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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • I am a psychotherapist. Mental disorders are often curable. Our mind, our psyche, our brain develop and change in every waking moment, one small increment at a a time. A good indication for this are mental disorders themselves. Their emergence is proof of our mind’s capability to change - for the worse, in this case, but change nonetheless.

    So in theory it should always be possible to change the other way around, to get significantly better to the point where the disorder is no longer present. (If you define a episode of mental health and wellbeing after a depressive episode as “managing” a still present disorder, then sure, they are incurable, but that’s because that’s part of your definition to begin with. The symptoms of a mental disorder can definitely disappear.) A more difficult question would be if our surroundings and social realities allow for so much change to take place. And sometimes, unfortunately, this isn’t possible, since our society can be a fucked up place and economic constrains have an unavoidable influence on our capability to shape our own path.

    Still, in my personal experience working with hundreds of patiens in different therapeutic setting, most people can (and do) reclaim their mental health, given supportive surroundings and adequate treatment. From your pessimistic outlook at mental health I will cautiously assume that you don’t have those widely available to you. In this case you’d be somewhat right: Under such circumstances the possibilities to cure mental disorders are limited. Another complicating factor might be mental disorders themselves though. The feeling of “this is never going to get better, I’ll never be happy again” is one most people with depressive disorders know all to well. So if we ask the affected people directly we will often arrive at the conclusion that the disorders are in fact incurable. And that’s a horrible feeling for sure. I find it important to remember though that what our thoughts tell us in those dark episodes isn’t necessarily the truth. In this case I’d argue it isn’t. I’ve seen too many examples of the opposite, luckily.


  • It’s going to be hard for her partner, friends, and family, but it would be so much worse and so traumatic if she didn’t have help or had to hide the desires until she took her own life regardless of the laws.

    I’m not sure that’s true. Losing someone to suicide is in itself quite traumatic. One relief many people have is when they wrap their head around how a self destructive impulse in the heat of an especially devastating moment could have led to it. But living with the fact that your daughter/wife/sister/friend very consciously decided she would rather be dead than to share in this life with you - that’s tough. It’s not unusual with relatives of suicide victims to struggle with feelings of intense anger towards the person they lost, which in turn can lead to feelings of guilt and shame. It’s hard to work through something like that. And I don’t think it gets any easier if the circumstances are as emphasised as in this case.

    I think there are very valid use cases for assisted suicide. Personally I doubt that depression is one of them, because suicidality is such an inextricable part of the disorder itself. At the end of the day this is a suicide, just with extra steps and a stamp of approval by a national agency. The people surviving her will not only have to work through the fact of her suicide but process the official approval as well.

    The only advantage to a “regular” suicide I can think of is avoiding the trauma of the person finding you. (Although there are probably ways around that anyway.) But I guess she has her reasons to have chosen this specific method and setting.






  • A shame there’s not more information about the incident.

    I checked some German sources and this is what I found: The protest camp was build two weeks ago, before the “Palästina-Kongress”, which was cut short because they had someone hold speeches who’s banned from political activity in Germany for antisemitism and glorification of violence. The protest camp was allowed to stay because they didn’t break any rules. Over the next two weeks several incidents started to accumulate, which were deemed increasingly criminally relevant. Planted areas were damaged, streets were blocked, passerbys harrassed, police attacked, antisemitic paroles and incitements were shouted. A court issued a ban on the camp and friday morning police announced this, at which time most protesters removed their tents and left. The few remaining stayed until 4pm when police decided to dissolve the camp, which some protesters didn’t want to accept. This moment is most likely what we see in the video.

    I know some people out there got the impression that Germany simply arrests anyone who’s not unapologetically pro israel in this war. I myself would want our politicians to be more openly critical of israel, although I think I understand why they struggle to do so. Based on what I see in the news and the political opinions of the people around me (which are mostly pro Palestinians, anti Hamas, anti Netanyahu, pro Israelis) I do feel like the people on lemmy seeing this as examples of facism in Germany only see a very limited part of the picture. Videos like this with no context whatsoever are not exactly helping there, either.

    If you want to see facism in Germany look at the AfD, our most right wing party. Their lead cancicate for the EU-parliament recently received 20k from Russia to spy for them (which obviously doesn’t stop the party from endorcing him). Their position on Israel is nonexistent. Israel doesn’t like them (since they’re Nazis) and they, by policy, don’t care about other countries at all (“Germany first”). If there’s ever a return to facism in Germany, those are the ones that will do it.


  • Maybe it’s different on other instances, but here on feddit a report gets “closed” as soon as someone resolves it. Doesn’t matter who did it. So if a comment on my community gets reported both I and the admin see that, and depending on who’s faster one of us can either delete the reported content or simply mark it as read. In both cases it’s no longer pending. The reports work like an inbox, so if I really wanted to I could double check resolved reports and delete them manually afterwards. Never saw the need to do that though. Im sure the other way around is possible as well.





  • To add: You can look for a psychiatrist by yourself if you want to. A referral from your GP is only strictly necessary if you take part in a GP model - which means, at one point you signed a contract agreeing to only seeing specialists when referred to one. So basically, look online for Psychiatrists in your region and simply call them. BTW Psychotherapists cannot issue referrals, but they might recommend someone. Generally speaking though psychotherapists aren’t needed to get medication in Germany, they offer psychotherapy.

    (Noch zu ergänzen: Man kann sich auch einfach selbst einen Psychiater suchen. Eine Überweisung vom Hausarzt ist nur dann notwendig, wenn man am Hausarztmodell teilnimmt, d.h. wenn man irgendwann mal unterschrieben hat, Fachärzte nur mit Überweisung aufzusuchen. Also einfach mal online schauen, welche Psychiater es in Wohnortnähe gibt, und selbst dort anrufen. Psychotherapeuten stellen übrigens keine Überweisungen aus und könnten höchstens jemanden empfehlen. Im Allgemeinen braucht man in Deutschland keine Therapeuten, um an Medis zu kommen, bei denen kriegt man Psychotherapie.)

    Source: Am Psychotherapist in Germany.





  • Oh but there are many steps missing.

    You start the launcher -> it forgot your device and password, so wait for the confirmation code via mail, enter your info again, then solve three capchas

    Browse the store -> except there’s no functioning tag search and the shop sucks, so you need to know exactly what to buy and how it’s called to even find it

    Chose a game -> but there’s no tabs or secondary windows, so every time you inspect a shop page and try to get back your search gets reset; please enter all your search criteria again and scroll back to the point you’ve been before

    Start the game -> but your own library is a hot mess; click through 13 pages of huge icons representing an alphabetical order until you find the picture representing what you want to play

    And then you play.

    As long as you don’t notice Epic all is smooth sailing. Every step of actually using the launcher is a pain though. Sometimes I forget how annoying it all is and try again. Aaaaaand it forgot my device and password again. Then I curse at my PC and open steam.


  • This may depend on the country but I as a therapist ask everyone anyway. And I’ve experienced many, many people over the years being afraid of speaking up. It’s always a moment of relief when it’s out there and they realize I’m not freaking out over it.

    I’ve pretty much heard it all. Including the various ways people try to approach the subject while still unsure how I will react. And I do think that is something you could try if you’re unsure about your therapist - talk to them about your suicidal thoughts and see how they react before you confirm plans or attempts.

    Chances are of course they can get quite a bit from your way of talking about it, because you’re definitely not the first person with those thoughts in front of them. The thing is - suicidal ideation is, depending on the type of disorder, quite common. If we’d admitted anyone who thought about suicide to a psych ward immediately they would be bursting at the seams and we’d get nothing done at all. So that’s not happening. As long as you can convincingly agree with your therapist on a plan forward (which could mean: Okay, I promise not to kill myself until next Tuesday) you don’t have to be admitted if you don’t want to. Which also would be an option of course. Psychiatric wards are emergency departments. They are supposed to be there for you when you’re seeing no light at all and in my experience, at least where I live and work, in fact have saved quite a few lifes.


  • There are cases where psychiatric admission is the right call though. Sometimes it’s literally life saving. Depression isn’t static - it goes up and down, goes loud, goes silent. When you’re deep in a life crisis, when you’re feeling like you’re losing your fucking mind and are actually about to kill yourself those are the places to go to get you over those critical days or weeks to recalibrate and reconsider. I’ve personally spoken to many patients who were completely releived afterwards and glad that there was such a place for them. If the alternative is a lost life, psychiatry is a valid attempt to get better, even if it doesn’t work for everyone.

    Of course it’s an even better route to get there by admitting oneself - I just believe the likelihood of that happening depends a lot on how afraid people are of psychiatric clinics. And they do vary of course. I personally still would go though. Before I end my life I guess there wouldn’t be anything to lose anyway.


  • I do think that is true. I’ve worked in a clinic through the whole pandemic, which meant mandatory tests everyday. Cought two asymptomatic infections this way. With the first one I had a very light headache - I would have thought absolutely nothing of it if it weren’t for the test. Second time I’ve got no symptoms whatsoever. I then got it again for round three and that one suuucked.

    Who knows how many had it were none the wiser.