For some reason, early in life I acquired the opinion that emotions are a response to something specific. And I remember a time when psychiatric medications were far less common than they are now. So when I hear of people suffering anxiety, depression, etc, my first thought is always, what are the beliefs and living conditions that produce these feelings? And, can they be entirely relieved by concrete actions and/or a change in perspective?
I have learned to be a little more open-minded. Such conditions must sometimes have a purely organic cause. Maybe it’s sometimes alright to use “meds” even when the cause is a life circumstance and not just a “chemical imbalance”. But I still worry that millions of people are encouraged to pop pills unnecessarily.
To what extent do you think that your panic attacks can be explained by the circumstances of your life? You say you were at your first job and hated it. It is easy for me to imagine how that alone could lead to a feeling of terror—able-bodied adults spend most of their life in the workforce; maybe you were going to spend the rest of your life trapped in this same misery! It’s natural that you wanted to escape.
I agree with the general sentiment of your post; it’s something I’ve thought a lot about.
What causes mental illness?
Honestly, I struggle to think of a more multivariate problem. There’s just so many variables, and in my own personal struggles it has been overwhelming trying to figure out which variables contributed the most to my mental illness.
But, for you, I’ll try. <3
Here’s an unranked list of the most important variables I could think of that contributed to my suffering:
my biology, genetics
my thought patterns
my physical health
my emotional health
my spiritual health.
These factors aren’t all mutually exclusive, and I don’t want to spend the effort of coming up with a list that is.
I’ll now give a weight to each of those variables by how much I think each contributed to my mental illness and a sentence explaining my reasoning.
Genetics 30% - High levels of anxiety runs through my entire extended family. Twin studies have shown that when you drastically alter the environmental factors people still seem to end up having the same mental illnesses.
Thought Patterns 10% - My pattern recognition abilities, make me intelligent, and make me think of all possible problems. Think, catastrophizing, black and white thinking, etc. These intuitive, mental heuristics are great if all you care about is not dying, they suck at making you content.
Physical Health 20% - It’s way easier to accept the psychical and psychological symptoms of anxiety when you. Just. Feel. Good.
Emotional Health 10% - Being alone is terrible, not feeling understood is terrible.
Spiritual Health 30% - Why suffer? I’ve figured out how to make my suffering meaningful to me, and that has made it much easier to accept my suffering.
That’s me, and I’m reasonably confident in my weighting, but every individual has a different weighting, AND the most impactful factors may not even be on my list.
For some reason, early in life I acquired the opinion that emotions are a response to something specific. And I remember a time when psychiatric medications were far less common than they are now. So when I hear of people suffering anxiety, depression, etc, my first thought is always, what are the beliefs and living conditions that produce these feelings? And, can they be entirely relieved by concrete actions and/or a change in perspective?
I have learned to be a little more open-minded. Such conditions must sometimes have a purely organic cause. Maybe it’s sometimes alright to use “meds” even when the cause is a life circumstance and not just a “chemical imbalance”. But I still worry that millions of people are encouraged to pop pills unnecessarily.
To what extent do you think that your panic attacks can be explained by the circumstances of your life? You say you were at your first job and hated it. It is easy for me to imagine how that alone could lead to a feeling of terror—able-bodied adults spend most of their life in the workforce; maybe you were going to spend the rest of your life trapped in this same misery! It’s natural that you wanted to escape.
Oh man, where to start...
I agree with the general sentiment of your post; it’s something I’ve thought a lot about.
What causes mental illness?
Honestly, I struggle to think of a more multivariate problem. There’s just so many variables, and in my own personal struggles it has been overwhelming trying to figure out which variables contributed the most to my mental illness.
But, for you, I’ll try. <3
Here’s an unranked list of the most important variables I could think of that contributed to my suffering:
my biology, genetics
my thought patterns
my physical health
my emotional health
my spiritual health.
These factors aren’t all mutually exclusive, and I don’t want to spend the effort of coming up with a list that is.
I’ll now give a weight to each of those variables by how much I think each contributed to my mental illness and a sentence explaining my reasoning.
Genetics 30% - High levels of anxiety runs through my entire extended family. Twin studies have shown that when you drastically alter the environmental factors people still seem to end up having the same mental illnesses.
Thought Patterns 10% - My pattern recognition abilities, make me intelligent, and make me think of all possible problems. Think, catastrophizing, black and white thinking, etc. These intuitive, mental heuristics are great if all you care about is not dying, they suck at making you content.
Physical Health 20% - It’s way easier to accept the psychical and psychological symptoms of anxiety when you. Just. Feel. Good.
Emotional Health 10% - Being alone is terrible, not feeling understood is terrible.
Spiritual Health 30% - Why suffer? I’ve figured out how to make my suffering meaningful to me, and that has made it much easier to accept my suffering.
That’s me, and I’m reasonably confident in my weighting, but every individual has a different weighting, AND the most impactful factors may not even be on my list.