One of the first thing students of psychology/psychiatry learn is that one should not diagnose oneself, and the reasons for this are numerous. First and foremost, we all have symptoms, and symptoms do not always point directly or conclusively to illness, just as you cannot conclude each time you sneeze that you must have a cold. People sneeze. Sometimes it's dust, or allergies. Sometimes it's dog hair. Quite frequently it's dog hair. And sometimes I'm just pretending to be Bridget Fonda checking if Eddie Vedder is going to say bless you. Still, self-diagnosis is delicious and tempting, and so is diagnosing one's family, friends, and neighbours.
The neurosequential model, in which I just happen to be deeply immersed at the moment, suggests that the earliest of childhood traumas interrupt the development of the brain stem, quite literally manifesting itself in autonomic issues like awkward gait, irregular breathing patterns, unregulated heart rate, and overactive and/or underactive appetite. A little later in life, childhood trauma damages the limbic system, potentially resulting in issues like poor impulse control, heightened startle response, inappropriate sexual expression, and the inability to self-modulate mood.
As a person ages and the brain develops, new traumas injure the brain in different and newer structures. This means our war veterans return home with damage to the cortex, the outermost portion of the brain that is last to develop. Research into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder focuses largely upon traumas experienced by adults, but trauma expresses itself in completely different ways in adults than it does in children. Damage to the cortex impairs higher functions like organization and decision-making.
It means that many of the children we diagnose as having ADD/ADHD, conduct disorder, oppositional defiance, and other attentional/attitudinal/social problems may not have these disorders at all. What if they are actually the victims of childhood trauma instead? If so, we are not treating them properly.
This is the part where I start looking around me and diagnosing everyone I know, especially me.
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And on another note, I'm very aggravated by the Overstock.com commercial that features a blonde woman ice skating around a department store or some such nonsense, picking up knick knacks and candle holders, singing to them orgasmically, Oh-oh-ohhhh, and concluding with her setting a perfect dinner table while her husband stares at her, Ohhhohhhohhhh, Ohhh is the one. Not that I have ever had any interest whatsoever in the advertising business but I have to wonder if they couldn't have come up with something a little less inane.
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2 comments:
Once again, I find myself way behind on all your posts. As I read each one, I always find something I relate to, and something to make me laugh.
I especially like the series you've been posting on your counseling sessions--you know I'm secretly a counselor-wannabe, but I think it would take too much of a toll on me.
...and for the record, I'd like to think I also would have walked out on your 3:30 appointment--but I probably would have regretted it at around 10:30 that night as I lie in bed trying to doze off...this is why I could never be a counselor.
I thought counselling would take too much of a toll too - and in some ways it probably does - but it's part of the training, learning how not to get injured by it. You could do it, but you're doing other amazing things that need you!
And I kinda regretted leaving the appointment too later that night. I think I dreamed about trying to reschedule. But in the end, I'm still confident leaving was the right thing for me.
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