The heart of the matter

white knight · ‎11-01-2018

As a young home mechanic I had a problem with my car years ago. It had a vibration at 80kph and was irritating. So on a weekend I swapped wheels, got them rebalanced, tightened the steering box, had one tyre replaced etc. The problem got worse. So eventually I took it to a good mechanic. "How many hours did you spend on this trying to find the problem?" he asked. "20 hours over two days I replied, why how long did you take"?..."2 minutes" he replied.

He'd put the car on a hoist and turned the tailshaft and found slop in a joint. $120 and I was on my way.

Another example of this. At around 13yo onwards I was over sensitive. Unlike other boys I'd cry at the drop of a hat. "You are just growing up Tony" said my wonderful father. So I waited to grow up emotionally and that didn't start to happen until medication for dysthymia and bipolar kicked in at 56yo!! During those painful 43 years there were attempts to find help like mentioning it to marriage counselor or therapists...but no one detected a serious illness was at the core of the problem..."you are just an emotional person"

Both examples are from incorrect diagnosis or no diagnosis. Both examples are not consulting the correct professional to seek out what was at the - "heart of the matter"

Such actions are skirting around an issue. In the case of the car repair, my other "remedies" caused other problems. The steering box that I tightened up should not have been touched, the replacement of the tyre was unnecessary as was the rebalance. All in all it cost me heaps of money and two weekend days I could have spent camping.

If we arrive in a town and we need food we attend a supermarket, meat maybe a butcher, fuses an auto shop and gas cylinder a camping store. Yet if we have serious mental health problems we cross our fingers and hope it goes away. We talk to others that likely haven't had mental health issues in their lives let alone advise on. For some reason some of us want to know the answer even asking here on this forum before attending a GP. The only valid reason could be financial. It's great asking us for we could tell you of similar experiences but it is better to automatically go to a GP first as he/she is the professional in that field.

We can run around the Mulberry bush looking for reasons our mental health is showing symptoms. By consulting a GP and following their direction we are no longer playing this meaningless guessing game....we are getting the heart of the matter.

Tony WK

JessF · ‎11-01-2018

Hello Tony, thank you for another thoughtful post. I would like to add the therapy part to the GP part. I have seen many posts on here from people who receive a diagnosis, start taking medication, and are disappointed to find that six months later they are still depressed or anxious. The dosage goes up, and six months later here they are again.

Mental health is a complex beast, and while I believe some of us have the chemicals that make us more prone to illnes than others, I think relying alone on a magic diagnosis or set of pills can mask real issues going on in our lives that need to be addressed for us to make changes.

You have talked about this a lot in some of your other posts, I seem to remember a 'be radical' one some time ago about making big changes in your life when yous eem to be stuck.

I think perhaps the analogy I am looking for here would be if your mechanic fixed your car for you, but said there was something ongoing you needed to do in order to stop the problem recurring (regular maintenance, or something about the way you drove the car), and then you just didn't do it. What would happen?

white knight · ‎11-01-2018

Hi JessF

Thankyou for your reply.

So, in that context, it could be a fault designed into the car that needs ongoing attention. Same with our mental state. Life experiences change, we could have work issues, love life issues, financial etc and our medication is constant, we might not even be seeing a psych at all now. So we need to implement routine contact as a protection for - what could happen?

What do you think?

Tony WK

Sad_Mushroom · ‎11-01-2018

Hi,

Some of us were born with a problem....it grew and ventured off into unknown waters while others tried to hide it. I know I was born with mine. Then it was nurtured by the way I was raised.

What then? What happens to those of us who were born this way?

SM

white knight · ‎12-01-2018

Hi SM

I suppose we have to work with what we are dealt with.

Some people inherit all sorts of things that separate us from that inner circle called normal.

Tony WK

JessF · ‎12-01-2018

I don't doubt for a second that some of us are born with things as part of our nature that mean it is more likely that we will struggle. Where I think that becomes a problem is when we use it as an explanation for everything that goes wrong in our lives. Not only is that simplistic, but it feeds hopelessness, helplessness and prevents us from making real change.

I often think of those with physical disabilities in this regard. Think of those who are born without legs, or without the ability to walk. One could take the attitude of, I can't walk, so I can't play sport. We would have no Paralympians if this were the case.

Perhaps it might be helpful to get more specific in teasing this out.

Complete these sentences:

I have depression, therefore I can't...
I have anxiety, therefore I can't...

Read what comes out. And then think about whether it's really true. Is it the depression and the anxiety? Is that the heart of the matter? Or is it something else that you do in fact have control over?