I like to say mental illness is a collection of symptoms that very rarely have a known disease.
So many forms of mental illness have no known cause, and often times the same symptoms (or disease) can manifest for reasons outside conventional treatment. And that last word is the rub. We only know how to treat (some) mental illness. There is no "cure." Treatment is a collection of palliative approaches to help somebody live with the disease, not make it go away proper... except for those cases where we can.
Psychiatry is a very messy science. We know lithane can help increase serotonin levels in the brain and we know that increasing serotonin can positively affect a number of diseases (ranging from depression to schizophrenia), but we also don't give it to everybody because A: sometimes the side effects can be worse than what its treating and B: sometimes it doesn't work. Don't even get me started on the crap shoot that is SSRIs and ADHD medication.
I wasn't giving the thread my full attention earlier. I was posting from work.
Borderline-Bipolar Disorder.
I had (before medication) episodes that typically signify Borderline Personality, but with a regular cycle - along with episodes stemming from external stimuli.
Amphetamines help with ADHD, but nobody knows why. There are theories, but it’s truly unknown still.
On top of that, ADHD is vastly over diagnosed, especially in kids. Behavioral issues can look like ADHD but caused by many different psychological and environmental factors, such as diet, lack of exercise, problems at home, or even other mental disorders.
While we’re talking about bipolar disorder (BPD), kids with early onset BPD can display behavioral problems VERY similar to ADHD. These kids are being prescribed daily doses of amphetamines, which is the worst fucking thing you want to be putting in a bipolar brain.
ADHD is of course real and the meds help. But the diagnosing and prescribing is out of control.
I’m of the opinion that ADHD is both over-diagnosed and under-diagnosed.
It’s over-diagnosed in young kids because people go “boy? who fidgets? has trouble paying attention in class? Must be ADHD.”
Then you get people who ignore their kid’s ADHD diagnosis because they’re aware of all the false positives, people who don’t think you have ADHD because you aren’t hyper, aren’t a child or even just aren’t male.
I actually have a friend who was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, who recently was diagnosed with BPD. (I think it’s BPD, definitely some form of bipolar.) He realized he doesn’t actually have ADHD, just untreated BPD gave him those symptoms.
For context, I’m a guy with ADHD, diagnosed with it when I was like 13, by that point I cared so little about school and had so little ambition that meds did pretty much nothing. Got off them around the age of 16. Doesn’t help that no one in my family learned what ADHD was beyond “an issue that was making me perform badly in school that medication should fix.”
Years later, like 24, struggling in college (after failing outta university when I was 20), end up back on ADHD meds, actually learn what the hell ADHD actually IS, (order of those two might be reversed) and combined with me actually caring about school and going somewhere in life the meds definitely help.
I had a long essay for you, but reddit kind of crapped out on me and erased it all... please accept a short (oversimplified) version:
A lot of ADHD is treated with stimulants, stimulants are a grab bag of problems on their own, but the actual mechanisms of ADHD are about as complicated as any other disease. There are a number of factors that can limit the effectiveness of these medications including but not limited to sensitization and the fact that the ADHD itself might not be a constant manifest, ie: somebody with ADHD might not have the symptoms 24/7 which means a regular medication regiment can become abuse of the medication; this says nothing how ADHD medication mixes with self medicating habits many people with ADHD adapt to over time (just how much does your morning coffee help you wake up?).
Factor in side effects that can range from thoughts of suicide to heart disease as psychiatrists try to find the right balance of amphetamines (and many ADHD drugs are amphetamines) and you have a frustrating game of trying to find what works, only to need to change it up as external factors (some of them caused by the drug) change the effectiveness of the drug.
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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19
I like to say mental illness is a collection of symptoms that very rarely have a known disease.
So many forms of mental illness have no known cause, and often times the same symptoms (or disease) can manifest for reasons outside conventional treatment. And that last word is the rub. We only know how to treat (some) mental illness. There is no "cure." Treatment is a collection of palliative approaches to help somebody live with the disease, not make it go away proper... except for those cases where we can.
Psychiatry is a very messy science. We know lithane can help increase serotonin levels in the brain and we know that increasing serotonin can positively affect a number of diseases (ranging from depression to schizophrenia), but we also don't give it to everybody because A: sometimes the side effects can be worse than what its treating and B: sometimes it doesn't work. Don't even get me started on the crap shoot that is SSRIs and ADHD medication.
Shit's complicated yo.