#mhalook

[mental-health-advice]

MHA Is Looking For Admins!

We are eagerly searching for both live chat admins and blog admins! We will be choosing lots of new admins coming up and we would love to have some more applications. Please check out the following links for information about applying as well as links to the applications. 

What It Takes To Be An MHA Admin

What It Takes To Be An MHA Live Chat Admin

-Jori 

[with-a-fearful-trill]

Mha now has some amazing support from two treatment facilities! That's literally amazing.

So anyone who says mha doesn't help or whatever, you silly.

[soloh]

I'm feeling sentimental, sorry

Looking through MHA for the first time in ages. It's so weird to think that if I was still there it would've been a year since I joined 2 days ago :o

I've been tearing up a little while looking through everything. I am so proud of all the admins. Everything looks so good and quality is super high and advice is perfect and just aaaahhh everyone is amazing :') And the followers are as lovely as ever it seems <3 So many beautiful fighters.

I love ya'll and I miss you <3 I may not be an admin anymore but I'll always be family :*

-Harmony xx

[mental-health-advice]

We have TWO admin birthdays today!

Laura and Raein both share a birthday today! Stop by the ask box and wish them a happy day!

[soloh]

DO NOT SELF DIAGNOSE MENTAL ILLNESSES

"OMG being anti-self diagnosis is so classist and ableist, gtfo."

No.

Stop.

Being anti-self diagnosis is in no way classist or ableist and if you seriously think it is, you need a reality check.

My family currently sits at the lower end of the lower class in NZ. It costs $30 in total for me to go to my doctor, get the prescription for my meds renewed, and pay for 3 months worth of my meds (antidepressants of the SSRI type). I haven't been on my meds since last year because we can never pull together $30 at the right time, and pay for transport/gas money to get me to see my doctor. Being anti-self diagnosis is in no way ableist or classist. How do I know this? I’m anti-self diagnosis. I appear privileged online, but in reality, the only reason my family can afford an internet connection is because a family friend who works for an internet provider was able to find us an affordable internet/landline phone combination deal. My mum, brother and I are at the lower end of the lower class. I saved up money at the beginning of last year to go see my doctor, get an official diagnosis and get put on medication. When that medication started affecting me really badly to a point where I was too depressed to get out of bed and was passively suicidal again, my mum dipped into our family’s emergency money to get me to the doctor and get my medication changed, and I have a cheap doctor and my family is eligible for a discount on top of that, so I do know about the struggle when it comes to mental health diagnosis and treatment costs. Now, my family has no emergency money left, and I can’t afford to get my medication anymore. But I’m still anti-self diagnosis and anti-self treatment. So to say that being anti-self diagnosis is classist and ableist is a very null and void point. If you were to say, “assuming everyone can afford treatment straight away with no problems is ableist and classist” I would agree, but that has not been the case from anyone I have heard.

Self-diagnosis is dangerous. There are a million and one "alternative" treatments offered for people who can't see a doctor, and if you mess up and diagnose yourself with the wrong thing, you risk messing up your health even more. You cannot treat someone with BPD the same as you would treat someone with depression, and you cannot treat someone with bipolar disorder the same as you would treat someone with schizophrenia. If you misdiagnose yourself, you could put yourself, and others, at risk.

Yes, doctors can make mistakes, but, those mistakes are likely to be picked up on shortly after they are made. If you misdiagnose yourself, you're probably never going to notice because you are convinced that you have that illness and you will likely never consider that something else is going on.

Also, you know what a placebo effect is? When someone tells you that something will have a certain effect, and even though it actually won't, because you think it will, your mind is tricked into thinking it really is working. Some people believe that antidepressants are nothing more than the placebo effect; patients are told the medication will help with their depression, and even though the medication would not otherwise have worked, it does purely because the mind is tricked into believing it will (I disagree with this, but that’s the only example I could think of. If you’ve seen the 6th Harry Potter movie, think of when Harry tricked Ron into thinking he had put Liquid Luck into his pumpkin juice and Ron played amazingly at Quidditch and he thought it was because of the potion but it was actually just the power of his mind being convinced that he had taken the potion even though he hadn’t). When you do research into something that you think you may have, you risk having a negative placebo effect on yourself- e.g. if you convince yourself you have depression after a few days of feeling sad, you may then be sad for weeks purely because you have convinced yourself that you have depression, when in reality, you were just having a bad couple of days.

There is always a way to get a diagnosis, even if it requires taking the time to save up money like I did in order to get mine.

Self diagnosis is never good. You can have a suspicion about what is going on, but you cannot totally self diagnose, it’s dangerous, reckless and silly. Professionals are trained for years to identify illnesses for a reason: it really does take years to learn the subtle differences between things. You cannot treat yourself based on something you read on Wikipedia, or anywhere else online or in a book for that matter, even if that book is any version of the DSM.

[mental-health-advice]

My accent tag.

Fly on, Sam

[soloh]

I'm feeling cheesy, so here, have a thing

I love mental-health-advice. I really do. I love my admin family to pieces (and I don't tell them that nearly enough), I love every single one of our followers and every amazing, strong person who has the courage to reach out to us and ask for advice.

I am talking about people who saved my life before I joined them, and who have continued to save my life since I joined them back in November last year.

The hard work and dedication from everyone continues to astound me, the contributions from our followers makes me smile so much (I still feel incredibly privileged to have been so involved with the making of our self injury awareness day video)

Everyone has saved me, does save me and will continue to save me. Even when I don't say anything, and when I'm too upset to get on and answer questions, the admins and our followers are my light. There is so much strength and hope radiating off everyone and everything that is linked to MHA. I am so proud of how far everyone has come.

[emiieogloko]

mental-health-advice should post this because it seriously helped..