Redefining Mentally Ill

[Recovery4Me]

I would rather be called a survivor because that is what I did

Gizmo, I just couldn't bring myself to check like because you shared that your son had passed. God Bless you, I too lost a child and I call myself a survivor as well.

So...please hear my deep sympathy and respect for your share.

~~~~~
This is a tricky thread to navigate (for me) and I think everyone here has been very respectful with even some fine tuning involved as well as retractions where need be. If we expect the outside world to understand our plight, we must be a unified team to present the correct picture. jmho So this is a good start among us.

I thank everyone for opening up and keeping us anchored with such tolerance for everyone's offer. I am proud to be among such a group.

 

[Pencil]

Apologies for multiple postings - that was a technical glitch, and not trying to be funny.

<mod edit to add: duplicate postings have been fixed, @Pencil. No worries>

 

[Pencil]

Because you don't want to be with your abusers (you are saying this) and people like me;

Nope, she never said or implied that, which confirms my suspicion that you're not getting her point.

 

[katz]

I agree 100% with you on what to call PTSD. I was considered "mentally ill" for a long time. Even today, my family sees me as this. None of them want to support me as I try to cope. However, when a doctor finally labeled it as PTSD- in front of my parents- my mothers mouth dropped open. It was such a relief to finally know that it was not me! But, I still have no support from the family. It was just "forgotten" and life went on. But, it was such a relief to me that since then, I don't "seizure" out (completely disassociate any more!) Yeah! They also took me off all my "seizure" meds while I was at the hospital. Since then...no "seizures", no "stepping out"--as the family called it.
I have always called myself a "survivor", instead of "victim" but I have had therapists tell me that I am not that either. I no longer see her!

 

[shimmerz]

Because you don't want to be with your abusers (you are saying this) and people like me; the mentally ill.

I am not saying this at all. I would like to withdraw from conversation with you as well as this is going nowhere. Thank you for recognizing when enough is enough as have I.

just as you can have arthritis and your abuser can be diabetic, both physically ill but very different things.

And if we were to treat arthritis as if it was diabetes I bet we would have a huge mess. I feel like it is the same with mental illness. Yes, we can have physical illness - however people recognize that these ailments are unique. I am afraid that this society lumps mental illness into pedophilia, schizophrenia, PTSD, BPD, psychosis, neurosis, etc without distinction (as was noted by @joeylittle when he said it was fine that he was lumped into the same box as a pedophile but that was okay with him).

So pedophiles, if they feel badly about what they do rate the dsm but if they don't, don't? I can attest to the fact that I as a victim don't give a rats tohooty if my pedophile abuser feels badly or not! The fallout for me was equally tragic regardless of whether he felt badly or not. How about all pedophiles rate the dsm?

Am I healthy mentally? Well, if PTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation, then I am going to say that yes, I am healthy. Given the flashbacks which are leading me to clarity, the somatics that are leading me to understand what happened to me, the night terrors that put pieces of the puzzle together - this is the process and I welcome it - to get to a better perspective of what I need to process.

Being lumped into the same category of say a diabetic when I have diabetes is not at all healthy for anyone. Being lumped in with pedophiles when I have been abused by one - not healthy.

Am I a survivor? Not quite yet. Am I healing? Yes.

 

[shimmerz]

I just don't think it's as simple as reversing the concept of mentally ill; not unless you could go back to the beginning and re-invest the terminology.

Exactly. And that is what I am trying to get to here. How do we reverse engineer the terminology used so that there is a distinction? Thereby we could identify those who chronically abuse and deal with them in such a way that innocents are not wounded for their entire life?

I believe this would also help those who are currently labelled as mentally ill in such a way that they do not have to fight the prejudices that come with those who are chronic and abhorrent abusers of those more vulnerable than themselves?

 

[scout86]

So pedophiles, if they feel badly about what they do rate the dsm but if they don't, don't?

How they FEEL about it doesn't have anything to do with it, I don't think. To get the label, someone has to give it to them. You get a label if you voluntarily get assessed and diagnosed (you & me) or if the court orders you to be assessed and diagnosed ("them"?), or if, for some other reason, you get assessed and diagnosed. Not having the official label doesn't mean you're ok, it just means you don't have the label.

There IS a lot of misunderstanding about mental illness. There are a lot of stereotypes and a lot of confusion. Education is probably the best answer to that. There is a lot that is simply unknown, yet, about causes of things. Many factors appear to interact in a lot of cases. I don't think mental illness is a "choice" though, for anyone. A sociopath may think she/he is perfect in every way and the rest of the world was created for their amusement. As a "sick person", their "sickness" may seem like an excellent choice to them, but they didn't CHOSE to be that way in the beginning. How that got that way, I don't know, but even for them, I don't think it's a choice.

Sadly, it is also true that some pedophiles are victims as well as perpetrators. I can't help but wonder how different people can experience the same things and come out of it so differently. Even here, I can't help but notice how differently PTSD is manifest in different people. It seems like some of us tend towards "fight", some towards "flight", and some towards "freeze". You can have some pretty different versions of the same condition. One person has agoraphobia, I'd freak out if you told me I couldn't leave my house. (It's a trap! :confused:)

 

[shimmerz]

@scout86, I know of several perps who absolutely have made the choice to humiliate, devalue, destroy others. My victimization wasn't a choice in the past but I choose to deal with it....this is part of my issue with those who choose not to deal but that do harm others - for life.

 

[joeylittle]

<I've edited my post because I incorrectly quoted @shimmerz and made a bit of a thread mess. Apologies>

 

[anthony]

To be perfectly honest, I think this is all a bit redundant. There are two terms used to describe illness, mentally ill and physically ill. The first describes an illness of the conscious brain, the second an illness of the body.

What if all the perpetrators were called to task? Who would we be then?

There is such a thing as just a bad person. There are lots of bad people... sure, some no doubt are mentally ill to some degree from their own lives, some are just bad people and they get a rush, feel excited, doing bad shit.

I believe the statistics for traumatic stress based disorders within US prison populations is above 50%.

Not everything in this world has a hidden agenda. Some people are just good, some people are just bad.

The more common reasons people do bad things, is because they don't have something, want it, have to power to take it, and make a snap decision to use that power to take something that isn't theirs. There is a reason why violence is so high in poorer populous than medium class populous. Many see others having things, things they worked for and earned... the not haves want it, so they choose to do bad and take it, regardless of the other person.

Culture has more to do with bad things happening than mental health. You're barking up the wrong tree and need to research that topic, and you will find culture is the leading cause of issues, not mental health.

I do understand one may think its as easy as labelling mental health on anyone who does something bad... but it just isn't the case, and has far more to do with demographics and cultural upbringing than anything else.

 

[Recovery4Me]

@joeylittle

http://

The Change
"Additional changes in DSM-5 include a rethinking of paraphilic disorders. While their diagnostic criteria remain unchanged from DSM-IV, the updated manual distinguishes between paraphilic behaviors, or paraphilias, and paraphilic disorders. A paraphilic disorder is a "paraphilia that is currently causing distress or impairment to the individual or a paraphilia whose satisfaction has entailed personal harm, or risk of harm, to others."

 

[joeylittle]

Thanks @Recovery4Me - that's the same as the info I posted, either distress to self or cause distress to others...