ironrider11 said:There isn't a meaningful answer... being "in it" is the whole point of the post. In this day and age where info and misinformation exist about absolutely everything—where everyone wants to be informed on every little thing and try to use that info to their advantage—you hit this paradox. You get overloaded with info that ends up being totally counterproductive. Where do you draw the line between being obsessed and being ignorant? There's no answer. On a personal level, especially with sensitive topics like physical or mental health, it doesn't matter... any info you gather might randomly turn out to be total garbage. It's easy to accidentally steer yourself from the "right" path onto the "wrong" one, ending up deeper in the hole instead of getting out. It's all subjective; based on how someone perceives a specific method, therapy, or pill working, and how they vent their satisfaction or frustration about it... that venting can easily become part of someone else's solution, or the cause of their problem. It's highly individual. Information is health to one person, a sickness to another, a problem to some, and a solution to others. It's like they say... it just depends on how the wind blows. It's bizarre how we live in a society where every single person is both a producer and a consumer of whatever is being made, and money is the engine of this entire consumerist machine; it basically turns health into a commodity available only if you have the cash. How can someone who is physically or mentally struggling—or both—actually fight to grab a piece of that precious commodity? What should you try, and what should you dodge? What's worth enduring and what should you just walk away from? Who can you actually trust? We live in a society that loves to pretend we always have options, but how real is that? When you're backed into a corner, you'll inevitably grasp at whatever whispers to you just to make the pressure stop... How real was your perception of a "solution" in that moment? And how productive or destructive is sharing your experience with someone else, given how much they might actually listen or believe what you say...
Sometimes the path is right there in front of us, but we’re too blinded by xyz to see it. Other times, we spot it, but yxz makes it impossible to wrap our heads around. And sometimes, we think we’re on track, only to realize we were following the wrong damn thing all along........
"I knew nothing at all".. 😉
It’s true. I live my life operating under the assumption that I actually know nothing at all. That is precisely why I am even here writing these things—to learn more.
How can anyone truly know, or even remain objective, about how much someone else's lived experience or knowledge might actually help another person? I suppose everyone knows that already... or they don't. From my perspective, once you strip away all the mistakes—whether intentional or not—all the ignorance, and all the terrible advice coming from various sources, I still find myself double-checking or even quintuple-checking before I ever suggest anything or even offer a mere suggestion regarding medication. This isn't a joke, nor is it a game.
People take certain things literally; they think, "If it worked for him, it'll work for me," but that is such a flawed and unserious way to approach the problem! A medication that helped me carries absolutely no guarantee—not even a trace of a guarantee—that it will help someone else. In fact, there is a massive possibility that it could act in the exact opposite way.
I am not telling people, "Go ahead and take this," I am simply (and often) noting that it helped ME.
On the flip side, shouldn't we look at doctors the same way? I mean, where does their knowledge actually come from? Does a medication really help?
Have they tried it themselves? Have they taken it for years? Or have they merely read millions of different accounts of experiences and side effects, only to end up knowing... well, nothing?
Unfortunately, in our desperate attempt to be as healthy as possible, we are forced to acknowledge some kind of authority.
We simply cannot do it ourselves. Because how can we ever view ourselves with true objectivity?
Think about it like this... if we want to go North, we grab a compass, point it North, and that should be that.
But who is telling us what actually awaits us on that journey? Nobody.
And that is the catch. We have the will, we have the desire, we take realistic advice, we read, we exchange experiences... but we still have to face that "journey."☕
