This entry i going to be a little different.
What's the point of psychology? I mean, really? It's a legitimate question.
For the last two years, I've been under treatment for bipolar disorder and ADHD. I realize it takes time to work things out as far as treatment, but things recently came to a rather difficult point and it's made me think.
Where is the science in all this? Aren't psychiatrists trained to be able to reason out what's going on with someone and treat them accordingly? All I've seen so far is "Well let's increase the dosage" "Let's change your medication" or "Let's add something to your regimen."
And it's all just made the problem worse. I'm supposed to be stabilizing my moods, not having all my emotions and thoughts taken away from me. And yet I'm on two mood stabilizers and and ADHD drug. I'm emotionless...I can't even be happy about my upcoming trip to Canada to see my girlfriend.
How is this science? It seems more like a wild goose chase to me.
I know psychology is an awkward science. I want to be a psychology nurse, after all. But it seems to me that this constant experimenting is a bit dangerous. I know that all the other patients go through the same thing...I am by no means the worst of the young women sitting in that waiting room every third Wednesday.
I wondered, actually, just earlier today, if the goal of psychology might have actually been to force everyone into society's nice little bubble of normality. Because I am not "normal", must be mentally ill. because I allow myself to feel, and to to express those emotions, I must need to be monitored and medicated.
Is it possible that perhaps, my personality only makes me more human than some?
I need human contact. I need to be loved, I need to love others. Otherwise, I can't function properly. That's what lead to my breakdown and diagnosis. I need people.
Humans are naturally drawn to each other. I'm not, by any means, saying that we are supposed to live in tight-nit hippie communes or something. Simply that we depend upon each other for survival and emotional stability. Some of us need people more than others. That's not considered normal, apparently. So we have to medicate these people and force them to live the way society says they should live.
There is a reason why humans have such complex emotions. We aren't supposed to acknowledge these emotions, however. If a person expresses their strong emotions, then they are not normal. They need to be medicated and watched so that they do not interrupt the consistency of our society.
When I was a small child, I played make-believe games. I pretended to be characters from my favourite television shows. I had a very vivid imagination, and I still do. however, the elaborate games that I made up worried people. They wondered if perhaps I had a problem, if I was somehow separated from reality. You see, people aren't supposed to pretend that they are living in a palace on the moon. That's not normal.
Psychology seems to me to be a bit more of an attempt to make everybody "fit", rather than a science based on the need to help people.
There are some who genuinely need medication...people who pose a danger to themselves or others.
but those people who are just not normal, those people who have emotions or need other people or have vivid imaginations, I don't see what's wrong with that.
I'm not violent, I would never hurt anyone intentionally. I'm not separated from reality. I'm just emotionally expressive and I need to be near others sometimes.
Is someone like me really such an issue?
Can someone please tell me what is wrong with modern psychology? Or is my thinking so flawed that I'm just blowing hot air and not making any sense?
What is going on here?
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I'd say modern psychology is idiotic, from what treatment you've been describing. Some good psychologists know what they're doing, but it seems that most "psychology" is more in the pharmaceutical business than anything.
I believe that the -only- standard of "normal" is absolute peace (think enlightenment peace, not stoicism or apathy), to a point where every person has to work out their own personal issues to get to that state of inner peace and joy. A psychologist should be there to help with that, not eliminate feelings altogether.
We all need things, and we all need solutions--not band-aids. That might be a bad metaphor, too; band-aids are actually useful.
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"Your comment doesn't make sense. Whats this about Paris hilton? What are you talking about? You don't make sense." - alenka
My Blog.
"We all need things, and we all need solutions--not band-aids. That might be a bad metaphor, too; band-aids are actually useful."
Morphine would be a better word. It might be useful, but it is only a temporary fix on pain until it is completely healed.
Technically, psychologists can't prescribe medications, only psychiatrists can. So your assertion that psychology is in the pharmaceutical business is a little off.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Because I am not "normal", must be mentally ill. because I allow myself to feel, and to to express those emotions, I must need to be monitored and medicated.
If you're actually Bipolar, though, you can be a serious harm to yourself and others, even if you don't realize it (depending, of course, on how far you swing).
Unlike other practices, psychologists/psychiatrists can only diagnose you based on what you tell them. This is why most people with Bipolar get misdiagnosed for depression the first time around. The upswing is great, who would want "help" for that euphoria? So they don't tell the doctor of the up times. It's not until the doctor realizes that the anti-depressants are like speed for the person that Bipolar is determined.
Here's some info for you and others.
Now, I can't say I've experienced what it's like to be bipolar, because I'm not. I have, however, lived with someone who I think may have been and went untreated. I've also suffered from one of the extremes - depression. Neither cases were fun.
The person I used to live with was my mom's at-the-time-boyfriend (now ex). My mom suspects at least minor bipolar because there were times were we could do no wrong, but then there were times were we were the worst beings on the face of the planet simply because we were there and breathing. It's never fun approaching someone that you've known for 8 or 10 years and still have no idea how they're going to react to something.
From my own experience with depression, I'll fully admit I was on the verge of killing myself. There was actually a point where self-mutilation (something I can't normally bring myself to even consider, much less do) was actually an appealing thought. The best way I can describe my time in the grip of depression was a darkness. Everything seemed hopeless and I felt useless and felt nothing but pain and sorrow. I wanted nothing more than to just curl up and die.
It drove my husband insane because there was nothing he was able to do to help me, except to push me to see a doctor, but he knew he couldn't do it for me. He knew (because he had been through it, too) that I wouldn't get help until I was ready to get help. It had nothing to do with pride, but the very nature of depression. Someone who doesn't want help will clam up and there's nothing any doctor can do to help them because it's not entirely a physical thing like, say, appendicitis, where the doctors can take a blood sample and see that your white blood cell count has skyrocketed and you scream in pain when the doctor touches your abdomen.
What makes matters worse is that a given medication or treatment in general doesn't work for everyone and each person reacts differently to any given treatment option. I got lucky and did well with the first medication I was prescribed (technically the second, but it was insurance issues, not me). I also coupled the medication with therapy and watched for triggers (such as stress) and did my best to minimize my exposure to things that triggered me.
The thing about things like depression and bipolar is that they constantly actively affect not just the person who has it, but anyone around them. It's also a life-altering thing. Even life-long illnesses, like diabetes, don't have quite as much effect on others as mood disorders. Diabetes can change the person's habits, but it's changing diet and getting into the habit of stopping for 5 minutes and checking blood sugar (and learning to monitor blood sugar and estimate its levels without a monitor) and taking insulin as needed. Really, the only time others are affected is when eating at the person's house and learning to recognize the signs of high and/or low blood sugar.
Mood disorders, on the other hand, affect people because moods affect people. "Outsiders" (ie- not the person that actually has the disorder) are also helpless if the person is untreated and doesn't want help. Like I mentioned above, it's also life-altering. I remember times when I took high stress situations in stride (I used to work retail tech support, while going to college full time), but the incident that threw me into an episode of depression basically rendered me completely unable to deal with stress. I basically had to learn different ways to deal with and avoid stress because my old ways no longer worked.
You seem to believe that these things are over-diagnosed. While I can't really agree with you on the mood disorders, I can agree in regards to the ADHD (it also seems odd to me that a person with bipoler can have ADHD). ADD and ADHD, in my opinion, are vastly over diagnosed and can more often be "treated" through changes in parenting and teaching the child better ways to concentrate and how and when to settle down than by medications. That's not to say that all kids who have been diagnosed don't have ADD/ADHD, I know better than that (a friend of mine has ADD and sometimes he'll be so concentrated on something that I couldn't get him to acknowledge my existance for the life of me), but I think there are far fewer actual cases than people think.
I can't tell simply from your post whether or not I think your doctor's findings are justified or even accurate. The only thing I can tell you about you personally is that if you don't like your current doctor, go elsewhere and get a second opinion. Also, talk to the people around you and see if they notice the mood swings like what are associated with bipolar, since the people that can best tell are the ones that see you on a daily or so basis.
As far as the meds go, they're not supposed to make you numb. I'd talk to your current/future doctor about different medications or treatment options because you don't like the fact that you can't seem to feel anything.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
That's the way all pharmaceutical medicine works. The doctor evaluates your symptoms, and then picks a drug from a narrow category that is known to combat the various ailments the cause those symptoms. If you've ever been treated for anything serious that involves long-term medication, you will see the same "tweaking" of drugs and dosages, while your doctor looks for the best combinations of chemicals to introduce into your unique physiology.
The question you have to ask yourself is simple...is being "emotionless" (which based on your blog, it would seem that you aren't) better or worse than having deep depressions and uncontrollable mood swings? Medical science is pretty awesome, but sometimes the human body breaks in such a way that it isn't really possible (yet) to just wave a magic wand and fix it up like new. When that happens, the job of science is to find ways to improve your quality of life until such time as they do find a way to just "fix" the underlying problem.
If you think that your doctor is steering you into a treatment regimen that you don't like, seek another opinion. Not all doctors are great, after all. An old friend of mine (who is a doctor) likes to tell a joke about medical school. He says that the uniftying equation behind all medicine is "C=MD." If your next doctor tells you the same things as your old one though, you might want to consider that maybe they do know what they're talking about.
Hang in there...
percivale
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