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Rose76
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Rose76 Treading water.
 
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Default Dec 27, 2018 at 04:23 PM
 
I've been prescribed Ritalin some months ago and have found it somewhat helpful, which I'll take as worthwhile.

I see I never responded above to the OP's main point - that people can be horribly judgemental and make judgements based on zero knowledge/experience.

I, too, have found that to be true. It can be as bad as you describe, with even repercussions at one's place of employment that I thought were illegal. (It happened to me. I made a mistake on the job. I was asked to resign because my employer "knew I was being treated for depression." A coworker had made a worse mistake, but didn't get asked to resign.)

What I've learned is that you just can't safely discuss your psych diagnosis or treatment with people, especially in the workplace.

Heck, you are not always safe speaking candidly to a psychiatrist. But let me not digress.

When in doubt, just keep your business to yourself. And your safest doubting just about everyone. That's wrong, but that's the reality . . . in my experience. And it's not going to change soon, despite all the efforts at destigmitizing psych problems. I woukd say that stigma will be gone, about as soon as racial prejudice ends. Some things are just almost endemic to how people are socialized. Of course, everyone seems to think that they do have relevant experience. Ex: "Well, I have lots of things I could get depressed about, but I don't let myself." Ever heard that one??? I've gotten that from a family member who has a Masters Degree in counseling. Yeah. Stupidly, I took sucker punches to the gut repeatedly from this close relative before I wised up.

I'm pretty wised up now. I suppose there are some people who get it. I tend not to think that anybody who hasn't been there, themselves, gets it. And those who've experienced a serious depressive illness that resolved probably have trouble understanding chronically recurring depression.

If you read what "experts" wrote about depression 50 or 60 years ago, you'll see that a lot of their thinking was inane. Read "The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale - regarded as a classic, for decades. He claimed to have totally and permanently cured a succession of afflicted individuals by talking with them and explaining to them what he found wrong with their thinking. Many of his generation believed depression was a product of faulty logic. Better reasoning was the fix. Therapists still tend to conduct their practices as though that were what was needed. There is a canonized saint who stated that you can't argue a person into Faith, any more than you can torture a person into it. I would say the same about relief from depressive illness: You can't reason a person out of their affliction. That's my belief. Neither can you medicate a person out of it, though drugs have helped people to varying degrees - myself being one of them.

The first step towards Wisdom is for a person to be humble about what they think "they know . . . which often isn't so." (Not saying that comes easy to me either.)

It is simply one of life's cruelties that persons most needful of understanding and respect for the effort they are making often get the opposite.
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