Have they tried becoming billionaires?
Love to become the world’s richest man, use my money to buy the world’s most annoying social media site, then drive myself insane tinkering with it to feed my ego.
Alternatively, I can be rolling in Facebook money and still feel so insecure that I need to jack myself up with steroids and do Fight Club shit as I settle into middle age
Better yet, maybe I get into snake oil remedies for aging and start paying people to drink their blood. Or perhaps I try and beat cancer with grapefruit enemas and die in agony because I’ve convinced myself I’m smarter than the nation’s leading oncologists.
Even the astronomically wealthy seem incapable of happiness.
They just need to work more hours so they have less time to think about it
snacks head of course, the answer is obvious. Just don’t be poor.
Paris Hilton was right all along!
Someone said to me once “if you really wanted to do X, you would have done it”.
Your post reminded me of that, because many people might really want to be rich, but they don’t become rich because it’s a difficult thing to achieve. So maybe wanting something isn’t enough. Maybe you need luck or other advantages on your side too.
many people might really want to be rich, but they don’t become rich because it’s a difficult thing to achieve
Wealth compounds easily, practically in a country that rewards the wealthy with cheap credit and subsidizes high risk investment.
When your mom is on the board at IBM, when your best friends are the children of millionaires and billionaires, or when you have access to hedge fund levels of start up money, becoming rich isn’t that hard.
It’s a cringe thing to say, but your Network really is your Net Worth. Just being a Kennedy is worth it’s weight, as evidenced by our future HHS Secretary’s history.
Wanting something is the first step towards accomplishing anything
The second step is asking for a small loan of $20-30 million dollars from your family’s colonial heritage trust fund.
And then, hard work and pulling yourself up by your boot str–
What? Why are you all looking at me like that?
I remember a time where we were hoping that it didn’t snow until after Halloween.
Now, we’re lucky to get snow in January in my area.
A white Christmas is basically a pipe dream.
We stopped doing anything for Christmas because we can’t afford to be merry and give gifts. We must work and CONSUME
“Mental illness” (as it’s used in pop culture today) is a made-up term designed to gaslight people into believing that their natural, healthy reaction to the 21st century is somehow wrong and a pathology.
To be depressed in [current year] is no more normal than itching yourself when you’re wearing a wool sweater. Nobody would call that an “illness,” would they?
It’s fine to critique how “mental illness” is portrayed in pop culture, but the medical term is important. Yes, society is tough, but that doesn’t mean your struggles aren’t real or treatable. You can’t fight for change if you can’t get out of bed. Taking care of yourself is never something to feel bad about. <3
I take issue with calling it “treatable.” From personal experience, the treatment doesn’t really fix anything - it just makes it noticeably easier to bypass your natural reaction to being in an extremely unfavorable environment. That’s not treating the problem, it’s masking it akin to slapping a fresh coat of paint on walls with a serious mold infestation inside.
It’s addressing the symptom instead of the actual problem, and our entire society is geared towards doing this because it allows people to keep being used to better the lives of those one-percenters running everything while pushing the cost of keeping the people doing so back onto those same people. It’s disgusting, and it’s nearing a breaking point that’s gonna be very ugly when everything snaps.
Thanks for sharing. ‘Treatable’ does not mean ‘curable,’ and you are not the first person to make that confusion.
I’m not confused by it. Much of society is, however.
I see the utility in treating someone to get through an unusually difficult - but temporary - situation. When the difficult situation has become the norm that you can’t escape from… then you’re no longer "treating,” but instead doping them to get the performance you want out of them - and the “treatment” is never-ending.
Explain how long term mental health treatment is “doping” while type-1 diabetics who must take lifelong doses of insulin are not.
I’d like to inject some sanity (pun intended) into their point. Diabetes is body vs itself which obviously needs assistance. Some mental health things need to be “treated” just to make someone a “productive” member of society.
For a slightly different take, would you amputate one of your arms to fit in with a society where everyone else has only one arm?
mental illness is also the body versus itself, precipitating untreated in self harm, suicide, and addiction.
How does insulin affect your mental processes? What a dumb false equivalence!
you’ve never seen anyone on the extreme ends of the blood sugar scale, have you?
When the difficult situation has become the norm that you can’t escape from… then you’re no longer "treating,” but instead doping them
Idk with which forms of therapy you’ve made experiences with. I wouldn’t call it “doping”. Depending on the illness or disorder, helping patients to deal with their shit in a way that improves their well-being at least a little bit (and more in the long-term) is what it’s about. This does not neccessarily include work-perfromance or something like that. In fact, this is often not even important for therapy.
and the “treatment” is never-ending
Depending on what you have on your plate, long-time treatment can of course be required. What do you expect?
Psychologists can do a lot, but they can’t do miracles.
While for some short-term treatment is sufficient, it isn’t for others.
I see what you’re saying, but they can’t become a comrade if they died of despair. We need all the people we can get, so if that’s what it takes them to get to enlightenment, so be it. I say, eat the pills that make you numb until you’re to a place where you can stand, then let them go (and maybe step into some psychedelics if you want to/are able) and open your eyes to the horror around you, now able to face it. Then we can fight the system together.
It worked for me anyway.
Been on them for three decades, no such luck.
It’s okay, maybe you’re not ready. Honestly, the psychedelics helped me more than the antidepressants ever did, but you have to be ready to walk down that road.
Actually, I have been interested. It’s not an approved method of treatment, so it’s inaccessible for those of us not familiar (or comfortable with) going the less than legal route. The information I’ve gathered on the topic makes it seem risky, so someone who really knows what they’re doing needs to be there to guide me through it.
TLDR I’m interested, but it needs to be a good experience.
Microdosing is a lot less risky, mushrooms spores are legal to buy, and growing mushrooms is a fun hobby that’s not terribly difficult, just takes some commitment. That’s what I did.
The point is, from an epidemiological perspective, the correct treatments to advocate for are things like environmentalism and consumer protection law, not easier access to prozac or whatever. We will never solve the problem until we’re honest with ourselves, as a society, about the root causes.
Yeah, I get that, but you have to do what you have to do to stand on your own two feet before you stare at the ugliness of the world and face it, otherwise it will break you. If that takes antidepressants, take them until you’re ready to shake them off.
they can’t become a comrade if they died of despair
I believe it could happen one day, if some nerds can figure out how to do brain preservation. (well, that and whatever tech/biology stuff is needed to revive and support a brain)
I knew a full-on singulatarian who killed himself due to mental illness. Someone dying of despair will never preserve their brain for (what they see as) unending torture.
I was focusing more on the death part, and that dying in such a setting is a small step up from despair if arranging hope existed. Even if considered impossible, it’d basically be euthanasia which is still better than a true death of despair.
However I was also talking about physical preservation. A digital copy does not do anything for me. Though yeah, revival conditions would still be a worry either way if it could not be put into some kind of revival contract.
I mean the can’t-get-out-of-bed part probably isn’t some quick fix if-only-someone-had-told-me-doctors-exist-sort-of-thing. It probably points to larger, unchanging issues.
In some cases, the answer could be “move”… but again that is not viable for many, even if we’re just talking about housing cost.
Clinical depression isn’t somethings fixed with exercise. I’ve had friends who ran 5-6 miles a day try to kill themselves out of the blue. Fuck off with this bullshit simplistic view of mental health.
Not what I am saying at all.
I am talking from the perspective of the US medical system, living in a rural area without a car, isolation etc. If you didn’t reply to the wrong person I’m not sure how you interpreted it that way.
I did, completely misread what you wrote. Thats my bad. I have heard a lot of dismissive comments about mental health, and I just assumed this was another one.
I think you’re misrepresenting the comment.
Depression as a medical term only applies to people who have objectively nothing to be depressed about. Nobody would (to turn it up to 11) argue that a concentration camp inmate has depression when he’s feeling like everything’s fucked, because very objectively, everything is fucked in his environment.
The comment is instead about people who are thrown into a depressing, pointless situation they can’t escape, just like the prisoner, only much much milder. They see no future, because there truly is no future for them. Now, that would be horrible for society, because those people might start to question why exactly they’re in this situation. So as a bandaid, they get diagnosed. It’s not actually shit, you just see it like that, because you are sick. Here, take a pill. It’s gaslighting.
The rolling Stones had a song about mother’s little helper 50 years ago. It’s not exactly new.
Depression as a medical term only applies to people who have objectively nothing to be depressed about.
WTF? No.
You can’t be depressed! Your life objectively sucks!
This is essentially medical misinformation, and dangerous. You don’t get to tell me off for misrepresenting a comment when 0.01 seconds later you misrepresent an entire field of medicine lol.
I hate that I am even giving you the tiniest benefit of the doubt but to combat your lying by research and example: People who survived actual concentration camps still suffer i.e. suicidal ideation into the rest of their lives, even though the cause of that trauma is “fixed.”
There is so much cause for trauma out there, from family, to natural disaster, to war. These traumas are deadly and ruin lives through generational trauma, addiction and suicide. In summary, your comment accusing people often just trying to care of themselves and their families, as abusing “bandaids” that actually help them to live meaningful and fulfilling lives is despicable. Go fucking fix society dude! Just don’t piss all over people who have, often for the first time in years, been given a chance to overcome disability and make something positive of their existence.
mental injury might be a better term.
Just because everyone is ill, doesn’t mean it’s not an illness. Argumentum ad populum
Careful now, that much salt in your diet will lead to all sorts of problems…
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While on one hand I completely agree. On the other hand most generations in human history saw difficult times. One thing we have now is easy access to extra layers of constant despair by always being able to see any bad thing that is happening every minute of every day, on the news, on social media, from our politicians, etc. Then it even creeps into discussions with friends. The general dispare has crept into the discussion and taken over. But at the end of the day, most people have food, shelter, water, family, friends, and some level of healthcare (all be it problematic in the US).
For those of us lucky enough to not be destitute, or a current or future target of a repressive regime, it is important to remember to take some time to actually enjoy life instead of always feeling helpless about a profoundly imperfect world. Depression caused by the status of the world can also be avoided by taking action. Those that help, rarely let the status of the world get them down. Because, they know they did their part to move it in the right direction.
I will grant that social media has given us access to all of the misery we want all of the time, and that those algorithms also prioritize content that makes us angry.
However, it would be toxic positivity to say that things are actually fine or even pretty good.
Things are objectively getting worse. Income inequality is somewhere between near gilded age levels and worse. The planet is dying in front of our eyes. Fascists are taking power in many governments.
Things are actually pretty bleak. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope. But burying your head in the sand and pretending things are fine … well, I can understand that impulse. And I can understand that for some, it’s a coping mechanism. And for sure, do what you gotta to get by and all. But it’s not helpful in the broader sense.
I don’t disagree with a single word you said. But having perspective and leaving time to be human is not burying your head in the sand.
The last things I tried to say was that taking action is one thing you can do to mitigate your sense of helplessness. People who help others or try to make the world a better place often end up in a better mental space. It has the added benefit of working against all of the bad shit that is happening. Pick something, anything you care about, and try to make a difference. Even if you only make a tiny difference, if a thousand other people go out there and make the same tiny difference, suddenly you’ve moved the needle. In my experience, despair is nearly always coupled with paralyzed inaction.
I would agree, and my advice is getting active locally. Getting involved in your community is great for many reasons.
There were always work arounds which markedly started getting erased by ~2015.
DIY. Try to buy lumber, fabric, tools for either, anything that isn’t grossly out of lower SES price range. Wax. That one has gone up a horrendous amount. Even canning and used gardening supply. Anything DIY that would otherwise put you a bit ahead. Even disposable flower pots used on Walmart purchased plants have a resale $ value (assumed anyway) now.
Internet. Oh. People have stopped buying cable. Whelp, time to increase the monthly internet fee to cable bill prices. Started at $10/mo in 2010, now I’m paying $100/mo.
Bad players. Can’t get a general handyman for the house anymore, because high odds, without licensing and bonding, he’s going to hurt your house or maybe just abscond with the first half of the money halfway through. And thus houses are shittier (for the same sales price) because they don’t get fixed because people can’t afford the $1k at minimum per day of the license contractor. For further house enshittification on new houses go look up the shrinking garage size thing, it all ties together. Again, though, for a higher, not lower price. Don’t even get me started on lack of basements.
Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity Restore are now grossly expensive. No longer can you buy a replacement door for $30 at ReStore, which you could do in 2020. Whether you’re a reseller or not, the explosion in resellers (vs just a couple here and there, going unnoticed) absolutely has impacted used prices such that Goodwill even tells their people their goal is to be the final reseller and to price accordingly. ReStore even has a preferred buyers card, now.
With the exception of well marketed Etsy, you can’t even sell DIY because no one wants to pay for it. Why? (Cue Urkel voice) “I could do thaaaat.” Even when they don’t, can’t, or they’re unable or unwilling to do the buyin. Enshittification Walmart vs a hand crafted solid wood table, for some reason, the latter is valued as less, now.
Non torrent downloads online. Remember mega upload and all the rest? Free books galore, or whatever your thing was, depending, without the lens of torrenting on it. Gone.
Free music? Well that’s come back as cheap in the form of estate/second hand CDs and LPs, just burn your own digital from there, but now those prices have also skyrocketed as high as $5 minimum per LP. :(. So not cheap any longer.
Things just don’t last. I had a window AC unit from the 80s that came with an old house I bought. That thing worked right up until 2019. New window unit? 3yrs.
As soon as a way to save is found it’s enshittified, or or demand goes too high, or it’s disappeared.
Amazingly, youthful angst and depression have been steadily increasing for several decades, with no puzzlingly large blip in recent years. You can jump to a conclusion that the problem is the one thing that personally bothers you the most, but maybe it’s a spectrum - for example, a lot of psychologists have been blaming teenage depression on too much screen time and not enough in-person social contact.
blaming teenage depression on too much screen time and not enough in-person social contact
That might be a part, but I’d ask you this: When is the last time that mankind truly had hope for the future? This isn’t just about individual people - it’s the entire media landscape.
I wouldn’t know about what mankind thinks, just my own thoughts. I had high hopes for the future this year, until 10 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 decided not to show the fuck up this time.
Not to throw shade but where is this magical time in history with no worries or existential threats?
This isn’t about a time with no worries in their respective present, this is about the future. A couple decades ago there still was genuine hope for the future, an almost certain expectation that the future will be better.
A look at science fiction will confirm that: You get none of the space utopias from the sixties that honestly believed in the goodness of people today. There is only bleak techno dystopia from the nineties onwards, where everybody fends for themselves and no hope for long lasting peace is in sight.
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If we all try reaaalllly hard, we might get there at some point in the future. Until then it’s a nice fantasy.
14,000,000,000 BCE
I don’t think there were many existential threats before MAD
Personal existence has always been threatened since we had the ability to understand mortality, the new stuff (MAD and climate change) are pretty unique in that they threaten civilisation as a whole, and that’s pretty new
ITT: superfund positivity.
I’d like to see an actual survey that asks young people with anxiety and depression what is bothering them rather than making, presumably, assumptive generalizations.
