Bee Mark 2
The above is a better version of my bee or at least I think it is. I can't really draw very well on a computer or anywhere really but I passed an Art qualification many moons ago.
Today's topic or rumination is medication. The popping of pills into cake-hole in the attempt at ameliorating the problem. This has always been an interesting topic or discussion in mental health for me and many others mainly about the effectiveness of taking medication for psychological problems.
An obvious observation is that the effects of ingesting alcohol can be immediately noticeable. Your speech may become slurred, you feel numb, ''anaesthetised' - which alcohol probably could be used for and was actually used in previous times in the history of medicine . You may behave erratically, perhaps become more lively, perhaps become or behave more stupidly. Or you may slow right down and collapse in a heap or fall asleep in front of the telly. You may tell your best or casual friends that you love them irrespective of your orientation in physical pursuits or you may jibber- jabber endlessly, so by the end of the night you have NO friends. Then there is the scene in the curry house but that features in the next paragraph.
The aftermath is that there is a ringing in our head that is not the telephone but our early warning system telling us not to repeat last night's performance. This includes that incident in the curry restaurant.
This is an extreme example to over-illustrate the power on mind and behaviour of swallowing something . Another obvious example is taking drugs as a 'recreation', and the apocryphal and actual stories of going on, for instance, an LSD 'trip' with its hallucinogenic effects This particular recreational drug was used as a therapy I believe in 1950s/1960s detailed by some film star biographies such as the one on Cary Grant. Most people's recreation involves more prosaic trips, like to the park.
Even not ingesting but by inhalation our minds and behaviour can be affected such as the effects of smoking substances such as nicotine and cannabis.
So perhaps with this kind of evidence, substances taken internally and otherwise can obviously affect mind and behaviour. Therefore medication obviously has a potential to offer some way of affecting the mind in a helpful way?
There is the classic mind and body dualistic argument that the body can affect the mind and vice versa. But without getting bogged down, the aim of mental health medication is to somehow affect the mind in a beneficial way. The mind is a concept we recognise that exists but which is intangible. I mentioned the word reify before - I guess it is easier to think and to deal with the mind as part of the brain which is physically obvious and therefore address it in this way through medication. After all, the mind could not logically be located anywhere else?
As we can affect the brain with various types as drugs such as alcohol we should be able to synthesise something that can alter moods, as surely alcohol can? An interesting argument (at least for me) is that as in the above, alcohol can affect people in different ways. As noted some become pacified, some become hyperactive and then pacified and some may not even be physically able to tolerate it all all. As I mentioned film actor Cary Grant, the stage and film actor Richard E Grant reported his role in 'Withnail and I' was difficult for him as he had to drink alcohol which makes him physically ill. It may be interesting to you to note that if it was marketed as a prescription drug, alcohol's side effects would include that incident in the curry house as well as slurred speech, lethargy, hyperactivity, headache etc.
A difficulty reported is that certain types of psychological medication, such as antidepressants have differing level of effectiveness on people. But this is not limited to psychological medicine as medication for physical conditions can also result in differing reactions and effectiveness between people.
Sometimes the very act of taking a pill can provide help irrespective of the ingredients, as in the placebo effect which goes along with the mind-body argument of one affecting the other.
A question which we could apply to any therapy or even medical intervention (as we posted before) perhaps returns to "Does it work for you?"
Also going back to the 'Withnail and I' mention above, perhaps another question could be, is my medication causing me drastic side-effects?
These questions should really be the ones the doctor who prescribed the medication to you would ask you in order that they can do something about it, perhaps changing the type or dose.
I found it essential to report this kind of thing to my doctor when I was on medication and I would rate this as being essential with any type of taking medicine matter.
Remember to Bee careful.
In my understanding of it, OCD and anxiety are very closely related states. This makes it slightly more difficult to distinguish or evaluate. I would hazard a guess that this is the difficulty for mental health professionals and not only between the above two conditions as diagnoses is more of a precise matter in medical/surgical matters (OK, I'll admit not even then).
Perhaps there is a need to reify* abstract concepts of mental suffering in order for mental health professionals to get a handle on what you report to them, in order to offer something that can be done about it. Apart from referring to the DSM (see below) plus other texts and experiences of clients/patients there isn't a precise guide which follows as the problems themselves are not usually physically discernible. Mostly it is all based on what you report and perhaps how it fits into the theories and matches with what other clients report. It is not subject to the 'clinical gaze'#
Anxiety was seen as my problem as I had self-diagnosed myself as someone with OCD. However, some therapists believed it was an anxiety problem but with an OCD component.
Perhaps the important thing is not worrying about the label or being labelled. But the label can help you identify what your difficulties are so you can follow or try what has been successful for others that have similar 'symptoms'. Even here I've found using medical terminology an easier way to explain what I'm trying to say.
Can most of us 'be OCD' at times? Many people turn something over in their minds, may worry all day, for example, about a forthcoming dental appointment. Being in love appears to be a classic OCD symptom, where people sit around (or even stand around) thinking of the object of their affection all day with either a big, daft grin or with their head down on the back seat of the last bus blubbing and muttering, "Why don't they love me?" Perhaps, a mixture of both.
I suppose there is a kind of differentiation here. Apart from the above examples, OCD-lite or OCD free people do not have the ongoing, automatic compulsive behaviour or intrusive anxiety provoking thoughts day to day which no external event appears to have provoked or elicited.
However, if you watch TV you may note how much more OCD has been featured as of late and (surprisingly to me) how much more common it is than was previously thought. An addition to my understanding was hearing reports from friends or contacts that under stress they can display a kind of OCD behaviour. They report finding themselves checking if things have been done, turning things over in their minds more than they usually do.
Perhaps the point I'm trying to make (!) is that sufferers of OCD and anxiety aren't experiencing something exclusive only to them as generally those not necessarily having identified themselves or having been 'diagnosed' can also display the same 'symptoms', if you will. It is only perhaps a matter of magnitude that it may become necessary to try and formally do something to combat it, as I guess intermittent or rare bouts of anxious worrying or rumination or checking may pass by unnoticed.
Furthermore, there is always the factor that under reporting of OCD is common, due to the persistence of fear of being thought abnormal or mad if admitting to having problems with their mental life. Although thanks to TV (As Homer Simpson would say) this effect is somewhat ameliorated due to its exposure and its recognition as being more common than previously thought. If TV says it's OK it must be right!
Notes and recommended reading
reify* to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing (Webster's dictionary definition - I've always wanted to reference Webster's dictionary.)
clinical gaze# - apparently what doctors of old used to practice when seeing their patients return on a regular basis, as when walking into the room they could notice if they were looking better, worse, thinner. Also, a diagnoses could be made by spotting physical signs (e.g. yellowing eyeballs = possible jaundice).
DSM - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5
Perhaps not really a recommendation for the non-clinician (as the title gives you an indication of where it's coming from) but may be of interest to see what criteria is used in psychological diagnoses by psychiatry.
Blowhards hubris social responsibilty
It occurred to me that hubris, derived from Greek tragedy meaning acting with arrogance and then heading for the fall could apply to people who write blogs. I include me in this as I guess I like the sound of my own typing. But I like writing and coming out with things that I think are amusing but of course this amusement is not always shared. I do like the term 'blowhard' when its applied to loud obnoxious people who lack communication skills, another topic for another post that I as on-line blowhard will obviously do.
I do have a get out clause in that I can say my therapist suggested I do this as they said I can be funny and informative in the diary entries I keep for sessions. But self-awareness and not being offensive is important for me to observe here.
Today's topic was going my perception of patronising people who you can encounter in the mental health services, therapy providers etc. But something very important happened when I was writing this. It was to remember to be positive, informative and light with it as going over old ground was not good for me, you or the dog.
Viktor Frankl wrote something about finding meaning from an experience or something loosely based on that. I believe that his take based on his experiences was that you can choose how to react to any given event, even if that event is the most dire you can imagine (if you are not familiar with Frankl he was a Holocaust survivor).
If some blowhard is giving you plenty verbal, as happened to me recently, what you can do is to choose not to get alarmed, upset or angry. You can do like Lisa Simpson in the Simpsons cartoon did when she wanted to escape from Homer's ramblings. Her thoughts turned to 'and now for some music' and a piano concerto began.
Al Siebert very kindly replied to my email about handling crises like the above, perhaps inspired by Frankl, when he advised it was important how I reacted when people tried to project things at me. I could control that part and for some very extreme examples of this read Al's books for inspiration.
It's not easy as I certainly didn't find it easy as I kept replaying the incident in my mind like a bad movie (like the one I saw yesterday). But I had a choice although I found it difficult to do as I seemed compelled to replay the bad movie. But moving away and concentrating or thinking about something else has worked for me. As suggested by my therapist women in bikinis. Whoops! I inadvertently missed the comma there (yeah, right) as it shouldn't be 'therapist women in bikinis' but 'as suggested by my therapist, women in bikinis'.
My earlier point if I can now drag myself away from the last thought is also applicable to finding meaning from your therapy. Any suggestions, techniques that I encountered or was advised of had to make sense with me if they were going to have any use at all. Did I find it helped?
Also, I found inertia was the key factor for me in that I had to ask myself, did I actually try what was advised or recommended to see if it worked for me?
Plus realising that if it made sense or worked in some way did I actually persist with it?
Therapist women in bikinis is now an integral part of the revised plan for mental health services in my local area so I am now putting my name down for it.
Recommended reading
Viktor Frankl 'Man's Search for Meaning'
Al Siebert 'The survivor personality'
Diagnosis and labelling
It may not be useful to label yourself as if you are a sufferer of anxiety or OCD or any kind of psychological problem you may feel you are like a specimen in a petrie dish under a microscope. In other words the therapist is looking at you as they are sane and you are obviously not. BUT not my therapist I hasten to add!
It was my experience that a lot of daft questions were asked when in contact with the health professionals of the state funded lottery (it could be you) plus the feeling that you were no 999 on the list of a thousand. But the matter here is the problems of being diagnosed as being labelled without being bogged down in discussions on pathologising psychological problems, in the way Thomas Szasz perhaps introduced in the 'Myth of Mental Illness'.
Sometimes medicos would opine that you were either one thing or another because it was easy to put a label on something as it makes you easy to treat (or easier). I also remember suggesting that I was suffering an obsessional neurosis which some medicos/therapist agreed with and some not saying it was an anxiety or GAD (generalised anxiety disorder).
In a previous diagnostic encounter as I believe it was, I remember one of the state medicos who looked like one of the Buggles guys (you know the glasses guy Trevor Horn) asking me whether I had 'encounters with people of the different sexes'. I am elbowing you as Eric Idle did with Terry Jones in Monty Python pub sketch. Look it up on You Tube. And why am I being cagey about a question whether I had sex with men or women?! You can't look that one up on You Tube.
I had no idea what he was getting at, or trying to determine but I found him unsympathetic to say the least. And then another joker who disagreed with my self-diagnosis preferring his diagnosis, some of it including the expert view of it being 'a touch of psychosis' like it was the common cold. They were not good upstairs, downstairs and 'thank you very much Hudson'. (You'll have to know about the 1971 British TV series about this last comment which is also available on You Tube.) If this is a bit obscure for you, it's a polite way of saying I found them insulting, obnoxious and very unhelpful when I really needed some help.
What I found useful was labelling anxious thoughts as perhaps OCD thoughts so you are detached from them as opposed to paying attention to them or taking them seriously. You know rather like the aforementioned joker I mentioned.
Now for something sweet to eat and a hot drink.
People want jam today and jam tomorrow. You know - I think, therefore I JAM.
Welcome to the first post of my world.
It's about me and anxiety and OCD.
My therapist said this would be a good thing to do this as it may be useful - possibly helpful to you the reader and to me the writer?
Things will be safe here as no innocents will be named, no frightfullness will be included and no dollar bills requested. Just my experience with anxiety related problems and half-baked and fully baked theories I've read and absorbed or tried to apply.
NO cheese on my hamburger you know.
As for the above I should be OK as you can't libel yourself but you can label yourself.
Remember where you read this first as I'm not going to search for it on the T'internet.
Please contribute but bee polite and respectful because I like polite company and if you bring cake even better because it goes with my latte.
This is a bee:
BEE POLITE
