Mastodawn

Ianto Jones 14h ago

Based on not just one but three ongoing discussions I want to write down a few things I, based on my professional and other experience, consider truths. Relevant background: I am a child psychiatrist working in children and youth community level mental health services. I hold a PhD in data analysis. I've dabbled in practical epidemiology. I am a parent. My values can be described as left liberal. I am NOT a psychotherapist. Welcome to my not-TED talk that will go on for some hours probably. 0/🧵

1/🧵: Humans did not evolve in conditions where being easily content was a survival trait. It was better to get a little restless and start looking for things to improve and food to store than to sit around feeling nice.

Your mind does not exist to make you feel good. It has evolved to help you survive in extreme conditions.

Calm, content, peace of mind, etc are not the default normal state of a human being. Periodically rising restlessness, that pushes us to Do Something is what is "normal".

2/🧵: In fact, if you always were 100% happy and content, you would die of thirst. Discontent and unhappiness caused by the thirst is what gets you off the sofa and to get a glass of water.

When things are wrong and you can and need to do something about that, it is appropriate to feel bad - anxious, angry, depressed, in pain, whatever. The goal is not "to feel good" all the time.

3/🧵 : So-called "negative" emotions should function like an instrument panel. It has gauges and warning lights to tell you that something might be wrong. The gauge on red or the light is not a problem as such. Getting rid of warnings altogether would be dangerous (see previous post).

But it is also not always an emergency. It can warn you about a thing you already have a plan to deal with. It might warn you about something you cannot fix and just have to live through. Or it can be broken.

4/🧵 : There is no "real you". It is normal and healthy that you are different in different situations and that sometimes you have to struggle to present in a socially fitting way. All of the versions of you are "real" even if some are more comfortable than others.

Feeling awkward in a social situation is not a sign that something is wrong. Awkwardness is a feature of complex situations. It tells you something new, interesting or important is happening or about to happen.

5/🧵: Because there is no "real you" and we all are formed in social contexts, to some extent everybody "masks". It is as such not a sign that something is wrong.

However, people differ a lot on how much work this all is. Everybody has the right to try and arrange their life so that they do not need to struggle all the time. No one has the right to expect to feel comfortable all the time.

This means that people with more flexibility need to adjust to others more to make room for everyone.

6/🧵: You might have noticed that I have refrained from using diagnostic words in this thread I will continue to do so.

Medical diagnoses have their uses in medical contexts. Outside of it, categorization of humans into medical groups almost always does more harm than good. Categorical groups are strict and narrow and fail to capture the true variety and the true similarities of human beings.

It makes sense to decide how to treat you based on your diagnosis only if you are my patient.

7/🧵: Humans do not neatly divide into two distinct groups of neurotypical and neurodiverse. At least 85% of people have some "neurodiverse" feature (I am almost face blind and a couple of other things myself). Around 50% of people have several. The ends of the spectrum are rare. Neither neurotypical nor neurospicy people are all the same, and most people are somewhere in between anyway. Binary division works here as badly as it does with gender.

8/🧵: Just like the socially acceptable you that you struggle to present is real, the you who does bad shit is real.

It makes no sense to say of someone who acts violent or racist or sexist or mean, "they are not really like that". If they do those things they are a person who does those things.

They might be a person who does not want to, and wishes to do better. That's great and we should help them. It does not make the things they do less real, though.

9/🧵: We really need to go back a little on what "nursing" and "healing" mean.

In many mental health problems, treatments alone do not heal. Mental growth, regular healthy life, and supportive social contexts do. Treatments - and medicines and therapies have this in common - are often necessary, but to remove obstacles and increase flexibility, not to do the work.

Mental health problem *prevention* is mostly social policy and the work of politicians, not doctors and nurses.

10/🧵: In the end, none of this matters. There is no "meaning of life". Values are a human social construct, and the universe does not give a damn. Only people do.

That means that you are 100% free to choose what matters to you. If you are a good person who wants to do good - and the vast majority of us are - you do not have to justify it.

Because nothing matters, it does not matter if it is naive. Or hopeless. Idealistic. Meaningless. Cringe.

You really can be good just for the hell of it.

11/11. Thanks for coming to my not-TED talk. I hope you enjoyed it. Blog format will appear at some point, probably.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this. Or if you did not, too, I guess, though in that case why did you read this far. ;)

@JankaWessman good stuff!

@JankaWessman Thankyou for presenting these ideas in a clear and concise manner. They align very much with things I've been working with by myself and this helped clear up some points I'd not been able to put to words yet. Will discuss these with my therapist next week.

@JankaWessman Good thread, or compilation of ideas. Thanks.

Sari Mikkonen 🇫🇮🌻🇪🇺2d ago

@JankaWessman hienoa, kiitos

@JankaWessman Thank you for this!

My brain has been a bit trying this morning, and while I didn't know it, I think I needed that you wrote this today. Helps with the brain.

compost_funeral 2d ago

@JankaWessman I did enjoy this, as someone recovering from internet addiction and the highly label-based view of humanity participation in that life demanded.

K-ZO da Snowman 2d ago

@JankaWessman very very good!!! Many true things clearly stated

K-ZO da Snowman 2d ago

@JankaWessman I'm reading Blue Mind and just finished Black Swan, so these topics are very much on my mind.

@JankaWessman thank you for validating my biases. (They’re biases because I am in no way qualified to hold them as opinions, but in some cases have been avoiding/fighting diagnosis since I was a kid in the 70s)

Sobri | Zoe (she/her)1d ago

@JankaWessman this was a really good read.

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦1d ago

@JankaWessman thank you! I especially like the non-jargon 👍

Alberto Cottica 1d ago

@JankaWessman I found it refreshing. Thanks.

@JankaWessman lots of people need to hear this. Thank you for sharing.

millennial fulcrum 13h ago

@JankaWessman LOVED IT!

I'd offer only the philosophical hairsplit, regarding the idea about the universe not caring, that since we (lifeforms) are the only component of a universe known to care about stuff, that one caring about ones own values, behaviour, and worldview is itself the universe caring about those things. since one represents the universe in that way in the most direct and literal sense.

Bodhi 心 11h ago

@JankaWessman I enjoyed your not-TED talk very much and was making mental notes I will try to share later ~ this is an area I am very interested in. I can say off the bat that I am always heartened to hear a psychiatrist talk about resilience building and the perils of diagnosis.

@bodhipaine Diagnoses are a good tool when used for their purpose but you cannot fix everything with a hammer.

@JankaWessman the subjectivity of values does not make them meaningless. They do matter.

And this is an important part of social struggle.

But even granted the subjectivity of values, as living things shouldn’t it be universal for us to value life? As a social species shouldn’t we value other people?

It is amazing to me that American culture has so atomized individuals into economic units that we lose touch with such basics.

We do have a context. We are living beings who require each other to survive and thrive.

@subterfugue I agree they do matter; they matter to humans. My point is that the fact that "in the end nothing matters" does not for most people mean they might as well be bad. They don't *want* to be bad. If nothing really matters, we might as well be good, which is what we want.

Loved your original posts, and loved this thread.
Thanks.

Like already said, humans are part of the universe. So if we care about something, the universe cares, in a way.

@JankaWessman @subterfugue

@JankaWessman yes, i agree.

Just to let you know that i think we are on the same page, this is what i am thinking after reading your post:

We don’t need absolutist ‘Truth’ from on high for our behavior to matter to each other.

@JankaWessman
We (humans) don't matter to the Universe. At all. We are each individually here for an eye blink of time in galactic terms.
We only have this planet and each other.
I could never understand the need for some people to just be shitty to other people. We all end up as dust.
No amount of wealth or power or status will save anyone from the inevitable.
Spread love.

@JankaWessman I knew it!

Court Cantrell does not comply 14h ago

@JankaWessman When I was a teen back in the '90s, my dad tried to explain pain to me as a signal for us that something needs attention & care. He cited the example of a woman who suffered from inexplicable, untreatable nerve pain in her feet. In the end, her doctors severed nerves in such a way that she couldn't feel the pain but could still walk. And she ended up slicing up her feet while walking barefoot on the beach.

We *need* discomfort and, sometimes, pain. So we know what harms us.

fan boy 🪭17h ago

@JankaWessman
> Your mind does not exist to make you feel good.

That's a silly, general, and unscientific comment. It's obvious some folks have minds which do exactly that. And other folks who are barely able to function. There is an entire spectrum.

@notyourfanboy There is *always* a spectrum when humans are considered, and indeed the ability to be happy and the level that people experience content seems to be to a significant extent a permanent personality trait. After a fortune or a misfortune people tend to go back to whatever they level they were before it (as a rule, not always).

You can find a semi-permanent blog format of these truths at https://jaanawessman.fi/2026/03/26/dr-wessmans-first-ten-truths/

Dr Wessman’s First Ten Truths – Jaana Wessman

Muro deGrizeco 1d ago

Pulling up a chair, to sit, listen to you, and think.

ZenDragoness//RES 11h ago

@JankaWessman tyvm