idea to put sex up on a pedestal?

I think people should have a realistic view of what sex is. It certainly is not a mechanical & purely physical act (perhaps thats what you mean by "primal"). Sex represented in porn tends be unrealistic and treats women as objects purely for male gratification, to use as some sort of sexual punching bag and evacuate feelings. Essentially it teaches viewers to dehumanise women and dissassociate from real life.

Trauma leads to changes in brain chemistry that can cause reenactment behaviors until the trauma gets resolved

https://lakesidemilam.com/blog/trauma-stress-repetition-comp...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330499/

> It was so traumatic .... Lena decided to go back two more times to do more humiliation scenes with same producer. $$$$

I'm not sure if you're trying to imply snarkily that because Lena went back to do more pornography shoots that she is lying about her experience and trauma. But just in case that is what you're implying it's worth me pointing out that repitition is a very common consequence of sufferring a trauma. The mental effects of trauma cause a cycle of trauma re-enactment behaviors.

https://lakesidemilam.com/blog/trauma-stress-repetition-comp...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2664732/

Similarly, a brick has the ability to deep sea dive!

People will just be giving you advice based on their own subjective values. It might be stuff like "spend more time with your family" or "make sure you're contributing to your pension" or some other abitrary thing someone older is kicking *themselves* about. I'm turning 29 soon. One thing I've learned is you should make sure you are able to listen to yourself and live life according to your own values whatever they may be. We all have to die sometime so I guess make sure you're making the most of your time here on earth according to what *you* truly value. That will surely be time well spent. I understand that this might be paradoxical given I'm clearly giving you advice based on my own values which is self knowledge. My conclusion is why look to others for life advice given that there are practically an unlimited number of ways you can live life, you probably have the answers inside yourself. (EDIT: Psychotherapy might help you find those answers)

Not to mention the fact that neither comment says which country or region they're based in. I suspect these things can vary a lot by geography, yet both are making very generalized statements.

Vaccinations can bring us closer to herd immunity too. Or at least take the load of the hospital system by covering off the vulnerable population.

Also amusing that the HN title omitted the word "rare" from the title of the original article (and is the only change). Can't help but feel there was a specific intent behind that decision.

An obvious example of this is pop music. Often following the verse chorus form and also different genres having different constraints in terms of instruments used.

I only skim read the article, but I think it's missing a key section which is "strong relationships". Having the right people around you and having a sense of connection with those people can have a dramatically positive effect on your well-being. Aside from that I agree that it's good to invest in your mental health like you would physical. Definately take the time out to learn how to look after your own mental well-being and you will probably see benefits translate to all areas of your life.

I think it is a remarkable achievement regardless of young or old. I think it would be difficult for both adult and children, but achievable by both, just very tedious.

Thank you for going to the effort of letting me know that. I will be checking out the book. Knowledge can definitely be power when healing.

Fair enough, I did probably knee jerk or interpret things in the wrong way. Will give it a go perhaps. I'm currently using the headspace app which I suspect is a similar approach.

That would explain why I've been using dreams as a sort of indicator of progress for my time in therapy and working through my anxiety and depression. Certain things I've been anxious or angry about and held on to have been 'resolved' symbolically in dreams leaving me to feel a bit lighter upon waking up. Also just in general my nightmares have gotten less, the more I've been able to work through anxiety.

What cultural practices are you referring to? Every non-white cultural practice? That would be proving my point.

I never stated there was value in every non-western cultural practice, only that the value that actually does exists is easy to dismiss away as "superstitious beliefs" (or mystic bullshit) until one of the "in-group" convinces us otherwise. No doubt, it's a good thing science now backs up meditative benefits to an individual, but it shows a certain level of arrogance if everyones culture is bullshit or backwards until [insert popular science guy] has confirmed otherwise.

Perhaps whiteness is irrelevant, perhaps not. Socioeconomic background was controlled for the fact that the participants were from the middle class. Whether that's inherent to the US population due to the fact that it's a big part of it, or not is irrelevant. Unless I've missed your point?

> Even the studies that have passed the test of time look a little weird. The Adverse Childhood Experiences study found that obesity and other seemingly nonpsychiatric diseases were linked to child abuse, and recent studies confirm this – but the controls for socioeconomic status are always insufficient, and there’s surprisingly little shared environmental component.

I'm not sure of the author is purposefully ignorant about this, but the original ACE study was done on middle class households, 75% white. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/17/6487108...

Wondering what the disclaimer would be? And why wouldn't it apply to a talk therapist?

Sounds like a depressing fantasy painted as brutal reality. Maybe an enticing belief for those of us here who are also depressed, but just a fantasy nonetheless.

This is absolutely true in my experience. Going to my therapist I realized that I spent all my time focusing on negative outcomes for a given life problem of mine. So much so that the failure to imagine a more optimistic outcome left me paralyzed to act. This paralysis left me feeling hopeless and depressed. As I talked things over I realized that:

1) We have a perverse tendency to reinforce our existing views in new experiences. For example, if one believes he/she is not a very charming and likable persom, every opportunity to make a new friend may thrown away because the person doesn't have confidence to present themselves in an interesting way or the person may misinterpret another's neutral body language as a negative signal during a conversation.

2) Experience is the best teacher. Experience etches things into our subconscious. If negativity is etched in our brains then it takes a strong conscious effort to over turn it. This can potentially scary because the effort to experience a positive outcome may result is us being beat down further. But we have to see it for what it is, one experience, the next may end differently. Overcoming depression requires concious effort, hope and resiliencey. This is not something that happens overnight.