Look out for the medicalization of everything. Medicine wants you.
July 15, 2023
"Research has shown that a lonely brain is transformed. Neurotransmitters important for bonding and social connection go haywire."
"The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, responsible for modulating stress, is hyperactive. The amygdala, which triggers our fight-or-flight response and helps process emotional reactions, is in overdrive: In previous studies, Dr. Cacioppo found that lonely people detect negative or threatening pictures and words in under 400 milliseconds. This might explain not only the sadness that accompanies loneliness but also the palpable sense of danger.
Such changes in the brain may help to explain why lonely individuals perceive their social environment as threatening.... For some people, loneliness becomes a self-perpetuating feedback loop and turns chronic. The neuroplastic nature of the brain, its ability to create different structural pathways, can reinforce these changes.... Though the goal is not to pathologize loneliness or to add it to the D.S.M., health care workers will need clear guidelines for identifying loneliness and triaging care. Even if a pill for loneliness were to become widely available, the goal should not be to get rid of these emotions that make up loneliness.... Medicine will play an important role in recovery, and social reform is essential to prevent future generations from succumbing to chronic loneliness...."
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30 comments:
I read. I’m never lonely.
Less than 1000 people know what haywire is.
How do we treat it? Maybe ‘we’ should stop being such an asshole that nobody wants to be around…
“- Larry: Oh, I hate these places. Don't you? It's like, most of these guys are just here for one thing. I guess I want to meet someone I can talk to, just get to know. And go to dinners with, and museums, art galleries. I think what I'm looking for is more of a real relationship.
- Girl in Bar: Oh, that's great, Larry. But I just came here to get laid.”
The problem I have with “loneliness” is loneliness the word. The load the word is asked to bear is too heavy. Let’s say it lacks the necessary foundation.
The word is asked to convey what is like to feel “alone in a crowd”.
Despite the fact that we’re really never truly connected to another person other than in their presence.
We don’t mind meld with others. As a specie, We don’t have a hive mind. We have a saying for this thing we’re told we’re missing - “we’re born alone and we die alone”.
So, If we’re truly alone, how can we be “lonely”?
Maybe we feel lonely when the illusion that we’re not truly alone is waining.
I could be wrong. Until I can mind meld with an AI, I’m really not going to know for sure.
Hurry up Elon. I’m dying here.
"If Loneliness Is an Epidemic, How Do We Treat It?"
it IS an Epidemic.. We ARE treating it... With Fentanyl
The world could only get lonelier when we give in to our censorious impulses.
I hear the churches are welcoming.
Medicalization is a strong form of control. Soviet Union used to assign dissidents a diagnosis of “indolent schizophrenia” (IIRC: although any BS term would probably suffice). Once you have medicalized your subject, he or she is neatly transformed to Other and enters a whole system of State resources and processes that render him or her silent and impotent.
So: politically very convenient. And: medically very lucrative.
Are we surprised?
"Though the goal is not to pathologize loneliness or to add it to the D.S.M., health care workers will need clear guidelines for identifying loneliness and triaging care."
Sure.
iowan2 said...
Less than 1000 people know what haywire is.
i always preferred bailing twine
baling twine
Pfizer is on it!
Loneliness is not a problem. It and its medical manifestations are a perfectly natural response to environmental stimuli. Society is the problem. Loneliness is just a symptom.
A symptom we treat with medication like everything else. We treat this symptom with medication to help the patient forget momentarily how screwed up society is, and to remind the patient that society is equally powerless to solve their problem.
As someone above just said, "we treat Loneliness with fentanyl." Not just fentanyl, that is but one of our more powerful loneliness narcotics. We have hundreds more for varying degrees of functionality you may need to face the day. So come on trooper, swallow that horsepill and get out here with the rest of us so we can ignore the immensity of the social problem we've collectively created together. We'll even sing kumbaya.
"Less than 1000 people know what haywire is."
Apparently, haywire was what duct tape became — something used to make haphazard repairs.
The "go haywire" usage first appeared in print in 1929 N.Y. Times 13 Oct. "When some element in the recording system becomes defective it is said to have gone haywire."
Before that, there was "haywire outfit": 1905 Terms Forestry & Logging (Bull. U.S. Dept. Agric., Bureau Forestry, No. 61) 39 "Hay wire outfit, a contemptuous term for loggers with poor logging equipment."
Haywire is obsolete, plastic cord is currently use to bale hay and straw.
That's a brain that doesn't own a dog.
I hear the churches are welcoming.
Not really. Some are, but a lot of them have the same problems as other social institutions: cliques, drama, hostility towards outsiders, etc. A church of mostly older couples doesn't offer a whole lot for younger singles, for example. Especially post-COVID, a lot of the social value of churches seems to have declined.
The article mentions natural remedies. Taking a walk, being in nature, seeking out a friend, helping a neighbor, all good things. Especially interesting is the connection between loneliness and perceiving the world full of threats.
They talk of the damaging efffects of loneliness. Have they done any research on the damaging effects of a contentious marriage or of having to work with a bunch of jerks. Loneliness erodes happiness, but, if you really want to corrode happiness beyond any possibility of repair you need to spend time with other people. An intimate relationship with just the right person is the speediest way to encourage suicidal ideation.
The No Agenda podcast (the best podcast in the universe, according to the Mueller Report) works wonders at shrinking amygdalas.
Www.noagendashow.com
John Henry
You can bet that once you "triage" for it, there will be a pill for it. Can you imagine the demand it will have? I've heard of using pregnenolone, the hormone the lonely neuroscientist was researching, for depression in women and PMS. How can you tell the difference between depression and loneliness? The feeling seems the same to me. Loneliness would be the source of the depression or anxiety. Being in a bad relationship could also cause depression and anxiety.
You may not be interested in the Therapeutic Deep State, but the Therapeutic Deep State will be interested in you.
Loneliness is a side function of not having interests.
Loneliness is from the core where it is wedded to suffocating self-centeredness, more endogamous than exogamous. ThisPeople cannot get out of their own way. They block access to the core of others. It’s like true freedom terrifying in its own way.
It has already been medicalized. Anti-depressants are everywhere. The Brave New World is already here. I know. I was a medical advertising editor and copywriter.
Based on the gov't response to covid, I would say it is more likely they want to impose loneliness on the public, rather than solve it.
Based on the gov't response to covid, I would say it is more likely they want to impose loneliness on the public, rather than solve it.
Written from the extrovert point of view. As is most everything. I am an extreme introvert and loneliness sounds like bliss. Hell is other people.
You could see this during the pandemic. It seemed like the people who reacted to lockdowns the worst were also the most invested in staying locked down.
You can get addicted to things you hate.
Lonely brain, remain, gain, explain, quaint, demsne, ponchartrain, insane, domain, taint, blaine.
The song writes itself.
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