Sounds like he is trying to rationalize his situation. He is the norm and not the unusual.
Royce White Article on Grantland
- Thread starter CycloneNorth
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I think he was more saying that those 2% were focused more on profits than people's well being, so focus wasn't being brought on the issue of mental health. He also phrased it much better than I just did.
You guys might not like to hear this, but coming from someone who has actually dealt with severe anxiety his entire life Royce White is incredibly inspiring to me and I can't imagine having the balls to do what he's doing with his disorder. If anyone out there doesn't think anxiety is something hard to deal with, well to be quite frank, you've never dealt with it. It can be incredibly debilitating to everyday life and if he's worried about his health that's his prerogative, not yours. I've found nothing wrong with what he is doing personally. I can see how someone without an anxiety disorder could see him as whining and complaining, but coming from my viewpoint all of his concerns are completely relevant. Everything he is anxious about in the NBA is also something that would bother me.
Even if I had the talent to be in the NBA, I couldn't handle the "normal" ways of things. Is that fair? Should I just "man up"? I guess that just comes down to everyone's own opinion.
I'm tired of people harping on White. If you don't like what he has to say, don't read it. All of his concerns are valid however, I can vouch for that.
/rant
Even if I had the talent to be in the NBA, I couldn't handle the "normal" ways of things. Is that fair? Should I just "man up"? I guess that just comes down to everyone's own opinion.
I'm tired of people harping on White. If you don't like what he has to say, don't read it. All of his concerns are valid however, I can vouch for that.
/rant
I should backtrack on what I said. I don't think addiction in itself is a mental illness. I think it goes beyond the addiction and that the addiction is a side effect of the actual mental illness. I also don't believe it should be the responsibility of an employer to cure the issue. Royce's whole "the man is holding us down" argument rubs me the wrong way too. Sorry, but you had the opportunity to rise above all of that and you have quickly managed to negate a lot of the good awareness you had brought. You think more people in the NBA will want to talk about this after what you have done? I doubt it.
He did not say that. What he did say was that 2% of the (rich) population control the expectations of society for the other 98% of the workforce, with little consideration for the effect on mental health. Call me a hippie communist if you want, but I think buried under some posturing, he does have a point.
Many people in prison have a serious mental illness, some probably from drug abuse, and the prisons are not equipped to handle them all appropriately.
When I see some of the nasty things people say on Facebook and the like, or people who incessantly post pictures of themselves (just them, not with friends), I tend to hope they are mentally ill and people aren't just that mean or shallow.
I'm not sure that Royce is too far off with his estimates.
When I see some of the nasty things people say on Facebook and the like, or people who incessantly post pictures of themselves (just them, not with friends), I tend to hope they are mentally ill and people aren't just that mean or shallow.
I'm not sure that Royce is too far off with his estimates.
Wow, that is fascinating. Klosterman asked him some great questions.
IMO, Royce still has to work through some of his thoughts and get to the logical conclusions. Some of the connections he makes are just not logical.
If Royce would read some philosophy, I think he would realize that the concepts of despair and anxiety are not new. Heidegger pretty much wrote that anxiety is the result of the unlimited freedom we experience. Many wrote about the anxiety caused the imminence of death. According to Royce, these anxieties may NOT be part of the human condition, and if they are, there is too much gray area to determine if it's an illness or normal.
Heck, the author of Ecclesiastes wrote about the despair caused by work thousands of years ago. This stuff isn't new. It is life for anyone that thinks hard enough.
Royce uses science and the opinions of doctors when it helps support his views but ignores them when they do not. He wants the Rockets to listen to the advice of his doctors, but he reject the 26% number that comes from the National Institute of Mental Health?
I think Royce has a lot of good things to say, especially for a 21-year old. Right now though, I'm a little leery of self-styled pioneer Royce. That guy seems to be running on nervous energy and the support and hate from thousands on twitter.
IMO, Royce still has to work through some of his thoughts and get to the logical conclusions. Some of the connections he makes are just not logical.
If Royce would read some philosophy, I think he would realize that the concepts of despair and anxiety are not new. Heidegger pretty much wrote that anxiety is the result of the unlimited freedom we experience. Many wrote about the anxiety caused the imminence of death. According to Royce, these anxieties may NOT be part of the human condition, and if they are, there is too much gray area to determine if it's an illness or normal.
Heck, the author of Ecclesiastes wrote about the despair caused by work thousands of years ago. This stuff isn't new. It is life for anyone that thinks hard enough.
Royce uses science and the opinions of doctors when it helps support his views but ignores them when they do not. He wants the Rockets to listen to the advice of his doctors, but he reject the 26% number that comes from the National Institute of Mental Health?
I think Royce has a lot of good things to say, especially for a 21-year old. Right now though, I'm a little leery of self-styled pioneer Royce. That guy seems to be running on nervous energy and the support and hate from thousands on twitter.
Agents. I know a former Iowa State player who was promised this, that and everything....bought a 50-60 K Hummer and never got drafted. It's messed up.
Wesley, this is what I thought too. He already knows he suffers from a mental illness, does he not understand that his mind can easily rationalize it and that because of that, he needs to weigh his thoughts very carefully?
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I think I need to get an agent
I'm rooting for things to work out for Royce. The fact that he hasn't worked on his game nor kept himself in shape makes me wonder if his heart is really in it. Either way I wish him well.
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Sometimes I wish Royce would have taken whoever was keeping him on task at Iowa State with him to Houston.
I don't know enough to make judgements about the whole thing, but I sure am still pulling for Royce to make it. He managed to play last year and do nothing to put a bad light on him or Iowa State that we know of. I am sure it took a lot of work behind the scenes within the basketball program, but it can be done.
I don't know enough to make judgements about the whole thing, but I sure am still pulling for Royce to make it. He managed to play last year and do nothing to put a bad light on him or Iowa State that we know of. I am sure it took a lot of work behind the scenes within the basketball program, but it can be done.
There is definitely a large number of people worldwide who may display certain signs and symptoms of mental illness or illnesses. However, most mental illnesses are not a one symptom diagnosis. I am sure everyone that posts here suffers a small bit of anxiety at some point every week or feels a little depressed every now and again, but that is not labeled a mental illness.
To get a little more technical and use the DSM-IV (R) that someone linked to earlier; in order to be diagnosed with a mental illness you must display X number of symptoms out of a possible Y number of symptoms that reliably manifest with that mental illness. On top of needing to display X out of Y symptoms, one must display all of these symptoms for a certain period (within last 30 days) or length (having them for the past 6 months) of time. If your issues do not meet these criteria then technically you are not diagnosed with a mental illness. Gambling was brought up as a controversial addiction and it sort of is. If you gamble for a few weeks and lose $10,000 but then stopped or even slowed down then you would not have a mental illness or gambling addiction. Now if you kept up that pace of losing, or even sometimes winning money, but started gambling on more obscure things and were depressed when NOT gambling then you are edging closer to mental illness and addiction (as your depressed behavior is due to your brain not receiving the rush of dopamine and serotonine [? My Brain and Behavior Course escapes me at the moment] from gambling).
This claim that nearly everything in our lives is a form or cause of mental illness is where I start to drift away from Royce. It just sounds too simplistic and defeatist when he explains it. He is correct in that mental illness is an extremely complex issue, but he seems to be on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from those who claim that people just need to "man up" or "get through it cause it isn't that big of a deal". That view of mental illness is wrong and I believe his view that a majority of people in the United States suffer from mental illness is incorrect as well.
You comment about rationalizing also made me think a little bit about Royce saying that he has the ability to act normal. In his own view he is seeing himself at that point as a person with an anxiety disorder acting normal instead of a normal person acting without anxiety.
Some may say that those two different things are a matter of wording but I think they are two very different scenarios for people diagnosed with mental health issues. I know that it's an obvious oversimplification but why not adopt the philosophy of being "normal" with occasional situational anxiety instead of a person with anxiety disorder who occasionally acts "normal".
I know it's cricumstantial evidence but this works very well for me and my situation (diagnosed clinically depressed in fall 2006). Obviously, there is a huge array of variance with regard to the severity of mental issues and differing diagnoses but I feel that sometimes the labels handed out to group people into certain disorders can impair a persons function and become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy to become more disabled. Sometimes I feel like that is the situation that Royce may now be trapped in.
Sorry so long and I know it's lame/at the risk of losing all credibility:smile: but whenever this topic gets brought up, I always think of a Barney Stinson quote from HIMYM, "Whenever I start to feel sick, I just stop being sick and start being awesome".
I was only commenting on what somebody else attributed to Royce. I do agree that Royce has raised some very valid points.
I can't get past blaming the player for that move. I'm not tolerant of spending money that you don't have. I don't care what somebody told him.
I know. That last part wasn't directed at you, more the crowd saying Royce is some sort of con man.
Honestly, this article kind of changed my view on Royce. He should've gone straight to newspapers and TV before turning to Twitter as his outlet. This allows him to show how smart he really is. Some people need to realize that basketball isn't the most important thing, maybe the guy is just trying to change the world a little bit.
I wonder how he feels about the large profits-driven pharmaceutical companies that provide him and the mentally-ill masses with mood-altering drugs.