Priscila Magossi on Mental Health Care in Cam Community

“How are you today?” This is one of the questions that receives the most possible lies as its answer. Being unhappy, in our current society, sounds like an offense to the enquirer. “How dare you not answer that you are happy? You need to be happy!” Common sense tends to mix up the meaning of pleasure with happiness, as well as sadness and depression. These pairs of words are related to very different concepts. One reason to know what they mean is to be able to identify them in yourself. After all, how can you deal with something that you do not know precisely what it means? Knowing the (scientific) concept can be helpful because this is the way to deal with what you feel and then find proper strategies to overcome those harmful conditions. Unless we can sort out correctly what we feel, we might be in risk of believing in anything. If the problem cannot be sorted out, the right diagnosis, there might not be any improvement. Maybe you are asking yourself now: how are these concepts about mental health related to the live camming industry? Well, live cam girls are real people, with real emotions that everyday work building connections with real men, who enjoy emotional and sexual interactivity. Despite the strong trend of capitalist markets to see both sides (models and members) as simple parts of the accumulation process, just sex machines and wallets, reality is not so clear-cut. Why is it important to know what is wrong scientifically?If you are sad, there was something specific in your day that affected your mood. On the other hand, if you are (clinically) depressed this means you have been diagnosed by a psychiatrist and most likely have to take medication because depression can be caused by different causes. Some are listed below:(1) genetic predisposition (the condition could be triggered by lifestyle or particular environment);(2) social factors (lack of meaningful connections, death and loss, life changing events)(3) organic factors (lack of nutrients, such as vitamin D);(4) chemical imbalance (neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine at abnormal levels; as well as hormones as cortisol in excess);(5) serious illness (among the stages of grief associated to cancer, the fourth is depression).Dealing with sadness is easier: meeting your friends for a drink could help improve the morale. When addressing depression, the drink could lead to the worsening of the condition. Not only that, but also someone in a real depressive condition is not very likely to want to go out in the first place.  If you care about your mental health and want to make sure that everything is okay, pay attention to the way you are sensing the world.What to look for in clinical depression?At this moment let’s point out that there are levels of depression. Some people are not as affected as others, get to live a mostly “normal” life and seem to be okay. If you still do not think this is serious enough, let’s remember the case of Robbie Williams, who used to be a perfectly successful Hollywood actor, who worked in happy movies and all of a sudden killed himself. Was it all of a sudden? Did he wake up one day and say, “I don’t want to live anymore”? Or could it be that there are many ways of feeling and of dealing with depression? Human individual complexity leads to different reactions. His suicide comes to show that mental issues should not be ignored and are not always evident either. The fundamental characteristic of depression is to not see fun in anything even when nothing wrong has happened.Some signs to pay attention to related to clinical depression are listed below. In case you relate to them, the New Camming Perspective recommends seeking a licensed professional, as a psychiatrist or psychologist.Life loses its color;Depressive people start to punish themselves in a non-conscious way, as a consequence of life that lost its meaning;This leads to abandoning any care to oneself. The bed seems to be the best place to stay;There is no desire to take a bath or shower, neglecting ones diet (by eating compulsively or fasting), abusing drugs and alcohol (that is why it is not a good idea to offer another drink).   What about the confusion between happiness vs pleasure? Less severe but not to be neglected is the confusion between pleasure and happiness. Let’s consider that our society expects us to have a smile printed on our faces all the time. Pleasure is related to neurotransmitters, and naturally occurs associated to immediate reward and relief and can cause addiction. It happens because of the feeling of satisfaction that can be achieved through the release of these associated neurotransmitter (serotonin, dopamine, endorphin, etc.) is very quick, yet this moment is very brief. And it is exactly this characteristic of being so brief and pleasant that makes us want to always do it again. While you read this description, you might have thought about drugs. Yes, drugs do this, but we are conditioned to pleasure in ways that we do not really notice. Other sources of pleasure that also release these chemicals are less obvious and are common place in our current society. Such is the fetish of consuming  and shopping all the time, no matter what: eating too much, drinking too much, having too many pairs of shoes, using the smartphone all time, and never feeling comfortable to be alone with our thoughts. It might be interesting to think about this because if we have this knowledge we can start living by choice, not by chance.Happiness is subjective and it is very hard to answer what it means to each of us. However, psychology, philosophy and neuroscience point at some directions. C.G. Jung says that life has no meaning unless you assign a meaning to it; finding a purpose of life, something greater than yourself. Such attitude converges with Aristotle writings about “science of happiness”, which must be pursued as a goal. His philosophy specifies that many conditions are necessary in order to have a happy life, such as, (1) physical and (2) mental well-being. In this day and age, neuroscience adds (3) financial security and (4) social bonds as essential aspects of this feeling that is unique to each person. To put it in a nutshell, happiness is not related to consuming quantities but with the quality of life.Why should you care? Finally, let’s borrow a concepts from physics: inertia, a body remains in its state, if it is stopped or moving, it depends on an external force to change. Having the knowledge is the first step to have a chance of making things happen. Nevertheless, changes do not happen only with the knowledge of cause and effect. Let me point out that we humans tend to love the comfort zone. However, repeating the actions can only lead to the same consequences, and if you feel discomfort, it might be time to act. Keep in mind that deep reflections usually hurt, knowing oneself is a slow process but the results will pay off.BIBLIOGRAPHYBOK, S. Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2011CYRULNIK, B. Talking of Love on the Edge of a Precipice. Ed. Odile Jacob. (2004)HILLMAN, J. City and Soul. Spring Publications. (2006)JUNG, C. G. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Vol. 9 – Part I. Princeton University Press. 2nd edition (1981)LEFEBVRE, H. Everyday in the Modern World. Rabinovitch, S., Trans., London: Allen Lane. (1971)HUGHES, G. J. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics. London: Routledge. (2001).WEBER, M. The Protestant ethic and the "spirit" of capitalism. Penguin Classics E-book. (2002)____________________________ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Priscila Magossi is a journalist (Mackenzie-SP/Brazil, 2002-2005), with a Master’s degree (2006-2008) and a Ph.D. (2010-2014) in Communication and Semiotics (PUC-SP/Brazil). Since she has started her journey in the communication field, she has been studying the impacts of the Mass Media and the Cyberculture in the post-modern society, focusing primarily on the social bonds dynamics. Regarding her main activities in the camming industry, Dr. Magossi is the author of the New Camming Perspective: a formal study about camming that also looks into the porn industry, the mainstream media, and social behavior in order to draw conclusions. This new approach for understanding camming is centered on the main concepts of (1) Building Connections between models and members through the (2) Social Aspect of Camming, which is only possible to be developed when in touch with access to the (3) Social Traffic.