critique wanted Psychology Majors, Your Input is Needed!

[Hazard Time 1,127]

So a big part of my OC's, Succulent Scent's, backstory is how she overcame her trauma and adapted her mindset to allow her to continue to live a happy life.  It's loosely based on my own experience, and while I didn't experience anything near as traumatic as what she went through, it was still enough that I had to change my entire outlook on life to escape my depression.

 

The question I have for anyone who knows a lot about psychology is: how common is it for people to simply break out of mental disorders simply by thinking positively?  By mental disorders, I'm not talking about illnesses like autism, schizophrenia, BPD, or likewise where there is a definite chemical imbalance in the brain, but rather disorders like anxiety and depression where it's simply the way that your brain processes information that's causing you problems.  I've heard that you can't treat mental illness by simply telling someone to "think positively", but where does one draw the line?  Can any mental illnesses/disorders be cured by changing your attitude/outlook?  Which one would PTSD be among?

[Mothra 640]

Thinking positivly is the best way to escape depression as well as other mental illnesses surrounding it, I had a really bad patch of my life before I started studying psychology were OCD (as well as some other minor illnesses) controlled my life, but thinking positivly isnt the easiest thing when you're going through that. It's usually a combination of doing your best to think positivly, as well as a set dosage of drugs and regular visits to a counselor or a psychiatrist, depending on how bad it is. Unfortunatly, if there's anything specific to PTSD im afriad I cant help you there, but most anxiety disorders have the same solution, and if applied correctly have a great chance of helping someone with said illnesses. One thing to note is that they never really go away, more so dont affect you, like imagine if you had a bruise or a wound that you couldn't get rid of, but there was a way to null the pain right down to a point were you wouldn't even notice it's there

Edited September 29, 2016 by Majora Mothra

[Divine_Heart 51]

So a big part of my OC's, Succulent Scent's, backstory is how she overcame her trauma and adapted her mindset to allow her to continue to live a happy life.  It's loosely based on my own experience, and while I didn't experience anything near as traumatic as what she went through, it was still enough that I had to change my entire outlook on life to escape my depression.

 

The question I have for anyone who knows a lot about psychology is: how common is it for people to simply break out of mental disorders simply by thinking positively?  By mental disorders, I'm not talking about illnesses like autism, schizophrenia, BPD, or likewise where there is a definite chemical imbalance in the brain, but rather disorders like anxiety and depression where it's simply the way that your brain processes information that's causing you problems.  I've heard that you can't treat mental illness by simply telling someone to "think positively", but where does one draw the line?  Can any mental illnesses/disorders be cured by changing your attitude/outlook?  Which one would PTSD be among?

 

I love how informed you are. That means it can make this easy, even for me.

 

Before I answer, I would like to state my credentials and work seeing as I am a Psychology Major, but probably less educated than some: i am a Psychology Major/Sociology Minor with a special interest in Psychological personalities and Media. I researched the topic of Bronies with Professor Chadborn at SELU and I work as a Mental Health Specialist.

 

Severe conditions just as the ones you describe: Schizophrenia, Autism (across all spectrum), and BPD are life-long, of course, but can be managed. Depression and Anxiety can vary depending on the person's environmental factors and current situation. it is hard to say which ones prevail and which ones still have trouble managing since people are so varied among themselves. They do not experience the same factors as one person might to the next. However, you can mark what contribute to it. For an example, a person with depression with a support system has more of a chance of prevailing in conquering their depressive state than someone with no support, no regulation, and no treatment.

 

No, you cannot treat something by simply telling someone to "be happy" or "be positive." If anything, it takes time and effort from a very caring support system, a specialist/professional, and/or a very careful use of medication with therapy to heighten the chance of success.

 

PTSD (If I recall since I do not have any client like this) varies as well. What are we talking about: nightmares, a certain situation, or a response to a certain presence, etc?

Edited September 29, 2016 by Divine_Heart

[Hazard Time 1,127]

Thinking positivly is the best way to escape depression as well as other mental illnesses surrounding it, I had a really bad patch of my life before I started studying psychology were OCD (as well as some other minor illnesses) controlled my life, but thinking positivly isnt the easiest thing when you're going through that. It's usually a combination of doing your best to think positivly, as well as a set dosage of drugs and regular visits to a counselor or a psychiatrist, depending on how bad it is. Unfortunatly, if there's anything specific to PTSD im afriad I cant help you there, but most anxiety disorders have the same solution, and if applied correctly have a great chance of helping someone with said illnesses. One thing to note is that they never really go away, more so dont affect you, like imagine if you had a bruise or a wound that you couldn't get rid of, but there was a way to null the pain right down to a point were you wouldn't even notice it's there

 

 

I love how informed you are. That means it can make this easy, even for me.

 

Before I answer, I would like to state my credentials and work seeing as I am a Psychology Major, but probably less educated than some: i am a Psychology Major/Sociology Minor with a special interest in Psychological personalities and Media. I researched the topic of Bronies with Professor Chadborn at SELU and I work as a Mental Health Specialist.

 

Severe conditions just as the ones you describe: Schizophrenia, Autism (across all spectrum), and BPD are life-long, of course, but can be managed. Depression and Anxiety can vary depending on the person's environmental factors and current situation. it is hard to say which ones prevail and which ones still have trouble managing since people are so varied among themselves. They do not experience the same factors as one person might to the next. However, you can mark what contribute to it. For an example, a person with depression with a support system has more of a chance of prevailing in conquering their depressive state than someone with no support, no regulation, and no treatment.

 

No, you cannot treat something by simply telling someone to "be happy" or "be positive." If anything, it takes time and effort from a very caring support system, a specialist/professional, and/or a very careful use of medication with therapy to heighten the chance of success.

 

PTSD (If I recall since I do not have any client like this) varies as well. What are we talking about: nightmares, a certain situation, or a response to a certain presence, etc?

 

Thank you both of you for your input!

 

@@Divine_Heart

 

I can't exactly say on these forums what happened to Succulent, but we'll leave it at an "assault".  She did indeed have a very supportive group of friends, and I'm beginning to get a picture of how her recovery might have gone.  The one thing that she's taken to heart from this recovery, however, is to not let this one traumatic event shape her future interactions.  She's also weary of painting herself as a victim, as she'd rather be out doing things with her friends without constantly looking over her shoulder.

[Lil Pip 775]

I took a couple psych courses but did not major or minor in it, plus independent research into some psychology. I was depressed before and for my case it was due to a heart condition I didn't know I had, when my activity levels waned so did my mood, eventually it lead to poor oxygenation of my brain with the poor sleep I was getting and then anxiety and heart pains to the point I thought I might die. I had gotten hospitalized for a week where they didn't check if I had a heart condition or anything, and they gave me some diagnosis I didn't bother signing because I was paranoid at the time and didn't know to do so. But I did research a relative's schizophrenia before and determined exercise was good, and my distrust got me to refuse medication and such, after 2 days I was off meds and after a week I was out, and I still had symptoms each winter and fall for two years, eventually I took vitamin d supplements, used a therapy bluelight normally used for s.a.d., and got into ponies to relieve stress, and that combined seemed to do the trick, as well as getting back to a decent sleep schedule. If I have poor sleep (just missing a few hours accross one or two nights) then also have caffeine I can still get some paranoia, but I have made it a habitual response to correct it logically always no matter how tired I feel, to avoid it being a problem in the future and it certainly helped when I stopped believing in the paranormal(I could find indirect studies backing the idea belief of the paranormal increases stress levels). Other research I have done does indicate though that exercise can help some depression symptoms, making sure you do not waste your time sitting around doing nothing (as it causes brain atrophy) but also to do stress reduction activities (reading, meditation, yoga, music, non-competitive videogames, comedy shows, ponies). Studies for ptsd for instance show tetris can help prevent some and reduce some symptoms as can weight lifting or reading stories about succeeding over ptsd. For something like dyslexia an hour of first person shooter gaming helped more than a year of dyslexia therapy. But I think stress and poor sleep were the largest factors, looking back on it plenty of times analytically I can say it with certainty. Studies also say that weight lifitng is good for the heart (long term, where as for instance marathon runners have too low of aheart rate later in life) so I think it could be due to that. Another thing weight lifting has in common with this, is it, reading, and racing games improve memory. Now they don't know why it improves memory but other studies suggest that exercise helps improve sleep quality or quickness to fall asleep, as does reading, racing games I am not sure about though if it helps with sleep, but it'd be fascinating if what they all really did is simply stress reduce to accomodate sleeping. Its a bit complicated and I can't speak some of the interconnectedness with certainty but it is certainly interesting, and I think some of this knowledge could improve your understanding of the topic better potentially. If you would like me to try and find anything I said concretely from a study or such then I could try to find it for you.

 

Edit: Forgot to also say that avoiding talking about ptsd issues helps prevent them from cementing more recent studies suggest with traumas, and old studies contradict that, but I am not sure it may be something worth looking into though in detail to see what differences of practice or interpretation may have caused the contradictory results and whats actually true, my bet would be on the more recent ones but idk for sure.

 

Edit2: Art can also stress relieve, couldn't find anything about it and sleep though other than anti-stress art coloring books for adults is used in France and in France they use the most anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, and sleep meds. Upon googling it though anxiety and depression are related to sleep loss. So I guess I was correct, always good to double check though.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Lil Pip

[Kiri 7,288]

Ooh, a Psychology topic! I will answer this to the best of my ability. As someone who has suffered from extreme anxiety and has a degree in Psychology, I will provide some input. I hope it helps! 

 

Thinking positively does have the possibility to lessen symptoms, but there are usually underlying issues that the person may not even be aware of that's triggering their symptoms. It depends on the severity of the individual's situation and their temperament (such as, whether or not they tend to be sensitive, excitable, etc). Based upon the traumatic incident that your OC went through, I would say that being a victim in that situation would probably leave a lot of deep-rooted issues that take a lot of time and healing.

 

Referring to my struggles with anxiety, I needed far more than "happy thoughts" to overcome challenges. In addition to other things I won't go into here, I felt like I was incapable of adapting to my environment (this happened right as I was starting high school), and as a result, I felt overwhelmed and had frequent panic attacks. I needed therapy to help me change both conscious and unconscious mental processes. I actually needed to use certain "tools" and mental exercises to basically deal with triggers that sparked these anxiety episodes (and some of these triggers I wasn't even consciously aware of until they were brought to my attention by the therapist after several tests). 

 

As far as handling PTSD, it depends on very many factors, such as a person's background, what caused PTSD, what currently triggers the episodes, and how severe that person's symptoms are. Therefore, one must be very careful to figure out how that specific person can be helped. That's why, in some cases, more than "finding the happy place" is required to heal that individual. 

 

I'm not saying that it's impossible to get over non-chemical depression and anxiety without the help of a trained professional. Recovery can happen through many different ways. But I am suggesting that it would be more realistic if your OC had to directly confront her innermost conflicts, while learning to let them go, with the support and love of her friends so that she could prove to herself that she is capable of moving on and living a happy, fulfilling life.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Kiri

[Hazard Time 1,127]

My thanks to @@Lil Pip and @ for more enlightening input, though the latter's post was very helpful to what I was looking for!

 

So far, the ideas I have for how Succulent is dealing with her trauma is through frequent physical exercise (social dancing is her favorite), mental exercise (meditation, perhaps?), and frequent social contact with her friends.  However, as a result of what she went through, she's cautious and slow to trust new ponies, and alcohol just plain makes her uncomfortable.  Both of those things make her feel guilty as she feels she's punishing others for the things her ex did.  In this way, she's come to equate victimhood with lameness, and even though she has mostly moved on, she doesn't like the idea of carrying around this sort of baggage for the rest of her life.

[Kiri 7,288]

My thanks to @@Lil Pip and @ for more enlightening input, though the latter's post was very helpful to what I was looking for!

 

So far, the ideas I have for how Succulent is dealing with her trauma is through frequent physical exercise (social dancing is her favorite), mental exercise (meditation, perhaps?), and frequent social contact with her friends.  However, as a result of what she went through, she's cautious and slow to trust new ponies, and alcohol just plain makes her uncomfortable.  Both of those things make her feel guilty as she feels she's punishing others for the things her ex did.  In this way, she's come to equate victimhood with lameness, and even though she has mostly moved on, she doesn't like the idea of carrying around this sort of baggage for the rest of her life.

Sure, anytime! ^^

 

I think you have quite a dynamic setup with Succulent! It sounds like she is doing very constructive things to cope. Hmm...It also seems like her barrier of not trusting new ponies could maybe make her feel somewhat disconnected socially, as she holds back? I could imagine that, coupled with guilt, could cause her to feel stressed/anxious at times? Alcohol is a very interesting trigger! I like that idea! She sounds like the kind of mare who would avoid bars and similar places/situations at all costs. 

 

It seems to me like she has a tough exterior, and that the average pony wouldn't guess the kind of emotional baggage she struggles with. Perhaps she even is trying hard to uphold that image of "having it all together" because she doesn't want to come across as weak (fear of being taken advantage of), or be in a situation where she has to trust others with sensitive information? I would think of her as a pony who has a great need to be in control at all times from the paranoia she has. 

 

Those were just some observations/musings I had when reading your description.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Kiri

[Hazard Time 1,127]

Sure, anytime! ^^

 

I think you have quite a dynamic setup with Succulent! It sounds like she is doing very constructive things to cope. Hmm...It also seems like her barrier of not trusting new ponies could maybe make her feel somewhat disconnected socially, as she holds back? I could imagine that, coupled with guilt, could cause her to feel stressed/anxious at times? Alcohol is a very interesting trigger! I like that idea! She sounds like the kind of mare who would avoid bars and similar places/situations at all costs. 

 

It seems to me like she has a tough exterior, and that the average pony wouldn't guess the kind of emotional baggage she struggles with. Perhaps she even is trying hard to uphold that image of "having it all together" because she doesn't want to come across as weak (fear of being taken advantage of), or be in a situation where she has to trust others with sensitive information? 

 

Those were just some observations/musings I had when reading your description.

 

You actually got most of it right! 

 

Succulent likes for everyone to see her as the happy-go-lucky mare with the bright smile who loves life and wishes harm on nopony; who you can come to for a cup of tea, advice, or just a conversation.  Only her really close friends know what she went through, and she still has to get on one or two of them for treating her differently.  While partly because she's afraid of being taken advantage of again, she also upholds her facade because she doesn't want to make anypony feel awkward around her.  She feels that if others knew what happened, they'd constantly be showering her with condolences and/or acting like they're walking on eggshells whenever they're with her.  Not only does she not want to constantly be reminded of what happened, but she doesn't want potential friends to be afraid of triggering her.

 

Though it isn't so much her friendships that are affected as it is her relationships.  While she is interested in a girlfriend, the thought of trying again fills her with dread.  She knows that nothing bad can come from it, but that doesn't stop the anxiety from welling up within her.  It's something she's currently working on 

[stripper 252]

So a big part of my OC's, Succulent Scent's, backstory is how she overcame her trauma and adapted her mindset to allow her to continue to live a happy life.  It's loosely based on my own experience, and while I didn't experience anything near as traumatic as what she went through, it was still enough that I had to change my entire outlook on life to escape my depression.

 

The question I have for anyone who knows a lot about psychology is: how common is it for people to simply break out of mental disorders simply by thinking positively?  By mental disorders, I'm not talking about illnesses like autism, schizophrenia, BPD, or likewise where there is a definite chemical imbalance in the brain, but rather disorders like anxiety and depression where it's simply the way that your brain processes information that's causing you problems.  I've heard that you can't treat mental illness by simply telling someone to "think positively", but where does one draw the line?  Can any mental illnesses/disorders be cured by changing your attitude/outlook?  Which one would PTSD be among?

I can't recall what the numbers are, but 1 criticism of therapy is that people will naturally recover from their disorders like depression on their own. Some of them. Thinking positively may have to do with it. 1 key trick about depression that keeps people in it is priming. When they are informed about an idea, they expect to see more of that idea. Depression, in 1 way of looking at it, is just a priming loop. See 1 depressing thing, see another, then another. An optimistic outlook breaks this loop

 

A lot of depression is learned helplessness, which someone has learned that nothing they can do can solve their problems so they give up and stop doing things, even if anything can do something good for them. Priming and learned helplessness can interact with each other, I think, to lock people in depressive states

[lolliplops 1]

Most people don't break out of mental disorders by simply thinking positively, or improving their outlook on life. Although, this is mainly because most disorders either have a biological bases which causes them, or a first instance of a disorder results in neural damage to the brain which makes future episodes more likely, starting a vicious circle. With depression, a lot of research has shown that if someone experiences one major depressive episode, they are more likely to suffer from episodes throughout life. Anxiety is similar, except anxiety can be combatted more easily than depression, as long as the person has enough motivation to prevent themselves from succumbing to the (irrational) fear. Some people will have a relapse at some point, but anxiety is usually not biologically based, unlike most depressive disorders. PTSD is kind of a mix between depression and anxiety, although it's usually classed with anxiety. PTSD negatively impacts the brain, especially the learning and memory consolidation areas, which means that often after associating the original stressor that led to the disorder, it's difficult to unlearn that association. It's possible, but it takes a lot of effort, and most people relapse at least once, and many continue to have nightmares or nervous twitches.