[removed]

He's a pessimist

Dr Lee,

Something that I'm wondering about: if someone is in bad circumstances, like they're living a fairly isolated life due to deafness and tinnitus, and they've lost their husband but they're getting regular visits from family, healthcare professionals, social workers etc, and they seem to be coping pretty well, keeping it together, do you think it might be possible for over-eager social workers who are not doctors or psychiatrists by insisting that the patient *is* depressed, that they must be depressed, to tip them into depression? I believe this may have happened with my mother - she was widowed fairly recently, back in May of last year, and once that happened I think maybe they wanted her to move into a home when she was in fact coping pretty well. My father's death was not a sudden thing. He died of vascular dementia as a complication of type 2 diabetes. It took about a year after he was institutionalised - due to lockdown we couldn't visit him. So yes, she was in grief, which is natural, but they insisted, over and over, that she must be depressed, and eventually she broke down crying and said I guess so, I must be depressed. It was not long after this that real frailty set in, she had a fall, suffered a lisfranc injury to her foot, went into hospital, contracted COVID-19 and died.

I'm not aiming to sue anyone. I just want the social workers to, if appropriate, get some guidelines to stop them basically bullying people into depression, because that's what it looked like.

[removed]

Will you disavow the vile and racist comments made by the LP’s Mises Caucus and other related factions, right here, right now?

What do you think about Risperidone and Olanzapine being prescribed to people and especially children?

[deleted]

Hi Dr Lee, interesting & very important research you’re doing!

I know two young children (4&8) who have had quite a difficult and stressful life so far, with a fairly poor/absent father figure. The older child is already a very anxious child and sometimes acts out, although it has gotten better recently. We suspect adhd and dyslexia. We only see them every few weeks or few months but will see them more often soon.

What are some things we can do to help them develop more healthily? We already try to compliment where possible and pay active attention to them when we see them.

Yeah, reality unfortunately is very harsh, "life isn't fair" and all that. I find the silver lining in things when I can so I wouldn't say I'm super pessimistic, but when you've seen people you love die, watched people harm themselves and been harmed yourself, it's hard to say "everything will be okay". Because "okay" depends on what it is you desire

Pessimist response: "well, I've probably already done the damage" lol

Hmmm I'd be interested to know how one could retrain the brain to see situations as challenging instead of threatening, even if they have experienced a number of genuinely life-threatening situations. I used to be addicted to drugs, so quite often one "mistake" i.e relapse, truly meant the loss of absolutely everything. It's hard to not feel like everything you do is all or nothing when that's what your rock bottom is.

I wish I could ask you a million questions! My life has been defined largely by an inability to handle/manage stress and I truly feel like it's taking years of my life. If you revisit this discussion later I do have one thing in particular to ask:

How do high-stress childhood experiences train our bodies to physically react to stress?

No need of any funding to public schools as they take vouchers from students.

[removed]

I'm assuming from time to time you do whatever the equivalent of "ACEs training"

Have you guys ever considered leading with resiliency and whatnot, and then supporting it's importance with ACEs stuff instead of spending 90% of the class talking about how people with ACEs are turbo fucked?

They should do a study on how ACEs training further fucks up people with a bunch of ACEs when they learn about it.

I personally worked with him on this AMA and others as a volunteer for his campaign but I do not want to put words in his mouth. I'll ask him if he can provide further details to your question as well as others on the thread. These AMAs are a lot of work surprisingly so some of these remarks are a little short. Feel free to send Mark a private message as well in Reddit or Twitter.

I don't see it as hiding from reality. I see it as accepting reality. I don't see optimism and realism as mutually exclusive concepts.

Easy for me to say having not endured a fraction of the percentage of hardship that some have, but so far I think I've done pretty well in this regard.

[deleted]

I’m a public defender. If your agency has resources to pay (or can get court vouchers to pay) message me, and I can try to get you some names.

Hello.

How does an episode of depression in a prepubescent child affect its development and personality later as an adult?

This is exactly what a pessimist would say and that's why you won't live past 65.

Can the effects of early life adversity be overcome? What are said effects ?

There’s some evidence for EMDR and other such therapies for startle response. It’s worth consulting a doctor if you have that symptom and it causes you distress.

>even when faced with stressful situations like a major medical diagnosis.

is that not somewhat at odds with this statement?

not adhd or autism per se, but the comorbidity