# If you haven't made progress in therapy, this may be the reason.



## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

I have heard this sort of thing before, but seeing this article today really made me stop dead in my tracks. Could it be that we live in a dark age in which people don't know what mental illness is, don't know how to diagnose it, and don't know how to treat it? I spent years rambling about my abusive father -- who was genuinely abusive -- but I hardly ever mentioned the series of infections I had as a child, including ear infections. I worked with animals, even as a very small child, and possibly was exposed to a lot of pathogens.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...-if-were-wrong-about-the-cause-mental-illness


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

In an ironic way, I can see a connection between this and the news about James Holmes:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...n-jury-decision-reflects-death-penalty-trends

If people start finding genuinely *biological* explanations for mental illness -- as opposed to medieval hocus pocus about "chemical imbalances" -- then it will look less and less appropriate to punish people for major crimes. So naturally there is a certain resistance to seeing mental illness in these terms, a tendency to keep talking about bad parenting. You may ask why strep infection would let someone off the hook while having nasty parents would not. Rationally, I can see that there shouldn't be a difference. But, for some reason, people seem to react very differently to those different sorts of explanations. Someone with bad parents is a bad person, flawed character. Someone who had an infection just needs a doctor.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

Insignificant Other said:


> In an ironic way, I can see a connection between this and the news about James Holmes:
> 
> http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justic...n-jury-decision-reflects-death-penalty-trends
> 
> If people start finding genuinely *biological* explanations for mental illness -- as opposed to medieval hocus pocus about "chemical imbalances" -- then it will look less and less appropriate to punish people for major crimes. So naturally there is a certain resistance to seeing mental illness in these terms, a tendency to keep talking about bad parenting. You may ask why strep infection would let someone off the hook while having nasty parents would not. Rationally, I can see that there shouldn't be a difference. But, for some reason, people seem to react very differently to those different sorts of explanations. Someone with bad parents is a bad person, flawed character. Someone who had an infection just needs a doctor.


Bit of a rant incoming 

This is very interesting to me as it touches on notions of blame and desert (not the foodular kind).

So, my position on this kind of thing is this (and this also ends up applying to all behaviour and not just the arbitrary cut off points of 'mental illness').

1)The mind isn't separate from the brain.

This sounds irrelevant (and obvious) but really its an important point which I think clouds peoples thinking. Fundamentally without your brain, you can't think, and how you think is dependent 100% on how your brain operates. Obviously there is huge variation in how people think right from the start (you can observe the difference in behaviour in babies). Every desire we have, every trait we exhibit is down to how our brains operate. It is important when considering behaviour to constantly remind ourselves of this because we have a tendency to fall into thinking things such as 'its just in the mind' as if the mind isn't entirely dependent on the brain.

2)The brain can be conditioned by the environment.

Again, its obvious, but its what is being talked about when 'bad childhood' comes up. Ultimately we are talking about brains being placed in unpleasant conditions and the brains doing their best to adapt to those conditions (or not being able to adapt to those conditions). So you put a brain in conditions of abuse and stress and there is a high chance that 'mental illness' will result. This, of course, is no guarantee, because of 1). Some brains will be more resistant to stress, and others less so.

So when looking at behaviour, we need to forget all of this nonsense about people making _choices_, and thus 'deserving' their fates. It is meaningless because a brain is going to operate in its environment according to how it is built to operate. In 'curing' mental illness we are ultimately talking about either reconditioning the brain (and undoing the damages done by a bad environment) or modifying directly how the brain operates.

So with therapies, what are the chances a therapy can do this? - how likely is it that 'discussing your childhood' would reverse the years of conditioning and brain modification that such stresses invoked? What about CBT, would this work? would an hour being told how to 'filter' your thoughts help? (its more possible than talking about your childhood, if it were done over a long period of time, but I would guess it will fall terribly short of fixing the situation, especially if there is a significant biological component involved).

If you have ever taken in an animal that has suffered abuse (or even a few years on the street) you will understand that whilst you can modify their behaviour to some degree, it takes a lot of time, and a lot of care. Such animals though often are simply incapable of achieving a state comparable to had they been raised in a stress free environment. This, I would guess is because the environment has modified how the brain operates in a physical way. It can be reversed, but not completely.

That people can _understand language_ doesn't make them any different. We assume because an individual can be talked to and made to understand 'what is good or bad', or what 'they should and shouldn't do' that they will then be able to act on this. Unfortunately this is just a manifestation of failing to understand point 1). Understanding something does not magically change how the brain operates (and has been conditioned to operate). It is why we can't just 'think ourselves' out of mental illness. Either the brain needs to be directly modified, or long term care needs to be applied in order to recondition the brain.

So what do we do in society with an individual who has suffered immense stress, and / or a brain that fundamentally is different from other brains?

We give them (if they are lucky) 6 weeks of CBT and some drugs which dampen their emotions. They are expected to somehow be able to alter their own brains and conditioning with the power of their own thoughts, and just 'get on with it'. We say things like:

'I can manage in society and so should you be able to'. 'Man up ffs'. 'You are weak and deserve it'. 'Why don't you just stop doing that?'. etc

Dark ages indeed.


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## skyisblue (Nov 7, 2014)

I agree with the theme of what splendidbob said a lot. Very good stuff. Especially the shaming tactics near the end of his post, those hit home because we hear them all the time. Espeically 'Why don't you stop doing that?'

As smart as humans are, we are mostly a big product of what nature has given us and the environment in which we were placed (which often isn't by choice because moving can be a hassle for many reasons).

I truly believe that every one of those shootings are a result of someone who is_ naturally different, introverted and shy. _They were placed in an environment that bullied them at times and left them with a feeling of not being a part of society, which is why they attacked society, the feeling of betrayal and isolation.

Society has a vision of who is cool and who is not cool. Most people are seen as cool (because most people are extroverts, extroversion is usually a shoe-in for being cool) so the select few of the human pack that happen to be outside the loop and naturally don't fit in are left on an island in a social world so to speak. See, it doesn't work, which leads to problems.

Let's face it, the problem is the "cool" people do not care about the people that have been weeded out of the cool people circle.

And as before mentioned, society has no clue how to treat mental illness because they don't understand how it works.

It has to do with social imbalance, not a bunch of medications and therapists telling us what to do.

My solution? Start pushing "outsiders" inside from a very young age. Push people to be a part of social groups.

Mainly _teach socializing in schools as much as they teach meaningless math courses.

Have social classes in schools that teach people how to make friends and acquaintances. 
_


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

I really wanted to emphasize this sort of thing:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-anxiety-gut.html

It is a very different way of looking at the treatment of mental illness. Yes, many of us had bizarre parents, but they may have suffered from pathologies similar to our own, for simple medical reasons.


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## SwtSurrender (Nov 24, 2014)

Insignificant Other said:


> I really wanted to emphasize this sort of thing:
> 
> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-anxiety-gut.html
> 
> It is a very different way of looking at the treatment of mental illness. Yes, many of us had bizarre parents, but they may have suffered from pathologies similar to our own, for simple medical reasons.


Damn, cool ****.


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## Gojira (Jun 1, 2015)

Insignificant Other said:


> I have heard this sort of thing before, but seeing this article today really made me stop dead in my tracks. Could it be that we live in a dark age in which people don't know what mental illness is, don't know how to diagnose it, and don't know how to treat it? I spent years rambling about my abusive father -- who was genuinely abusive -- but I hardly ever mentioned the series of infections I had as a child, including ear infections. I worked with animals, even as a very small child, and possibly was exposed to a lot of pathogens.
> 
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...-if-were-wrong-about-the-cause-mental-illness


Interesting. Holmes wasn't always crazy. Look at actress Amanda Bynes also.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

And here is something about toxins, or at least an abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18621076

I think this would have sounded far more natural and obvious before Freud than it does today. The fate of hat makers alerted people to the dangers of mercury poisoning, for example. But I don't think people reflect on this much anymore.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

Here is a link about schizophrenia and middle-ear infection. Obviously, this is not a discussion forum regarding schizophrenia, but I do find this relevant. I am growing increasingly concerned that, with mental illness in general, professionals today are very confused about what causes it.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/193/3/192


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jun/03-the-insanity-virus


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## wxfdswxc2 (Mar 27, 2015)

I remember reading about that Toxo thing at one point in my youth and thinking about how it could totally describe some people I know. I wonder if there really are underlying causes that just can't be measured yet in mentally ill people. What about SA? I bet it's something just as weird.


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## Perspicacious (Jun 28, 2015)

Lead poisoning (which is pretty common) affects mental health.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

I tried discussing this with my therapist this morning, and her feedback was so confusing I feel a little brain-tied now. She was saying something about how I should give schema therapy a chance, and how there are always multiple causal factors. Well, I would not be surprised at all if there are multiple causal factors, but the only sort of factor that ever got any attention in my long history of therapy has been childhood trauma.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

wxfdswxc2 said:


> I remember reading about that Toxo thing at one point in my youth and thinking about how it could totally describe some people I know. I wonder if there really are underlying causes that just can't be measured yet in mentally ill people. What about SA? I bet it's something just as weird.


mhm, its fascinating that one.

The awesomely bearded professor Sapolsky talks about this one:








Insignificant Other said:


> I tried discussing this with my therapist this morning, and her feedback was so confusing I feel a little brain-tied now. She was saying something about how I should give schema therapy a chance, and how there are always multiple causal factors. Well, I would not be surprised at all if there are multiple causal factors, but the only sort of factor that ever got any attention in my long history of therapy has been childhood trauma.


Its difficult discussing this with therapists. In my experience they often have quite an 'focused' view about the causation of mental health problems, depending on what type of therapy they do.

But here's the thing, even if they don't understand causation, or are even mistaken about causation, the therapy itself might help especially if it is done over a long period of time (assuming the therapy at least has a evidence base).



Samus said:


> Ironically, even though I understand rationally the points you are making and I "believe" them, I still, emotionally, feel responsible for/guilty about my weaknesses.
> Which proves your point.


Heh, indeed 

There seems to be a fundamental mismatch between how we feel our minds work and how they actually work. When we rationally think about it we _know_ that conditioning and biology are important in shaping how we operate, but we tend to automatically slip back into assuming this stuff is within our immediate ability to control. So we feel we should be able to do things other can do without problems, and we should be able to adjust our happiness by force of will etc. (and of course the opposite, that the person who just cut us up in traffic should have done differently, that the person who was rude to us should have been able to be polite). We even go so far as to blame people for their characters, which is complete insane imo.



Samus said:


> I think it's possible (laaaater on) that a better understanding of things like self-control, agency, ... will lead to a change in attitudes and beliefs. Maybe one day we will know exactly what people can and can't change about their brains/minds and how. The way we do for other body parts.
> 
> And that could actually be the kind of knowledge that *would* change how our brains operate (not feeling guilt over a lack of will/strength if it is commonly accepted that those things are outside your control).


I think this is a good insight.

If I had to guess, I suspect that as we discover more of how the brain works, this will eventually filter into future generations social conditioning and radically alter how they perceive certain things. At least I _hope_ this will be the case.



Samus said:


> I really enjoy your posts, I read things you wrote on similar matters and I wanted to add my two cents but it takes me so long to put my thoughts in order ....
> One day if I find the strength I'd like to make a thread about ... all this, I'd be interested in some of the details of this discussion.


Thank you  - I suspect I am quite insane though, so one should probably take what I say with a massive handful of salt.

Oh, if you are interested in this kind of thing, I strongly recommend Sapolsky's youtube lectures. His whole course on the biology of human behaviour is up there and its really good stuff.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

I would be very interested in learning if there is anything like this (toxins, infections) regarding anxious personality disorder. I haven't been able to find anything.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

Samus said:


> I found that completely randomly and thought that could interest you OP, a discussion titled "Can Intestinal Bacteria Shape Response to Early-Life Stress?" on ScienceFriday.


I have a long history of both anxiety and some sort of bowel disorder. I tend to have diarrhea pretty easily, and one of my nightmares is that I might someday have an accident in a bus or plane or someplace like that. (It has nearly happened a few times.) A doctor once told me that it is a "functional bowel" disorder, meaning that it has a psychological origin. But now I am wondering. He said this back in the early 90s, and I think that perhaps medical opinion has changed since then.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

Samus said:


> I found that completely randomly and thought that could interest you OP, a discussion titled "Can Intestinal Bacteria Shape Response to Early-Life Stress?" on ScienceFriday.


That was a very interesting interview. It just so happens, I have a little bottle of lactobacillus acidophilus. The reason I have it is because I often have trouble with diarrhea. So I took some today, and I definitely feel better. In fact, much better than usual. But I feel silly saying that, because it could just be coincidence or the placebo effect. Furthermore, I don't know when the effect is supposed to kick in. For me, it wasn't more than a couple hours.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

I cancelled all future appointments with my therapist. The literature on pathological causes of mental illness have just caused me to have too much doubts. Putting this into context: I have had a total of about 14 years of useless therapy, including lots of nasty psych meds which did nothing but cause mental illnesses. I have repeatedly noticed mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, misidentifying physiological conditions (Meniere's disease, AIDS) as psychological problems. This is not at all a joke. I had a lover with AIDS once, and, prior to his testing for HIV, my psychotherapist was telling me -- emphatically ! -- that he was clearly "somatizing." "I used to work in a hospital. I've seen it." My own Meniere's disease was consistently interpreted as psychosis, and I was prescribed a neuroleptic. In fact, Meniere's disease has nothing at all to do with psychosis.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

I stopped seeing my therapist. After reading this article, I have decided that mental professionals don't know what they are doing:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...-if-were-wrong-about-the-cause-mental-illness


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## Imasaka (Jun 26, 2015)

In your first post you say you had ear infections. When I was a child I had ear infections for a number of years ALMOST constantly. 
Then slowly they went away. After that I very rarily had them again. Recently I got a cold and I had huge problems with my ears for about a week and it went away again. 
Furthermore, I also have pretty much all the symptoms listed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). I have had about 3 "attacks" of constipation so severe that the pain immobilizes me. It takes about 12 hours before the cramps slowly start to subside. Stress seems to be corelated with this but sometimes not (sometimes I had an attack when I was stressed two weeks before for example).
Finally, I've had migraine attacks also about 3 times. I wonder how all this adds up.
Before puberty no one of **** except ear infections ever happened and I did quite well socially too. Nobody so far has come remotely close to finding a plausible answer for all this.


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

Imasaka said:


> In your first post you say you had ear infections. When I was a child I had ear infections for a number of years ALMOST constantly.
> Then slowly they went away. After that I very rarily had them again. Recently I got a cold and I had huge problems with my ears for about a week and it went away again.
> Furthermore, I also have pretty much all the symptoms listed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). I have had about 3 "attacks" of constipation so severe that the pain immobilizes me. It takes about 12 hours before the cramps slowly start to subside. Stress seems to be corelated with this but sometimes not (sometimes I had an attack when I was stressed two weeks before for example).
> Finally, I've had migraine attacks also about 3 times. I wonder how all this adds up.
> Before puberty no one of **** except ear infections ever happened and I did quite well socially too. Nobody so far has come remotely close to finding a plausible answer for all this.


I had surgery on both ears when I was 2 for a middle ear infection. I have *almost* no memory of this, but the scars are still visible to doctors who examine my ears. I also have Meniere's disease, an inner ear disorder, in both ears. (Mental health professionals diagnosed my Meniere's symptoms as: psychosis and dissociative disorder. Their display of total confidence, while being completely wrong, staggers me.) Eventually, it was diagnosed correctly, but this required some pretty sophisticated tests. What happened was that an *artist* suggested I see an Ear-Nose-Throat specialist. No mental health professional took it to be anything other than a psychiatric problem.

Anyway, I have begun taking pro-biotics in power form. Here is precisely what I have been using: lactobacillus acidophilus, lactobacillus casei, lactococus lactis, bifidobacterium lactis, bifidobacterium bifidum.

I seem to feel better, but it has only been three days now, so perhaps I should not speak so soon. (In fact, I seem to feel tremendously better. And less nervous around people. In fact, not really nervous around people at all.)


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## Insignificant Other (Apr 1, 2015)

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/10/09/probiotics-brain/DnnE6myX75vTfK6U3aolQP/story.html


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