Originally Posted by
mikey
I agree that mental health is a continuum, but how does one draw the boundaries? Grief, for example, causes immense distress but is not seen as a form of mental illness, so the fact that an emotion causes distress doesn't make it a mental illness.
I suppose what I was really asking you all to answer is whether my diagnosis of manic depression (made a few years ago) is correct or not. I'm doubting it. Stupid of me to ask really. Sorry.
I'm sorry but I'm not really sure what you mean by this.
Well this is where I use the "smacked hand" analogy. If a person smacked your hand it would sting and then the pain would go away leaving no damage. However if you got really upset with my smacking your hand then even after the hand felt ok the "mental sting' would probably still exist (depending on how upset you got).
There is natural pain and natural grief - both can take the our focus. But it's often how we relate to the hardships that will determine if we get pulled down into our own machinery. The "resentment" means "to feel twice" and it's a dangerous (hypnotic) emotion because it fixates attention and creates morbidity.
Take a traumatic event like a bank robbery with guns. Some people will feel traumatized and some won't - the difference is often how people reacted - the upset was more dangerous than the actual event.
Now some kids get a lot of help falling into their own machinery because they often get stressed more than they are ready for. Then when a kid encounters problems a lot of people including parents will blame the kid and add more stress - thus making the kid more upset. If a kid is manic depressive/bipolar etc. and I could guess the root cause had more to do with things wrong outside them than inside.