allthatglitters
02-01-05, 04:41 AM
Numerous recent trips to the doctor have stirred my brain in a scraping-the-bottom-of-the-pot manner. The study of the human brain has greatly advanced in the past 100 years. With the discovery of such things like ADD/ADHD, OCD, anxiety disorders, eating disorder, and a variety of other such termed "mental disorders" has come both a euphoric enlightenment for many people with such disorders and a myriad of drugs used to treat them. Granted the media propraganda of such medications like that found in Prozac Nation is based almost entirely on fabrications created or adopted by bloodsucking journalists and lawyers, but there are those who are over medicated. Under proper care and extreme caution, medication can be used with much success. Although archaic by todays medical standards, Ritalin, is the drug most known for helping ADD/ADHD. Its job, like many other medications of its kind, is to help in the release of certain chemicals that patients with the diagnosed disorder brain cannot do. Taking such medication can make a patient with a disorder "normal".
I have just completed a year of doctors appointments and school meetings and tests to determine what exactly was "wrong" with me. Although I had supected it for sometime I was diagnosed with ADHD, and only this morning did the pyschologist come to the conclusion (after hours of talking with me and my parents) that I have OCD as well. The OCD was a bit of a shocker. To me my behavior had always seemed perfectly normal, but I have learned that somethings aren't exactly so. I realize the advantadges of such disorders (well, maybe the OCD--not so much), an increased creative process and the like. Yet, I still cannot wonder why I have to take a medication (soon to be medications plus possibly two types of therapy) to be normal. My brother has ADD as well, and he asked my mother why he had to take medication to be normal. My mother didn't know how to answer him so she asked our pediatrician. He explained that in the best of both worlds he probably wouldn't have to, but the requirements of us today require the release of those certain chemicals in the brain.
ADHD is relatively easy to treat now, and I am happy to say that I have been able to find a medication that allows me at least 10 hours of near-calm concentration, I am still fidgety, but I cans it down for an hour or so without leaving the room or changing the task at hand. It is fairly common, and although it will never leave me, I am blessed to know that my way of thinking isn't normal by any definition of the word, but it is relatively apparrent in today's society. I have a different way of thinking, and not in a social maverick sort of way (although that too in some respects), but in more of the actual brain process respects. The OCD is what scares me, but I think I am semi-prepared for the long bout of finding the right medication and then possibly entering therapy that's ahead.
Back to my original point (although the derision of topic was a nessecity (sp?)), since this large amount of legit cases diagnosing such disorders has resulted in an almost manical debate over the need for medication. How are we as a society to determine what sort of behaviors are normal and which ones arent'? Obviously, we already have, but while I realize that some parts of my OCD are potentially destructive (and probably already are), to me they are as natural as breathing. Yet, it's like being an asthmatic and trying to breathe in LA--sure you're breathing, but not very well. Some of the symptoms involving a mental disorder are typical of any human being, but they only become the disorder once they interfere with life. But at what point do we classify it as interfering? Is the vague representation of normal inhibiting people like me from being who we are? If I was to live in a spartan and strictly disciplined atmosphere would my ADHD tendencies become disturbing interferences faster than my current situation in a rather loose environment where I am being thrown distracting stimulants at every ten seconds? Define "normal".
I have just completed a year of doctors appointments and school meetings and tests to determine what exactly was "wrong" with me. Although I had supected it for sometime I was diagnosed with ADHD, and only this morning did the pyschologist come to the conclusion (after hours of talking with me and my parents) that I have OCD as well. The OCD was a bit of a shocker. To me my behavior had always seemed perfectly normal, but I have learned that somethings aren't exactly so. I realize the advantadges of such disorders (well, maybe the OCD--not so much), an increased creative process and the like. Yet, I still cannot wonder why I have to take a medication (soon to be medications plus possibly two types of therapy) to be normal. My brother has ADD as well, and he asked my mother why he had to take medication to be normal. My mother didn't know how to answer him so she asked our pediatrician. He explained that in the best of both worlds he probably wouldn't have to, but the requirements of us today require the release of those certain chemicals in the brain.
ADHD is relatively easy to treat now, and I am happy to say that I have been able to find a medication that allows me at least 10 hours of near-calm concentration, I am still fidgety, but I cans it down for an hour or so without leaving the room or changing the task at hand. It is fairly common, and although it will never leave me, I am blessed to know that my way of thinking isn't normal by any definition of the word, but it is relatively apparrent in today's society. I have a different way of thinking, and not in a social maverick sort of way (although that too in some respects), but in more of the actual brain process respects. The OCD is what scares me, but I think I am semi-prepared for the long bout of finding the right medication and then possibly entering therapy that's ahead.
Back to my original point (although the derision of topic was a nessecity (sp?)), since this large amount of legit cases diagnosing such disorders has resulted in an almost manical debate over the need for medication. How are we as a society to determine what sort of behaviors are normal and which ones arent'? Obviously, we already have, but while I realize that some parts of my OCD are potentially destructive (and probably already are), to me they are as natural as breathing. Yet, it's like being an asthmatic and trying to breathe in LA--sure you're breathing, but not very well. Some of the symptoms involving a mental disorder are typical of any human being, but they only become the disorder once they interfere with life. But at what point do we classify it as interfering? Is the vague representation of normal inhibiting people like me from being who we are? If I was to live in a spartan and strictly disciplined atmosphere would my ADHD tendencies become disturbing interferences faster than my current situation in a rather loose environment where I am being thrown distracting stimulants at every ten seconds? Define "normal".