Obligatory Psychiatric Note O'Doom
As always, I feel I should restate Position #213, namely, that the DSM IV - the Psychiatrist's Holy Book, as received by the Prophet Spitzer, from which all diagnoses flow - is an obsessively Aristotelian attempt to codify the human condition by defining aberrance. It is part of an overarching philosophy which rests upon the idea that happiness - seemingly defined as "functioning in society in a way which minimizes internal conflict and anxiety" - can best be achieved by readjusting the vagaries of neurochemistry with manufactured chemicals. The perfect expression of this system, the most efficient combination of this book with the psychopharmacopia it supports, will be a numbered diagnosis for every patient's complaint with a corresponding course of chemical treatment, fitting into a matrix approved by medical insurance companies.
Like Aristotle's exhaustive classifications, this brand of human nature management only goes so far before it begins to beg the questions it purports to answer. The conclusion is always implicit in the premise: if you are ill, your behaviors fit into a particular diagnostic grid in this book...and vice-versa.
It is the ever-expanding scope of that diagnostic grid which concerns me; according to the DSM-IV, I'm "ill." Sick. Not functioning properly. Et cetera. The diagnostic category I supposedly fit into is Atypical Bipolar II. The "atypical" part is a diagnostic shoehorn - I had gotten fed up with my anxiety symptoms, and went to see a psychatrist. If you go to see a psychiatrist, that's what they do: diagnose. If you don't fit the criteria, they'll bend the criteria.
But I'm not "mentally ill," in the very real sense that I am not malfunctioning, I am not debilitated, I am not dysfunctional. What I am is highly susceptible to the extremes of emotional experience that are common to every human being on the planet. I readily achieve states that differ only in extremity and cause from those known to others: lately, for example, the ring of the phone sometimes squirts a jolt of adrenaline into my blood, and my heart thumps as though I've just been startled by a jungle beast. At other times, the most mundane items instantiate exquisite pathos: a too-simple meal of a cheese and pickle sandwich, the sight of someone dining alone in a restaurant.
I believe that everyone, either consciously or unconsciously, makes a decision about what will guide their experience of reality. They will either be subject to the social consensus in its totality, or they will take what they value from that consensus and discard the rest. There are many who should take the latter course but do not. I think that drives more anxiety in this culture than anything else.
In any event: going cold-turkey off of the caffeinated Cup Of Death (and playing through a most excellent video game) has greatly improved my head. I can still feel the fragility, there...tip too much in either direction, and off I go again. It will be interesting to see how I respond to the radical change of daily life I've got planned for myself.
Speaking of which: if it's as nice outside as it looks, I may just have to go for a trike ride...
Well, you're coming up on a trike ride, which may redefine the glibism "off the grid" and make it less glib.
Enjoy your day.
Posted by: rick | March 5, 2006 12:35 PM
morning. no dsm-iv apologist here. i think its biggest contribution is that it provides a nice # for insurance billing purpose. that said, most diagnoses state as one of their criteria that the symptoms much cause clinically significant distress or impairment. if you're not malfunctioning, debilitated and/or dysfunctional, you most likely do not meet criteria for most of what's in there. so there, you're cured. no charge. have a nice day.
Posted by: t maltese | March 6, 2006 01:17 PM
When I wrote "I am not malfunctioning, I am not debilitated, I am not dysfunctional," I meant more in the sense of, "Just because I don't function particularly well in situations that modern society thinks I ought to function well in doesn't mean that I'm dysfunctional." It just means that the situations defined in modern social normality don't agree with me.
I sought psychiatric treatment at one point, and was obliged with the sacrements. But I've come to the conclusion that I don't need a diagnosis and a course of treatment just to make the intolerable tolerable.
Many people, though, end up taking a pill (or a drink, a smoke, etc.) that permits them to conform to a situation that, deep within themselves, they hate. I believe that modern society exerts enormous pressures on humans that are so far outside of our evolutionary norms that a great many of us are coming unhinged.
Look at the state of the country and the world and tell me if it suggests a well-adjusted population...
Posted by: Ian Wood | March 6, 2006 03:39 PM
I am forever speculating on how traits a particular person possesses must have enabled the ancestor they received it from to survive. Some traits lend themselves to this speculation more than others. Squirrelly jumpiness is a natural, whereas a finely acute sense of pathos is more of a poser.
A good bike ride has always done wonders to clear my head. Violent video games help, too, of which Riddick is, indeed, one of the best. For a game set in what's supposed to be a bleak prison, it's oddly colorful, don't you think? Perhaps there's a metaphor in that.
Posted by: Krazmo | March 6, 2006 09:50 PM
My best guess is that the latter has something to do with empathy, which, in a band of social primates, would be a useful trait for at least some of its members to have. It would lend itself to tending wounds, nursing the sick, and perhaps promoting a sense of well-being in other members of the group.
Obviously, you don't want every member of the troop to be an empathetic softy. But I think that on evolutionary timescales for social creatures like humans and other primates, natural selection would work to create small genetic affinity groups (troops, tribes, etc.) that had a wide range a traits distributed among their members which would promote the survival of the group, and not just the individual.
Nowadays, the affinity groups are so huge that they're meaningless in terms of evolutionary pressures, so you end up with emotional chimeras such as myself, who posess both traits and (in my case) are also loners.
Stupid genetics!
Re: Riddick; the voice acting really helped to create that color, I think. Every character with a voice, and with good direction, too. The set design was also excellent - the contrast between the grit of the single max wards and the sterile medical sheen of the triple max cryosleep facilities, for example. I think the fact that Starbreeze (the developers) are Swedish may have helped them to make a game that wasn't the same old movie tie-in thing, because they approached it from a culture that wasn't American or Japanese.
Posted by: Ian Wood | March 7, 2006 07:58 AM
During my psychologist training I have often consulted the "little red book" to see what, if anything, is wrong with me. The best I can come up with is 305.90 and even that isn't really debilitating enough, at least not for more than an hour or so... But what a wonderful means of communication across nationality and cultural idiosyncrasies we have here!!!
Posted by: Aniara | March 10, 2006 06:22 AM
« Hey! | Main | My Front Window »