Cured

[Infinite_Faith]

Hi all,

I am interested in the subject mostly inspired by words from Garry McDonald on the Good Morning show. Garry spoke about being cured of his mental illness a wonderful thing. But he also stumbled over his own words as if he wasn't so sure, stating "well I believe I am".(Or trying to convince someone else?)

I understand what Garry was saying and of course at some point you must believe you are cured. But how can you tell?

I'm not trying to stir up a hornets nest here, but simply asking some questions. How do you know when you are cured by a mental illness that cannot be measured in the first place?

How can I even tell if I am working in the correct direction to cure it. Okay that's why we have experts. But these experts can't see or measure the illness any better than we can?

If I have depression, I need to know I am moving in the right direction (at least) to getting cured. I find this all very confusing. Issues of the mind that we can't see.

Can I ask the room?

How did you know when you were (totally) cured? Surely by simply telling yourself that you are "feeling better" might be a cure to a minor mental illness?

Thanks for reading

Steve

[Infinite_Faith]

Just as a footnote. I firstly appologize for playing Dr Psychology but couldn't everything I wrote be summed up with one curious word.

"Psychosomatic" when you look up the definition of this word the mind boggles. Psychosomatic verses Cured?

[JessF]

Hello Steve, I don't think "cured" is a hellpful word when it comes to mental illness. There is no blood test for these things, and checklists are used to determine most of what goes on. For me I found I started to manage a lot better when I threw away the labels and just started to look at my life and what was stopping me from being who and where I wanted to be. What are my thought patterns like? What am I feeling? How am I behaving? What are the things I'm doing that are bad for me, or the nthings I'm not doing that I would like to? And how do all of the above interact with each other? Once you start to get a handle on these things, the things on the symptom lists start to dissipate. But that doesn't mean you won't struggle again in the future... and this is why I thionk "cured" is such an unhelpful word. It's common on these forums to see people coming back after a relapse and feeling twice as bad because of this feeling that they SHOULD be "cured". It's a mirage.