PROBLEM<p>People sometimes become depressed, or develop other serious mental conditions. The mental health establishment precisely diagnoses patients’ symptoms using the meaningless labels in the DSM-5. Most are then treated with FDA-approved drugs to hopefully lessen the problematic symptom. Patients whose condition does not allow for informed consent are evaluated, ‘prosecuted’, and forced to take whatever drugs the professionals think they should take.<p>BACKGROUND<p>My girlfriend ended up being subjected to court-ordered treatment when she became acutely psychotic after quitting methadone &amp; alcohol cold-turkey. Because the forced drugs treated effect instead of cause, she suffered through 6 months of ineffective and harmful treatments.<p>During her sixth hospitalization, I obtained the prescription drug and other substances that my research indicted would help. She was still very delusional when released from that facility. My treatment protocol has enabled her to rapidly recover to a ‘normal’ state, without the need for ongoing sedation. The interventions are non-addictive, cheap, and used as-needed to adequately control her anxiety and depression.<p>SOLUTION<p>Better mental health is obtained by addressing the chain of causation behind a person’s suffering. The science has been done, but is inconvenient.<p>PROPOSAL<p>I propose leveraging the Hacker News Fellowship to begin designing an exponentially more effective approach to mental health.<p>TEAM<p>ME: I developed a nerve condition in college, and suffered through a computer science degree. After graduation I focused on hacking health. Over six months, my new friend went from ‘hopeless self-medicator’ to quitting cold-turkey. Over the next 6 months, I went from looking up “psychosis” to figuring out effective treatment strategies that address the causes of my girlfriend’s condition.<p>OLDER FRIEND: My first Mental-Health success.
GIRLFRIEND: See above.
Apply HN: Hacking Mental Health