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Abnormal Is the New Normal: Why will half of the U.S. population have a diagnosable mental disorder?
Slate ^ | April 12, 2013 | Robin S. Rosenberg

Posted on 04/15/2013 8:28:25 AM PDT by neverdem

Although fewer than 6 percent of American adults will have a severe mental illness in a given year, according to a 2005 study, many more—more than a quarter each year—will have some diagnosable mental disorder. That’s a lot of people. Almost 50 percent of Americans (46.4 percent to be exact) will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, based on the previous edition, the DSM-IV. And the new manual will likely make it even "easier" to get a diagnosis.

If we think of having a diagnosable mental illness as being under a tent, the tent seems pretty big. Huge, in fact. How did it happen that half of us will develop a mental illness? Has this always been true and we just didn’t realize how sick we were—we didn’t realize we were under the tent? Or are we mentally less healthy than we were a generation ago? What about a third explanation—that we are labeling as mental illness psychological states that were previously considered normal, albeit unusual, making the tent bigger. The answer appears to be all three.

First, we’ve gotten better at detecting mental illness and doing so earlier in the course of the illness. For decades, mental health clinicians, physicians, the U.S. surgeon general’s office, and various state and local agencies have been advocating for better detection of mental illness. If we are better at spotting it, we can treat it. And if we detect it earlier, we can, hopefully, intervene to reduce the intensity and/or frequency of symptoms. For instance, people who decades ago may have had undiagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, or substance abuse are now more likely to have their problems recognized and diagnosed. But the increased awareness and detection translates into a higher rate of mental illness.

Second, we really are getting...

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


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To: neverdem

I have mental problems. Liberals drive me insane.


81 posted on 04/15/2013 3:20:02 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican
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To: neverdem

Pharmaceutical companies advertise “prescription-only” psychotropic drugs like candy on TV and in magazines. Patients then come to their doctors asking about a drug that can help their “depression” or “anxiety”, (typically nothing more than a normal bad mood) and the doctors happily oblige by giving the patient a fake diagnosis and a prescription.


82 posted on 04/15/2013 4:35:39 PM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: rlmorel

Sounds like me, brother. I cannot to this day handle anything more complicated than long division. I only had Latin in High School. It was only as an adult that I discovered that I had a talent for languages


83 posted on 04/15/2013 4:57:53 PM PDT by Ax
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To: neverdem
Abnormal Is the New Normal: Why will half of the U.S. population have a diagnosable mental disorder?

Wow.
I'm no longer the only one in the U.S. to be convinced of that?
I've been saying that for ten years.

Could we have gotten to such a dystopic social condition without widespread certifiable insanity?

Regardless of whether imbecility and glorified ignorance has become the new "normal," the old normals will have to rise and deal with the cancer. It's all a matter of time.

84 posted on 04/15/2013 4:59:00 PM PDT by publius911 (Look for the Union label, then buy something else.)
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To: null and void
If you want a gun you are, by definition, insane.

The new Catch 22?

85 posted on 04/15/2013 5:02:01 PM PDT by publius911 (Look for the Union label, then buy something else.)
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To: mrsmel

I had a stroke on January 11 of this year. I’m out of hospital and have completed outpaitient therapy. While I was in the hospital, the medical people decided that I was depressed. I think that I had a good reason to feel a little down.
Anyway so now I’d been labeled and proscribed ritlin which
turns out to be legal meth. I hate the stuff, it mess up
my naptime. I do not take it at home unless my hubby makes me.


86 posted on 04/15/2013 5:02:47 PM PDT by jusduat (on the mercy of the Lord alone.)
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To: publius911

Catch .22LR


87 posted on 04/15/2013 5:10:32 PM PDT by null and void (Republicans create the tools of oppression and Democrats use them. Gun confiscation enables tyranny.)
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To: puppypusher
Maybe it’s because the democrats are driving us crazy.They are taking away all of our civil rights and there’s nothing we can do about it,other than fight the next big civil war.

The beauty of it is that if most remaining normals which happens to coincide with people employed and earning a living in productive work (non-governmental 'work'), in short, the "makers" go on an open-ended strike and refuse to go to work, refuse to buy anything, including food.
The bloodless revolution. ONE month of that and the "takers," the parasites of the system will force our dystopic so-called leaders to fold.

Compute what 1/12 of 1.3 trillion$ is...

What are they gonna do? send Obama's brownshirts to force us all at gunpoint, to drive us to work? to spend money?

88 posted on 04/15/2013 5:34:35 PM PDT by publius911 (Look for the Union label, then buy something else.)
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To: Ax

It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?

I did not pass a single math course until I got a C in some class because I’m sure they didn’t want to flunk me. I had to go to summer school, my mom spent months trying to teach me herself, using flash cards and times tables. What a wonderful woman she was to me.

At one point, I had an ex-nun who tutored me for several years in Yokosuka as a favor to my mom (She and my mom were friends) I used to go over to her apartment all the time, and she came to my house. Did me absolutely no good.

When I lived in Subic Bay as a kid, my parents hired a sailor to tutor me. He was a really nice guy, but I would just put my head on my forearms and stare at the desktop. I feel regret that I was that way with him, but you can’t change the past.

When I joined the Navy, and decided that it was not a career for me, I knew if I wanted to get into any scientific field, I had to learn math. Fortunately for me, I met up with a guy named Jerry Wouters when I was in VA-46 on the USS JFK.

I had been doing very well, advancing in rank and responsibility until on my last cruise, I had made 2nd class and was a flight deck troubleshooter, and they assigned me to work on a special project with this guy.

He worked for Detroit Diesel Allison, and his company had made a bunch of small modifications to the TF-41 engines in our A-7 Corsairs, mostly adding transducers, thermocouples and other sensors all over the engine so they could record parameters such as temperature, vibration, RPM, throttle position and so on. They took the aircraft into an AIMD (Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Depot) and put a wiring harness in them that would take all the transducer measurements and bring them to a box they put in a bay on the plane that held a cassette that could record them. My job was to go to each plane after it landed, check the mechanical flags (this was in 1978) and record and reset them (passing the info on to the maintenance crews for investigation)

I would take this battery out (they were about 3x3x4, and very heavy for their size) and replace them with a new battery. I would stick the battery in a special bandolier they made me, velcro it in, write all the info down in a little book, and continue to the next plane.

Then I would download the contents of the battery to a Digital Equipment PDP11, and using a command line, plot all the parameters for the duration of the flight in order to print them out on a big plotter. I loved it. I learned all about plotting things on a graph and doing in the best way so that all the values could be easily discerned. I worked with this guy, Jerry Wouters from Detroit Diesel Allison for months.

One day he asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I said I wanted to go to college and work in a scientific, hopefully medical field. He was a young guy, I am guessing 30, and was a completely down to earth guy. I told him I doubted if I could do it, because I had such a mind block with mathematics.

He said “I am teaching a college level algebra course for the sailors on this ship while we are at sea. Why don’t you sign up for the course? I will personally tutor you and help you pass the course?” I was dubious, but I thought maybe it will be different this time, and signed up. I passed with a “B”...and it is hard to fake a grade in math!

I ended up being a Chemistry major (Even passed Physical Chemistry!) and now I have no fear of math.

I only wish I could find Jerry Wouters. It has been a few years since I last tried...maybe I’ll try again...maybe some new tool on the Internet...


89 posted on 04/15/2013 6:06:08 PM PDT by rlmorel ("We'll drink to good health for them that have it coming." Robert Duvall)
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To: Ax

OMG.

I found him.


90 posted on 04/15/2013 6:11:21 PM PDT by rlmorel ("We'll drink to good health for them that have it coming." Robert Duvall)
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To: TigersEye

Good links, thanks.


91 posted on 04/15/2013 6:51:49 PM PDT by cyn (Benghazi.)
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To: rlmorel

My aunt was a big shot in the order of nuns that ran our school. They dragged me through algebra and passed me on to geometry. At the end of that horror, my aunt made a phone call. The geometry teacher gave me a D and told me never to darken a math door again. In college, students were required to take three hours of math. One of my mates found a loophole that allowed students to replace the math requirement if one too six hours of physical science and 12 hours of foreign language. I graduated with a 3.5 GPA. In the service I went to an intercept operators course and made a career, military and civilian. Nothing as mentally taxing as yours, but challenging nonetheless. In addition to the French, I got sent to a 44-week Hebrew course for a liaison position that got defunded 40 weeks into the course. Ten years later, my late wife and I did a five month full time Spanish course and then spent the next ten years in Latin America. I’ve been retired for 15+ years now and am too disabled to work.


92 posted on 04/15/2013 7:37:38 PM PDT by Ax
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To: rlmorel

Good story . Now you can help others better.


93 posted on 04/16/2013 12:48:28 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: ek_hornbeck
Pharmaceutical companies advertise “prescription-only” psychotropic drugs like candy on TV and in magazines.

Don't even get me started...people should be in PRISON for that.

I have a family member who was given Abilify...a drug developed to treat SEVERE Bi-Polar disorder and Schizophrenia. The warnings that came with this drug were shocking to say the least..she had to go back every couple of months for blood tests, liver tests, etc. We were told to look for all kinds of bizarre things that could happen as side effects as they were somewhat common.

Next thing I know, within just a couple of years of this, the criminals are marketing this drug to people with DEPRESSION! Do you suppose that they told the patients "let's try this schizophrenia drug?"

For the rest of their lives, their medical history will show that they were treated with a major antipsychotic medication. Nice, huh?

94 posted on 04/16/2013 1:10:37 AM PDT by garandgal
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To: Ax
"...The geometry teacher gave me a D and told me never to darken a math door again..."

Heh, that was a fantasy of mine, that they wouldn't make me waste someone's time trying to teach me...:)

What is an Intercept Operator? It sounds like an Air Traffic Controller, except you give fighter aircraft coordinates to meet up with or shoot down another plane...

95 posted on 04/16/2013 3:00:24 AM PDT by rlmorel ("We'll drink to good health for them that have it coming." Boss Spearman in Open Range)
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To: SeekAndFind
It shows that the gay lobby is winning. Bluntly.

Sorry, but there it is.

96 posted on 04/16/2013 3:01:48 AM PDT by Vanders9
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To: daniel1212

I am going to call that guy today...pretty much the last 35 years I have wanted to say thank you to that man. Now I have found him...


97 posted on 04/16/2013 3:02:38 AM PDT by rlmorel ("We'll drink to good health for them that have it coming." Boss Spearman in Open Range)
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To: rlmorel

The collection and reporting on target signals. It’s still classified .


98 posted on 04/16/2013 5:26:15 AM PDT by Ax
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To: rlmorel

And they try to hold boys to the same behavioral standards as girls, in terms of being rambunctious and energetic. There was good reason for all-boy and all-girl classes, before “co-ed” took over.


99 posted on 04/16/2013 6:28:25 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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To: left that other site

That’s so ridiculous, Queen Victoria remained in overt mourning for Prince Albert all her life yet ran one of the most succesful countries and empires in history. No one would have said she wasn’t as sharp as a pin till she died.


100 posted on 04/16/2013 6:30:48 AM PDT by mrsmel (One Who Can See)
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