Mental Illness Needs Context
Mental Illness in Context In “Covert Depression,” I discuss the necessity of “dysfunctionality” for a DSM diagnosis. This post discusses how people don’t need to change themselves to duck this criterion–they can just change friends or locations. Virtually all mental illness can “disappear” under the right circumstances, and we can’t blame people for wanting to reduce anxiety and stress in the least painful ways. Here are some examples: In the heat of battle, hypervigilance, body tension, and quick anger triggers are functional. When you return from Afghanistan, they become “PTSD.” The discomfort of these symptoms in civilian life is often why veterans often have the urge to re-enter warlike situations (police force, MMA, etc.), where the symptoms don’t constitute a mental illness. Perfectionism and the absorption of other people’s emotions are anxiety symptoms that work well in hospital environments. Many people with parentification trauma find relief in urgent care settings as ...