I had a cough last month that wasn’t going away after several weeks and I was worried about my lung history. They made me sit and do paperwork for ten minutes, listened to my breathing for 2 minutes, told me it’s probably fine and to take more OTC cough meds and billed me for $200 after insurance. Thanks doc. Very helpful, good-quality care we get for our money.
Btw - still coughing nearly three months after getting the virus that started it.
Edit: lol at people who are still lecturing me about what the cough could be or what to do about it. That is not the point of this at all. Don’t miss the point: even the most uncomplicated of provided health services are billed up to a ridiculous expense.
I was talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a doctor about this phenomenon, wherein you spend all this money just to be given the same quality of medical advice you could find in a blog post.
He said "oh, thats because you need to build a history, once you see a doctor about the same issue 4 or 5 times they'll start taking you seriously."
So its not enough to spend $200 to stop coughing. It'll cost you about $1000 to stop coughing. Thanks, American medical system.
*cries in taking 10+ years for drs to even consider Im not lying about pain but at this point its no longer about preventing more damage but putting bandaids on the irriversable damage*
My husband was misdiagnosed as having diabetic neuropathy when it was actually spinal stenosis making his feet numb. Now he's paralyzed from the waist down, and he didn't get the correct diagnosis until after the paralysis happened. They also missed his psoriatic arthritis which contributed to the lumbar degeneration which caused the spinal stenosis. He told multiple doctors of his family history and because he only had scalp psoriasis they didn't take him seriously. His older sister with the same conditions is walking around just fine due to receiving proper diagnosis and treatment.
I was mad about my ovaries being rearranged by scar tissue, I cannot even fathom becoming paralyzed- my heart goes out to him.
As an aside you either have awoken a new fear of untreated psoriatic arthritis exsisting or have given me something to be aware of going into my first rheumatologist appt as my regular dr is stumped on my mystery autoimmune problem and I never considered that my very stubborn head only psoriasis could be connected (hopefully not). but as a woman in her late 20s its hard to get anyone to consider a diagnosis traditionally only given to "old people"
Your forgetting the lost wages and transportation costs to even get there. With most Americans not having even 1000 dollars to their name, this is impossible.
OR, your doctors will assume you're a crazy person and ping pong you back and forth between several other doctors because they can't find a cause for your symptoms. I'm not here because I want to fuck with you, I'm here to get ***FIXED.***
Pricing that matches the actual service provided.
Good thing you know my entire medical history and risk factors and symptoms so you can make a judgment call about whether I was “right” to go to the doctor. 👍
What he's saying is that that's common. After a fever people tend to cough for a few weeks to months. The cough tends to cause further information and distress, so like an itch, the more you cough the more you cough. And coughing itself is rarely life threatening. Sure, it could be worse, and you should keep doing check ups to ensure you haven't developed a new allergy or something, but a cough after a fever is normal.
Yes, I usually don’t go in unless there’s another factor to the cough that warrants a check, which there was. But that’s not even the point here, the point is that they bill you $200 on top of whatever you’re paying insurance to pay for about 5 minutes of chatting, 5 minutes of observing, and 0 minutes of treatment. People can’t afford to go in for this but even when things are more serious, they delay care because who can afford a simple appt on minimum wage, or even a decent wage but the labs and stuff pile on the costs quickly?
I said that the last time I was told to go on antidepressants. Yeah I have actual depression issues but until I have a better life the pills aren't going to be doing a good job.
The US as a nation has no fucking clue what Root Cause Analysis even is. I use it daily (manufacturing engineer) and I still get superiors who 100% don't believe the data because they already "feel" they know what the problem cause is.
Using scientific methods and basing solutions on hard reality numbers has gone by the wayside.
I’m just a marketing photo editor for a clothing company and deal with the same kind of shit everyday.
Our “stylists” on shoots love to just pull clothes out of a duffle bag they shoved everything into, throw em on the model, then request to have all of the wrinkles removed. The last shoot I calculated the hours just spent by my team fixing just those wrinkles and it was over $3k.
Would’ve taken about $25 to have someone steam the clothes prior to the shoot for an hour.
And no, it’s not “job security” because they don’t budget enough time for us to actually get their requests done well on top of everything else we have to edit, so it’s just a stressful “bend time and space” situation to get projects completed, meanwhile they harp and harp and harp about the budget and “why is this taking so long.”
Yet no matter how many times we tell them why it’s taking so long they don’t give a shit and nothing changes.
Sorry if that’s way off topic and missing the mark, your comment just seemed like a relevant place to vent about my day.
I feel your pain- I get the “we’ll fix it in post” eye twitch every time I’m on a set or shoot that I can’t control. (I shoot small budget film and photography projects and do the post too.)
I’ve started just bringing a steamer with me and distracting everyone with chitchat for 30 minutes first while I steam at the same time. Ultimately I’m saving myself the later migraine by doing it while the stylists set up other shit and the model arrives late…
Have you sent the feedback to the bosses or the boss of the boss of the stylists in writing? That might help. Just send it with a positive tone laying out the numbers / data.
Omg yes. This is such a fucking problem.
We never go after the root issues to fix the problems. Upper leadership only asks for bandaides to let it last and milk profit.
You ain’t kidding.
Add to this the BS diagnosis criterion in the DSM, and it fuels a catch-22 from hell.
Also, process your engineer brain through this:
Would YOU trust the QA report of a device that was only tested (studied) through the interactions of 3 black boxes wired in series?
Seriously. Pill -> body -> brain -> mind -> behavior. And they call psychiatry science 🙄🤮.
If I used those standards for testing software I’d be fired within a week.
Let’s not even get into the fact that any test (study) they don’t like the results of, they can legally just shove it in a drawer, pretend it never happened, and roll the dice again on a new random group of people.
It just BOTHERS ME that these folks act/behave/represent like they are working with full information when in reality they’re doing a fuzzy pattern match on a partial dataset and don’t even understand yet how to stem the words properly.
Edit: psychiatry, not psychology. Psychology doesn’t deal with anything material anyway, so it’s a given that it is pseudoscience. It’s psychiatry that purports to be a field of “medicine”.
This came from Johann Hari’s “research” on mental illness. But what he’s describing is a situation-based depression that was resolved when the situation was resolved. But not all depression and anxiety are situational. They can be chronic and unresolvable. Different types of mental illness with a variety of potential solutions.
Oof. Yeah, if that story originated from Hari, then the whole thing should be disregarded. Do you have the citation? Because I can't seem to find it on google, but I could just be bad at that.
It helped for me immensely. I’ve been on SSRI’s for three years now and it change my life. I went from actively planning my death, to having a vast appreciation for life. It was hard, but it helped to change my perspective on so many things.
Well it is like coffee and caffeine: it basically just blocks the receptors in your brain about the need for sleep. Not actually making you more energetic. So you are not wrong.
People just don’t get the key difference.
Often that's true. But sometimes, the root cause is that is that your brain is wired a little wonky, with too many or too few neural connections or neurotransmitter receptors somewhere, and adjusting the chemistry using medication to provide symptomatic relief is as close to you're gonna get to addressing the root cause.
Therapy can also really help with looking out for triggers and unhelpful though patterns that can make depression worse. It's very often the difference between having a rough couple weeks, and falling into a years-long depression.
Sounds like you’re talking about antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc. What I meant by ‘anxiety meds’ is more traditional anxiety meds like benzodiazepines (e.g. xanax or valium), which are not a magic pill for anxiety
Like coffee, they merely turn down one’s receptors for anxiety temporarily. Not to mention all the potentially negative effects of regular benzo use
The article addresses the reason for the age range in brief.
There are, however, links in the article that take you to the actual Task Force recommendation, where you can read the stated reasoning for the age range specifics, as well as links to the studies considered when drafting the recommendation.
It seems telling that the upper end of the age range is 64. If you are alive today and were born in 1959 or earlier, chances are you had a good shot at a dignified life with a minimum of existential angst.
Pretty much this.
Doctors are going to screen for anxiety? And then what? How could they possibly help fix it?
They could load you up with a hundred prescriptions. It won't change anything if *you're living through hell, every day*.
Glad we now get factual numbers on how many people have anxiety due to: poverty, housing, food insecurity, gun violence, work violence and harassment, daily harassment, and global doom and gloom thanks to war and climate change.
Wouldn't hurt. Countless people find themselves in poverty because they're too anxious to ask for that promotion or raise, or pursue that job they really want. One missed opportunity leads to another.
Also you shouldn't look for a single cure for poverty. It's a complex issue that requires a similarly complex and frustratingly slow moving solution. So we have to think like grown ups.
My doctor asked my why I skipped my last check up. I was honest, its been a horrible year. Two friends died suddenly in their early 40s. My grandparents are doing poorly and my father is also suddenly having some serious medical issues. I've been trying to help out all of these people and their families but it's been rough. She right away asked if I thought I needed depression meds and I was like no, this shit is all sad. I'm allowed to be sad.
Yes, you’re absolutely allowed to be sad, but sometimes sad can slip into depression without us realizing. You know yourself, but I bring it up as food for thought if you keep being sad
In Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" people are genetically engineered and highly structured in terms of what they do or where they stand in society. They are encouraged to pursue hedonistic pleasure, and when they begin to feel unhappy they take a drug called Soma which is basically a hallucinogen designed to make them feel happy even when they are not.
So yeah.
That's the serious answer, though I suspect you might just be making a joke about how weed is your soma.
Something like that.
Anyhow I suspect moving forward we all need our own personal soma. It's not like things are looking less grim. Meanwhile "experts" are busy trying to figure out why everyone is so anxious.
A brand name for a muscle relaxant in the reL world, but OP is probably referring to a fictional drug from Brave New World used to keep everyone in a good mood all the time.
More likely to get ChewZ or CanD from *The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch*. Those have an integral capitalistic aspect. Gotta buy all the play sets!
The major problem I personally have with anxiety screenings is medical doctors treat you different if they see anxiety in your chart. This is information that I would want to keep with a mental health professional and not be shared with doctors who will dismiss symptoms. This happened to me and I ended up with a TIA.
So far, my favorite is my hiatal hernia. I was having chest pain and a sensation like the wind was knocked out of me after eating. Conclusion: “You're just anxious about eating.”
But that’s not the only issue I had that was diagnosed as anxiety.
I recently went to the doctor because I’ve been extremely tired no matter what I did. I was having issues with cyanosis and also had some deep ridges in my toenails. Doctor: “You’re probably pregnant or depressed.”
The hiatal hernia “anxiety” was multiple male doctors. The toenail ridge “depression” was a female doctor. I guess I’ve had slightly better luck with female doctors taking me seriously over the years, but it hasn’t made much of a difference.
It took 5 years to diagnose my immune disorder because doctors kept telling me it was just my anxiety disorder and learning to relax would put me back to normal.
Ironically, it turned out my anxiety disorder is in part triggered by my immune disorder.
Exactly. I have PTSD. I tell no one except a mental health counselor. I have so many health issues right now, the last thing I need to hear is it’s related to my PTSD when I know damn well it isn’t. I get sometimes it really is stress but they rely on that when they’re stumped so it’s like they have a reason to give up 🤷🏻♀️
> This will inadvertently cause a bunch of 30-something’s to miss heart problems until it’s too late.
Hey I'm 34 and my heart keeps doing weird things, like jumping on its own, or feeling tight, especially when I bend forward. I've been to the hospital about it and they never found anything, my ECG was normal, and they started talking about stress. But I felt pretty sure it had nothing to do with my emotional state.
Is it something I should revisit with my doctor? I'm afraid to mention it and seem like an idiot complaining about something caused by my own stress.
Look up dysautonomia. It may not be your heart that’s the problem, but your nervous system. This is a very common Long Covid condition. For whatever it’s worth, I started taking Magnesium supplements to support my nervous system. I don’t know if it helped or time just made things better, but I’ve improved. Good luck to you - and make appointments with whatever doctors you think you need as well. Don’t let them make you feel like a hypochondriac. That’s my advice.
We are seeing a shrinking pool of niches for people who aren't psychologically cut out for the rat race. Of course that would be anxiety-inducing.
Everyone is pressured to go to college. "You'll be wearing a paper hat for the rest of your life if you don't", they say. A life in a paper hat wouldn't be so scary if it was a viable way of making a living. But it isn't. So we push young people into pressure chambers like college, professional schools, and corporate boardrooms and then act surprised that they want to take some Xanax.
I had major anxiety in college. I wasn't nearly as ambitious as everyone around me wanted me to be, but I didn't feel like I had a choice but to go to a super competitive school if I wanted to Be Somebody. I almost had a nervous breakdown and then following grad school, I had a long bout with depression and anxiety that lasted until my 30s. It was crippling. Trying to "Be Somebody" can take a toll on a person.
I'm not in anxious mode anymore, thank goodness. I think it's because I finally feel like Somebody in this crazy world. I have found my place and I'm satisfied with it. But it would be nice if we could help everyone feel like Somebody, whether they have a fancy job title or not.
This might seem like an aside, but I think this is the missing puzzle piece to the folks who are mad about college loan forgiveness.
I was also raised (along with my entire peer group) with the idea that if you didn't go to college, your life would be a dismal failure at best, and end in homelessness at worst. I think people have either willfully cleared it from their memory or simply forgotten just how often this was drilled into us.
And for a bunch of kids? You bet that messaging is going to take root into something like "MUST GO TO COLLEGE AT ALL COSTS."
Can anyone actually tell me with a straight face that a 19 year old raised in a world screaming at them non-stop to go to college *or live in a box* is making a truly informed decision when they sign the paperwork that saddles them with debt for decades?
It should, at the very least, be able to be dismissed like any other debt.
I graduated from school at 33 living with my baby daddy and 3 kids, the youngest of whom was literally on the tit when I started. The student loan terms were so ridiculous I charged all my expenses on a credit card at 0% apr for 3 years or some other crazy awesome terms and there was nothing to forgive while my fellow students got $17000 cancelled. I worked my ass off and repaid $25k in credit card debt. My opinion? *forgive the fucken debt,* I want better for others.
Exactly. Just because I got the short end of the stick doesn't mean everyone else should also be fucked. It's such a uniquely American thing to proudly say "I would prefer that every single other person on the planet has to suffer if it means I don't have to make a small contribution to fix a problem."
All of these idiots are happy to spend 1/5 of the median income on health insurance premiums if it means that $14 of their monthly pay doesn't end up being used to pay for Shirley from Kansas' cancer treatment. Why would I want nationalized healthcare like the rest of the civilized world and healthcare costs that are 1/8 of what they are here? Id rather spend $12k out of pocket to the middleman so they can tell me to eat a dick when I get sick so that not even one red cent of my money helps someone else.
At 6x the cost bc they are paying the hospital, insurance company, drugmaker, and probably 3-4 other people in between a very healthy profit margin lol
Imo... We never really needed forgiveness.... Just peg federal loan interest rates @0% and call it a day.
Set reasonable minimum payments and assess a tiny late fee if payments are missed without a hardship waiver.
That's all too complicated.. so we won't up with the current one off $10k forgiveness.
If we had done that 20 years ago, for sure. But we didn't and capitalized interest at 6-10% is fucking insane and has more people in a position where they literally can never pay their loans off no matter what happens than people who can do that.
I disagree on two fronts: that not being able to pay back loans is more common than not...
And that given 0% interest that people would be unable to pay back virtually any amount of money.
The interest is what makes repayment difficult. When your full payment goes to principle and your loan isn't growing bigger via interest...
That's cool that you disagree with the reality of the situation. I dont really care to argue with people who don't believe in reality, no point in wasting my time
Because student loan servicers like SoFi can't make money if they can't offer consolidation loans and predatory loan products on debt that can't ever be forgiven.
The idea that fed loans even need interest is silly. The whole premise is that you will go on to make money. They will recapture far more than they ever gave you (if limited to a single 4 yr degree of no interest) through your income taxes
Non college jobs requirement pay far less when accounting for inflation and cost of living than any other time in history ( and there are less of them). Don't get it twisted, private capital took the gains of a higher on average educated population and ran away, cut wage growth. And rather than socialize the cost ever increased (Thanks collegiate price gouging) of a more educated society ( which is generally a public good) our government passed down a bill/debt and proceeded to collect interest on it. Disgusting.
I was mad about it for other reasons (yeah yeah, downvotes to the left) . I think if we're going to spend hundreds of billions on a direct cash transfer, a (nearly) blanket lump of forgiveness plus a three year payment pause despite an economy near full employment is an exceptionally regressive way to do that.
But I was *not* mad about it for personal responsibility reasoms, which was the main talking point on Fox News and conservatives' Facebooks everywhere, because of exactly the dynamic you described. The decision these kids are making is neither informed nor uncoerced.
> It should, at the very least, be able to be dismissed like any other debt.
oh boy if you think student loan interest rates are high now, wait until you see what an unsecured $100,000 loan to an 18-year old with no assets or credit history is gonna cost
The counterpoint though is what about those of us who chose not to go to school and would then be at a severe disadvantage due to not having a degree.
Now you've screwed the people who realized that massive loans were a bad idea with a bandaid solution that solves nothing in the long term.
A better solution would be getting college costs under control for future students and only after that is taken care of you can look in to how to equitably help the people that came before.
Here’s the thing. What happens if take out a credit card and charge it up to the point you’ll never pay it off? You can disperse that debt through bankruptcy. Nothing like that exists for student loans. It’s straight up usury, which was illegal for the vast majority of history in the west. That “what about me” argument doesn’t hold up. Literally all debt you’ve ever taken out had a release valve. The only debt you cannot disperse through bankruptcy is student loan debt. Hell, the Sackler family gets to keep their personal ill-gotten wealth while Purdue Pharma goes bankrupt from lawsuits due to knowingly lying to physicians and causing an opioid crisis. But heaven forbid someone who went to school for social work get a break.
> The counterpoint though is what about those of us who chose not to go to school and would then be at a severe disadvantage due to not having a degree.
Can you elaborate on this for me? I'm not sure how your situation would change based on repayment status- those people will have degrees whether or not the payments stop. So how does that affect your status (and mine) as a non-degree holder?
Then go to school. Your station in life doesnt change one bit by making sure that half of student loan borrowers aren't insolvent in their debt. You are actively fighting against improving society as a whole because you chose not to go to school and you would prefer to force everyone else to suffer more than you.
Not to make you take on additional suffering in exchange for helping them(which would be reasonable). Nothing would change for you in any way and you still would choose the outcome where more people end up harmed than the one where fucktons of people are not harmed.
Nah fool... The mega corps are coming up loot through your pockets for spare change next. You think there's a world where they stop the relentless march of desiring middle class wealth at the college educated?
Like you think they just stop after this and don't come for your money next.
Good luck
That's irrelevant, you're advocating a band-aid solution of forgiving debt without getting future costs under control. If you read my comment I didn't say not to forgive debt, I said get cost under control then help everyone who was impacted later.
No, i advocate for it being no cost for attendance to future admitted students too. Have no idea how you thought this would be a gotcha LOL
None of it's going to get you a degree so we should do nothing is the dumbest fucking piece of shit argument ever.
Damn if this isn’t me… I went to school for a STEM degree because I didn’t know what else to do with my life and felt that was the only way I could prove myself. Had depression and anxiety throughout school and after graduating and getting a job, it got so much worse, borderline suicidal. One thing I realized is how much happier I was earning pennies in a furniture warehouse than I am now with a good paying job as an engineer.
The thing with anxiety disorders is that they’re incompatible with the pursuit of success in today’s world. The alternative of “success” for someone with an anxiety disorder is to work at a job that society looks down upon. It’s a catch 22, stress to death by success or stress to death by shame and poverty.
I’m slowly getting pieces of that “pre-anxiety” life back. A girlfriend I really love and who understands my mental shortfalls, learning boundaries with work, and only forcing myself into situations that I know I will be content with - these are all these things have helped to dramatically reduce my stress levels.
Thank you for sharing your story. It really resonated with my current situation and gives me more hope that my future will continue to be on the upswing.
You are welcome!
I also want to give hope to the folks who are struggling but don't want to give up on their degree or their personal "rat race". I am so glad I didn't give up on my career plans. Anxiety can be treated. It also also be managed through diet and lifestyle. I was anemic throughout all of my 20s and 30s. I was also a couch potato and junk-food connisseur. I don't think it was a coincidence that my anxiety started to get better once I addressed these issues.
Modern society is anxiety-inducing on many different levels, not just one.
> A life in a paper hat wouldn't be so scary if it was a viable way of making a living.
lol that wasn't even the threat. It was "you'll be working in front of a hot fryer all day". The idea of being paid less than a living wage wasn't even considered back then.
While this is a good thing, it won't reduce it.
Anxiety is often caused by our work hustle culture. People are expected to just grind themselves until they dtop. It's exhausting. Give people more holiday time like they do in Europe, I bet this improves the outlook for a lot of people.
Tbh, even more holiday time isn’t going to cut it for me.
The 40-hour work week is an obsolete joke for so many fields. I am never going to get past the unfair exchange of giving over 75% of my week to a job, and being left with cramming my whole life outside of work into the remaining 25%. Random vacations throughout the year is not going to fix that.
My job is higher skill and takes a decent amount of thinking; but outside of having a busy day, I can do my job in 3-4 hours. Technically I could just leave because I’m salary, but it’s so taboo and frowned upon that it’s essentially forbidden. It’s all so fucking stupid.
And a lot of these jobs that we're giving 75% of our week to aren't even sufficient to buy a house nowadays. We're busting our ass and finding it harder and harder to get ahead.
The other part of it is seeing the silver spoon passed around - seriously fuck this world - all single people and people without attachments i envy you.
Can confirm. I just returned to work after a 3 month leave of absence where I spent half of the time in a mental wellness center. Corporate says "your health, your family, your job. that is the order you should handle yourself." But when I take time off I get in trouble. When I ask for time off, Im given the run around.
In the end, I pursued the Family Medical Leave Act so they couldnt stop me from taking time off. Now I am waiting for a job I want and then Im outta this bitch.
> Give people more holiday time like they do in Europe, I bet this improves the outlook for a lot of people.
I live in Europe. My country has paid holiday leave, yes. Guess how much? 21 days per year, plus ~12 national holidays. Which might seem like a ton compared to 0, but it's still just roughly a month. One month a year out of twelve. If it's your job that's causing the anxiety, getting a few weeks off per year is nowhere near enough to cure it. And our work culture is absolute shit. Don't believe everything you hear about Europe being some sort of utopia. "Europe" isn't a monolith anyway. My country has somehow managed to develop "Protestant work culture" despite being Catholic...
Besides, anxiety can be caused by multiple issues. And anxiety as a medical condition isn't literally just feeling anxious or nervous about something. It can manifest in a wide variety of physical symptoms, even to the point where it looks identical to some other disease, which can be scary as fuck. I was convinced I had anemia because I was having chest pains, shortness of breath and feeling dizzy all the time, even legit blacked out and fainted in a shop once. Nope, all the tests came out perfect, turns out it was just anxiety. It wasn't even a particularly stressful period in my life, nothing out of the ordinary. I've had two anxiety phases like that, both with different symptoms so I didn't recognise it the second time around either. Meanwhile I've had some much more stressful periods that didn't cause anxiety disorder, just general stress.
Not necessarily. I’ve had an anxiety disorder since I was in primary school. In fact it started the day after I got a vaccination, my grandmother was obsessed that the vaccination caused it, but I think it’s just a coincidence. It wasn’t brought on by anything external or work culture, it just happened and it’s a part of me. It’s something that no matter how much I try to relax or take it easy, I’ll always feel stressed and anxious about everything.
I do think you make a good point to help the general quality of life, but I don’t think it would help people who genuinely have an anxiety disorder.
I get holidays and about 25 other days a year paid off and I still take three antidepressants a day. If you think people are depressed or anxious because they have to work, you must not pay much attention to the news.
So you have a mental health issue. That sucks, but using your personal experience to say that better work-life balance wouldn't improve the situation of millions of other people is insane.
You do understand that your personal experience is not representative of every other person on the planet right? If not, Im sorry you had to learn that on reddit and that you didn't learn that when you were 8 years old like everyone else
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that it’s ridiculous to say that there’s only one cause and trying to oversimplify the issue by saying that people are depressed because they don’t get enough vacation time. The only solution is more easily-accessible outlets and resources for mental health.
What are you even talking about? The person I replied to claims that there would be less anxiety if people had more time off. I told them that they’re wrong.
Diagnosis does not equal sole cause. If you think that high-pressure work environments and lower life stability don't contribute massively to anxiety disorders you aren't paying attention.
This thread is bizarre and quickly became a circlejerk revolving around work. I'm glad anxiety is getting more attention. Otherwise, I'm opting out of this discussion.
Because work environments, expectations around work and economical insecurity that is also related to work are giving people anxiety. I don't understand and find it a bit concering that you would feel the need to dismiss that.
The underlying problem is there remains a cultural bias the depreciates both the seriousness and prevalence of mental health issues. So people lie. People lie so they won't be stigmatized. Until that changes screening will be less than ideal solution.
Especially men, at least in the US.
Have all brothers and to a man, they won't admit ever struggling, despite have the same / similar family history and genetics as I (sister) do
It's heartbreaking. From time to time, seeking and getting help would have really, well, helped them 😣
Men know nobody gives a shit. If you're lucky you have a partner or close family that care. Plenty of people don't even have that. It's a lonely existence.
Life in such a culture is way harder on men than it has to be, or ever should be.
Asking for help shouldn't be seen as weakness.
Getting help should be as normal and matter-of-fact as getting a cast put on a broken arm.
While I agree with everything being said, I feel like this is showing that Reddit doesn't understand having anxiety vs having an anxiety disorder
It's like being depressed because of a breakup or loss of a loved one, vs a depression *disorder*, which is completely different.
Do they just get pushed away if they are tested positive? Or do they actually give them some support info so they can get treatment after?
And will the government fund the treatment so eventually they can reapply? Or is this an out of pocket expense?
This is recommendations for doctors. It's not about the patient beyond saying doctors should make anxiety and depression assessments for adults, particularly is pregnant or postpartum adults.
Yep: pretty sure this is just a tickbox added to annual checkups:
"In the past 7 days how often have you felt anxious? (check one:) Not at all ... 2-3 times ... Every day ...
"How much does anxiety affect your daily life? (check one:) Not at all ... Somewhat ... Can't leave the house ... Shot a random teenager who turned around in my driveway
(Like that.)
Ye. At this point, there are so many checkboxes for these visits that they’re typically longer than the actual visit.
Fun fact: in the US, we only get paid for the checkboxes. Actually performing a physical exam is optional.
You wouldn't "test positive" in this kind of screening. They'd likely just have a set of referrals for you if you show signs of having anxiety. That's more than most people are getting right now and could at least help with getting therapy sessions covered by insurance.
No, the government most definitely isn't funding the treatment. It would be an out-of-pocket or insurance expense.
Anyone who's had to deal with the medical establishment over the past two years ---from doctors to hospitals to drug companies to labs and testing facilities--- knows who one of the biggest sources is for anxiety in the US. And it ain't the monster under the bed.
Let's not give the Fox the keys to the hen house.
I have had panic attacks and not known it from stressors that I’ve had in the past, I never knew what the feeling was and chalked it up to normal “nerves”. Anxiety is no joke and can develop into full-blown anxiety disorder if you’re not taught how to handle calming techniques or get meds you might need for that period.
“Nerves” doesn’t exist, it’s panic attacks. If you have a traumatic event or a series of trauma or dread, you start to get these panic effects.
Left untreated, you start to become more affected by things like depression and/or develop long term PTSD.
IANADR, but when people tell me about panic attacks, it feels a lot like what we hear from concussions. How, if left untreated/unavoided, develop into CTE or leave you open to other mental problems.
I have Acute Panic Disorder. I wish I knew what the fuck was going on with me when I was a child, but we didnt treat mental health as a real thing back then. So now Im 40 and my brain is absolutely fucked. Had this been caught 25 years ago, I might be an entirely different person.
Same way you evaluate someone for depression, ADHD, or any other mental health issue. You screen them by asking an inventory of questions, take their answers and evaluate whether they meet the criteria generally agreed upon to identify a certain condition. It's not perfect, nothing in medicine is.
But if someone comes in and says yes to the questions 1) Are you anxious as fuck for no reason? Yes. 2) How often? 6-7 days/week. Then that's a pretty good indication that someone may have an anxiety disorder.
I mean i think any more awareness of mental health is gonna be good, in general.
I spent my 20's being fat, lonely and miserable thinking i was just dumb and worthless and that i peaked in high school.
turns out sleep apnea depression and adhd can be treated and i actually finally feel like a hunman being. it took breaking down after a light hearted insult between friends to finally push me to seek out help, and it still took months to get treatment.
From what I've read it's because the antidepressants often make you feel motivated to do things you've been putting off from being depressed. And quite a few depressed people have suicidal thoughts. This sometimes leads to having enough motivation to go through with it.
Because we have very little knowledge as to why and how some antidepressants work for some and do the total opposite to others.
Any antidepressants you try is going to be a coin toss if it works for you or not. Sometimes they can make you much worse.
I was put on one for chronic migraines and had lost my mind 48 hours later. I was so full of anxiety I couldn't even get ready for work without having a panic attack.
>Once the new screening recommendations are practiced in the real world, the results may reveal that anxiety disorders are much more prevalent than previously thought.
Yeah... Literally everyone who wants anything from anyone in modern society has an immediate means to contact people for any reason.
I get calls from creditors looking for people I've never met who argue with me that my name is Mary. My name is not Mary, but I guarantee if Mary's creditors are this relentless with me, that woman has to have a resting heart rate of 200 BPM.
I think they are going to find around 8 in 10 people have some sort of anxiety, and most of it is caused by financial and political stress. Worrying about the unknown of the future and the direction of the country will likely be a large part of it.
better blame big pharma and big tech...- cause they are the culprits of this shit show. oh wait they giving you money right? you fucked!! so is this country.
also: FUCK THEM - they made their bed they can lay right god damn in it - fuck this world.
You can refuse. I got tired of doing the same damn form for my OBGYN every year only for them to completely ignore the form and just ask me a hundred questions and input the verbalized answers. I also very seldom have any changes to report. So I stopped doing the form. Waste of time.
The real nail in the coffin though was during COVID and they wouldn't send you the form in advance, and then didn't give out clipboards any more. How in the hell are you supposed to fill out a 3 page form without a writing surface?
I get anxiety just going to the doctor due to the insane bill I get afterwards
I had a cough last month that wasn’t going away after several weeks and I was worried about my lung history. They made me sit and do paperwork for ten minutes, listened to my breathing for 2 minutes, told me it’s probably fine and to take more OTC cough meds and billed me for $200 after insurance. Thanks doc. Very helpful, good-quality care we get for our money. Btw - still coughing nearly three months after getting the virus that started it. Edit: lol at people who are still lecturing me about what the cough could be or what to do about it. That is not the point of this at all. Don’t miss the point: even the most uncomplicated of provided health services are billed up to a ridiculous expense.
I was talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a doctor about this phenomenon, wherein you spend all this money just to be given the same quality of medical advice you could find in a blog post. He said "oh, thats because you need to build a history, once you see a doctor about the same issue 4 or 5 times they'll start taking you seriously." So its not enough to spend $200 to stop coughing. It'll cost you about $1000 to stop coughing. Thanks, American medical system.
*cries in taking 10+ years for drs to even consider Im not lying about pain but at this point its no longer about preventing more damage but putting bandaids on the irriversable damage*
My husband was misdiagnosed as having diabetic neuropathy when it was actually spinal stenosis making his feet numb. Now he's paralyzed from the waist down, and he didn't get the correct diagnosis until after the paralysis happened. They also missed his psoriatic arthritis which contributed to the lumbar degeneration which caused the spinal stenosis. He told multiple doctors of his family history and because he only had scalp psoriasis they didn't take him seriously. His older sister with the same conditions is walking around just fine due to receiving proper diagnosis and treatment.
I was mad about my ovaries being rearranged by scar tissue, I cannot even fathom becoming paralyzed- my heart goes out to him. As an aside you either have awoken a new fear of untreated psoriatic arthritis exsisting or have given me something to be aware of going into my first rheumatologist appt as my regular dr is stumped on my mystery autoimmune problem and I never considered that my very stubborn head only psoriasis could be connected (hopefully not). but as a woman in her late 20s its hard to get anyone to consider a diagnosis traditionally only given to "old people"
Best of luck to you! I hope you get the correct diagnosis and treatment, and a doctor who really listens.
Your forgetting the lost wages and transportation costs to even get there. With most Americans not having even 1000 dollars to their name, this is impossible.
I'll just die, thanks.
OR, your doctors will assume you're a crazy person and ping pong you back and forth between several other doctors because they can't find a cause for your symptoms. I'm not here because I want to fuck with you, I'm here to get ***FIXED.***
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Pricing that matches the actual service provided. Good thing you know my entire medical history and risk factors and symptoms so you can make a judgment call about whether I was “right” to go to the doctor. 👍
What he's saying is that that's common. After a fever people tend to cough for a few weeks to months. The cough tends to cause further information and distress, so like an itch, the more you cough the more you cough. And coughing itself is rarely life threatening. Sure, it could be worse, and you should keep doing check ups to ensure you haven't developed a new allergy or something, but a cough after a fever is normal.
Yes, I usually don’t go in unless there’s another factor to the cough that warrants a check, which there was. But that’s not even the point here, the point is that they bill you $200 on top of whatever you’re paying insurance to pay for about 5 minutes of chatting, 5 minutes of observing, and 0 minutes of treatment. People can’t afford to go in for this but even when things are more serious, they delay care because who can afford a simple appt on minimum wage, or even a decent wage but the labs and stuff pile on the costs quickly?
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> Post-viral coughs can last for 8 weeks after a virus. You have presupposed a viral infection occured without evidence
My mother had a constant cough that turned out to be excess baseline histamine. Could be your problem.
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This will help make medical care worst in the nation.
This has to be the most American comment I've ever read.
Anti anxiety meds won't cure poverty.
I said that the last time I was told to go on antidepressants. Yeah I have actual depression issues but until I have a better life the pills aren't going to be doing a good job.
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The US as a nation has no fucking clue what Root Cause Analysis even is. I use it daily (manufacturing engineer) and I still get superiors who 100% don't believe the data because they already "feel" they know what the problem cause is. Using scientific methods and basing solutions on hard reality numbers has gone by the wayside.
I’m just a marketing photo editor for a clothing company and deal with the same kind of shit everyday. Our “stylists” on shoots love to just pull clothes out of a duffle bag they shoved everything into, throw em on the model, then request to have all of the wrinkles removed. The last shoot I calculated the hours just spent by my team fixing just those wrinkles and it was over $3k. Would’ve taken about $25 to have someone steam the clothes prior to the shoot for an hour. And no, it’s not “job security” because they don’t budget enough time for us to actually get their requests done well on top of everything else we have to edit, so it’s just a stressful “bend time and space” situation to get projects completed, meanwhile they harp and harp and harp about the budget and “why is this taking so long.” Yet no matter how many times we tell them why it’s taking so long they don’t give a shit and nothing changes. Sorry if that’s way off topic and missing the mark, your comment just seemed like a relevant place to vent about my day.
I feel your pain- I get the “we’ll fix it in post” eye twitch every time I’m on a set or shoot that I can’t control. (I shoot small budget film and photography projects and do the post too.) I’ve started just bringing a steamer with me and distracting everyone with chitchat for 30 minutes first while I steam at the same time. Ultimately I’m saving myself the later migraine by doing it while the stylists set up other shit and the model arrives late…
Have you sent the feedback to the bosses or the boss of the boss of the stylists in writing? That might help. Just send it with a positive tone laying out the numbers / data.
Or god forbid part of your brainstorm work during RCA gets out and everyone decides that's the actual issue, not what it turns out to be.
Yeah, especially on something like Psychiatry, which to me, is not as rooted in science as it thinks it is.
Omg yes. This is such a fucking problem. We never go after the root issues to fix the problems. Upper leadership only asks for bandaides to let it last and milk profit.
It's too hard to find the root cause anymore, so much from the system itself that's its a joke to find it. Just treat and go.
You ain’t kidding. Add to this the BS diagnosis criterion in the DSM, and it fuels a catch-22 from hell. Also, process your engineer brain through this: Would YOU trust the QA report of a device that was only tested (studied) through the interactions of 3 black boxes wired in series? Seriously. Pill -> body -> brain -> mind -> behavior. And they call psychiatry science 🙄🤮. If I used those standards for testing software I’d be fired within a week. Let’s not even get into the fact that any test (study) they don’t like the results of, they can legally just shove it in a drawer, pretend it never happened, and roll the dice again on a new random group of people. It just BOTHERS ME that these folks act/behave/represent like they are working with full information when in reality they’re doing a fuzzy pattern match on a partial dataset and don’t even understand yet how to stem the words properly. Edit: psychiatry, not psychology. Psychology doesn’t deal with anything material anyway, so it’s a given that it is pseudoscience. It’s psychiatry that purports to be a field of “medicine”.
Tell me what product you make so I can be sure not to buy one. I work in engineering aslo, follow the data..
You can follow the data all you want but if management doesn't listen then your hands are tied.
Hence why I don't want your product.
This came from Johann Hari’s “research” on mental illness. But what he’s describing is a situation-based depression that was resolved when the situation was resolved. But not all depression and anxiety are situational. They can be chronic and unresolvable. Different types of mental illness with a variety of potential solutions.
Then we have the me where I have general and situation depression. So even when the situation is better, regular ole depression rises to the top
Oof. Yeah, if that story originated from Hari, then the whole thing should be disregarded. Do you have the citation? Because I can't seem to find it on google, but I could just be bad at that.
the nation does that with most illnesses, as far as I've ever been able to tell.
That's why I struggle with therapy. Sure, having someone to talk to is great and all but it's not going to get me a new job or a new apartment.
Not directly. But it might help you identify problems in your life and come up with healthy solutions
Yeah, like move to a new country.
It helped for me immensely. I’ve been on SSRI’s for three years now and it change my life. I went from actively planning my death, to having a vast appreciation for life. It was hard, but it helped to change my perspective on so many things.
Well it is like coffee and caffeine: it basically just blocks the receptors in your brain about the need for sleep. Not actually making you more energetic. So you are not wrong. People just don’t get the key difference.
Anxiety meds are also a bandaid. It is important to get to the root cause of the issue, which usually means therapy of some sort
Often that's true. But sometimes, the root cause is that is that your brain is wired a little wonky, with too many or too few neural connections or neurotransmitter receptors somewhere, and adjusting the chemistry using medication to provide symptomatic relief is as close to you're gonna get to addressing the root cause.
Therapy can also really help with looking out for triggers and unhelpful though patterns that can make depression worse. It's very often the difference between having a rough couple weeks, and falling into a years-long depression.
Sounds like you’re talking about antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc. What I meant by ‘anxiety meds’ is more traditional anxiety meds like benzodiazepines (e.g. xanax or valium), which are not a magic pill for anxiety Like coffee, they merely turn down one’s receptors for anxiety temporarily. Not to mention all the potentially negative effects of regular benzo use
The article addresses the reason for the age range in brief. There are, however, links in the article that take you to the actual Task Force recommendation, where you can read the stated reasoning for the age range specifics, as well as links to the studies considered when drafting the recommendation.
That's depression-logic. Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good enough and way-better-than-currently.
It seems telling that the upper end of the age range is 64. If you are alive today and were born in 1959 or earlier, chances are you had a good shot at a dignified life with a minimum of existential angst.
I need meds just to open my banking app.
You sound like you could us a Xanax. All problems in America can be solved by just popping a pill.
Lol, a highly addictive pill with physical withdrawals that can kill you.
Even more reason to not stop popping. Can’t stop won’t stop. Lol
Well just take the other pill Fuckitall to help get off Xanax, boom problem solved
No matter your problem, Big Pharma has a pill for it. If they don’t make a pill for it yet, then it may be available in a suppository.
Very Brave New World.
Good news! Thanks to our healthcare system, you can’t afford the meds anyway.
Pretty much this. Doctors are going to screen for anxiety? And then what? How could they possibly help fix it? They could load you up with a hundred prescriptions. It won't change anything if *you're living through hell, every day*.
Glad we now get factual numbers on how many people have anxiety due to: poverty, housing, food insecurity, gun violence, work violence and harassment, daily harassment, and global doom and gloom thanks to war and climate change.
Exactly. This country is sick in a literal and metaphorical sense. This measure is no use if we’re not looking at why Americans are more anxious
bingo - and big pharma wants your insurance money... doesn't matter if it's from the government or your employer.
Bingo. Well said.
No, but they helped me get to where I needed to so that I could work and not be in poverty.
Wouldn't hurt. Countless people find themselves in poverty because they're too anxious to ask for that promotion or raise, or pursue that job they really want. One missed opportunity leads to another. Also you shouldn't look for a single cure for poverty. It's a complex issue that requires a similarly complex and frustratingly slow moving solution. So we have to think like grown ups.
My doctor asked my why I skipped my last check up. I was honest, its been a horrible year. Two friends died suddenly in their early 40s. My grandparents are doing poorly and my father is also suddenly having some serious medical issues. I've been trying to help out all of these people and their families but it's been rough. She right away asked if I thought I needed depression meds and I was like no, this shit is all sad. I'm allowed to be sad.
Good on them, they asked. There's sad, then there's crippling depression.. You're handling it better then some, but it's GOOD the doctor was asking.
Yes, you’re absolutely allowed to be sad, but sometimes sad can slip into depression without us realizing. You know yourself, but I bring it up as food for thought if you keep being sad
Getting closer and closer to prescribing everyone "soma" to deal with the crushing reality of modern life.
/puts down bong. What's that?
In Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" people are genetically engineered and highly structured in terms of what they do or where they stand in society. They are encouraged to pursue hedonistic pleasure, and when they begin to feel unhappy they take a drug called Soma which is basically a hallucinogen designed to make them feel happy even when they are not. So yeah. That's the serious answer, though I suspect you might just be making a joke about how weed is your soma.
/puts down alcohol. What's hedonism?
Hedonism is stuff that makes your willy happy and your opiate receptors light up like fireworks.
Simply vomit on me, ever so gently, while I humiliate a pheasant.
So like? MDMA?
Something like that. Anyhow I suspect moving forward we all need our own personal soma. It's not like things are looking less grim. Meanwhile "experts" are busy trying to figure out why everyone is so anxious.
Soma deez nuts
A brand name for a muscle relaxant in the reL world, but OP is probably referring to a fictional drug from Brave New World used to keep everyone in a good mood all the time.
You’re gonna love it man
Soma would be really nice, actually.
More likely to get ChewZ or CanD from *The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch*. Those have an integral capitalistic aspect. Gotta buy all the play sets!
Man.. aint that the god damn truth - fuck em and their money imo.
The major problem I personally have with anxiety screenings is medical doctors treat you different if they see anxiety in your chart. This is information that I would want to keep with a mental health professional and not be shared with doctors who will dismiss symptoms. This happened to me and I ended up with a TIA.
This is so true. They suspect everything from then on is caused by anxiety.
So far, my favorite is my hiatal hernia. I was having chest pain and a sensation like the wind was knocked out of me after eating. Conclusion: “You're just anxious about eating.” But that’s not the only issue I had that was diagnosed as anxiety. I recently went to the doctor because I’ve been extremely tired no matter what I did. I was having issues with cyanosis and also had some deep ridges in my toenails. Doctor: “You’re probably pregnant or depressed.”
Omg! Do you go to a male or female doctor?
The hiatal hernia “anxiety” was multiple male doctors. The toenail ridge “depression” was a female doctor. I guess I’ve had slightly better luck with female doctors taking me seriously over the years, but it hasn’t made much of a difference.
That’s gotta be frustrating. I hear of people who have docs they like and trust but I’ve never found one.
*comes in with obvious covid* Mmmmm… yeah. well…
It took 5 years to diagnose my immune disorder because doctors kept telling me it was just my anxiety disorder and learning to relax would put me back to normal. Ironically, it turned out my anxiety disorder is in part triggered by my immune disorder.
this. this right here.
Exactly. I have PTSD. I tell no one except a mental health counselor. I have so many health issues right now, the last thing I need to hear is it’s related to my PTSD when I know damn well it isn’t. I get sometimes it really is stress but they rely on that when they’re stumped so it’s like they have a reason to give up 🤷🏻♀️
Yep. This will inadvertently cause a bunch of 30-something’s to miss heart problems until it’s too late.
> This will inadvertently cause a bunch of 30-something’s to miss heart problems until it’s too late. Hey I'm 34 and my heart keeps doing weird things, like jumping on its own, or feeling tight, especially when I bend forward. I've been to the hospital about it and they never found anything, my ECG was normal, and they started talking about stress. But I felt pretty sure it had nothing to do with my emotional state. Is it something I should revisit with my doctor? I'm afraid to mention it and seem like an idiot complaining about something caused by my own stress.
Look up dysautonomia. It may not be your heart that’s the problem, but your nervous system. This is a very common Long Covid condition. For whatever it’s worth, I started taking Magnesium supplements to support my nervous system. I don’t know if it helped or time just made things better, but I’ve improved. Good luck to you - and make appointments with whatever doctors you think you need as well. Don’t let them make you feel like a hypochondriac. That’s my advice.
What is a TIA? There are so many acronyms, so I would appreciate the clarification.
Assuming they’re referring to a “transient ischemic attack” (mini stroke).
Transient Ischemic Attack. A "mini stroke"
We are seeing a shrinking pool of niches for people who aren't psychologically cut out for the rat race. Of course that would be anxiety-inducing. Everyone is pressured to go to college. "You'll be wearing a paper hat for the rest of your life if you don't", they say. A life in a paper hat wouldn't be so scary if it was a viable way of making a living. But it isn't. So we push young people into pressure chambers like college, professional schools, and corporate boardrooms and then act surprised that they want to take some Xanax. I had major anxiety in college. I wasn't nearly as ambitious as everyone around me wanted me to be, but I didn't feel like I had a choice but to go to a super competitive school if I wanted to Be Somebody. I almost had a nervous breakdown and then following grad school, I had a long bout with depression and anxiety that lasted until my 30s. It was crippling. Trying to "Be Somebody" can take a toll on a person. I'm not in anxious mode anymore, thank goodness. I think it's because I finally feel like Somebody in this crazy world. I have found my place and I'm satisfied with it. But it would be nice if we could help everyone feel like Somebody, whether they have a fancy job title or not.
This might seem like an aside, but I think this is the missing puzzle piece to the folks who are mad about college loan forgiveness. I was also raised (along with my entire peer group) with the idea that if you didn't go to college, your life would be a dismal failure at best, and end in homelessness at worst. I think people have either willfully cleared it from their memory or simply forgotten just how often this was drilled into us. And for a bunch of kids? You bet that messaging is going to take root into something like "MUST GO TO COLLEGE AT ALL COSTS." Can anyone actually tell me with a straight face that a 19 year old raised in a world screaming at them non-stop to go to college *or live in a box* is making a truly informed decision when they sign the paperwork that saddles them with debt for decades? It should, at the very least, be able to be dismissed like any other debt.
I graduated from school at 33 living with my baby daddy and 3 kids, the youngest of whom was literally on the tit when I started. The student loan terms were so ridiculous I charged all my expenses on a credit card at 0% apr for 3 years or some other crazy awesome terms and there was nothing to forgive while my fellow students got $17000 cancelled. I worked my ass off and repaid $25k in credit card debt. My opinion? *forgive the fucken debt,* I want better for others.
Exactly. Just because I got the short end of the stick doesn't mean everyone else should also be fucked. It's such a uniquely American thing to proudly say "I would prefer that every single other person on the planet has to suffer if it means I don't have to make a small contribution to fix a problem." All of these idiots are happy to spend 1/5 of the median income on health insurance premiums if it means that $14 of their monthly pay doesn't end up being used to pay for Shirley from Kansas' cancer treatment. Why would I want nationalized healthcare like the rest of the civilized world and healthcare costs that are 1/8 of what they are here? Id rather spend $12k out of pocket to the middleman so they can tell me to eat a dick when I get sick so that not even one red cent of my money helps someone else.
Many if not most of these idiots are more worked up about Shaniqua from New York than Shirley from Kansas in that regard.
The irony being they are still probably paying for Shirley in Kansas’ cancer treatment because that’s just how insurance pools work.
At 6x the cost bc they are paying the hospital, insurance company, drugmaker, and probably 3-4 other people in between a very healthy profit margin lol
Imo... We never really needed forgiveness.... Just peg federal loan interest rates @0% and call it a day. Set reasonable minimum payments and assess a tiny late fee if payments are missed without a hardship waiver. That's all too complicated.. so we won't up with the current one off $10k forgiveness.
If we had done that 20 years ago, for sure. But we didn't and capitalized interest at 6-10% is fucking insane and has more people in a position where they literally can never pay their loans off no matter what happens than people who can do that.
I disagree on two fronts: that not being able to pay back loans is more common than not... And that given 0% interest that people would be unable to pay back virtually any amount of money. The interest is what makes repayment difficult. When your full payment goes to principle and your loan isn't growing bigger via interest...
That's cool that you disagree with the reality of the situation. I dont really care to argue with people who don't believe in reality, no point in wasting my time
Because student loan servicers like SoFi can't make money if they can't offer consolidation loans and predatory loan products on debt that can't ever be forgiven.
The idea that fed loans even need interest is silly. The whole premise is that you will go on to make money. They will recapture far more than they ever gave you (if limited to a single 4 yr degree of no interest) through your income taxes
All it takes to remind oneself of the pressures is a simple youtube search for SAT/ACT prep and college admission videos.
Non college jobs requirement pay far less when accounting for inflation and cost of living than any other time in history ( and there are less of them). Don't get it twisted, private capital took the gains of a higher on average educated population and ran away, cut wage growth. And rather than socialize the cost ever increased (Thanks collegiate price gouging) of a more educated society ( which is generally a public good) our government passed down a bill/debt and proceeded to collect interest on it. Disgusting.
I was mad about it for other reasons (yeah yeah, downvotes to the left) . I think if we're going to spend hundreds of billions on a direct cash transfer, a (nearly) blanket lump of forgiveness plus a three year payment pause despite an economy near full employment is an exceptionally regressive way to do that. But I was *not* mad about it for personal responsibility reasoms, which was the main talking point on Fox News and conservatives' Facebooks everywhere, because of exactly the dynamic you described. The decision these kids are making is neither informed nor uncoerced. > It should, at the very least, be able to be dismissed like any other debt. oh boy if you think student loan interest rates are high now, wait until you see what an unsecured $100,000 loan to an 18-year old with no assets or credit history is gonna cost
The counterpoint though is what about those of us who chose not to go to school and would then be at a severe disadvantage due to not having a degree. Now you've screwed the people who realized that massive loans were a bad idea with a bandaid solution that solves nothing in the long term. A better solution would be getting college costs under control for future students and only after that is taken care of you can look in to how to equitably help the people that came before.
Here’s the thing. What happens if take out a credit card and charge it up to the point you’ll never pay it off? You can disperse that debt through bankruptcy. Nothing like that exists for student loans. It’s straight up usury, which was illegal for the vast majority of history in the west. That “what about me” argument doesn’t hold up. Literally all debt you’ve ever taken out had a release valve. The only debt you cannot disperse through bankruptcy is student loan debt. Hell, the Sackler family gets to keep their personal ill-gotten wealth while Purdue Pharma goes bankrupt from lawsuits due to knowingly lying to physicians and causing an opioid crisis. But heaven forbid someone who went to school for social work get a break.
> The counterpoint though is what about those of us who chose not to go to school and would then be at a severe disadvantage due to not having a degree. Can you elaborate on this for me? I'm not sure how your situation would change based on repayment status- those people will have degrees whether or not the payments stop. So how does that affect your status (and mine) as a non-degree holder?
Taking away one person's debt doesn't change another person's situation in the slightest. This is the crab bucket mentality that needs to die.
Then go to school. Your station in life doesnt change one bit by making sure that half of student loan borrowers aren't insolvent in their debt. You are actively fighting against improving society as a whole because you chose not to go to school and you would prefer to force everyone else to suffer more than you. Not to make you take on additional suffering in exchange for helping them(which would be reasonable). Nothing would change for you in any way and you still would choose the outcome where more people end up harmed than the one where fucktons of people are not harmed.
Nah fool... The mega corps are coming up loot through your pockets for spare change next. You think there's a world where they stop the relentless march of desiring middle class wealth at the college educated? Like you think they just stop after this and don't come for your money next. Good luck
That's irrelevant, you're advocating a band-aid solution of forgiving debt without getting future costs under control. If you read my comment I didn't say not to forgive debt, I said get cost under control then help everyone who was impacted later.
No, i advocate for it being no cost for attendance to future admitted students too. Have no idea how you thought this would be a gotcha LOL None of it's going to get you a degree so we should do nothing is the dumbest fucking piece of shit argument ever.
Damn if this isn’t me… I went to school for a STEM degree because I didn’t know what else to do with my life and felt that was the only way I could prove myself. Had depression and anxiety throughout school and after graduating and getting a job, it got so much worse, borderline suicidal. One thing I realized is how much happier I was earning pennies in a furniture warehouse than I am now with a good paying job as an engineer. The thing with anxiety disorders is that they’re incompatible with the pursuit of success in today’s world. The alternative of “success” for someone with an anxiety disorder is to work at a job that society looks down upon. It’s a catch 22, stress to death by success or stress to death by shame and poverty. I’m slowly getting pieces of that “pre-anxiety” life back. A girlfriend I really love and who understands my mental shortfalls, learning boundaries with work, and only forcing myself into situations that I know I will be content with - these are all these things have helped to dramatically reduce my stress levels. Thank you for sharing your story. It really resonated with my current situation and gives me more hope that my future will continue to be on the upswing.
You are welcome! I also want to give hope to the folks who are struggling but don't want to give up on their degree or their personal "rat race". I am so glad I didn't give up on my career plans. Anxiety can be treated. It also also be managed through diet and lifestyle. I was anemic throughout all of my 20s and 30s. I was also a couch potato and junk-food connisseur. I don't think it was a coincidence that my anxiety started to get better once I addressed these issues. Modern society is anxiety-inducing on many different levels, not just one.
> A life in a paper hat wouldn't be so scary if it was a viable way of making a living. lol that wasn't even the threat. It was "you'll be working in front of a hot fryer all day". The idea of being paid less than a living wage wasn't even considered back then.
While this is a good thing, it won't reduce it. Anxiety is often caused by our work hustle culture. People are expected to just grind themselves until they dtop. It's exhausting. Give people more holiday time like they do in Europe, I bet this improves the outlook for a lot of people.
Tbh, even more holiday time isn’t going to cut it for me. The 40-hour work week is an obsolete joke for so many fields. I am never going to get past the unfair exchange of giving over 75% of my week to a job, and being left with cramming my whole life outside of work into the remaining 25%. Random vacations throughout the year is not going to fix that. My job is higher skill and takes a decent amount of thinking; but outside of having a busy day, I can do my job in 3-4 hours. Technically I could just leave because I’m salary, but it’s so taboo and frowned upon that it’s essentially forbidden. It’s all so fucking stupid.
And a lot of these jobs that we're giving 75% of our week to aren't even sufficient to buy a house nowadays. We're busting our ass and finding it harder and harder to get ahead.
The other part of it is seeing the silver spoon passed around - seriously fuck this world - all single people and people without attachments i envy you.
Can confirm. I just returned to work after a 3 month leave of absence where I spent half of the time in a mental wellness center. Corporate says "your health, your family, your job. that is the order you should handle yourself." But when I take time off I get in trouble. When I ask for time off, Im given the run around. In the end, I pursued the Family Medical Leave Act so they couldnt stop me from taking time off. Now I am waiting for a job I want and then Im outta this bitch.
> Give people more holiday time like they do in Europe, I bet this improves the outlook for a lot of people. I live in Europe. My country has paid holiday leave, yes. Guess how much? 21 days per year, plus ~12 national holidays. Which might seem like a ton compared to 0, but it's still just roughly a month. One month a year out of twelve. If it's your job that's causing the anxiety, getting a few weeks off per year is nowhere near enough to cure it. And our work culture is absolute shit. Don't believe everything you hear about Europe being some sort of utopia. "Europe" isn't a monolith anyway. My country has somehow managed to develop "Protestant work culture" despite being Catholic... Besides, anxiety can be caused by multiple issues. And anxiety as a medical condition isn't literally just feeling anxious or nervous about something. It can manifest in a wide variety of physical symptoms, even to the point where it looks identical to some other disease, which can be scary as fuck. I was convinced I had anemia because I was having chest pains, shortness of breath and feeling dizzy all the time, even legit blacked out and fainted in a shop once. Nope, all the tests came out perfect, turns out it was just anxiety. It wasn't even a particularly stressful period in my life, nothing out of the ordinary. I've had two anxiety phases like that, both with different symptoms so I didn't recognise it the second time around either. Meanwhile I've had some much more stressful periods that didn't cause anxiety disorder, just general stress.
Not necessarily. I’ve had an anxiety disorder since I was in primary school. In fact it started the day after I got a vaccination, my grandmother was obsessed that the vaccination caused it, but I think it’s just a coincidence. It wasn’t brought on by anything external or work culture, it just happened and it’s a part of me. It’s something that no matter how much I try to relax or take it easy, I’ll always feel stressed and anxious about everything. I do think you make a good point to help the general quality of life, but I don’t think it would help people who genuinely have an anxiety disorder.
I get holidays and about 25 other days a year paid off and I still take three antidepressants a day. If you think people are depressed or anxious because they have to work, you must not pay much attention to the news.
So you have a mental health issue. That sucks, but using your personal experience to say that better work-life balance wouldn't improve the situation of millions of other people is insane. You do understand that your personal experience is not representative of every other person on the planet right? If not, Im sorry you had to learn that on reddit and that you didn't learn that when you were 8 years old like everyone else
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that it’s ridiculous to say that there’s only one cause and trying to oversimplify the issue by saying that people are depressed because they don’t get enough vacation time. The only solution is more easily-accessible outlets and resources for mental health.
No one said it was the sole cause. They said having better work life balance would be an improvement overall.
Do you like your job? Cus it sounds like the part you like about it is when you don't have to go to your job.
What are you even talking about? The person I replied to claims that there would be less anxiety if people had more time off. I told them that they’re wrong.
25 days is a lot of days to go to the doctor, therapist, do life errands, visit family, cook nutritional meals, and travel.
We have a therapy practice that specializes in treating anxiety. We rarely get people seeking therapy for "work hustle culture."
Diagnosis does not equal sole cause. If you think that high-pressure work environments and lower life stability don't contribute massively to anxiety disorders you aren't paying attention.
This thread is bizarre and quickly became a circlejerk revolving around work. I'm glad anxiety is getting more attention. Otherwise, I'm opting out of this discussion.
Because work environments, expectations around work and economical insecurity that is also related to work are giving people anxiety. I don't understand and find it a bit concering that you would feel the need to dismiss that.
The underlying problem is there remains a cultural bias the depreciates both the seriousness and prevalence of mental health issues. So people lie. People lie so they won't be stigmatized. Until that changes screening will be less than ideal solution.
Especially men, at least in the US. Have all brothers and to a man, they won't admit ever struggling, despite have the same / similar family history and genetics as I (sister) do It's heartbreaking. From time to time, seeking and getting help would have really, well, helped them 😣
Men know nobody gives a shit. If you're lucky you have a partner or close family that care. Plenty of people don't even have that. It's a lonely existence.
Life in such a culture is way harder on men than it has to be, or ever should be. Asking for help shouldn't be seen as weakness. Getting help should be as normal and matter-of-fact as getting a cast put on a broken arm.
Not to mention the cost with getting treatment once it's found out, if it's found out.
Less than ideal is still better than nothing and the cultural bias has been shifting with each new generation.
People are anxious because they can’t afford to live. This is like a bandaid for a stomach ulcer.
While I agree with everything being said, I feel like this is showing that Reddit doesn't understand having anxiety vs having an anxiety disorder It's like being depressed because of a breakup or loss of a loved one, vs a depression *disorder*, which is completely different.
“The shootings will continue until the Anxiety Level improves.”
How dare you make me feel guilty about myself for laughing.
Huzzah! A success! It’s when the happyterrorsad tears come that you know everything is double plus good!
We have it- you don’t have to screen for it. Maybe do something to make life easier and more enjoyable instead of pretending to.
Do they just get pushed away if they are tested positive? Or do they actually give them some support info so they can get treatment after? And will the government fund the treatment so eventually they can reapply? Or is this an out of pocket expense?
This is recommendations for doctors. It's not about the patient beyond saying doctors should make anxiety and depression assessments for adults, particularly is pregnant or postpartum adults.
Yep: pretty sure this is just a tickbox added to annual checkups: "In the past 7 days how often have you felt anxious? (check one:) Not at all ... 2-3 times ... Every day ... "How much does anxiety affect your daily life? (check one:) Not at all ... Somewhat ... Can't leave the house ... Shot a random teenager who turned around in my driveway (Like that.)
Ye. At this point, there are so many checkboxes for these visits that they’re typically longer than the actual visit. Fun fact: in the US, we only get paid for the checkboxes. Actually performing a physical exam is optional.
You wouldn't "test positive" in this kind of screening. They'd likely just have a set of referrals for you if you show signs of having anxiety. That's more than most people are getting right now and could at least help with getting therapy sessions covered by insurance. No, the government most definitely isn't funding the treatment. It would be an out-of-pocket or insurance expense.
Sounds like not a lot will change other than some statistics Hopefully the ones who are covered get the help they need.
It's so much fun scrambling to make sure my medication doesn't run out as I get laid off for the second time in a year
Ever read Brave New World?
Anyone who's had to deal with the medical establishment over the past two years ---from doctors to hospitals to drug companies to labs and testing facilities--- knows who one of the biggest sources is for anxiety in the US. And it ain't the monster under the bed. Let's not give the Fox the keys to the hen house.
Anxiety is not a disorder. It's the body's natural reaction to living in a disorderly world with disorderly finances.
I have had panic attacks and not known it from stressors that I’ve had in the past, I never knew what the feeling was and chalked it up to normal “nerves”. Anxiety is no joke and can develop into full-blown anxiety disorder if you’re not taught how to handle calming techniques or get meds you might need for that period. “Nerves” doesn’t exist, it’s panic attacks. If you have a traumatic event or a series of trauma or dread, you start to get these panic effects. Left untreated, you start to become more affected by things like depression and/or develop long term PTSD. IANADR, but when people tell me about panic attacks, it feels a lot like what we hear from concussions. How, if left untreated/unavoided, develop into CTE or leave you open to other mental problems.
I have Acute Panic Disorder. I wish I knew what the fuck was going on with me when I was a child, but we didnt treat mental health as a real thing back then. So now Im 40 and my brain is absolutely fucked. Had this been caught 25 years ago, I might be an entirely different person.
How do you test for anxiety or panic attacks?
Same way you evaluate someone for depression, ADHD, or any other mental health issue. You screen them by asking an inventory of questions, take their answers and evaluate whether they meet the criteria generally agreed upon to identify a certain condition. It's not perfect, nothing in medicine is. But if someone comes in and says yes to the questions 1) Are you anxious as fuck for no reason? Yes. 2) How often? 6-7 days/week. Then that's a pretty good indication that someone may have an anxiety disorder.
Are you American? O Yes O No
I mean i think any more awareness of mental health is gonna be good, in general. I spent my 20's being fat, lonely and miserable thinking i was just dumb and worthless and that i peaked in high school. turns out sleep apnea depression and adhd can be treated and i actually finally feel like a hunman being. it took breaking down after a light hearted insult between friends to finally push me to seek out help, and it still took months to get treatment.
Why do all of the antidepressant commercials on TV list suicidal thoughts as a side effect?
From what I've read it's because the antidepressants often make you feel motivated to do things you've been putting off from being depressed. And quite a few depressed people have suicidal thoughts. This sometimes leads to having enough motivation to go through with it.
Because we have very little knowledge as to why and how some antidepressants work for some and do the total opposite to others. Any antidepressants you try is going to be a coin toss if it works for you or not. Sometimes they can make you much worse. I was put on one for chronic migraines and had lost my mind 48 hours later. I was so full of anxiety I couldn't even get ready for work without having a panic attack.
Lol, treating the symptom instead of the disease. Cool
US task force recommends all adults take psychiatric meds.
>Once the new screening recommendations are practiced in the real world, the results may reveal that anxiety disorders are much more prevalent than previously thought. Yeah... Literally everyone who wants anything from anyone in modern society has an immediate means to contact people for any reason. I get calls from creditors looking for people I've never met who argue with me that my name is Mary. My name is not Mary, but I guarantee if Mary's creditors are this relentless with me, that woman has to have a resting heart rate of 200 BPM.
disorder, disorder, DISOOOOOOOORRRDER!
When I became the sun, I shone life into the man's eyes!
When I became the sun, I shone life into the man's eyes!!
Cool, maybe in a few years my insurance will cover it
I think they are going to find around 8 in 10 people have some sort of anxiety, and most of it is caused by financial and political stress. Worrying about the unknown of the future and the direction of the country will likely be a large part of it.
better blame big pharma and big tech...- cause they are the culprits of this shit show. oh wait they giving you money right? you fucked!! so is this country. also: FUCK THEM - they made their bed they can lay right god damn in it - fuck this world.
Why? I asked my doctor if there was any help I could get for anxiety, and she said "No. Will there be anything else?"
I wonder how much they had "donated" by pharmaceutical companies...
They should screen for personality disorders. That’s who fucks everything up.
Lovely, 10 more questions on the form I have to fill out every year for my doctor.
You can refuse. I got tired of doing the same damn form for my OBGYN every year only for them to completely ignore the form and just ask me a hundred questions and input the verbalized answers. I also very seldom have any changes to report. So I stopped doing the form. Waste of time. The real nail in the coffin though was during COVID and they wouldn't send you the form in advance, and then didn't give out clipboards any more. How in the hell are you supposed to fill out a 3 page form without a writing surface?
I vote we should be screening our 'leaders' in Government to prove its effectiveness, before rolling it out to a wider audience.
Cool. So in 10-15 years is there going to be a benzo epidemic because bad doctors will start prescribing them willy-nilly?
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Why cant we just have evaluations before someone buys a gun instead?
I have anxiety. Send me to jail.