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A mind is a terrible thing to lose

Wolf

only bites when provoked
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
2,127
MBTI Type
INTJ
Have you ever self-diagnosed that something is wrong based on patterns seen within yourself? Depending heavily on one's mind and the reliability thereof, only to find that it regularly fails you and you can't trust it? Do people with mental illness realize they have one?
 

Magic Poriferan

^He pronks, too!
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,081
MBTI Type
Yin
Enneagram
One
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Have you ever self-diagnosed that something is wrong based on patterns seen within yourself? Depending heavily on one's mind and the reliability thereof, only to find that it regularly fails you and you can't trust it? Do people with mental illness realize they have one?

The answer to your last question is that some do, and some don't.
Some people with hallucinatory illnesses actually come to realize it, and learn how to ignore their hallucinations.

Other illnesses bar self-awareness by definition. You can't be a sociopath and know it.
 

Athenian200

Protocol Droid
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
8,828
MBTI Type
INFJ
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4w5
Have you ever self-diagnosed that something is wrong based on patterns seen within yourself? Depending heavily on one's mind and the reliability thereof, only to find that it regularly fails you and you can't trust it? Do people with mental illness realize they have one?

I don't think you could do this, because if your mind is faulty itself, then what would you use to determine it?

You would almost have to have something wrong with one part of your mind, and still have another part that could detect the problem. So at times, yes, but I think that usually you need someone else to tell you that you have a problem.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Messages
3,553
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Yep I have. I remember how normal person should behave, what kind of ideas and inclinations they have usually, and what psychologists consider healthy. So yes I've sometimes become suspected I'm unhealthy.

The hard part is that I've gone to an advanced state of suspicion of some issue, but I've known that I'm not a clinician, and my knowledge of the diagnostic criteria might affect my judgement. I've a slight tendency to be hypochondriac, something that I know, but it's hard to take into account in every individual thing I think.

I know this from having often gone to see a doctor tho there's been no serious illness. I mean, things like head hurts, stomach hurts etc.

Another source of error comes from illnesses or conditions that are known to alter one's perception. I've tried to take into account those biases, like increased confidence while under the influence of alcohol. At least I believe being accurately (not overly) confident in my self even when drunk. Still, I have not been always able to discount the loss of confidence and happiness while depressed. It has just taken over me sometimes in the past, but then at least I've known to be depressed for sure.

So it's a tricky business. I think I've had a pretty good idea of any possible issues I might have had, tho not an overinflated list of problems. I might not have surprised at any professional diagnosis at any time, but it would have certainly been more accurate than anything I could have provided myself.

Understanding myself has been helpful in getting me over all the troubles I've had in my life. I don't think that it's the end of it, tho. It's what I decide to do to my problems. I do emotional planning and see how my desires and feelings will change should I follow some plan or the other, and then use it to make the correct choice. According to one psychologist, a person adept in emotional-analytical planning can do anything they ever set their mind to. That's pretty much what it feels like, too.

p.s. I think I had probably survived from my burnout and depression a year earlier had I been more of an active visitor to the psychologist's office. So, my trust in my own abilities was my downfall.
 

nightning

ish red no longer *sad*
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
3,741
MBTI Type
INfj
Have you ever self-diagnosed that something is wrong based on patterns seen within yourself? Depending heavily on one's mind and the reliability thereof, only to find that it regularly fails you and you can't trust it? Do people with mental illness realize they have one?

It's a question I ask myself frequently... What is the norm? How much deviation from the norm is required to be mentally ill?

Things becomes problematic when you can't tell what data coming in are reliable and what possible explanations you come up with in your mind are probable and which are irrational.

Depression is one I found very easy to spot. For everything else... I'm not sure about.
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
MBTI Type
INFP
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6
One of my husband's high school friends, who was extremely intelligent and possibly the most intuitive person I've ever met, was schizophrenic. After a couple of months of being lost in his alternate reality, he had a sense that something was wrong when he found out other people weren't seeing or hearing the same things he was. He thought he had taken too much LSD so he went to his parents and said "I need help, I'm on drugs and I can't get off." As it turns out, LSD use doesn't cause but can hasten the onset of schizophrenia. So he wasn't correct about the diagnosis, but he realized that something was wrong. It may have been quite some time before others noticed that he was ill, because he had always been a strange fellow.
 
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