Splatted Wrote:Mental health problems often have physical causes and the drugs are designed to counter this. Of course, most of the time there will be environmental factors as well, but it's not true to say that doctors who prescribe medication are ignoring the "reasons behind our pain"; the drugs were created as a direct result of attempts understand those reasons.

I'm just talking about generalised anxiety and depression for otherwise healthy people. I can't claim to know anything about other more serious mental health problems. As far as those two are concerned, I don't think you can claim that they often have physical causes. If you're talking about chemical imbalances, then you're probably talking about symptoms. Either way, there's nothing conclusive enough to justify artificially altering someone's brain chemistry. And are these studies ever going to find anything to the contrary when the immeasurable cognitive processes of the mind are completely outside of their scope?

Read about the role of the HPA axis in the stress response, and then find somebody suffering from depression who didn't suffer long-term stress and anxiety prior to their depression. A habituated stress response can highly sensitise your autonomic nervous system, which can create a devastating cycle of stressing about stress, until your glands are spent and your lust for life follows them. When somebody measures your brain chemistry at this point, what do you think they find?

For some reason, stress is often completely overlooked. As far as I remember, somebody was actually citing an overactive HPA axis as a 'genetic cause' of depression in the previous thread. If prescribing questionable drugs while completely ignoring the history of habituated adrenaline release isn't ignoring the "reasons behind our pain", then I'm not sure what is.

It's easier to believe in the medication. It's not your fault if it's physical, especially if your doctor is telling you that. But there's nothing wrong with having a psychological problem, and good medicine should encompass the mind (not just the brain) as much as the body. Personally, I don't take drugs lightly and I don't blindly assume anybody knows what's best for me (anymore). I was able to solve my own problem with a completely natural approach, and the results will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Good information and a bit of determination can go a long way. If that's too hard for some people, there's plenty of help out there that isn't in capsule form; you just need to look for it. If you've given up and your life's hell and a course of pills can change that, then go for it. Just don't make it the first stop.

ta12121 Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:Sad that I feel that I have to post it once again on this forum, but well...
Hope that a third time won't come.
http://www.urshirts.com/images/bong_big.jpg

I thought that said: "Can we all just get a bang"

I almost choked on that.

I have to agree with the idea that it is not an issue of introvert/extrovert you're having Raschaverak, those are sign of depressions. You could have been fat, too skinny, too small, and your topic could have been the same. Those are (and you probably already know it) excuses we find to explain why something doesn't work the way we want.

Your posts talk about what should be, having a girlfriend, parties, friends, success, but you can't have those if you're not happy with yourself. Take care of yourself first, eat, sleep, and maybe see a doctor to see if anything is wrong. You need to come to terms with yourself, and accept yourself as you are now. Doesn't mean you'll always be the same, quite the contrary, you'll definitely change as you work on it. But being happy with yourself will show you how you'll be happy with others.

To restrain from further misinterpretations:

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

jettyke Wrote:To restrain from further misinterpretations:

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

I've noticed this too. It seems to me that there are a lot of self-proclaimed experts on everything on this forum. Yes some people probably know what they are talking about, and no some other people may not, but all these type of threads with a non-Japanese related theme end up as a slanging match by the end.

Still it makes for an interesting read

Does anyone know how to speak louder, with more eloquence? My cluttering is one thing, but I realize my voice is way too silent. More like whispering, all the time. I don't think it's because of depression though... Being an introvert, speaking up, and with more power, requires more energy from me, than from an extrovert for instance. I think there must be techniques out there, with wich someone can self-improve....regarding cluttering, and this silent speaking thing. I've just realized today, that I have a probably healthy amount of self-confidence, but it was / is probably damaged by bipolar depression.
However my self-confidence always vanishes as soon as I have to open my mouth - funny thing is in german or english the problem is not so apparent as in my native hungarian...but I think that curing my depression will not take care of this issue as well...soooo, anyone knows some online materials regarding this? Oh, someone mentioned earlier natural ways of curing depression. I would be very much intrested, in it

The voice, like a lot of things, depends on practice. You feel you have to spend more energy to speak louder because you are not used to it. So my advice would be to do some drama (amateur circles can be found anywhere). You could work on your eloquence at the same time. Also, if you're often alone, you can start singing as often as you can: relearn your ten favorite songs, then you can freestyle on anything you want. The keyword is practice.

Natural ways of curing depression... I'm not sure, but working out, doing creative stuff (writing, drawing...), trying to do everything you did indoors outdoors (reading, studying... you can also meet new people this way) could be a good start. Oh, and meditation also helps.

I have a pretty good idea for improving your voice. Actually, I did this a little a few years ago when I realized how much I mumbled.

You'll need a microphone for your computer, or something else to record audio.

Method 1: Get a poem or some prose that is pretty eloquent, and preferably that you like. In your case, you should find something with a powerful mood. Read a passage and record it with your microphone. After you're finished, listen to the audio. Did it sound like you wanted it to? Pinpoint the parts that didn't sound good, and write them down. Then rerecord it one more time, trying to do a better job. Keep recording it again and again until you get better.

Method 2: Very similar to method one. In this case, listen to a speech or presentation from a very good and powerful speaker. Find the transcript of the speech, or transcribe part of it yourself. Listen to the part you want to practice many times, and then say it yourself and try to imitate it. Once you've done it a few times, record it in your microphone. Just like in method one, keep record it a few times and try to improve each time.

(In English, I like Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens. Sorry, can't help you with Hungarian examples.)
Stephen Fry:

Christopher Hitchens

Practice this a few times a week or every day.

I know it's been said before but it really sounds like you should see a doctor / counsellor / specialist. There are people who have studied and have experience with the conditions you are talking about that could help you a lot more than people on forums (no offense to people trying to help).

The problem with psychiatrists is that they rely on research directly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Surprise! Surprise! They almost always give you drugs as a part of their treatment.

I got to know many psychiatrists while living in Maui. The island is packed with millionaires who desire their services. The advice they were giving patients was in exact contradiction to what the Buddhist lamas were telling me. The psychiatrists tended to be completely miserable themselves, while the lamas where always laughing and enjoying life. Who would you believe?

If you want to make someone even more miserable long-term, advise they see a "doctor".

It's all about money

IceCream Wrote:elhnad, you really don't have even any basic understanding of medicine or how it works,
& you really seem to be pulling ideas wildly out of the air. Perhaps you should start by reading up on it. I just don't have the patience to try to answer you on this until you have.

icecream, Sounds like another ad hominem attack with nothing substantive.

i think you should read this.

How to Become an Easily-Brainwashed Sucker in 5 easy steps!
http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=233
All the steps are quite useful, but here's step 5
5. Be swayed by the ad hominem attack
This is when someone seeks to discredit another person’s argument, not by rationally and systematically addressing the key points of that person’s argument, but by instead attacking that person’s personal character. To call someone unqualified, uneducated, disreputable, or a conspiracy nut, or to claim that they are a pug-ugly loser whose mother engages in the paid distribution of sexual favors, while failing to intelligently refute their arguments, is akin to placing a huge flashing sign above one’s head–one that screams “I cannot intelligently refute this person’s argument to save my life.

SendaiDan Wrote:I've noticed this too. It seems to me that there are a lot of self-proclaimed experts on everything on this forum. Yes some people probably know what they are talking about, and no some other people may not, but all these type of threads with a non-Japanese related theme end up as a slanging match by the end.

Still it makes for an interesting read

I'm probably one of many you were addressing as "experts" above, but I don't proclaim myself to be an expert; I just think there's a lot of ignorant people out there who blindly believe everything told to them and think there's only one best solution to going about things and that we've actually found that out. How arrogant is that? That we think we can do better than nature even though we're constantly evolving and the study of medicine has only been around for a few thousand years while as a species we've lived for so long without it foreign chemicals. I've spent a lot of time looking at this type of info, enough to conclude that it's very complicated and nobody can tell you specifics of everything, but that a few simple rules can keep you healthy without worrying about the minutiae. Though I'm still far from an expert, (and that's why i don't post anything about japanese cuz i'm far a beginner still!)

You bring up a very good point though. It's hard to tell who's actually explored deeply their subjects they try talking about and that it does commonly end in a slanging match. that's why i try to cite the PhD's and doctors because it gives a bit more credence than 2 random posters debating on a japanese forum. It lets you know where these people get their info from as opposed to just debating belief systems. I try to question the things that are just accepted as true, so I'm glad it's interesting for you and maybe others to read. Look at my other posts in the thread about interval training for other mindblowing readings that will make you think.

Take a look at it this way. Imagine if IceCream were on a Nutrition forum, and there was a post about language learning. With her experience here on this forum, anybody HERE would say she's pretty knowledgeable about the subject. And then she posts her idea of SRSing, listening-reading, immersion, etc... all great ideas but then gets railed on by the normal nutrition forum posters for being so non-mainstream, for not advocating the use of language textbooks or classes or products like pimsleur and rosetta stone. that's the way i see it. It's hard to see who's right and which is the better solution

Rascheverak Wrote:Does anyone know how to speak louder, with more eloquence? My cluttering is one thing, but I realize my voice is way too silent.

my dad works as a machinist and so since he was around such loud things all the time, he had to talk loud to make sure he could be heard and that just formed a habit. It just takes practice as with a lot of things in life. I agree with what somebody else saying you have to be happy with yourself before you get things like girlfriends or good jobs or good friends. Not the other way around.

bodhisamaya Wrote:If you want to make someone even more miserable long-term, advise they see a "doctor".

What are you suggesting? Asking people on the internet? Becoming Buddhist?

I don't have any views on medication, and I think there is a lot of good ideas in Buddhism but I think going to a doctor to see what they say is infinitely better than asking people on the internet.

I would not suggest anyone become Buddhist, but getting advice from a teacher who actually is happy is obviously better than getting it from someone who is predictably going to put you on medication. I passionately disagree that psychiatrists know what the heck they are talking about when it comes to treating depression long-term.

Raschaverak Wrote:Does anyone know how to speak louder, with more eloquence? My cluttering is one thing, but I realize my voice is way too silent. More like whispering, all the time.

Do you like puffy sleeve shirts too?

bodhisamaya Wrote:The problem with psychiatrists is that they rely on research directly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Surprise! Surprise! They almost always give you drugs as a part of their treatment.

I got to know many psychiatrists while living in Maui. The island is packed with millionaires who desire their services. The advice they were giving patients was in exact contradiction to what the Buddhist lamas were telling me. The psychiatrists tended to be completely miserable themselves, while the lamas where always laughing and enjoying life. Who would you believe?

Yes! from the enlightened-one himself! to somewhat play the devil's advocate, there are definitely well-intentioned doctors who just don't have time to do this research and so have to follow industry protocol and believe in the pharmaceutical research since they can't verify it themselves. Very rarely special ones will do their due diligence beyond med school and know to beware of big pharma. but hey in every graduating med school class, somebody has to graduate at the bottom, and there will be those (rare?) super greedy doctors who got into the business more for the money as oppoosed to the desire of helping.

To further bodhisamaya's point, one of my best friend's dad is a psychiatrist. In undergrad, he could order pizza for free anytime he wanted because of all the gift certificates his dad got as bribes probably. He could go to the supermarket and eat whatever he wanted. So much gift certificates I was stunned as I was so ignorant back then.

think about what becoming a doctor entails:
You go to school and study really hard for 2 intense years but do you really think you're gonna learn it ALL?
Some info i've come across says most schools don't even make you take a class in nutrition which is a farce; all they want you to take is classes on drugs and their effects. Secondly who's to say what schools are teaching is at the moment reflecting the best uptodate research; schools vary in how they catch up to speed with new info. Take Columbia University Med, which by most ppl's standards is a great school. I heard from one friend who's girlfriend goes there that they are now taught that cholesterol in food has no effect on cholesterol in blood. Do you know how long some renegade doctors have known that and have tried to educate ppl only to be laughed at.

Anyway, then for the next 2 years you do rotations in various fields of medicine, which you study hard but not as hard as first 2 years; you're more in the field shadowing, learning by experience, dealing with people more so than with books. At this point you've start to be raised to be in their system so much so you hardly think about any other possible paradigm of thinking. You go to parties or events catered by Pharm companies and they start off with free pizza or sandwiches.
Then you go into residency program, in which you're worked like dogs with low pay and sometimes having 36-48 hour shifts (with breaks of course but still). Now the networking events catered by Big Pharma has got a level higher to fancy hord'ouevres, clams, alcohol, steaks, etc.
finally you get that good to great salary (depending on specialization), but now you're still working very hard seeing as many patients as quickly as possible because the insurance industry doesn't pay you that much if you don't get clients in and out. You probably always think you're getting underpaid for what you had to go through in school and how you sacrificed your 20's, so when that Pharm rep gives you extra money or gift certificates for allowing his drug to be marketed in your practice, you take it.
You go home and do you really think you're gonna go read that Journal of American Medical Association or the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) to continue your education? Yea right, you probably wanna eat, relax, date, watch football, etc.

Only the rare super nerd will continue reading up on it because that's their passion, not just their job. And that's why i find the blogging community to be a better source of information usually. They are the nerds who are posting to educate for free with less bias and less conflict of interest than somebody who's writing a news article or somebody who's publishing because he was funded to do so. Hey isn't that why we're all on this forum in the first place? Because we think the super authority infallible teachers who propose taking classes and learnign by textbooks is so utterly rubbish. it's obvious to us but not to them. but the rare nerd like Krashen can give us great ideas. Put it this way, if you had a computer problem would you rather go to bestbuy's tech unit or a someone you know who's a huge computer nerd and breathes every moment of it? I'd probably go with the latter since he'll probably do it for free he loves computers so much.

Now even if you read the medical journals, who's to say you can even trust some of these articles anymore by these journals since there is so much ghostwriting paid for by big Pharma to bribe doctors to endorse their products and put positive spins (see prev posts for books on former editors of NEJM tell all).

rant over, NERDS RULE, LOVE YOURSELF and others in various fashions

The Marketing of Madness

bodhisamaya,
have you seen this blog
http://www.zenzenwakaran.co.uk/

I think you should link to it since essentially it is very similar to yours and im sure ppl who've read through yours would love to find other similar ones

i think linking to japanese advanced listening podcast and the nihongo juku blog would be good too

Actually,
I only started the blog a couple of weeks ago as a way of sharing the self-study material I use. So, I am not 100% sure how the whole blogging thing works yet. If you want to improve on what I have there I will give you my password, or copy the information for your own blog to display the improvements there. I have no attachment to it :-)

bodhisamaya Wrote:The Marketing of Madness

Interestingly enough, turns out this is issued by the Church of Scientology. Way to attack researchers for funding bias.

yea documentaries are usually very strongly biased, understandably so since they're trying to get as many ppl to watch and will release the strongest impression. and then the filmmaker is just depending on the expertise of his interviewees which could be sketchy

in any case that post was good in showing bias, but did nothing to show that the scientologists views on psychoactive drugs are wrong.

The fact that Scientologists produced the documentary doesn't make it any less factual in the information given. It just meant they used a little dark animation and mood music to go with their numbers. Watch all the segments and the evidence built up is pretty damning.

Wow, even Tzadeck couldn't keep this thread from going off the rails. I'm carefully avoiding eye contact and backing away slowly. Hmm now that I look, I think Tzadeck instigated it all! Very crafty.

elhnad Wrote:in any case that post was good in showing bias, but did nothing to show that the scientologists views on psychoactive drugs are wrong.

Well, that was my only intention.

bodhisamaya Wrote:The fact that Scientologists produced the documentary doesn't make it any less factual in the information given. It just meant they used a little dark animation and mood music to go with their numbers. Watch all the segments and the evidence built up is pretty damning.

Well, if you've ever been into a scientology place, you would know that the very first thing they do is give you a screening "personality" questionnaire, that is actually extremely like a psychological evaluation, except way more long winded and boring.

Having declared you depressed, they then go on to urge you to join them to find happiness, and recommend you buy at least 10 of their books.

Now, any reason they wouldn't want people going to the doctor instead of joining their cult and donating all their money to them...?

ok, i'm going to talk a little more about that documentary, because i watched the whole thing and it IS quite convincing. The problem is, it's also EXTREMELY biased, and twists all sorts of things to fit their view on the mental health industry. i have absolutely no problem in believing that the medicine industry is horribly shady. i would beleive that as a starting point! They are, after all, businesses, and driven by profit.

However, one of the problems with that program is that it's based entirely on America. As you may be aware, the health services in Europe are very very different to those in America. Certainly in the UK, and in many other countries, the health service is NOT run by sales of any type. On the contrary, because all the services are provided through the NHS, and therefore tax payers money, there is a constant battle to keep costs down. This means that doctors are under pressure to NOT prescribe medicine where it's not necessary, and to use non patented drugs wherever it's possible, because of the massive differences in the cost between those pills in well branded boxes, and those other pills with the same makeup made by someone else.
Advertising of prescription medicine is not legal in the UK, at least, and i assume for the rest of Europe too.
...and doctors do often suggest non medical solutions. You will be told to get an excersise routine and keep it (i got told off by the doctor for this just the other week). You can also get some form of CBT, social skills training, and various other means of support from doctors.

So whenever Americans are advising people from countries that don't have a similar medical system to America not to go to the doctors, please be aware that you're talking to people from an entirely different culture in that respect. If people are running to the doctors at the first sign of unhappiness to get anti-depressants in America, of course that isn't good. But that isn't the culture here, as i know it, at least. I don't know anyone who would take anti-depressants that easily. I'd say it's far, far more likely to be the last resort than the first.

As for the rest of the program's claims, the things like "it's not a good idea to give antidepressant and antipsychotics to pregnant women and children" are very true, but doctors here are also very aware of that, and don't except in exceptional circumstances.

The things like psychological problems are entirely made up, and antidepressants have no effect obviously aren't true.

Things like the side effects and problems withdrawing do exist, but they twisted them to make them sound a lot more problematic than they are in real life, and generally listed the least common, and worst side effects that there can ever be.

etc.