Hello, i'm mentally ill.. and also British

[Edwardo Piet]

Ty-verymuchington. Glad to be here.

[Hatshepsut]

I'm 22 and from Yorkshire in England, if you've no idea where that is or what it's like then just imagine Westeros from Game of Thrones but with less murder, more castles and about the same amount of incest.

Even folks from Utah, USA who have never been to England know where York is, imagining it a bit damp and gray of sky but nonetheless spared the -30C cold snaps that can hit Utah's plateaus on occasion. Like Yorkshire, Utah, the heart of Mormondom, is occasionally noted for incest &/or polygamy as well.

But I don't like the term "mentally ill," which has become a pejorative used to devalue people. And charge them enormous sums for consultation and therapy. Do we call persons with coronary artery disease "heartily ill"? Psychiatry has long been very loose with the labels, which change in each new installment of the DSM but fail to get any more humane. Instead of its pompous lording-over of the general public, the American Psychiatric Association should admit that its researchers and practitioners have only limited knowledge regarding mind, brain, and related disorders. After all, being gay was a mental illness according to APA until 1973. Only my opinion. And limited to the USA and its territories; England is presumably safe beyond the pond. Anyway, everything's in bloom now that winter is over.

We have good fortune in the pharmacy at least. Thorazine replaced chaining to walls for "psychosis" circa 1955 and Elavil lifted folks out of the depths of depression, albeit with severe side effects. Then the Thorazine shuffle and the Elavil drowse were abated upon the invention of better drugs. "Psychosis" has been demoted to a symptom rather than a syndrome as it had been under Freud. The SSRIs Prozac and Zoloft are so common (and cheap) here that I've taken them both in the past with some benefits even though I've never had a formal diagnosis.

Best of luck to you.   (Oops, no monsters here   )

[Longhorn]

Saxmoof

Cool username