I’ll share mine first.
I had a psych patient one night pile shitty toilet paper next to his toilet overnight. Normally my psych nurse brain would consider this a symptom of disorganized psychosis, EXCEPT!
I remembered an aita post about a conflict between a western OP and his middle eastern roomate trying to figure out why their roommate put their shitty toilet paper in the trash. Turns out many middle eastern toilets can’t handle toilet paper.
Oh and inpatient psychiatry doesn’t provide freestanding hard plastic trashcans (turns out they make great clubs). We gave him one of our freestanding paper bag trashcans and problem solved.
TL;DR; Reddit expanded my cultural knowledge enough to differentiate disorganized psychotic behaviors from a genuine cultural difference. Thanks reddit!
Anyone have any similar examples of positive exchanges of knowledge or culture using reddit?
Not just East Germany. If you dig enough, you will find mental health abuse in every country on earth, whether historical or ongoing. Of course in the USSR as you mentioned, also in China, the USA, and elsewhere.
“Abusive” in this case can mean abusive treatments, or treatments against things that are not diseases, such as homosexuality, promiscuity, or unfavorable political ideas.
In the US, read about the published papers of the mkultra project, and look as well into the ongoing existence of centers such as Elan school (now closed) and the Judge Rottenberg center (still in practice).
In my experience, having friends go through mental crises, the modern US system is hard enough to navigate even when one desperately needs and wants care. Try finding yourself a therapist when in such a depression that you can hardly get out of bed, much less search out who takes your insurance, has openings in their availability, and is a good match for your personality. Meanwhile true inpatient care seems reserved for either the fully disabled, or those who have already attempted suicide. Can you imagine if a profession like dentistry made care this difficult to access?
But for people who are either marginalized or truly mentally disabled, this is a harsh system that can make one suspicious, especially when the history of lobotomies, electroshocks, hydrotherapy, and other abuses are within living memory.
Yes, you are truly right!
One Dimension is accessibility for people who are going through a mental crisis. Who are not taken serious, who can’t access healthcare put of poverty. Who are queer, but are forced to live under another identity. Who have been threaten horribly because of weird practices.
The other Dimension is a society/authoritarian state making their people sick. Cause in east germany (and in many other states that exist today) normal people were treaten poorly and grind down (right word?). They were made depressed, anxious, paranoid. In ordner to lose their free will, so they can’t become rebellious.
This made east german psychiatry based on the own body and the “chemicals in the brain”. You just throw some medicine at someone and your job is done. You don’t have to fix unjustice, giving people a home or a good wage.
My stepdad was a refugee from east germany. But i grew up after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Too much trauma in this family, but nobody ever talked about that. So i spend a lot of time trying to understand what was going on. And what impact it had on me and my siblings. I went to therapy, but i never really needed that. It gave me stability were my parents couldn’t give me much. But as a woman and queer person i am faced with so much unjustice, just “beeing confidend” doesn’t make stuff better. My asexuality can’t be healted cause it’s no illness.
In a united germany there is this lie that we are all democratic, tolerant, future orientated, that Talent and hard work will make ones life better. “An individual just need to get their shit toghether” and we all can live a happy heteronormativ life in a cruel oeconomic Environment. i hate this mindset so much 😆
And then there are Heilpraktiker, an esotheric abormination. Who say that cancer comes from a broken heart… and people believe them. Cause they don’t trust medicine.
In the end i am not shure were my weird mind is going. Cause to much stuff in a smal text. But i hope i can someday help people finding the right way: some need medicine, some a therapy, some need to create a union. but we all need a country that is taking their job serious. Who feels responsibil for their people! 😤