What Defines Disorder

           Growing up the way I have has exposed me to a wide variety of situations that have altered who I am solely because of how negatively they initially impacted my life. I have many close friends who have also gone through similar situations, but obviously, not everyone sees things the same way and all I can do is share my own encounters. Both good and bad experiences can develop a person, but it is my opinion that I have learned an incomparable amount from my negative experiences as opposed to my positive ones. I would go to the extent of saying they changed how I think and function in every moment of my life, I would not be who I am today if I had somehow shirked one single negative event.

            While I drowned in the waves of the more burdening issues from my past, namely that of my abusive ex, there were many times when I questioned whether I perceived my situation accurately; was it really as bad as it felt? Or was it simply an overreaction to a common issue in life, one that everyone just deals with? Was I just expecting more than everyone else? It was much later on in my life that I discovered what sort of role my anxiety played in my day to day trials and how that affects my perception (evidently, once an internal issue such as anxiety becomes enlarged you’re bound to notice it more, just like a tumor). Even so, before I knew about the extent of my disorder and how to accurately label it, I experienced what’s known in the psychological sphere as “med student syndrome”. In a nutshell, this concept is an affliction of the educated population to diagnose oneself with serious psychological disorders by acknowledging seemingly relevant symptoms within oneself. It was around that time that I started learning more about the variety and weight of psychological disorders; before I met my ex, I had only heard of schizophrenia in passing; I never understood what it really meant and how it could affect a person. After many mixed messages and improper web-based self-teaching, I started thinking too much about what was wrong with me than what was right. Egged on by his constant berating, I questioned everything about myself and why I couldn’t fit in to the schema rather than questioning the schema itself. Eventually I convinced myself that I was borderline “crazy”, and that nothing could change it no matter how I tried.

            The stigma associated with psychological disorders is one of the unhealthiest parts of the diagnoses process. In the past, before psychology became a dignified field of study and before our society reached the level of knowledge that we have attained in this day and age, being “crazy” was incurable. Without a doubt, treatments were sought for those afflicted by these disorders; however, the options included ancient shock treatments, bloodletting, emetics, exorcisms, certain tortures including beating and stoning, and more commonly abandonment or exile simply because no effective alternative could be found at that time. With advancements in research capabilities and modern medical knowledge, these options are no longer necessary and these disorders can be properly accommodated in a humane and respectable way. Mental illness, like other illnesses, should not be an inclusive determination of one’s character.

            Psychological disorders should not be spurned, especially not by those who don’t understand it. People don’t degrade those with other serious illnesses by labeling them with derogatory terms or social treatments. People don’t look down their noses and say “why don’t you just get better” to people with cancer or other serious illnesses. Psychological disorders are illnesses of the mind, just as cancer, AIDS, and heart disease are illnesses of the body. Telling people to “stop moping”, “stop faking”, or to “get over it” is not an acceptable way of addressing these issues, by any standard.

            Once my personal judgment became unclouded regarding the problems I faced, it was clear to me that society’s perception of mental illness was grossly misinformed and the willingness to throw around terms without knowing what they mean was far too prevalent. Everyone can feel depressed or anxious or unstable at times, but that does not define a diagnosis. The differences between mental illnesses, even different kinds of the same illness, are immeasurable and each diagnoses consists of a wide variety of symptoms, all of which can usually be interchangeable. Not every person experiences mental illness in the same way, and by no means is a diagnosis exhaustive. In addition, people who are not doctors should not make any kind of diagnosis of someone else or themselves. People who aren’t doctors don’t really have a right to label you with anything, illness or otherwise. Personal infliction with poisoned connotations of mental illness also should not be applied. If you feel like you need help, if you suspect yourself of having such issues then seeing a professional is a must. Don’t become misinformed and don’t let the negative feeling linger. There is a solution. It just takes being open to help and rejecting negative social stimulation.

Would you go back and change things?

Today my manager and friend John mentioned how he had been thinking about whether or not he would go back into his life and redo things. He said that today was the first time he felt that he wouldn't want to go back.

Would I go back? Would I want to change the way things happened? There’s several different ways “going back” could be interpreted. If I went back with all the knowledge I have now, back to being a child, it might cause more harm than good. I would be too enlightened, an adult in a child’s body. I would become segregated (possibly from my own volition or by simple ‘she behaves differently, I won’t be friends with her’). If I, as I am today, could go back and visit my child self as an apparition of sorts, I may be more inclined to do so. I could choose the particular moments where I would visit myself, the most prime moments when I need that slap in the face.

At the same time though, if I did have that slapping awake moment, I don’t think that I would have learned half as much as I did learn. And I’d say that a majority of the times when I've been going on a path that inevitably led to some kind of pain for me, my friends or my family was there telling me to watch out, don’t do that, the same things that I would say if I went back. I suppose that this is more of a question of regret than anything else. Do I regret the things that happened in my past and if I had the possibility would I change it so I didn't have to go through those things? John said to me that going back might end up making things worse than they already were, but I said back to him that it might also make it better. In my personal opinion though, I would agree with him. Of all the negative experiences I've had up to this point, with love and life and responsibility and whatever else, I can’t really say I regret them all enough for me to want to go back and erase them. Sure, the situations that lead up to my lesson learned were god awful and I wish that they did not have to be so drastic and painful for me, but either way I learned that life lesson that someone telling me ‘don’t do that you’ll regret it’ never taught. Perhaps if I were to go back though, that may be so startling to me that I might actually listen. But so many other factors would come into play then, and I don’t know if the way I carry myself will really be affected by that as much as I think. I might just stick to my guns anyway.

Perhaps if I did go back, without any kind of knowledge from the future, I would go through other types of experiences that would lead me to the same point that I am now, just without as much pain. If I were more receptive of those people warning me, things may have been easier on me back then. But then I would be a different person altogether, me not listening was part of my character. It may not be a good trait but that’s what makes me, me. And at this point, I've kind of learned not to just throw away all that when they tell me “AMANDA don’t fucking do that”.

John went on to muse about how this now might be another period of us going back, perhaps for the third or fourth time. We just might not know. It’s interesting, because I know he’s an atheist. But I, as an agnostic, also wonder about that. Maybe when we die we get a choice, do you want to go again? Forget everything? This is a much deeper subject, one that I’m not totally prepared to delve into for now. Death is still such a large fear for me.

After some more conversation the question of my scholarly preoccupations arose and we discussed my reasons for studying psychology. I told him that I am extremely interested in sciences, I just didn't pay enough attention in high school to make that future as possible as I would like. He shared this sentiment, saying that once he started telling himself “I’m not good at that” he stopped trying. Just because you’re good at one thing doesn't mean you can’t be good at other things, I told myself “I’m good at English, so I don’t need to try at math.” If I were to go back and change anything at all, it would be this: put in that extra effort, don’t listen to that voice in your head that says you can’t do it, that you can’t be better. Put in the extra effort that you reserved for college. Knowledge is not predetermined, it is a set of building blocks and you’re in control of how you build it up. I did a whole lot of nothing growing up, and for not very good reasons. I could have taken that AP Physics class. I could have. I made too many excuses. My dream was to work for NASA, to pursue that final frontier…It still is. I know my future is not finite now, if I wanted it enough I could do it…I just feel as though my life has fallen into a pattern for my EWM/Psychology life path. For now.

I don’t think I would go back. My experiences have made me who I am. My experiences happened in the first place because of who I am, and they just continue to develop me. I know I’d learn one way or another, but I’m happy with how things have gone so far.