Leo and the Mentally Ill

[Danioover9000]

@Mindful Bum

28 minutes ago, Mindful Bum said:

I have a lot of experience dealing with mental health issues, both personally (I've suffered from depression) and academically (I'm studying to become a psychedelic therapist). So to me, Leo's ignorance is immediately obvious from the comments he made. Experts in the field don't throw around phrases like "the mentally ill" and they certainly don't use it as a valid stereotype. It's obvious to me that Leo has a very specific preconception about people with mental illness, and it hinders his ability to connect with that part of his audience. But his comments aren't just out of touch, they're potentially harmful. The stigma around mental health is a real problem that adds to suffering and death. Suggesting that people with mental health issues are hopelessly dramatic and should be avoided...to me, that's beyond ignorant; that's potentially dangerous. Not to mention, it added nothing to the video and was counterproductive to his stated intention of being more considerate of those viewers. His comments weren't like wildly offensive to me...I just think there's a lot of room for improvement, and I was curious to know how other forum members felt about it.

   Ah okay, I understand your view much more.

   So, to further explain myself about what I think of the video and give a fairer take, what I do like about the video, is that Leo has attempted to draw the line on the sand, on where he stands and where his work stands in relation to those suffering from mental health issues, and isn't an exact repeat in what he said in the video on the dangers of spirituality as he did this a few times before. What I do think he can improve on in his rhetoric here, is more distinctly seperate the use of the words those suffering from 'mental health issues', from those with 'mental disorders', from those with 'mental illness', and those with cognitive function/dysfunctional challenges. Of course, as he said in the video, he is not an expert in the mental health and mental disorders field, and it does show in the video where at times it was better to use mental disorders instead of mental health or mental illness. This, in fact, is good to know to those who are suffering from some mental health issue like depression, short to chronic, or grief or very strong negative emotions, or some other ailment of the mind that affects one's state of being, versus those who have mental disorders like schizophrenia, Borderline personality disorder, bi-polar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, multiple personality disorder, hyper mania, because Leo is ill equipped to dealing with such cases and so is Actualized.org. Those suffering from mental health issues and have mental disorders, must seek professional help from experts who have both the theory and experience dealing with such cases, like therapists or psychologists. Now, when it comes to mental health related to strong negative emotions, there's a litle bit of leeway here that I give, because a few moderators here do provide emotional support to those going through an emotional based mental health issue, like grief for example, and on top of that they do encourage the person suffering to seek professional help if possible.

   Being here, doing personal development work, assumes a certain range of mental health and stability, and, to me, the lower ranges is when you have the mild disorders, or when you have mild mental health issues, that doing basic self help from here or some other place is probably ok to do, and probably ok to do other traditional spiritual practices like meditation, contemplation, concentration exercises etc, all assuming responsible use and safe use. It's already one of my rules being here, for myself, that as soon as I feel verg strong negative emotions, I stop, take a break, and have the number ready to speak to a professional if I need, or go and talk to a person I know and trust that can provide emotional support. This is rare to me as I can process strong emotions and melt it off of me through mindfulness though, so listen to what you're capable of managing in this work is probably the best thing anyone can do in this work. 

   About the bit when he said it's dramatic if he was friends or is living with those suffering from mental health issues, yes I agree it was a bit of a strange wording, again from not making the language more distinct here, so I'll assume two possibilities: he's talking about those suffering from mental health issues like strong negative emotions, and those who have mental disorders. I can understand, in both cases, if what he meant to say, was that it's ABNORMALLY STRESSFUL. I think that's a much better wording here, because I've seen some people, of both cases in different parts of my life, and the situations, I can definitely say the most consistent factor was higher stress from dealing with people who have states of strong negative emotions, and who have radically different cognitive patterns than the normal person, that it is more stressful to try to manage either case, almost comparable to a parent taking care of a child with one of those mentak disorders,  it's far more stressful. I think that was what he really meant to say, which I can see how that does lead to increase in drama. It's just that I hold meanings differently when I hear the word 'drama', as in that's usually a trait of tv shows or movies or theatres and probably most people hold similar meanings when they think of drama.