# I’m desperate.



## blankxi (Dec 11, 2020)

Please, please help me.
I cannot handle this blank mind anymore. I’ve lost everything good in my life because of it. My job, my friends, my family, my emotions. I can’t even feel simple anxiety. I’d rather feel depressed the rest of my life, as long as I had thoughts and emotion. 
I was so happy when this blank mind started a year ago. So I don’t understand why this is happening to me. I’ve tried everything. Therapy, medications, vitamins, EMDR, not thinking about it for awhile, I even tried drugs again hoping it would spark some kind of thought/emotion. Literally nothing helps.

I really don’t want to die. But there is zero point to living this life if I can’t experience the simple joys of it, or even feel the bad parts of it. I’m crying so hard right now. I don’t know what to do anymore.

Please save me.


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## C8H11NO3 (Sep 13, 2021)

There’s time still. 
I’ve tried to write a response but can’t articulate my thoughts right now. 
If you’re reading this, you’re still here and still reaching out. I think that matters. 
Sending good thoughts.


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

blankxi said:


> Please, please help me.
> I cannot handle this blank mind anymore. I’ve lost everything good in my life because of it. My job, my friends, my family, my emotions. I can’t even feel simple anxiety. I’d rather feel depressed the rest of my life, as long as I had thoughts and emotion.
> I was so happy when this blank mind started a year ago. So I don’t understand why this is happening to me. I’ve tried everything. Therapy, medications, vitamins, EMDR, not thinking about it for awhile, I even tried drugs again hoping it would spark some kind of thought/emotion. Literally nothing helps.
> 
> ...


what kind of thoughts are you missing? i myself struggle for more than 1 year if i have this shit as well. but i can solve problems in my head, organize a lot, recall things, remember things. it is all foggy and lazy but my mind does function in day to day tasks.

but still there is something not like i was used to. there is lacking something. like, my mind is also 2d. do you mean this? or do you try to read an article in 10 hours? i dont get this

edit: if i conversate with friends and family i can recall and predict the whole conversation mostly better than they do although they are not mentally ill


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

deleted


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## lost235 (Sep 13, 2020)

I have the exact same symptoms as you.. and to be honest I’ve been feeling the same way about life. So I have no idea how to fix it or what helps, because for me it keeps getting worse and I don’t know why. I’m nothing like myself anymore, and I walk around with no thoughts or emotions whatsoever. Still though I do have glimpses of emotions, where I realise that everything I feel is being pushed away to “protect” me. It’s just to overwhelming to feel anything for some reason. The blank mind is something I don’t understand tho, and makes life a complete nightmare. 
The only advice I have is to not spend too much time on your phone or tv, and to try and write down what you’re doing everyday just to be more present and get some sort of structure in your brain.
I’m not sure anything I say will help, but just know that you’re definitely not alone. It is hard, but I think that you can fight through it. I hope some day I’ll have better advice to give! Wishing you all the best, take care,


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

lost235 said:


> I have the exact same symptoms as you.. and to be honest I’ve been feeling the same way about life. So I have no idea how to fix it or what helps, because for me it keeps getting worse and I don’t know why. I’m nothing like myself anymore, and I walk around with no thoughts or emotions whatsoever. Still though I do have glimpses of emotions, where I realise that everything I feel is being pushed away to “protect” me. It’s just to overwhelming to feel anything for some reason. The blank mind is something I don’t understand tho, and makes life a complete nightmare.
> The only advice I have is to not spend too much time on your phone or tv, and to try and write down what you’re doing everyday just to be more present and get some sort of structure in your brain.
> I’m not sure anything I say will help, but just know that you’re definitely not alone. It is hard, but I think that you can fight through it. I hope some day I’ll have better advice to give! Wishing you all the best, take care,


the same questions above to you.


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## lost235 (Sep 13, 2020)

leminaseri said:


> the same questions above to you.


Mostly I just lack the general “natural” thoughts that one would have during the day. When I’m at school I just spend 99% of the time being on autopilot and not having a single thought in my head, same thing when I’m home. And it’s kind of just pointless to try and force the thoughts because as soon as I let go they just disappear again. It’s not so much brain fog, my mind just feels empty. And it’s so difficult sometimes to try and think of things to say, especially to think of things to say that I myself would say. Mostly the things I say feel like it’s coming from someone else. I’ll have moments where I can think quick to solve problems or recall things I’ve done, but most of the time it’s hard. It must be some sort of “trauma” response or smth. Do you struggle too with feeling like yourself? Are your emotions gone?


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

lost235 said:


> Mostly I just lack the general “natural” thoughts that one would have during the day. When I’m at school I just spend 99% of the time being on autopilot and not having a single thought in my head, same thing when I’m home. And it’s kind of just pointless to try and force the thoughts because as soon as I let go they just disappear again. It’s not so much brain fog, my mind just feels empty. And it’s so difficult sometimes to try and think of things to say, especially to think of things to say that I myself would say. Mostly the things I say feel like it’s coming from someone else. I’ll have moments where I can think quick to solve problems or recall things I’ve done, but most of the time it’s hard. It must be some sort of “trauma” response or smth. Do you struggle too with feeling like yourself? Are your emotions gone?


hmm okay but i just noticed, that i have those things as well but never have been focused on that, so i never did experience them as a threat or „symptom“. because when i watch a football game im 100% with the game. when i build a beat or play an instrument i know exactly how to act. so my mind never let me sit in situations where i need my mind. therefore i interprate my mental performance or skills as „ok“.

but i know exactly, i used to have much more things go on in my head. new challenges, meetings, important tasks and the list goes on. but if you dont have such a mental space to think about all of them, how do you expect your mind can play this through your head? maybe you dont have the power and capacity to think about all of that stuff at all? thats like expecting from someone who dont have legs, to do cardio. this is my view anyways.

yeah i have a very distorted sense of self but i feel there is remaining a bit of my personal self because this is my second time suffering with dp at my life. i realize very often the person i know comes out of myself and kicks a very funny joke or gets mad of his opponent at fifa .d

i do struggle with feeling emotions but since i take zoloft it got even worse. before i started zoloft i could cry very often to sad music or when i thought about my lovely girlfriend


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## Ray46 (Apr 29, 2017)

Maybe a Nad+ IV could help you… I’m looking forward to do one:


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## Ray46 (Apr 29, 2017)

What was the cause of your blank mind?


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## coolwhip27 (Mar 14, 2015)

See the thing is, your mind is not really blank. Otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it being so. Your thought is telling you that it is blank, and you are believing it. If your mind was blank you wouldn’t be worried and concerned about it, infact you’d probably be happy. What you need to do is shift focus, away from thoughts of having a blank mind to something else which makes you think that it is not blank.

You aren’t troubled because your mind is blank. You are troubled because you think it is


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

coolwhip27 said:


> See the thing is, your mind is not really blank. Otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it being so. Your thought is telling you that it is blank, and you are believing it. If your mind was blank you wouldn’t be worried and concerned about it, infact you’d probably be happy. What you need to do is shift focus, away from thoughts of having a blank mind to something else which makes you think that it is not blank.
> 
> You aren’t troubled because your mind is blank. You are troubled because you think it is


finally, someone is speaking out this! im struggling for more than 1,5 years what this blank mind thing should be. like, of course, because of the dp your thinking and mental skills are distorted but if people say „blank mind“ i do think about a guy who stares for 3 hours at his phone and do nothing else.

blank mind is seen at severely psychotic people who come out of the psychotic episode and become depressed. they literally dont say anything the whole day and they even dont answer to day to day questions. 

i have seen here people who claim to have no inner monologue, but they can hear in their head words and sentences. what else is the inner monologue? its the subvocalizing of the thoughts in your head.


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

leminaseri said:


> but i know exactly, i used to have much more things go on in my head. new challenges, meetings, important tasks and the list goes on. but if you dont have such a mental space to think about all of them, how do you expect your mind can play this through your head? maybe you dont have the power and capacity to think about all of that stuff at all? thats like expecting from someone who dont have legs, to do cardio. this is my view anyways.


this is very important as well


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## ithinkimighthaveddd (12 mo ago)

Hi! I found these three videos that helped me a lot: 

Depersonalization Symptoms: 10 Most Common (+ How To Deal With Them!) - YouTube 

Depersonalization Recovery - 3 Things You NEED To Know! (2020) - YouTube 

How To Get Over Depersonalization - YouTube 

Hoping these videos can help you like they did for me. I wish you all the best!


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## Dutchhighlander (Aug 6, 2018)

Ray46 said:


> Maybe a Nad+ IV could help you… I’m looking forward to do one:


to0 good to be true?


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## coolwhip27 (Mar 14, 2015)

blankxi said:


> (eye roll) Please shut the fuck up, seriously. I’m so tired of people saying this. My mind is blank, period. I’m convinced people who have your mentality don’t have a single clue what we mean when we say “blank”.


If your mind really is blank, I’m not sure how you are continuing to complain about it. It’s a direct contradiction, face it. Am I supposed to feel bad for you? Toughen up, It’s not my fault you lack self awareness. Get over yourself, there’s no depressed people living in poverty complaining about their blank mind now is there? Lmao


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## blankxi (Dec 11, 2020)

coolwhip27 said:


> If your mind really is blank, I’m not sure how you are continuing to complain about it. It’s a direct contradiction, face it. Am I supposed to feel bad for you? Toughen up, It’s not my fault you lack self awareness. Get over yourself, there’s no depressed people living in poverty complaining about their blank mind now is there? Lmao


It’s not a contradiction, at all. If you simply don’t know what it is, then that’s your problem lol. Look it up or something idk what to tell you. People who actually have blank mind know exactly what I mean, and that’s all that matters to me. Your attempt to gaslight me isn’t gonna work. Try someone else. ✌🏼


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## blankxi (Dec 11, 2020)

leminaseri said:


> what a **** you are he just tried to give you a good advice. do you want a medal or a trophie for having a „real“ blank mind? fagass. how do you manage it to be such an asshole with a blank mind? blank mind blank mind blank mind everyone is talking about the same shit but no one can explain that.


“No one can explain it” - You ran straight into the point and somehow it still went over your head. But yeah you’re right Blank Mind is just an imaginary concept that thousands of people all collectively decided to make up for no reason! You cracked our code! Good job 🥇


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

blankxi said:


> “No one can explain it” - You ran straight into the point and somehow it still went over your head. But yeah you’re right Blank Mind is just an imaginary concept that thousands of people all collectively decided to make up for no reason! You cracked our code! Good job 🥇


no i do have the same symptoms as you but dont consider my mind as blank. there are memories, ideas, opinions and being able to write this one. this is for me enough to make the claim that my mind is not blank even though i struggle with the same issues as you


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## blankxi (Dec 11, 2020)

leminaseri said:


> im convinced people who have your mentality will never recover from being an asshole. this is much more important than recovering from any kind of mental illness. fagass


I’m only an asshole to people like you who don’t actually want to be productive/helpful and just attempt to try to make someone think their mental illness is in all in their head. You and the other person were not trying to give advice or be helpful, you were attempting to gaslight me and convince me my experience isn’t real. And it was transparent as fuck lol.


leminaseri said:


> no i do have the same symptoms as you but dont consider my mind as blank. there are memories, ideas, opinions and being able to write this one. this is for me enough to make the claim that my mind is not blank even though i struggle with the same issues as you


So you just tried to insinuate that I was making all this up in my head with your “you say u have this but u can’t explain it” statement.. and then 2 seconds later say “i have the same issues as you”. The math isn’t adding up. When people say “Blank Mind” OBVIOUSLY we don’t mean we’re fucking brain dead. and you know that. So what is your goal in saying “i have these issues and i’m fine ”… THATS why I’m being an asshole, because you weren’t trying to help at all. You were trying to gaslight me to make yourself feel better about your OWN situation.

Again, people who actually have blank mind know exactly what I’m talking about and understand me. So your attempt to make me feel crazy or that I’m alone in this will not work. Save it.


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## leminaseri (Jul 1, 2020)

blankxi said:


> I’m only an asshole to people like you who don’t actually want to be productive/helpful and just attempt to try to make someone think their mental illness is in all in their head. You and the other person were not trying to give advice or be helpful, you were attempting to gaslight me and convince me my experience isn’t real. And it was transparent as fuck lol.
> 
> 
> So you just tried to insinuate that I was making all this up in my head with your “you say u have this but u can’t explain it” statement.. and then 2 seconds later say “i have the same issues as you”. The math isn’t adding up. When people say “Blank Mind” OBVIOUSLY we don’t mean we’re fucking brain dead. and you know that. So what is your goal in saying “i have these issues and i’m fine ”… THATS why I’m being an asshole, because you weren’t trying to help at all. You were trying to gaslight me to make yourself feel better about your OWN situation.
> ...


from every sentence you wrote here it spreads very much of some victim mentality. i never said im fine. my mind or thinking is no way like it was used to, but to abuse the term „blank mind“, even though most of your cognitive abilities are still intact, is disappointing people and does actually harm to new members. because of people like you i was obsessed with my inner voice, and i checked it very frequently, what in the beginning of my relapse was 100% fine and one night because of the crippling anxiety to lose it, it turned its volume down. so when i look back, people like you did me harm but i never complained about that here. if you would was in my situation holy shit you blame everybody who did this to you. 

why should i do gaslight you? what benefit should i do get from it? to make myself feel better? no. and actually i tried to help you at my first reply, but you didnt even respond to that.


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## blankxi (Dec 11, 2020)

leminaseri said:


> from every sentence you wrote here it spreads very much of some victim mentality. i never said im fine. my mind or thinking is no way like it was used to, but to abuse the term „blank mind“, even though most of your cognitive abilities are still intact, is disappointing people and does actually harm to new members. because of people like you i was obsessed with my inner voice, and i checked it very frequently, what in the beginning of my relapse was 100% fine and one night because of the crippling anxiety to lose it, it turned its volume down. so when i look back, people like you did me harm but i never complained about that here. if you would was in my situation holy shit you blame everybody who did this to you.
> 
> why should i do gaslight you? what benefit should i do get from it? to make myself feel better? no. and actually i tried to help you at my first reply, but you didnt even respond to that.


Not a single sentence in my comment did I victimize myself OR blame someone for my current mental state. You’re making shit up now. You did not offer ANY advice in your original comment. You simply said you also have these same issues but they don’t bother you. Your comment wasn’t productive by any definition, and you gave zero guidance.

If someone feels “harmed” by my post, that is 100% their problem to deal with. I’m focusing on myself. I’m allowed to vent about my pain or my happiness, and will continue to do so REGARDLESS of how it makes you or anyone else feel.


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## coolwhip27 (Mar 14, 2015)

blankxi said:


> It’s not a contradiction, at all. If you simply don’t know what it is, then that’s your problem lol. Look it up or something idk what to tell you. People who actually have blank mind know exactly what I mean, and that’s all that matters to me. Your attempt to gaslight me isn’t gonna work. Try someone else. ✌🏼


Gaslight? Blah. I gave you advice that makes sense. Stop being concerned about your “blank mind” and live life, and perhaps the blankness will dissolve itself. What else can you do? Go online, cry about it, then tell other people trying to help to F off? Great idea buddy


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## coolwhip27 (Mar 14, 2015)

blankxi said:


> Not a single sentence in my comment did I victimize myself OR blame someone for my current mental state. You’re making shit up now. You did not offer ANY advice in your original comment. You simply said you also have these same issues but they don’t bother you. Your comment wasn’t productive by any definition, and you gave zero guidance.
> 
> If someone feels “harmed” by my post, that is 100% their problem to deal with. I’m focusing on myself. I’m allowed to vent about my pain or my happiness, and will continue to do so REGARDLESS of how it makes you or anyone else feel.


Ah shut up. If you’re gonna be an ass, expect people to give it right back. Seems to me like your blank mind syndrome is currently absent anyway.


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## Trith (Dec 31, 2019)

I think I know what you mean. I have never had blank mind, but I just mean I understand how difficult it can be to explain to someone else something they never went through. I am writing this not just for you but also for those who don't seem to give any credit to your experience.

When I tried to describe my DPDR symptoms to some people, they simply thought I was full of shit, they did not understand how something could be "unreal", they thought I was just mentalizing some philosophical problem.
Even my current psychiatrist doesn't understand how it is possible. Here are the "contradictions" that he pointed out: "if you feel unreal, it means that you _feel_, so if you _feel_ it it must feel real?!" (or something like that), or also, his exact words --> "DR is generally described as a feeling of strangeness, but if you have been feeling it for many years, it should not feel strange to you anymore, it should feel like a new normal, right?" (So it can't still be DPDR, can it? gotcha!!). He finally started understanding, no, rather accepting, what I wanted to say when I used the word "dreamlike". But then as some treatment started to work, I told him the feeling had reduced, and he asked me in a kind of condescending disbelieving way how it was possible to be _less_ in a dream. In his personal experience, he could probably be either in a dream or not in a dream, but he couldn't picture anything in between, it didn't seem possible for him. Although it is probably possible for him to feel drunk or less drunk. Granted he isn't a very good psychiatrist, but it is just an example of a reaction so many people could have towards something they have little knowledge of.
A CBT therapist made me push against the wall in a position that caused my calf to stretch and asked me if I could feel it. I said yes, so he answered "so doesn't it feel real?". He really didn't get it.
My brother thinks the symptoms I am describing are too strange and he thinks I have probably nothing and made it up.

And as a matter of fact I can have the same kind of judgement. Schizophrenia is something very well known now, but if I had never heard of it in my whold life, and someone came and told me that sometimes he has episodes where he believes he is chased by aliens who read his mind thanks to moon light, eventhough he would normally believe alien invasion is a ridiculous idea and it is impossible to read minds, I would think that his condition is impossible. Because why would you believe something is happening if you also don't believe in that thing? Wouldn't it be very easy to reason yourself?

And frankly, never having had blank mind, my very first thought would be that (please don't hit me) you say you don't feel any emotion and would give anything to feel even a negative one, but at the same time you say you are crying over this, and this feeling is very distressing to you, so this means you do feel some emotions, and negative ones too. But I don't say that, because if I do I already know I will sound as dumb to you as my psychiatrist did to me. If I think this doesn't make any sense, there are two possibilities: either all the people who claim to suffer from blank mind are all coincidentally full of the exact same shit, or you are suffering from something I don't know or haven't experienced at least to that extent, and I just can't picture it myself, just as it happens for so many mental illnesses, if not all of them.

When someone suffering from DR says they don't feel something is real I could very easily imagine someone telling them: "If you can see it, touch it, smell it, hear a sound when you touch it, if you can lift it, WHY do you say it doesn't feel real?? What's the difference?? This is already the definition of something real!! I think you feel it isn't real just because you_ think _it isn't real and you are obsessing over that feeling. Stop thinking about it and you will be cured". Of course if an object wasn't real at all we wouldn't talk about it, we don't mean it actually isn't real, we just use the word "unreal" because it is the best word to fit our experience. If there was a word that exactly fitted only our experience and that made people understand exactly what we are going through we would use it, but there isn't, so we have to use another that best fits. This is really basic. So if blankxi uses the expression "blank mind", perhaps, just _perhaps_, he doesn't mean his mind is blank in the same sense that _you_ think, but perhaps it is the word that best describes _his_ experience, just like unreal could be the word that best describes yours.

Frankly, I find people's reactions here a bit more than irritating. It's ok to not understand everyone on the planet, but we are all in a forum suffering of the same thing that so few people out of this place can picture for themselves or even understand. I suspect most people here must have faced someone's disbelief at some point. I have just finished reading that book (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B093TCFRZS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) where the author talks about how her parents believed nothing about her DPDR, I can't be the only one who has faced that. The least I could do when I faced that disbelief was at least to try to learn and not make the same mistake with others, to use that experience to educate myself about it. I find this really immature. I have been through the disbelief of friends and family members who thought DPDR couldn't be a real thing, I think the least one can do in such a case is to realize this is not a problem with _their_ disease, but a problem with how mental illnesses are considered in general, or whatever one wants to call it. The least we can do is to try to use that experience to correct our own biases about mental illnesses in general, and not go around and disrespect other people's illnesses, saying that their disease doesn't make any sense but ours does.

My opinion is that: if you think that blankxi is making up his symptom or that his actual problem is that "he thinks he has a problem", know that this is probably how most people out of this forum would look at _your_ DPDR symptoms as well (actually I think most people even have more empathy than that). If you think they would be wrong for thinking that about your disorder, now you have the opportunity to be in their shoes and show how people should properly react when facing a disorder or symptom they don't get.


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## Chip1021 (Mar 24, 2018)

Trith said:


> I think I know what you mean. I have never had blank mind, but I just mean I understand how difficult it can be to explain to someone else something they never went through. I am writing this not just for you but also for those who don't seem to give any credit to your experience.
> 
> When I tried to describe my DPDR symptoms to some people, they simply thought I was full of shit, they did not understand how something could be "unreal", they thought I was just mentalizing some philosophical problem.
> Even my current psychiatrist doesn't understand how it is possible. Here are the "contradictions" that he pointed out: "if you feel unreal, it means that you _feel_, so if you _feel_ it it must feel real?!" (or something like that), or also, his exact words --> "DR is generally described as a feeling of strangeness, but if you have been feeling it for many years, it should not feel strange to you anymore, it should feel like a new normal, right?" (So it can't still be DPDR, can it? gotcha!!). He finally started understanding, no, rather accepting, what I wanted to say when I used the word "dreamlike". But then as some treatment started to work, I told him the feeling had reduced, and he asked me in a kind of condescending disbelieving way how it was possible to be _less_ in a dream. In his personal experience, he could probably be either in a dream or not in a dream, but he couldn't picture anything in between, it didn't seem possible for him. Although it is probably possible for him to feel drunk or less drunk. Granted he isn't a very good psychiatrist, but it is just an example of a reaction so many people could have towards something they have little knowledge of.
> ...


I think this response should be pinned somewhere. Although I have a few minor quibbles with a couple of your claims, I think the essence of your reply is exactly right.

It’s an exceptionally frustrating experience going to many doctors and therapists over the last two decades, attempting to describe what I experience using the imperfect words I have available to me, but those doctors seem to fail to understand (as most scientists do as well) that words are not things. So they think that trying to correct my “false beliefs” (or as they pretentiously call them, “cognitive distortions”) is key to recovery. 

But the issue is not belief, it’s experience. I have a certain difficult to describe experience of myself, and I would like to try to change that experience to a better one. Do you understand what this experience is? Can you help me change that to a more palatable or tolerable experience? Is this experience the product of something that happened to me (an illness), or is it something that I am doing to myself? Instead of clarifying that distinction, our medicine seems to be hell bent on obscuring that distinction.

Part of the issue, in my view, is science itself. I’m very doubtful that science is the best tool for understanding the phenomena we collectively refer to as “mental illnesses.” In fact, I think our insistence on trying to understand them scientifically tends to make them worse.


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