"Gaming Disorder" Now A Recognized Illness According To World Health Organization

Pretty sure this is a massive selection bias here. Yeah, if you talk that way you'll end up hanging around people who agree, and you'll alienate many people with the problems you're dismissing. Then you'll think you've "solved" it, where all you've really done is hide it.

 

It's sad to see mental illnesses continue to be stigmatized by simply being dismissed as weakness.

 

I live in a world that embraces pharmaceuticals and therapists. Over 40% of American women over 40 are now on anti-depressant medications (and none of them are ever cured, but video game companies are the ones trying to get their customers hooked on their product... ...not the psycho-pharmaceutical companies and psychologists and psychiatrists, they are purely motivated by compassion, I am sure).

I can't get away from the weak, and listening to their pathetic excuses for their inability to control their own minds. And they always talk to me like they are telling me something new, complete with question mark inflection at the end of every sentence. And it's always "really bad" or "crippling".

I wish I could surround myself with champions. I wish the internet would perma-ban every person boo-hooing about their depression disorders and anxiety disorder and freaking GAMING addiction, now.

Not for my sake, but for the sake of everybody being told it is ok to be weak, and to be a victim.

There is one rule to the game of life:

GIT GUD or GIT REKT.


And I am writing this so that people can see that contrary to "scientific" dogma, YOUR ADDICTIONS ARE NOT SOME GREAT CHEMICAL IMBALANCE. THERE IS A GHOST IN THE MACHINE. TAKE CONTROL, DONT LET SOMEBODY ELSE DO IT FOR YOU, OR YOU WILL ALWAYS NEED THEM.

Life is painful. The older you get, the harder it gets. That's life. Embrace the pain. Without struggle, life is meaningless.

That is why all these "diseases" are so prevalent in a society where you can have anything on demand. They are first world diseases.

 

I keep replying and then deleting. Must... control...

 

I think the problem has a lot more to do with people pretending to be sympathetic while implying that weakness is an error from which no one can or should be able to recover from. I've rarely seen sympathy given to those who correct their own errors and take responsibility for themselves, even though they may need it just as much as anyone else.

 

Took me a moment to realize what was going on and then when I showed all ignored people I remembered them and just refreshed the page to hide their nonsense again.

 

Acknowledging that a mental illness is a mental illness is absolutely not in any way implying that it is unrecoverable. Most illnesses, mental or otherwise can be treated. Identifying specific illnesses allows for specialized care to treat that specific illness, which rarely involves raw willpower.

A mental illness is not inherently a lack of self control too. In fact, some conditions, such as Anorexia and OCPD are notable for the abnormally high level of self control those diagnosed with possess.

 

Treated, yes, but extremely few can be cured.

 

You are correct, sorry. I changed my post.

 

So why do you find the idea that mental illness can (sometimes) come from personal weakness, created and corrected through one's own attitude, habits and behaviors, such a 'dismissive' concept? Are you not perhaps dismissing people's own power to take control of their own lives?

To be clear, I'm not 100% against medication, and it is sometimes useful as a starting point - but I have never seen anyone recover from mental illness without a hell of a lot of willpower. Mental illnesses shatter one's identity, and no one can rebuild a strong and resilient identity around the idea that they have no power or responsibility to fix their own problems.

Sorry, but I find many of the comments on this thread (and elsewhere) extremely dismissive of the human potential for facing and fixing difficult psychological issues. True sympathy is not merely a question of helping to remove crippling guilt, but also of directing someone toward correct action.

 

There are more studies than ever, literally millions of studies now. There are hundreds of thousands of therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists. More than ever. And these "diseases" continue to spread. And the cure rate to these diseases is very low.

True. And those are some serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia. Serious mental illnesses exist.
But if 40% of the population is diagnosed with the same mental disorder (anxiety and depression), it's a philosophical problem, not a scientific. I guarantee you 40% of Americans are not saddled with a mental illness as serious as schizophrenia and Anorexia. Those are still quite rare, especially compared to all the new "diseases" being diagnosed.


And I have heard this song and dance too.

Next, I hear, "well yeah, some people are faking their gaming addiction, but mine is really bad. It is crippling."

Every single time when somebody starts telling me about their depression, I always tell them up front 'I don't believe in all that".

You would think they would scale back in horror. Not even.

Many get off their medications, and start living a better life. Because I am the one, in real life, who doesn't just start crinkling my brow, and making "Oh Im so sorry honey" faces, which is what a lot of people suffering from these "diseases" are looking for.

Most people stay silent, or coddle them, and try to show how compassionate they are.

Me? No.

That ain't ever going to happen.

And I have had at least 4 people thank me, years later, for saving their lives and outlooks. They are still my friends, and they aren't on those cancerous (and expensive) pharmaceutical pills anymore. Lot of them still smoke weed and drink, which is fine with me. But they are done with the crazy pills and done with the victim mentality.

And if you want to see real addiction, look at someone addicted to pain pills (surprise, it has recursive repercussions, how convenient for big pharma. Pain tells you not to move and act certain ways, and pain pills stop that message from getting to your brain... ..and you end up doing more damage, causing more pain). that's physical addiction. Not yet another mamby pamby "endorphin release addiction" psychobabble.

Gaming addiction.

Give me a break.

 

Have you ever questioned why?

 

It's because of the way the brain interprets signals and processes information. There's a lot out there if you just look.

https://neurosciencenews.com/gambling-addiction-frontotemporal-lobe-5848/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_addiction

There's decades upon decades of neurological study that have been done on this. These are just about addiction, but depression, BPD, all of the big ones? They can't be cured because we can not just rewire a brain.

 

And still no cure. Three decades.

Let's start a ribbon or rubber bracelet campaign, so we can all cure depression together.

 

"personal weakness" is a vague and poorly defined term mostly used by people to dismiss mental illness entirely, dismiss certain mental illnesses the speaker doesn't personally like for whatever reason, or create some arbitrary threshold of true illness different from what is accepted in the scientific community.

changing attitudes and habits is important for treating a number of conditions. It's basically the whole basis of CBT. This is not true of quite a number of conditions though, particularly egosyntonic conditions.

 

Are you suggesting that one thing can't be real just because a different, worse thing also exists?

Separately, sure, I bet that there are people who use all of the above as excuses. That doesn't mean that legitimate cases can not also exist.

 

egosyntonic

you so sly.

Fluent Corporatese.

Very professional.

 

Are you trying to suggest to me I write things and do not mean exactly every word I wrote?

(P.S. "Are you suggesting" == "so what you are saying is" == strawman).

If you have a point, make it. If you have a real question, ask it. Don't try cheap rhetorical flourishes on me.

 

Really? Then how did the person become addicted in the first place? How did the addiction develop? Are there not steps that people can take to make it harder or more unpleasant to engage in some addictive activity?

If choice is not something that people always have direct control over, then perhaps it is the set of indirect actions that people take (such as communicating and placing themselves in an environment and with people who steer them toward certain behaviors) that becomes the true domain of personal responsibility.

Because otherwise, what is a the identity of a human being at all, if they have no ability to even say "this is not what I really want" even if they cannot change their circumstances or even actions directly? It has to begin with something that originates from the person themselves, or otherwise we must put absolute responsibility (and total control) in someone else's hands - which almost certainly won't turn out to be for the better.

 

Nope, I was asking a question because I'd like something clarified.

You specifically called other things "real addiction", which suggests - but does not explicitly say - that the addiction being discussed is not "real". Was that deliberate?

 

You could at least read the links.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_addiction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSB#Delta_FosB

 

What?

 

Sorry, but you can't have personal strength without personal weakness, personal success without personal failure. If you cannot extricate these concepts from moral judgement, you are left with a set of empty, meaningless pseudo-sympathetic terms.

I don't quite understand - are you saying that mental conditions that revolve around the identity of the ego cannot be treated by a person's attitudes and behaviours? Because that's actually where a person has the most control.

 

I don't want to read your links. I want to know what you think, so that we can have a discussion.

 

Perhaps a better description is that we don't have full control over how a brain gets rewired? We've accidentally found a bunch of ways we can cause certain changes, some of which result in addiction. Figuring out how to control or reverse them is clearly proving more difficult.

 

What I think is that the medical professionals who have identified DeltaFosB as an incredibly significant factor in addiction, which is why is doesn't affect literally everyone.

There is no discussion to be had.

 

That's a fair assessment. I know for a fact, as many people do, that mental illnesses can rarely be met head on with sheer willpower. Yet there are many actions that people can take to make things better or worse over time.

I don't think it's so difficult conceptually, but absolutely it is in practice. The problem is that society tells people that they should always be able to have their cake and eat it too, but sometimes it's not really the case. There are messages and ideals that are constantly communicated to people which psychologists and the medical industry in general are loathe to contradict, and which often don't do a lot of harm, but which make it very hard for people in a specific situation to develop the kind of framework that would help them get out of their problems.

 

It is advertised all over television. S.A.D. (seasonal Affective Disorder), depression, anxiety, ocpd, blah blah blah. Making people think they are crazy is a billion$ industry. The pills themselves are a tens of billion$ industry. And they are getting the world addicted... ..while discovering new "disorders" and new "addictions" to be wary of. Selling you their cancerous (addictive, you never leave them) garbage as a cure.

(Remember, 147 out of 172 doctors recommend Lucky Strikes, they tickle your throat less!).

By the way, depression will never be cured. Life is better than it ever has been. The better it gets, the larger the population of depressed people grows. It's not something that can be cured, it is a part of human existence.

 

So some genes have a contribution, does that mean that personal agency is non existent?

 

It means you are more prone to falling into addictive traps and that it is difficult or nigh impossible to recognise addiction from that perspective.

 

That's quite a leap to the conclusion.

I have no doubt that some people are physiologically much more prone to addiction than others. But that doesn't mean that it has the final say in the outcome of their lives.

 

It's not a leap at all because this is S*** I have learned volunteering with addicts from addicts themselves, medical professionals, and personal experience.

These things are nowhere near as simple as claimed.

 

I know I am again the bad man, saying the bad things, and should be banned. I get it.
I have the wrong opinion .

Is it you who are the gaming addict perhaps?

Or is it internet trolling you are addicted to?

(Has the WHO classified that yet as an addiction? Because I am a case! What kind of pills can I get for it? )

 

You're the one simplifying it.

A useful discussion requires being open to the idea that you don't know everything.

 

What "useful discussion" is to be had here? You want more detail, then refuse to read the links. You ask me to explain, then say I'm oversimplifying. I'm not your F***ing teacher.

 

Let me be clear then. You posted a link to information about genes that contribute to addiction, and then claimed that this means that addicts can hardly recognize when they are addicted and (I assume) that they therefore have little or no responsibility to do anything about it.

In my book, that's over-simplification.

 

Sure would suck if this was explained in those links you refuse to read. Educate yourself.

 

So explain it to me, if you understand it yourself.

 

They have twenty years sometimes, and they cant do it, because chemicals.

You can always reorganize and reprioritize and override your chemicals.

There is a ghost in the machine, and that pilot, in the end, is the only one getting you out of the mess you put yourself in. And this extends to all things in life. All things. Every choice is yours. Every day is a chance to turn whatever ails you around.

And you don't need addictive (and expensive... ...remember, rich people have health insurance from their rich jobs, so they just shrug off the cost, but if you are a worker, with no insurance, it is expensive) drugs, you don't need therapy (also expensive, and a joke). You are the only one that knows every moment of your life. Nobody else even comes close.

Physician, heal thyself..

 

Ok. I'll bite. Show me how successful you'll be trying to override the need to sleep for the rest of your life. Because clearly the chemicals involved in sleep can always be overriden...

 

Hey everyone, good news, apparently we are in the matrix and if we really, truly, believe strongly enough in our personal agency we can re-write the code and alter reality around us.