Mental Health what percentage of people on bl would you say has some sort of mental illness?

[One Thousand Words]

Is it an "illness" because people get offended if you call it brain damage?

 

[paranoid android]

Is it an "illness" because people get offended if you call it brain damage?

Brain damage is a pretty broad term and often gives the wrong impression to people. In anycase changes in behavior due to drug abuse/addiction does not necessarily mean that the user has suffered neurological damage. For instance there is basically no evidence to support that opiates can cause any cell death or permanent changes in the brain yet they can cause after effects for months after quitting which would be better known as post acute withdrawal syndrome. Now certain drugs alcohol being a prime example are notorious for causing neurological damage. Korsakoff's syndrome is a example of a condition caused by alcoholism where damage to neurons in the brain causes long lasting and sometimes permanent brain damage so to speak.

Aside from drug abuse or drug addiction alot of drug addicts or heavy users suffer from a underlying mental illness. I honestly don't know many drug addicts who don't have some underlying mental illness whether it is anxiety, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, etc. I suffer from bipolar disorder as well as anxiety (the latter has been under control for years now) and i can not remember a time when i felt "normal" for lack of a better term. I can remember being horribly depressed when i was only about 10 or 11 years old and thinking about suicide. As a young kid and a teenager i also suffered from strange hallucinations from time to time that where usually visual but sometimes auditory as well. I would sometimes see rain failing from the ceiling and seeing the lines on the wallpaper in my room move, kinda float off the wall or change shape was another common one. I would also sometimes be convinced that there where people hiding in the dark in say the living room of the house or behind a door and sometimes i would hear things as well that could not be explained. I would be sure that just outside of the lighting or hiding behind a couch that there was a burglar or whatever just waiting to pounce. Another vivid memory i have is seeing a skeleton in my room when i must have been only about 5 or 6 years old. I remember seeing it for a few seconds after i switched on the light. I don't know why that one incident has stuck with me for so long but there where more incidents such as seeing multi colored rain pouring from the ceiling when i was less then 10 years old that stick with me as well.

To this day i have absolutely no idea as to what might have caused these childhood hallucinations and most psychiatrists i have seen have been less then useless in this regard. The best idea that i can come up with is that i suffered from some pre existing mental illness that gradually turned into bipolar disorder as i got older or perhaps i always had it or maybe psychotic depression to some degree. I still get some psychotic symptoms when suffering from a mood episode such as mild or sometimes very real auditory or visual hallucinations that make me paranoid as hell. I recently went off my psych meds for about 2 weeks (fucking brilliant aren't i? 8) ) and i went manic. I started to get really jumpy and had some auditory hallucinations such as hearing music that i could not quite make out when i knew full well that there was no music. I also thought someone was breaking into the garage one night so a grabbed a shovel and ran out there only to find all was quiet on the western front. To this day during mixed state, manic or depressive episodes i sometimes get weird images in my head that i have no control over and these are usually pretty scary. One common one i get is seeing faces that gradually disintegrate.

Of course as i got older i used various drugs mostly opiates, benzos, Cannabis and alcohol to help these symptoms. I remember the first time i got high on codeine and thinking that this must be how it feels to be "normal" as my usually overactive brain slowed down to a acceptable level. So naturally during my teens i drank like a fish and eventually became a full blown alcoholic, smoked loads of Hash and weed, took opiates such as codeine, Demerol and oxycodone as well as benzos which back in those days was usually Valium. Not to mention i tripped on shrooms whenever i could get them. The alcohol made things 1000 times worse and when i quit my anxiety and depression got so bad that i had to go on benzos just to function. I also developed a severe chronic pain condition which lead to my bipolar disorder getting far worse and i ended up using my opiate scripts to combat the psychiatric symptoms which created another problem all of it's own.

As for the percentage of people on BL who would have a mental illness besides drug abuse or drug addiction that would be pure guess work. Though i would guess it would be a good bit higher then among the average population.

 

[spinchick]

Most of the ones with mental illness are online...on this site. Hahaha. No, but a lot of people who are dealing with mental illness use online support groups and forums...especially ones with social anxiety...like me.

 

[pinpoint]

Addiction became a mental illness when the medical field figured out they could be reimbursed by insurance companies for treating it as such.

Once again demonstrating how US capitalistic policy is an all encompassing influence on society.

 

[dpd_mnk92]

Everyone and no one. Just depends on whose definition of mental illness you go by.

 

[mrflowers00]

i think it's like one in five people in the US take a psych med and that number is most definitely higher amongst drug addicts so i'd say half and thats being modest

 

[pinpoint]

Apparently quite a few ...

 

[SaY4cT]

Including future generations until the 25th century I'd say about 28,962.05%