this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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[–] LengAwaits@lemmy.world 83 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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[–] BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one 54 points 1 year ago

It's seldom covered in any decent capacity by most work or private health insurance unless you target it directly and lose out on other options.

Most offices are corner cutting so hard that the following week, you might have a new therapist/counselor that has no frame of reference beyond the former's patient folder on you.

A lot of therapy is just a gotcha for Christian and religious bullshit.

Therapy and mental health is often seen as a sign of weakness for men, who often times never open up or seek help to begin with due to the stigma.

This isn't a huge conundrum. It's pretty easy to understand.

[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s capitalism. It’s always capitalism. Explained here and here.

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My therapist asked me about what stresses me out the most. I said "rent doubled". She said, "Yeah there's no therapy for that." Then we chuckled and sighed deeply while we looked for something more lighthearted to talk about, like my father's disappointment at me.

[–] the_q@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Our mental health is getting worse because life on this planet is getting worse. It's not rocket science.

[–] bigschnitz@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am shocked that a market based healthcare system that prioritizes profits manages to lock people into lucrative consumer cycles where they're conditioned to rely on medications or treatments that don't cure them. I am shocked.

Completely unrelated, it's very noticeable how everyone is medicated and has mental health problems since I've moved to the US, weirdly back in Australia where the health system is different it's less common. What are the odds of that...

[–] iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Oi cunt. Strallya!

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So it's that the treatment is intentionally ineffective?

It's not that the US is a worse place to live?

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Without reading the article I'm gonna guess that it's because work, politics and culture have got you all so permanently stressed and anxious that you turn on each at the slightest upset like sharks scenting blood.

[–] MisterScruffy@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We live in a world that rewards narcissistic asshole behavior and nothing else. It's fucking depressing no amount of therapy will change that.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But some drugs might help you change your brain chemistry to be as narcissistic or just so singular focused that you can't think about being depressed because you are focused on repetitive task work.

And isn't that the fix that we all need?

[–] DeathMagnum7@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Alternate reading of the headline: "We're using more bandages than ever- why are people still getting cuts?"

[–] Harpsist@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

If your boat is on fire. And has been for a while. And you start throwing water on it - but at the same time someones at the top of the boat are actively throwing gasoline everywhere - you aren't going to put out the fire.

[–] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is our mental health getting worse, or are we more aware of mental health issues? The article mentions how more people seek therapy now than 20 years ago and how more people are reporting their mental health as not good. However, I wonder how many people back then had mental health issues that they suffered in silence with. There used to be more of a stigma with having mental health disorders which led to people not seeking treatments (which of course led to less diagnoses). Someone with anxiety or depression would live with it or chalk it up to a character flaw or might think that what they're dealing with was what everyone dealt with, but they probably wouldn't seek therapy or tell anyone that their mental health is poor. So I do think that part of it is people acknowledging their struggles with mental health more now than ever.

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

I think this is a big factor in the uptick of MH cases being reported. It's more okay to seek out help, so it gets reported more. The cases were still there 20 years ago.

When the military started to crack down on sexual assault and made it more "friendly" to report being a victim the number of cases reported went up. The cases where always there. Now we have a better idea of what we didn't know before.

[–] CaptFeather@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

It's the same thing with more lgbqt+ people. They've always existed, but since it's more and more acceptable to come out more people are comfortable than ever before, despite the right screaming that kids are being "indoctrinated".

[–] NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's an interesting article and worth a full read. But I'll bullet point the main problems with mental healthcare it describes (based on my comprehension of the article):

  • Over and misdiagnosis - since mental health disorders are based on symptoms which often overlap with other conditions, misdiagnosis is common. Also, diagnosis is inherently subjective and depends on the therapists impressions and the quality of information the patient gives
  • Therapy itself doesn't work for everyone, and when it does it often takes a lot of time. People expect to head into one or two therapy sessions and have all their problems solved. Also, some forms of therapy have less evidence of effectiveness.
  • Since therapy is hard, time consuming, and costly, therapists often resort to prescribing meds. Antidepressants in particular are far less effective than people perceive. At best antidepressants can slightly help improve your mood, but the hard work of therapy is needed to address the underlying issues, which often doesn't happen.
  • What often has the biggest benefits are strategies that help people manage the stressors, habits, and circumstances of their lives. Traditional therapy often isn't geared toward that, and there is only so much any therapy can do because...
  • A lot of our mental health is based on societal factors and our circumstances, and you can't just talk your way out living with all of this gestures vaguely at everything
  • The rise of app based mental healthcare is good in that it expanda access, but the quality is shit.
[–] sadreality@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

and you can’t just talk your way out living with all of this gestures vaguely at everything

Chad analysis

The rise of app based mental healthcare is good in that it expanda access, but the quality is shit.

Careful peeps, they leak data too... which could cause a lot of mental health stressors. So got to keep that in mind when dealing unreliable tech merchants or really any of them.

[–] Flashoflight@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong because I have trouble understanding this. But someone told me the other day that I’m the height of the Great Depression,1931(?), that the average American was making 88k in todays dollar.

Today the average American is making 33k. Is this true?

If this is true that would totally explain the amount of mental illness on top of climate change concerns. If it is true I don’t know why more people wouldn’t be talking about it

[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

A lot of those claims are based on tax return numbers, which radically overestimate the average salary back then because only the richest people actually filed taxes during that time.

Don't get me wrong, we're not in a good place, but it's not peak great depression bad.

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[–] EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Idk anything about that, but I have heard that the wealth disparity is worse than pre-revolution France

[–] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As far as a percentage of your annual income goes, during the Great Depression houses were cheaper than they are today.

Shit, buying a house then was cheaper than RENTING today.

[–] sadreality@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can't comment on 88K figure

But for current times... 33k is a bit to low. I think official stats is that wage is 39K for all working adults. and closer to 50k for full time working adults. these are median, not averages. ie 50% makes less, 50% make more.

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[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I'll choose "every politician is a lying grifter" for $500, Alex.

[–] chakan2@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

It's pretty simple...the people that really need mental health services can't afford it.

Antidepressants aren't cheap if you're on the designer drugs...and they're the first ones recommend by most doctors.

[–] Naura@startrek.website 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's because it begins very young. I've seen my friend hit her SIX MONTH OLD because they reached out to grab glasses that she puts in front of her. To train up a child? some bullshit religious "child training" program is often used in religious communities.

More frequent parental punitive discipline was significantly associated with smaller dorsal striatal volume in children, consistent with research demonstrating striatal differences following exposure to severe early life stress. Moreover, these results are consistent with a growing body of research linking normative variation in parental care with children’s brain structure. They align more specifically with recent work linking negative parenting (e.g., aggressive behavior, hostility) with reward processing neuroanatomy in adolescents and frontal-striatal functional connectivity in children.

Smaller dorsal striatal volume was significantly associated with higher depressive symptoms in children, consistent with previous work that has mainly focused on MDD in adolescents or adults. Thus, this study extends previous work by showing similar associations in a community sample of children who did not have psychiatric diagnoses. These findings suggest that changes in striatal morphology may precede the onset of MDD, [Major depressive disorder] which typically occurs in adolescence or adulthood

Parental Punitive Discipline and Children’s Depressive Symptoms: Associations with Striatal Volume

People are literally damaging their children's brain by using punitive discipline / stressors.

"I got spanked and I'm ok" just is not true.

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

People were far more abusive to their kids in the past, so that doesn't really explain why depression is getting worse now.

[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Because they were depressed and had a litany of other issues. Since it was taboo to talk about (and confront) those issues they developed fucked up coping mechanisms. Like hitting their kids/spouse. Explosive tempers, or just being an asshole. Drinking, gambling, cheating, etc.

Two of my grandparents were hardcore alcoholics that drank themselves to death after attempting suicide multiple times (which I only heard about as an adult). The third succeeded in hanging themself. The fourth lived to old age and was one of the nastiest, most narcissistic people I've met.

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Sure, so then why are mental health issues appearing to get worse, despite the fact that people were so depressed they beat their kids all the time in the past?

Simple, we're just better at diagnosing and treating it now, and people are more comfortable admitting to it now.

We're not worse mental health wise, we're a hell of a lot better than in the past. People are just more willing to talk about it now, and not try to have a stiff upper lip like with past generations.

[–] BeardedBaker@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Back then everyone smoked 100 cigarettes everyday.

[–] Naura@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually that makes sense. studies show epigenetic gene expression and its connections to depression. Conflicts like world war 2, that happened 80 years ago could be affecting us today. Abuse our parents, grandparents, great grandparents had to deal with could be the reason why we are more depressed.

I come from a family who lived in okinawa in 1945, my grandparents was part of children who were made to fight/work by the japanese imperial navy. They came here to the US for a better life. It was better but that didn’t change the fact that my grandparents went through that.

My entire family (3 generations) suffers from depression. My kids have never been abused so they don’t have depression but they are one stressful event away from being depressed.

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

We're not more depressed now, we're just more open about it and seeking help. Sure out grandparents had a rough go of it, but so did their parents, and their paretns parents, and on and on throughout history.

Before World War 2, you had the Great Depression. Before that World War 1 and the Spanish Flu. Before that you had colonialism, slavery, and horrific working conditions. Before that you had the black death. Before that you had less than a 50% chance of reaching adulthood.

People were definitely more depressed in the past, they were just shamed into having a stiff upper lip and not talking about it.

[–] PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because we haven’t exterminated the conservatives.

[–] stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Conservatives or their ideologies that no longer serve us

[–] HipHoboHarold@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On top of the other comments, I'm also depressed because I don't see myself having much of a future. I'm likely not going to be able to retire because I won't be able to afford it. We are already seeing people reite later and later. It's a slow build, sure. But where are we gonna be in the next 30 years when I should be at that age? Am I gonna be working till I'm 75? Can we even retire at all? Most of us can't get enough money to build a retirement fund. We are way behind fancially where we should be. That's not only harming us now, but at this point I've seen a lot of people say they just don't have any hope at retirement. It's just no longer a thing people are striving for, because it doesn't look like it's gonna be possible. Right now you're looking at needing around a million for many people, and we can't even get a couple thousand saved up.

On top of that, I have to worry about global warming. Which not only will fuck up things even more for the stuff in the first part, but I don't even know if I'll be alive to retire. And living is gonna fucking suck in so many ways. I'm in Oregon, and we have fires every year now. Last year we had some days reach 115°F. Things are going to be fucked.

It's sometimes hard to be happy and optimistic when there's not a lot to look forward to in the future.

[–] Shadywack@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I'm old enough to remember a time when the future seemed bright and optimistic. It felt like everyone was excited about what's next, and we wanted to get to the future more quickly. In the late 80's and part of the 90's we had tv shows like "Beyond 2000" that painted this utopian future, and all the promises of the democratization of ideas and information were promised by the internet.

Now it's just wealth gaps, social media poisoning society at large, climate change intensifying, and the consolidation of the social middle class into a uniform lower class. We don't see the seeds of any positive change, and only expect things to get worse.

The one thing I can say is that the future also looked bleak around WW2. We had come off a world war, pandemic, the Titanic sinking, and then went right into WW2. I could understand why people back then had even more dire survival types of concerns. Not that it makes us feel any better today, because the catalysts for progressive changes back then were horrifying events.

If anything that makes me feel worse, as the true fix for today's issues mean we have to be super-fucked before it'll get better. Right now we're just fucked.

[–] DigitalTraveler42@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

How do they think we've hit peak therapy? I can't even find a therapist for my autistic son, and it takes months to find a therapist willing to take on new clients, mental healthcare in America is at least twice as broken as physical healthcare, with the exception of dental care, which is absolutely horrendous.

[–] TowerofPimps@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

America! F yeah!

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